#god if i wrote what i was really thinking in these tags the purity police would clutch their pearls so tight they'd strangle themselves

[papa-evershed]

Rob James-Collier ACT ON THIS June 27, 2024

[callmearcturus]

I had a long day at work and I was standing in my kitchen listening to some fuckin jams (thank you protomen god bless) and thinking about anti ringleaders

you know, the names we carefully don’t say because if you do all of a sudden they’re like HA MY RIVALS SPEAKETH MY NAME and like you just don’t wanna deal with it.

here is the honest to god truth: there is no legacy to being a negative force in fandom. your foothold crumbles like sand until its nothing but just a distant memory.

i know this for a fact because i have been in fandom for Quite Some Time and I have been an active participant in fandom since before it moved to tumblr, and i have watched the rise of the purity police and gatekeepers. for example, about.... three or four fandoms ago, i was literally driven out of my primary fandom because an anti lead a small but devouted campaign against me. they and like four of their friends went to any new poster in the main fandom tag and anonymously went “heeeeey just so you know you want to avoid arc, they are [low whisper] a rape apologist”

because i wrote stories about faeries with the sort of consent play that went along with that. and this was back when i was tagging shit constantly. and yet.

anyway, i was a lot less mentally stable and it wore me down and i just was like “you know what actually there’s a new video game i’m going to write fic about instead, bye”

here is the thing, and here is the point to this: if you offered me 5000$ to tell you the name of the person who orchestrated that campaign, i couldn’t. but if you asked me who the most prolific artists and writers were, i could name you ten.

people like that, who make their name stirring up hate and inventing feuds to make them seem legit and trying really hard to be your nemesis, they are going to come away with nothing. if you put out kindness and positivity into fandom, the people who come to you and surround you will be with you because you are a positive force, because you’re not a fear tactician, because you’re not making them feel unsafe, and those bonds are both more healthy and you will remember them longer.

i’m thinking specifically of people who i have shared fandoms with in the past, who are now in other fandoms i do not give a shit about, but i follow them still because i am bolstered daily seeing them and knowing they are still kicking ass

also on a weekly basis, i get messages in my inbox from people who come to me like “oh my god its YOU i remember following you in X fandom like YEARS ago, i’m going to go read all your new stuff” or “hey i know this is old by i still reread Y fic and it still means so much to me” or “lol i have been following you for years now and i have no idea what this new fandom is but i’m gonna read your fic anyway after googling the characters” and

like these are not one time examples. these are consistent messages i get on the reg.

tell me, when you take all your energy and you dedicate it to hurting people and shaming them and laughing at them, do you think someone is going to come to you in three or five years like “yo dog that was great”

they won’t.

people will forget your name and the details of what you did because in the end your contribution to your small tightly knit community didn’t mean anything.

and you got no one to blame but yourself for your own irrelevance to the conversation. you’re the reason the very mention of your name becomes a “oh lol what’d they do now!” joke.

in short: be good to each other, folks.

[landofsomethingsomething]

ok i swear im not asking this in bad faith. is there any room for nuance between anti and concerned citizen? where is the line drawn? what makes someone an anti? I really want to know because I worry I might be one and i respect you a lot and i feel like garbage...

The line is drawn where you send negative messages meant to drive off or silence or discourage or otherwise punish to a stranger whose story you absolutely do not know based on information that you have read from an unsourced or context free call out post, or maybe just because they created something that you didn’t like, or that upset you, or that upset someone you know. 

The line is drawn where you purposely go somewhere where you know there will be content you disapprove of that is tagged and labeled and easy to avoid to disparage, berate, call out, again “punish” everyone in the community. 

The line is drawn where you publicly drum up negative feelings among your followers toward someone whose content you dislike or who you personally disapprove of, knowing full well that you are operating within an atmosphere where purity politics and anti behavior runs high and that there is a good chance this person will be harassed due to your post.

The line is drawn where you judge someone’s character and morality without knowing anything about them except for the type of fandom content they like to consume or create. 

The line is drawn where you disregard a stranger’s humanity and personal story and history – things that you are absolutely not entitled to know, much less demand – because they wrote a fanfic or drew a piece of fanart that you found repugnant or distasteful. 

The line is drawn where you mistake policing fandom creators - most of whom are on at least one and usually several axes of oppression themselves - for performing actual relevant activism that makes a difference in how popular culture perceives, interacts with and understands bigotry and abuse. 

