#fianna.txt

[fi-aaa-na]

On Celeste and Transness

I wrote this originally as a comment under a YouTube video about Celeste, but then it turned into a short essay so I think I'll just post it here instead. The video was very good, but missed the trans allegory inherent to Celeste's story. A lot of what I talk about isn't really news here, but might be helpful to those unfamiliar with trans identity and the struggles that accompany it.

Celeste is a game written, produced, and even scored by trans women. There's conclusive evidence (including commentary by the creator, Maddy Thorson) that the character Madeline herself is a trans woman. And overall, the experiences metaphorized in Celeste are extremely relatable particularly to trans people. While there are a lot of valid readings of Celeste's themes, I think the most cohesive and defensible reading is as trans allegory. This can be recognized by examining each story beat in turn and how it contributes to the overall narrative, which is at its heart a story about making peace with one's self.

- Broad themes of overcoming hardship:

Transitioning is hard. It is a years-long process of self-acceptance, self-improvement, and self-assertion. At the end of it, trans people are faced with a brutally hard world that is in most places completely opposing us at every step. Even in the most progressive and accepting places, trans people are usually the last people to receive any of the benefits of that progress. This is the reason trans people suffer extraordinarily high rates of homelessness, addiction, unemployment, poor mental health, and suicide, and even those horrifically dark facts are often used as jokes at our expense. The act of transitioning feels a lot like climbing a mountain, and I think there's a good case to be made that that's where the premise of this game comes from in the first place. The monument at the base of Mt. Celeste is a solemn reminder of this fact. Not all who walk this path survive.

- The dark reflection:

The relationship between an egg and their transness tends to be very adversarial. Trans women are extremely over-represented in the military (transfemme Americans are 3 times more likely to have served in the military than the average American) for this reason; we seek a way to prove to ourselves that we are in fact men and not trans women, so we find the most masculine persona we can possibly adopt and cling to it like a life preserver. It never works. Transness, like Madeline's dark reflection, is not something you can make go away. When you try to, it makes you bitter, often drawing out cruelty and toxicity. Trans people pre-transition have this part of themselves that they hate, that they need desperately to go away, and it hurts them and usually the people around them for as long as they refuse to accept it as a part of them and not a defect.

- Oshiro and the hotel:

One can often recognize a pre-transition trans person by distinctively poor hygiene and appearance. Eggs tend to wear baggy clothing, take very poor care of their bodies, and live unfulfilled, miserable lives because they are dissociating from their bodies to avoid their dysphoria. (As a side note, this is why some trans people suspect that Kurt Cobain may have been a trans woman.) Oshiro's hotel is in disrepair, full of clutter, and part of the journey toward fulfillment (for him and for Madeline) requires cleaning it up a bit. Self-care--cleaning out the rubble and the clutter of that past life--is a necessary step before a trans person can go on the journey of self-actualization that must follow. Additionally, the presence of Oshiro as a ghost is very appropriate to this chapter. There's a reason most trans people refer to the name given them at birth as a "deadname." The identity they had before transition kind of dies, replaced by the true self.

- Theo and the eyes:

Theo's whole experience in the mirror world revolves around feelings of exposure and vulnerability. The eyes always watching him have paralyzed him. He is too self-conscious to even move when we find him. This, too, is a common experience among trans people. Existing as a trans person, particularly in cultures that aren't friendly towards us, often leads to fear, anxiety, and paranoia surrounding how people perceive us. For one thing, there is a very real safety concern. Trans people are statistically very likely to have suffered violence, SA, or just garden-variety discrimination and harassment. I personally have experiences in this, and besides the trauma I also get tons of dirty (and sometimes threatening) looks when I just exist where people can see me. This is a pretty unavoidable part of transitioning. You're going to stick out, and there are going to be people who very vocally hate you. It can be paralyzing, and trans people sometimes become shut-ins, refusing to leave their homes or go in public out of fear of that backlash. A trans person must make peace with this and learn to live in spite of it before they can reach the summit.

- Rejection of the Self:

The "Starjump" scene (in the dream after the mirror temple) is something nearly every trans person has probably experienced. The false catharsis of identifying that which we wish to destroy, to divest from ourselves, only to learn the hard way that we can't just wish for it to go away. The fall from this point goes very far down. This is another moment not all survive.

- Confrontation with the Self:

The chase scene/bossfight in Chapter 6 (Reflection) is such an emotionally powerful sequence partly because it stands contrary to the rejection of Self that came before. The false catharsis of the Starjump is met with the real, powerful catharsis of chasing after that injured, scared, angry part of us, reaching it despite all its efforts to run away, and giving it a hug and telling it "it's okay. I see you, I acknowledge you, I accept you, I love you." This is the coming-out moment, the apotheosis, escaping the Matrix and entering into the Real World. (The Matrix, by the way, is another piece of media written by trans women that strongly echoes the experience of transitioning.)

