#her being trans is intrinsically linked to the story

[madzillus]

She chose her own name

[misskattylashes]

The Dichotomy of Being a Teenage Alex Turner Fan

In this article I look at why I think so many teenage fans direct so much hate towards Miles.

Look at this image search I did on Alex’s name. First person whose name comes up ‘Miles Kane’, first other person he is in another picture with, Miles...before a puff piece about Louise or Taylor. It’s Miles. There are more results with Miles than anyone else. Whether people like it or not, Miles and Alex are intrinsically linked.

In the words of the big man himself ‘stop and wait a sec’...... imagine Miles was Mila, a constant female companion of Alex’s who he had been close to for nearly twenty years. Had been at his side more than any other woman, had done two duets with him and whilst touring the second one, their performances were so sexually charged you thought any moment soon they were actually going to have sex on stage. What would you think? You would think they were or had been in a romantic relationship. And even though you haven’t seen much of them together over the past few years, Mila constantly talks lovingly about Alex in her interviews, and Alex invites Mila to be the support act for the final days of a very long world tour, and on one of the dates he lets Mila stand side-stage (something his official girlfriend doesn’t get to do) and throughout the set he sings to Mila and can’t stop glancing at her. People would be enamoured with their love story and desperate for them to be together.

So why is it different just because Miles is a guy?

Of course there is the obvious. If Alex is gay, then the teenage fans stand no chance with him, which would be upsetting. But even me, as a creaky old Gen X-er, had gay pop stars who were attractive and sexy – Holly Johnson and Paul Rutherford from Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Andy Bell from Erasure, even Boy George got screamed at, but we accepted they were gay and we didn’t stand a chance and that was it.

Of course, there was no social media then, but did we write hateful letters to them or their partners, or put up posters on street corners saying how disgusting they were? (the 80s equivalent to posting all over Twitter) No.

So why the anger towards Miles?

Unfortunately when I was growing up, homophobia was acceptable. Gay people were constantly the butt of jokes, straight comedians would pretend to be effette just for laughs. At school we even had the reprehensible Section 28, imposed by Thatcher’s government where any mention of homosexuality was banned, even books featuring gay characters, to apparently help prevent us from experimenting and catching AIDS (yes I grew up in the Dark Ages)

But there comes the rub. Because homophobia was acceptable, any negative feelings we had towards our gay pop stars or their partners wasn’t something we felt bad about so we felt no need to pick on anyone as a way of dealing with our own conflicted emotions

Fast forward to 2023. Gay people have rights, can marry, have children, are positively represented in the media, we have Pride, which is on the point of becoming too commercialised, and to be homophobic is to most young people not cool or acceptable.

Those same girls who spew hate towards Miles probably paint rainbows on their pencil cases during Pride, have male gay friends at school and would have a go at anyone who doesn’t support trans rights.

But then there is the fact that the celebrity they desire has a constant male companion, who he has been more publicly intimate with then any of the girlfriends he has had. Scratch beneath the surface and you can spot the differences in them when they fell out after EYCTE -both a shell of their former self. When there was a brief break in Lockdown in the UK, who did Alex choose to meet? Miles. Whether the fangirls consciously or subconsciously think there is something going on, it makes them feel uncomfortable with themselves. The presence of Miles Kane makes them realise they’re not necessarily that right-on girl who is into gay rights, because when they actually think about it, and think about what men do, they don’t like it.

But instead of realising that this is just part of being a grown up – we all have things about ourselves we don’t like, they direct their anger and frustration at Miles, as if he didn’t exist then they wouldn’t be confronted by these unpleasant feelings they have.

So, what I am trying to say is whilst I find the comments about Miles disgusting and cruel, just remember with these girls the person they really hate is themselves, while Miles lives his lovely life with his career and his friends and Alex and Maxie.

I think we know who is the winner here.

[moddeydhoo]

Incredipony important Homestuck lore dump

“We know that Dirk has a genuine fondness towards Rainbow Dash. What are your thoughts on Friendship is Magic? Do you enjoy the show, or did you only include the cyan pegasus for the sake of humor?”

I’ve seen like one episode. It’s nicely done, but it’s a damn show for kids. I do some silly shit with my spare time but I am not a child. Some people think this makes Dirk a “brony.” I think it’s more that he really does watch it and evaluate it for whatever studious purposes he has, but just happens to like that one pony unironically. A brony does not this a dude make.

Sure, Hussie, sure. (x)

Anyway Dirk G1 Firefly stan -- and I can prove that G1 Firefly is intrinsic to Homestuck, and that Dirk is right to admire her, and that Hussie is definitely wrong about his own comic.

Firefly's Dirk connection/Firefly as symbolising the entirety of Homestuck

This is Firefly. She appears only in the MLP G1 pilot. Fittingly for a pilot episode, she’s a daredevil flyer.

Firefly’s function in the story is, motivated by nothing more than her hope, to be the first to fly “over the rainbow” to the fabled human world and bring back a human champion to help the ponies. In other words, she’s the first to breach the barrier between worlds and essentially the prime mover of all the G1 plot.

Firefly’s signature move, the thing she’s attempting in that gif (and an equivalent of G4 Dash's sonic rainboom), is called the "double inside-out loop".

HOLD ON. A DOUBLE “INSIDE-OUT LOOP”? SOUND FUCKING FAMILIAR???

My thesis:

Most Important Horse

Firefly IS the Möbius double reacharound, the breacher of barriers, which is the same as the joiner of the two worlds (sessions).

