#gender exclusive: girl only

[geoffrey]

the seperation of lesbians and gay men is a travesty. "why are there so many historic gay bars and only like a handful of lesbian bars in the whole country" why are being gay and lesbian not the same thing in this context. you dont need to fuck everyone at the bar and it is a problem that needs to be addressed if these spaces arent mutually hospitable. and this applies to most gay/lesbian spaces imo

[number1villainstan]

The two stories/series/media creations that make me want to gnaw on the drywall right now are Revolutionary Girl Utena, a masterful deconstruction of tropes rooted in sexism and queerphobia but with pervasive racist/imperialist elements* in the background, and Dune, a masterful deconstruction of tropes rooted in racism and imperialism but with pervasive sexist/queerphobic** elements in the background. it's hilarious it's like they're made to cancel each other out

[indiefinalboss]

maybe its the emotional distress but lately i have been feeling very proud and emotional about being a girl lately in ways i never have before

[just-a-little-radish]

This girl, Selene, is not just a feminine object shoving a wedge in the masculine energy, and she isn’t a potential girlfriend these boys must be on their best behavior to impress, SHE LITERALLY IS THEIR COUSIN.

She is there for the exact same reasons as them, to have fun indulging in a shared interest with family, and be rowdy with her cousins. But for the the most mundane and misogynistic reasons, having her around is a drag—just because she’s female. To them, all she is is a girl, and who wants one of those around?

Props to Selene’s dad (and other family) for seeing this as the toxic masculinity bullshit it is, and choosing his daughter.

This man doesn’t even consciously realize how much he has “other-ed” his niece in his mind, it’s is so natural for him to understand why she could be excluded in a way he would never have so easily accepted if it was any of his nephews or, god forbid, one of his own sons.

[picrewquiz]

cute chubby maker by @r4smodius

[tuningknight]

(someone makes a good post abt an issue i care about

(unlikes it real fast bc OP added an unnecessarily hostile edited note towards bi lesbians)

[intertexts-moving]

frankly idgaf about this disk horse + mandatory disclosure that im not a cop u can do what u want forever u can usr whatever words u want for urself forever love & peace on planet earth. etc. however it does feel disingenuous to say "dykes & lesbians who r only attracted to women's experiences are not & never will be unique there's no dyke who only is attracted to women experience that isn't also experienced by bi ppl / bi dykes / whoever else" when like... there is very much an alienation involved in growing up or just existing while not being attracted to the gender u are societally supposed to b attracted to. some experiences are not in fact universal. and while the idea of sexuality -specific 'spaces' is fundamentally silly and pointless to me i also think it sucks to say 'there is no lived difference between being a woman who is not attracted to men [or the implied counterpart 'there is no lived difference btwn being a man who is not attracted 2 women] vs being a woman who is." like. maybe for YOU there isn't!!!!!!!!! which is 2 say of course that this does feel like perhaps an aha pouncing on wording! type of post, & i wouldn't make it normally. because. as mentioned. this literally only matters if youre terminally online + real world works differently. & idgaf. but the author of the post im vaguing DOES really have the tone here of 'you are stupid and obviously wrong if you think being a lesbian is any different than being bisexual.' which frankly feels overgeneralizing & vague 2 the point where i'm driven 2 make a stupid little tumblr post about it.

[selfspinninglies]

What do you think gay men are attracted to in men that they can’t be attracted to in women?

It can’t be anything about femininity or masculinity obviously. That’s both sexist, and cultural so can’t be what drives men-only attraction.

It can’t be anything about stated identity because someone could lie just as easily as they could tell the truth in such a statement, and it makes no sense because homosexuality and heterosexuality exists in other species with no stated identities. It’s not like other animals without gender are all pan.

Saying idk it’s the vibes or some indescribable trait men have that women can’t but “I can’t explain” is a nonanswer.

Soooooooo what is it? Or do you think any sexuality but bi/pan is just cultural performance or an identity rather than an inborn orientation?