- Acceptance of the Self:

The difficulty of existing doesn't magically go away when a trans person has made peace with their transness, but life does become a lot better when we do. We see this in the game in the form of Madeline "leveling up," becoming stronger and more capable, finally able to reach the summit. The music here ("Reach for the Summit") is triumphant, elated, filled with implacable determination. Her positive relationship with her inner self literally empowers her. This happens in real life too. When a trans person accepts who they are and begins the work of transitioning, they often undergo what we refer to as "second puberty." This is partly literal, for those of us who take HRT or undergo surgery, but it's also a very appropriate metaphor for what happens to our psyches. Trans people who survive past the hardship of the egg phase often have very dramatic transformations into a self that is more fulfilled, more authentic, and fundamentally happier than when we were in conflict with our selves.

Anyway, I think all of that is why Celeste rings so true for us. Thanks for reading.

[fi-aaa-na]

Welp. Instagram Reels is now feeding me ads for Jordan B. Peterson and incredibly cringe T-shirts celebrating Trump’s return to power. They briefly blocked the democrat and voteblue hashtags before realizing that was just a smidge too far.

Meta is so fucking cooked.

[fi-aaa-na]

Fucking tired of people just straight up staring at me when I don’t 100% perfectly pass all the time

Stop fucking gawking, I’m a human being

[fi-aaa-na]

I love all of you. Be safe.

[fi-aaa-na]

Hi can we not criticize a trans woman for literally doing what she needs to do in order to survive? Like. People trying to kill congresspeople they disagree with is a known phenomenon. She’s probably already getting death threats. Let’s lay off of her for (at great risk to her own personal comfort and safety) not deciding to break a law in the middle of congress, possibly jeopardizing her career in the process.

Instead, let’s criticize her for supporting Israel.

And also let’s criticize the GOP congresspeople who, immediately upon the threat of a trans person’s existence, decided to target that trans person with malicious legislation.

Oh, so she's a high road coward just like every other fucking Democrat, got it.

I'm tired of this shit.

We've "appealed to decorum" our way into full blown fascism and this just proves they're going to stay on that path.

Why is it Republicans can constantly break the rules and get away with it while Democrats just do fuck all because of norms that were made up by them in the first fucking place!

[fi-aaa-na]

Few things depress me quite as much as the way the gambling industry has evolved into the information age.

I just listened to an ad that seriously suggests giving your loved ones scratch tickets in lieu of an actual, meaningful gift.

It was followed by another ad for an online casino of the type that predates on young vulnerable people. It was marketed as a fun way to avoid boredom when you have a soul-crushing job.

Don’t even get me fucking started on sports betting.

The whole industry needs to burn.

[fi-aaa-na]

Updated intro post as of (12/1/24)

Hey hi!

I’m Fianna (transfem she/her, 21-30)! I’m a gigantic nerd and I like talking about media, anime, politics, tech, and science. I code and write and do music and art.

I am an adult and this blog may include adult content.

This page is a safe space for:

queer people! I love you lesbians, gays, bisexuals, asexuals, and every other kind of love that exists. I love you trans men, I love you trans women, I love you intersex people and two-spirit people and nonbinary people and every other kind of people that exists. You make my life better for existing in it.

any and all marginalized people! I love you people of color, indigenous people from every place, women, poor folks and disabled folks and every other kind of person who exists in a system that doesn't want you to. Keep surviving. I love you.

Leftists! I love you communists, socialists, and anarchists.

Everyone who promises to behave themselves.

This page is NOT a safe space for:

TERFs, nazis, fascists, homophobes, racists, misogynists etc. If you hate a whole group of people based solely on identity, you can all fuck RIGHT out of here.

Minors. I love yall kids but this page isn't always child-friendly. Take a cookie on the way out.

I’m trans (obv) and about a year or so into my active transition. Trans issues are important to me, and I am passionate about advocating for trans folks—particularly in America, where I live currently.

Anyone who interacts with me negatively about ANY marginalized group (lgbtq, poc, women, indigenous folks, etc etc) will be blocked. I have NO space for it.

TAGS (may be empty right now):

#fianna.txt for my long-winded Discourse posts

#fianna.jpg if I ever post selfies or art, who knows?

#fianna.mp3 if I ever post music.

[fi-aaa-na]

Cool, great, awesome. Except for one thing:

We lost.

We did the “weird” thing, they had their little hissy fit about it, and then they fucking swept the executive and legislative branches. There’s an entirely red government now, weirdness be fucking damned.