The line is drawn where you allow yourself to be drawn into a group that feeds on negativity, that sustains itself by hating others, that puts catharsis above respecting someone else’s humanity, that encourages lashing out and implicates certain people as safe and reasonable targets for personal attacks. 

God, there are so many other things. 

Create things you like. Encourage the creation of things you like. Produce that diverse content that we all crave so much. And protect yourself. Block people who upset you. Blacklist content that you don’t want to see. But for god’s sake, when it comes to fandom, when it comes to a place where people overwhelmingly go to celebrate the things they like, where people go to produce works to express themselves, to vent, to explore their feelings, to explore their identities, to please people who like the things they like, to seek encouragement or find the courage to put themselves out in front of an audience for perhaps the first time, to seek validation and positive attention and an audience of people who understand – don’t be an asshole. 

No one is perfect. No one is pure. No one is worthy of the ever-evolving standards set by people who are primarily interested in cleansing their fandom of content they don’t like. And everyone has an agenda, so when someone tells you that someone is bad, or something is problematic, or something someone did makes them unworthy of being treated like a human being, you had better be god damn sure you know where that accuser is coming from, who they are, and that you have a perfect mastery of a situation before you go swallowing it down hook line and sinker. 

Just don’t be a fucking asshole. That’s it. That’s the whole secret.

And by the way. I’m talking about fandom. I am talking about fandom creators. I am talking about your peers here down in this oftentimes thankless ditch creating content and in most cases harming absolutely no real life, flesh and blood human beings with their work. I am talking about creators who have a tiny following compared to actual creative executives out in the Real World creating actual pop culture, influencing actual societal attitudes and progress and change. I am talking about people whose work is niche and will be seen by a laughably small number of people and who are just here to have a fucking good time.

The line is drawn where you directly and intentionally harm a fellow human being because you think there is a chance, some poorly defined potential, some future situation or scenario where they maybe, perhaps, possibly and almost certainly indirectly harm someone else.

Don’t.

[setepenre-set]

do u think that genderbends perpetuate cissexism? genderbending always changes the body as well as gender identity and i feel like it says that you can't have certain gender identities without those body parts. this post phrases it better viria(.)tumblr(.)com/post/116908105638

No, I don’t think that. As a trans individual who enjoys a variety of genderbending things, I do not think that at all.

I mention that I, myself, am trans, because I read the post you suggested, and the OP says that a cisgender person expressing an opinion that disagrees with their view is unqualified to do so, which– it is important not to let the experiences of a minority group be defined by people who are not members of the minority group, yes, but on the other hand–well, that sounds a bit like ‘out yourself or be invalid’…maybe there isn’t a perfect way of looking at that particular side-debate.

The OP of that post also says that this type of story “gives fans yet another excuse to ignore female characters in favor of focusing on their male faves.” Which rather smacks of You Are Not Allowed To Like What You Like; Eat Your Vegetables; Mother Knows Best. 

Fandom’s supposed to be fun, remember? You’re allowed to like whatever characters you like. You’re allowed to like whatever stories you like.

I’m getting a lot of purity police vibes, with that post. A lot of You Are Bad And You Should Feel Bad. 

You’re Allowed To Write That I Guess As Long As You Feel Appropriately Guilty For It And Also Publicly Self-Flagellate About It.

(icky puritanical nonsense)

But.

I say again: no, I do not believe, as a trans person, that genderbends inherently perpetuate cissexism. Can there be cissexism in a genderbend story? Yes. There can also be biphobia in a slash story; that doesn’t mean all slash is inherently biphobic.

Now–the first thing to do, I think, is to define what, exactly, ‘genderbending’ is. It actually covers a fairly wide range of narratives. We will divide them into story types. Then we can discuss them, and the OP’s issues with them.

TYPE A: Character X is presumed to be cis male in canon. In the fic, they are presented as cis female. OR Character X is presumed to be cis female in canon, and in the fic, they are presented as cis male. 

Example: my fic, Harriet Potter Is.

This story type is what people are usually talking about when they talk about genderbends. They are also sometimes referred to as girl!CharacterName or boy!CharacterName. 

Obviously, the language here is not ideal–the conflation of sex and gender is not good. 

AO3 offers a tagging option that I think works better, and does not conflate the two concepts. #Alternate Universe: Always a Different Sex #Alternate Universe: Gender Changes. The separate tags makes the point that they are separate issues.

(Really, I think the language we use to talk about this story type is going in this direction. The word ‘genderbend’ honestly seems less popular in general, these days, and I think it’s gradually phasing out.)