- [ ]

anon I draw ninja turtles you are asking the wrong person

[sananaryon]

Two weeks after the Gwitch finale and I am getting Sabina Fardin brainrot

[spaceyflowers]

GIRLLLLL!!!!!! I LOVE YOUR BLOG!!! Like plssssss!!!!! never abandon it!!!!!!!!! Btw I am always so looking forward to your writing posts 🥰 That was it just wanted to say. Thank you miss💖😌💞💖💞💞💖💖💖

AHSHWJDN HI?? HELLO?? THANK U SM IM GLAD U LIKE MY BLOGS AND WRITING AND I PROMISE I WON'T ABANDON EM 😭😭😭💓💖💞

I LOVE U FOR DROPPING BY MWAH (AND I PROMISE TO GO BACK TO A REGULAR UPDATING SCHEDULE ON MY WRITING BLOG ONCE STRESS OF THE SEMESTER ENDING LEAVES ME !!) 💓

[kavehater]

A bit ago I recalled this girl who was saying that in her future relationship she really wants to be the type to hold open doors and give gifts and basically spoke on a lot of things that are considered stereotypically like what a guy does for a girl 😭 and she said she felt bad because she doesn’t want to seem like a guy and that she does that I think for random ppl too 😭 gosh it made me so sad bc I do this all the time and it makes me feel absolutely horrible bc it makes me feel like a dude

[pinemartenstudios]

Dracudate

Link of the short I'm recommending in the hashtags :0

pls. mlm werewolves when. we r dying over here

I am a lesbian 🫶 this is why I draw so many lesbian werewolves. I’m not a corporation you can’t demand representation from me like that!

BUT ofc I’m going to draw mlm werewolves at some point. Just remember, I’m doing this for free and bc I love werewolves not bc I’m catering to a specific audience lol. There are also soooo many mlm anthro/furry artists out there already holy shit I promise. I may not fill that niche and that’s okay!!

[lesboylycan]

man it's just a neverending cycle of reanalyzing my identity. if i had a nickle for every time a random mini comic on a particular identity and experiences with it gave me a sudden crisis, i'd have two nickles yadda yadda

[keithbutgay]

So I don't know if anyone has been keeping up on this case, but I tried looking for posts on it and I've only found transphobic rants and comments. So just... spreading awareness.

There is an ongoing case in Australia currently (the hearing has concluded but the ruling has not been announced) where Roxy Tickle, a trans woman, is suing the Giggle for Girls app and its founder for $100,000, plus another $100,000. Giggle for Girls is a platform exclusively for women, and Roxy was banned from the app after joining.

The app already has a lot of problematic features on it. For example, any new user is required to submit a selfie-- a photo which is then analyzed by ai to determine whether or not the user is a woman. For Roxy, the ai wasn't the issue, however-- in fact, she used the app for several months with no problem. Instead, the owner of the app manually and purposefully overrode the ai, revoking Roxy's access to the app, because she saw her profile. She then refused to reinstate her account and blocked her.

The founder of the app, Sall Grover, has knowingly and persistently misgendered Roxy dozens of times in interviews, articles and posts. I have a chrome extension that shows if a website is queerphobic or not, and when I look up Roxy's name there are only two results not in red.

As well as this, the additional $100,000 dollars Roxy is suing for? That's because of an online campaign waged against her by Grover, who has a large platform on Twitter. Katherine Deves, who had been representing Giggle in court tried to get the case thrown out. And Grover quite literally called in evolutionary biologist Colin Wright to advocate for her case. He's giving evidence for the trial.

There is a fundraiser to "reclaim sex based rights and protections for all women and girls" created specifically for this case. It has raised over $500,000, and that number is still growing.

Anyways. I don't know if I was just the last one to know about this, but the fact that I even found out about this case was because of a post a terf made scares me.

If anyone else has any more information, please add onto this post! And if I missed anything, or said anything wrong, please correct me.

Thank you for taking this time out of your day.

If you want to read more about the case, I would check out these articles:

[normiewizard]

category 11 bisexual moment

[haru-dipthong]

Gendered pronouns in Japanese vs English

In Revolutionary Girl Utena, the main character Utena is a girl (it says so in the title), but very conspicuously uses the masculine first person pronoun 僕 (boku) and dresses in (a variation of) the boys school uniform. Utena's gender, and gender in general, is a core theme of the work. And yet, I haven’t seen a single translation or analysis post where anyone considers using anything other than she/her for Utena when speaking of her in English. This made me wonder: how does one’s choice of pronouns in Japanese correspond to what one’s preferred pronouns would be in English?

There are 3 main differences between gendered pronouns in Japanese vs English

Japanese pronouns are used to refer to yourself (first-person), while English pronouns are used to refer to others (third-person)

The Japanese pronoun you use will differ based on context

Japanese pronouns signify more than just gender

Let’s look at each of these differences in turn and how these differences might lead to a seeming incongruity between one’s Japanese pronoun choice and one’s English pronoun choice (such as the 僕 (boku) vs she/her discrepancy with Utena).