And now life in America for millions of people, myself included, is going to become much, much harder.

I wonder how many people chose not to vote because “eh they’re just weird little guys, what harm can they actually do”

when those weird little guys have a long history of stripping away rights from marginalized people, who are the ones actually being affected by all this.

The fact is that not that many people within the system will actually call republicans fascist. We don’t really see it from the establishment dems—instead, we get more “reaching across the aisle” and sacrificing minorities in the process, a la Colin Allred’s denouncing of trans people. That’s part of why they lost in my opinion. The “weird” angle was a way for establishment libs to avoid invoking fascism, and it was NOT an effective tactic.

Call fascism fascism, or else they get to set the narrative.

[fi-aaa-na]

This is important. HBO is saying “JKR is entitled to her opinions” as a way of trying not to associate themselves with her transphobia.

While JKR is well within her rights to have transphobic opinions (although there’s always the question of defamation, calls to violence etc). But if HBO was NOT transphobic, they would not platform her or add to her wealth by partnering on a project or using her IP.

Instead, HBO is very ready to throw trans people under the bus so it can profit on the shitty-ass wizard book IP.

Welp, if JK Rowling being executive producer and therefore being fully involved in the show wasn't enough for people to boycott, then here's HBO basically saying they don't care JK Rowling is a bigot from hell who literally helped lead a harassment campaign of lies against Imane Khalif in her transphobia and obsession with women being terf's standards of women alongside posting harassment against trans people on twitter at times, they gonna stand by her, while using the excuse, "personal views". Hmm, yes, personal views- that's one way to uh, call what the fuck JK Rowling comes out with a-lot- last I checked personal views do come with consquiences if said out loud....a thousand times in JK's case and still counting....especially if they hurt people, but hey, if it means making another Harry Potter project to milk, just let it fucking be I guess.

[fi-aaa-na]

Important addendum: it is not hateful to point out systemic abuse—ie, “men as a class benefit from a system that privileges them and subjugates women.”—or specific allegations against specific men, ie “Donald Trump is a serial rapist.”

It is hateful to treat every individual man as ontologically evil because they occupy that class, a class which they did not voluntarily join.

I know that I sound like an MRA when I say "If you spread hateful rhetoric about men, you will drive them away from the feminist cause and lose them as valuable allies" but also

If you spread hateful rhetoric about men, you will drive them away from the feminist cause and lose them as valuable allies.

[fi-aaa-na]

Pardon the ramble but there’s a concept from linguistics I think is relevant here.

A good linguist practices “descriptive” linguistics, which involves examining systems of language and using linguistics to explain how they work. The goal is understand how language actually is used, not to create a rigid set of rules for what it should look like.

Bad linguists try to create those rigid rules. They practice “prescriptive” linguistics, which try to determine correct and incorrect usage of language and impose that paradigm of correctness onto natural speech. This is common among colonialists, racists, and xenophobes, and overall just bad science.

I think the thing OP is describing here works on similar principles; the Gender Binary is problematic because it is prescriptive. It tries to impose a set of moral rules on natural gender identity, which naturally does not want to adhere to those rules. Whereas identifying a person as tme/tma is descriptive, examining an existing system and using clear language to explain what is going on in it. To call someone transmisogyny-exempt or affected is simply to observe whether or not they are subject to one specific form of oppression.

the argument that TME/TMA is making a “new binary” is so stupid because all you did is notice that it describes two categories. like hey watch this: white and non-white. is that a New Binary? what about “women & non-men” — that one is used a lot in the lesbian community, is that a new gender binary too?

of course not. because what makes The Gender Binary a problem isn’t the “binary” part. it’s the fact that it’s forcibly imposed on society. the gender binary describes a class structure that punishes anybody that deviates from it (including “binary trans people” btw).

so when you suggest that trans women are enforcing a “new binary” with TMA/TME labels (which actually just describe who always experiences institutional transmisogyny and who can exempt themselves from it) you are suggesting that we have the social ability to enforce society-wide standards. which of course we don’t, and TME/TMA is literally just a description of how our oppression works.

in fact, you might notice that the phrase “the gender binary” was in fact coined to describe the oppressive conditions under which women, trans & non-binary people already exist. could you imagine if every time somebody mentioned the oppressive nature of the gender binary, somebody would turn around and say “well you’re the one making a gender binary by referring to it”. the difference in the way TMA people and TME people are treated is already a real, extent force in this world…. we’re not “creating a new binary” but describing the social forces already effecting our lives. and you’re asking us to shut up because it makes you feel bad when people recognise you have privilege over transfems.