TYPE B: Character X is presumed cis male in canon and, in the fic, wakes up one morning in a afab version of their own body. OR Character X is presumed cis female in canon and in the fic wakes up in an amab version of their own body.

Example: An Ever Fixed Mark by elsepthdixon (avengers comics-verse)

This story type is sometimes referred to as genderswap or sexswap and sometimes as genderbend.

TYPE C: Character X is widely presumed cis male in canon. In the fic, they are a trans man. OR Character X is widely presumed cis female in canon. In the fic, they are a trans woman.

Example One: Liminal Paraphilia by dontdierob (Rogue One, Cassian is a trans guy)

Example Two: my fic, Fit Together (Megamind, Roxanne is a trans woman)

Example Three: the Bulletproof series (RocknRolla, Johnny is a trans guy)

I give multiple examples of this type because the OP of that post says they’ve never seen any stories like this.

TYPE D: Character X is widely presumed cis male in canon. In the fic, they are trans female. OR Character X is widely presumed cis female in canon and in the fic they are trans male. OR Character X is widely presumed to be cis anything, and in the fic they are nonbinary. 

Example One: Only She, Who Is Beautiful (anonymous fill on disney kink meme, Beauty and the Beast, Gaston is a trans woman)

Example Two: my fic, Fit Together (Megamind is a demiguy)

Example Three: my fic, Code: Safeword (again, Megamind is a demiguy)

Example Four: You Called Her Dot by Dibsanddabs (avengers movie-verse, Steve is nonbinary.)

Again, the OP of that post says they’ve never seen stories like this. So there are multiple examples.

OH! HERE IS A FIC ABOUT RORSCHACH FROM WATCHMEN BEING AN INTERSEX AFAB TRANS MAN: Untitled, an anonymous fill on the Watchmen Kink Meme.

(that post accuses fandom of not treating gender as a spectrum; evil gods, how long ago was it written?)

Now, I understand if you dislike Type A. I understand if you feel uncomfortable with reading these stories. But as a young trans person just beginning to question my assigned gender identity, reading Type A stories gave me a vital tool to do so. 

I was able to think to pretend I was writing one of those stories about me. How would I have been different if I had been presumed by society to be a boy? Would I still be me?

I would still be me, but society would have treated me differently. And as I wrote this story in my head, this story about me-as-a-boy, I began to realize that I did not fit in the original story. I did not fit the me-as-a-girl, supposedly ‘canon’ version. It wasn’t right.

The me-as-a-boy story wasn’t quite right, either, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t need to tell it to myself.

The best and most necessary Type A stories are, I believe, about recognizing that society treats people differently based on their apparent gender. And they help show how gender is, at least in part, a construct–it’s something that develops, that grows, in a person. And part of the way that it develops is through ‘gendered’ interaction with society. 

Often a person doesn’t question the gender that society has assigned them because it simply never occurs to them that they can do so, that it’s allowed, that they can still be them, even if it turns out they’re not the gender they were assigned. 

Reading Type A #AU: Always a Different Sex #AU: Gender Changes stories lets these people know that it’s okay to think about their gender. 

By questioning a character’s gender, a fic author can inspire a reader to feel able to question their own gender. 

It did me.

Sometimes you aren’t ready to start with a Character X is Trans story–it can feel too much like admitting you might be trans and that can be a scary thing. 

Sometimes we need Type A stories to take us there the long way around.

Like I said, I understand if you don’t like Type A stories and don’t want to read them. You don’t have to. I happen to dislike Type B stories; they creep me out. That doesn’t mean that they’re inherently bad, or even inherently creepy, though! Just because it’s true for me doesn’t mean it’s true across the board.

I don’t read Type B stories, but that doesn’t mean that other people aren’t allowed to enjoy Type B stories, or that they should feel obligated to publicly Confess Their Sins And Admit They Are Problematic for enjoying them, as the OP of that post seems to be saying people who enjoy Type A stories should do.

The OP seems to think that people should only feel allowed to write Type C and Type D stories–there’s that ‘you are bad and you should feel bad’ thing going on–the puritanical purity thing. Ew.

Your OP claims that “ ‘Genderbending’ does harm trans people.” 

I say in response: labeling the genderbending narrative as inherently cissexist and transphobic takes a vital tool for self-understanding out of the hands of trans people–like me–and replaces them with nothing but guilt and shame and silence. 

That harms trans people.