Part 1: First-person vs third-person

While Japanese does technically have gendered third person pronouns （彼、彼女） they are used infrequently¹ and have much less cultural importance placed on them than English third person pronouns. Therefore, I would argue that the cultural equivalent of the gender-signifying third-person pronoun in English is the Japanese first-person pronoun. Much like English “pronouns in bio”, Japanese first-person pronoun choice is considered an expression of identity.

Japanese pronouns are used exclusively to refer to yourself, and therefore a speaker can change the pronoun they’re using for themself on a whim, sometimes mid-conversation, without it being much of an incident. Meanwhile in English, Marquis Bey argues that “Pronouns are like tiny vessels of verification that others are picking up what you are putting down” (2021). By having others use them and externally verify the internal truth of one’s gender, English pronouns, I believe, are seen as more truthful, less frivolous, than Japanese pronouns. They are seen as signifying an objective truth of the referent’s gender; if not objective then at least socially agreed-upon, while Japanese pronouns only signify how the subject feels at this particular moment — purely subjective.

Part 2: Context dependent pronoun use

Japanese speakers often don’t use just one pronoun. As you can see in the below chart, a young man using 俺 (ore) among friends might use 私 (watashi) or 自分 (jibun) when speaking to a teacher. This complicates the idea that these pronouns are gendered, because their gendering depends heavily on context. A man using 私 (watashi) to a teacher is gender-conforming, a man using 私 (watashi) while drinking with friends is gender-non-conforming. Again, this reinforces the relative instability of Japanese pronoun choice, and distances it from gender.

Part 3: Signifying more than gender

English pronouns signify little besides the gender of the antecedent. Because of this, pronouns in English have come to be a shorthand for expressing one’s own gender experience - they reflect an internal gendered truth. However, Japanese pronoun choice doesn’t reflect an “internal truth” of gender. It can signify multiple aspects of your self - gender, sexuality, personality.

For example, 僕 (boku) is used by gay men to communicate that they are bottoms, contrasted with the use of 俺 (ore) by tops. 僕 (boku) may also be used by softer, academic men and boys (in casual contexts - note that many men use 僕 (boku) in more formal contexts) as a personality signifier - maybe to communicate something as simplistic as “I’m not the kind of guy who’s into sports.��� 俺 (ore) could be used by a butch lesbian who still strongly identifies as a woman, in order to signify sexuality and an assertive personality. 私 (watashi) may be used by people of all genders to convey professionalism. The list goes on.

I believe this is what’s happening with Utena - she is signifying her rebellion against traditional feminine gender roles with her use of 僕 (boku), but as part of this rebellion, she necessarily must still be a girl. Rather than saying “girls don’t use boku, so I’m not a girl”, her pronoun choice is saying “your conception of femininity is bullshit, girls can use boku too”.

Through translation, gendered assumptions need to be made, sometimes about real people. Remember that he/they, she/her, they/them are purely English linguistic constructs, and don’t correspond directly to one’s gender, just as they don’t correspond directly to the Japanese pronouns one might use. Imagine a scenario where you are translating a news story about a Japanese genderqueer person. The most ethical way to determine what pronouns they would prefer would be to get in contact with them and ask them, right? But what if they don’t speak English? Are you going to have to teach them English, and the nuances of English pronoun choice, before you can translate the piece? That would be ridiculous! It’s simply not a viable option². So you must make a gendered assumption based on all the factors - their Japanese pronoun use (context dependent!), their clothing, the way they present their body, their speech patterns, etc.

If translation is about rewriting the text as if it were originally in the target language, you must also rewrite the gender of those people and characters in the translation. The question you must ask yourself is: How does their gender presentation, which has been tailored to a Japanese-language understanding of gender, correspond to an equivalent English-language understanding of gender? This is an incredibly fraught decision, but nonetheless a necessary one. It’s an unsatisfying dilemma, and one that poignantly exposes the fickle, unstable, culture-dependent nature of gender.

Notes and References

¹ Usually in Japanese, speakers use the person’s name directly to address someone in second or third person

² And has colonialist undertones as a solution if you ask me - “You need to pick English pronouns! You ought to understand your gender through our language!”

Bey, Marquis— 2021 Re: [No Subject]—On Nonbinary Gender

Rose divider taken from this post