[fi-aaa-na]

Conservatives, TERFs, and homophobes are never going to accept us. The best we could ever possibly do on that front is reach a sort of uneasy peace as long as we act like good little queers and agree with everything the conservatives say (up to and including "being queer is bad and should not be legal").

The infighting is only ever going to hurt us. What we need most is to listen to each other and support one another as we live under a system that is fundamentally designed to crush us all.

Solidarity between queer people is more important than nearly anything else.

Community is how we survive.

I kind of find it interesting (along with disheartening and downright enraging) how the online queer community is stuck in a constant and endless toxic discourse loop. Each time, we are targeting a new ingroup to constantly harass, bar from spaces, and twitter threads about how this identity-is-so-problematic, and if you support it you're Hitler incarnate and also you're on 200 DNI lists.

Whether it's nonbinary people, "tucutes", xenogenders, neopronouns, asexuals, bisexuals, trans women, trans men, girlfags, lesboys, bi lesbians etc. It's always the same thing.

"We must stop these 'harmful identities' and conservatives will finally love us and we will solve homophobia and transphobia forever if we get rid of boydykes and girlfags! And trust me, when this happened to nonbinary people it was TOTALLY unjustified, but it's totally for a good reason this time!"

Like, do you guys not see this? Am I actually crazy or is it just the same loop over and over. And like in my last post about transandrophobia, if you come to this post discoursing, I'll be laughing in your face for how pathetic this all is.

[fi-aaa-na]

Ok but this is the EXACT same as the maga handwringing over the possibility a man might pose as a trans woman so he can gain access to the women’s restroom.

Is it theoretically possible someone might pretend to have an identity they don’t, with malicious intent? Sure, it’s hypothetically possible. Does it happen often? I guarantee you it does not.

He/theys are valid whether they present very masculine or not at all, and they don’t have to justify their existence against the hypothetical possibility of abuse.

"Yeah let's talk about the cishet men who start to go by he/they to hangout with queer women and pre-t trans men"

You disgust me. :)

How about we normalize just having met shitty people ?? Like how hard could it be to just have known predators and not targeting a WHOLE ASS GROUP OF PEOPLE ?? How about not being transphobic for once ?? Bitch you're not making a point here. Stop.

[fi-aaa-na]

CW I AM GOING TO TALK ABOUT 4CHAN NOW. GO AWAY IF YOU DONT WANT TO READ ABOUT 4CHAN

I completely agree that fem boys are not ontologically evil or anti-trans.

But I think that belief has a genuine root that deserves examination. It comes from the trans community on 4chan, which in my opinion is a really fascinating subject. Here we have a large community of 18-30yr-old closeted trans women who, for their entire lives, have been more or less completely isolated; they genuinely believe that their transness is a sick fetish and that’s as far as it goes. They have been told by friends and family to keep it inside.

As isolated young people (particularly those who believe themselves to be some inferior type of man) are wont to do, they end up on the Chan boards, feeling lonely and bitter. And there it is: /lgbt/, known colloquially as /tttt/ for how common this exact phenomenon is.

In this community, it is still very much believed that transness is some kind of sick fetish. It’s just that here, on this particular board, instead of telling each other to just be normal, people are competing with each other to perform that fetish as well as possible.

This is where the trans women who nitpick each others bone structure live. This is where “ywnbaw” was born.

To be extremely clear: these women have basically been brainwashed into hating themselves

And the solution is not to other them, but to continue fighting for a culture where they don’t feel isolated to begin with.

4chan eats vulnerable, isolated young people. It turns them bitter, teaches them to hate and to blame their problems on target groups. Feeling hated by others is how it keeps its members from escaping.

im not gonna pretend there aren’t racist femboys because obviously there are but at some point we as a transfeminine community are going to have to acknowledge that the narrative of the “white misogynist femboy trap on 4chan who hates being compared to trans women & is actually a cis man who dresses this way for his creepy fetish” is an internal community equivalent to autogynephilia. yes, there are racist trans people, yes there are conservative transphobic eggs whose toxic outlet for dysphoria is hatred & crossdressing — we do not need to attach it to a particular label for gender non-conformity (that plenty of non-white transfeminine people identify as), and we absolutely do not have to invoke the fictional caricature of the “fake tranny just doing it for his misogynistic fetish purposes”. i cannot believe i have to say this.

[fi-aaa-na]

I… realize I came across harsher than I intended. I’m sorry about that. I’m scared and hurting too and it’s hard to look past my pragmatic side sometimes.

I don’t want to come across black pilled. I just also feel like hope shouldn’t come from understating the threat. There is real danger that should not be ignored or downplayed, but there is also incredible power in resistance.

Hope comes from community, in my experience. It comes from finding the people you’re going to stick with through all this shit and making plans together for how you’re going to move forward. Whatever that looks like.