As such, and with her heroism presented as a less corrupted version of AR and Dirk’s badass plan in Unite Synchronise, Firefly is an absolutely indisputable -- and, I’d argue, a deliberate -- homage to Homestuck.

I mean, Homestuck features a literal firefly. And that firefly is not, as we all thought, a Joss Whedon reference.

The pony Firefly, pink* and blue, combined with the clouds that in Homestuck generally symbolise the Light of prophecy and/or the power of Hope, forms the colours of the trans flag. Joss Whedon who? Serenity, the transfeminine symbol, is G1 Firefly. With the addition of the rainbow connection, Firefly as an obvious queer symbol gels too well with Homestuck’s deeply queer themes to be a coincidence.

[*She appears purple in some grabs, and while it’s tempting to make something out of that as positioning her as equinedistant between red and blue, that’s just the sucky 80s cartoon colour grading. The toys make it clear she’s intended to be pink. (x)]

Basically:

Hussie doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Firefly, in many senses, IS Homestuck.

And Firefly’s G4 reincarnation courtesy of Lauren Faust (Faustus = LE/demiurge symbolism? Look into), because Hasbro had lost the rights to Firefly’s original name and design, is Rainbow Dash. (x)

Case closed. Moving on.

A note about the villain of the G1 pilot:

Tirac is an obvious LE stand-in but he’s rather bland, though his Gnostic themes of the (heterosexual) corruption of the pure (queer) rainbow world are still present. There’s not much to say about G1 Tirac. He’s a fairly forgettable monster of the week, unlike his inspiration; though he’s a LE homage, he’s not a very well-executed one.

It’s worth noting that he’s more fleshed out in G4 as Lord Tirek*, but G4 doesn’t strictly adhere to Homestuck canon due to being canon within Homestuck, so there’s not much there except his theme of age being an obvious callout to Time powers, and his use of a power similar to Dirk’s (LE being Dirk through the linking factor of Lil Cal -- who is cleverly presented in G1 as the baby ponies en masse, but I don’t have time to get into that -- and Doc Scratch).

[*Yes, the spelling changed.]

G4 Tirek’s apparent age and physical fitness fluctuate in both directions, through several forms, in accordance with his pwr lvl. This is of course a clear allusion to Caliborn, in both the general Time theme and, in specific, Caliborn’s non-linear appearances within Homestuck.

It’s clear they wanted to take Tirek’s redesigned G4 form in a different direction, but some influence still seeped in. It’s no coincidence that he’s a Timey-wimey red colour, nor that his powered-up form has a distinctly musclebeast flavour (ARquius, again with Doc Scratch as the linking factor).

(Seen here with Cozy Glow, another conspicuously trans-coloured pony, as if we needed more evidence.)

(I could write another post on Grogar’s Hope symbolism centred on his bell, but this shitpost has already got way too in-depth.) (Anyway, Egg Friend, this one’s all for you. Happy Homestuck lore-hunting.)

(YES, THIS IS A SHITPOST)

[theparanormalperiodical]

A Brief History Of Transphobia In Horror Movies Feat. A Small Window Into The Reality Of Being Trans Cause Let’s Face It It’s Way Scarier Than Any Horror Film

It combined the eerie atmosphere of supernatural horror with the twists and turns of a psychological thriller - by all means An Incident In Ghostland (2018) was a great film.

It drove an innovative plot around tight bends of classic horror tropes and brought us skidding back to the ultimate psychological horror ending: we never really know what’s real and what’s not.

But this film should’ve crashed within the first 15 minutes.

And all that should be left in the wreck is a lipstick in the shade ‘Harlot Red’.

We already know that the struggle for trans rights - let alone with trans representation in the media - is a worthy fight. It has not been helped by the horror genre.

It’s time to change that.

It began with Buffalo Bill.

“Would you f—k me? I’d f—k me.”

It’s one of the most iconic horror films that have been put on the silver screen. But the thing is, when people were walking out of the first screenings of The Silence of the Lambs in 1991, they were traumatised by the disgusting acts Hannibal Lecter would commit on-screen.

They were not protesting Lecter’s former patient as they swiped on makeup, tucked their genitals between their legs, and paraded their desired body in the mirror. This quick pre-murder ritual is the most prominent portrayal of transgender identities, even if - as Lecter says - they are not trans.

From the scenes in the film to the pages of the novel it’s based on, we see Buffalo Bill’s gender dysphoria, but Lecter instead suggests their apparent trans-ness is rooted in something else - something far more sinister, something that never actually gets explained.

All we know is they want to create a ‘woman suit’ by murdering women and skinning their bodies.

Buffalo Bill thus brought to light a portrayal of gender dysphoria that claimed those that were questioning their gender identity were obsessed by gender.

So obsessed, in fact, they would go to extreme lengths to fulfill their desires by killing women and taking their ‘parts’ for themself.

This is also explored in another horror classic: Psycho (1960).

This film defined the horror genre, and put the slasher on the map. And if slasher films weren’t guilty enough for their portrayal of women, they further followed the J.K. Rowling school of thought and gave trans women a new separate character-arc.

Norman Bates is yet another horror icon known for dressing as a different gender, and then killing women. Whether they’re doing so to protect their identity or to keep the memory of their mother alive, we see another man don a wig, pull on a dress, and whip out a weapon of their choice.

The only difference is that Norman does become his mother (and thus a woman) on a permanent basis - only when he is officially declared insane and institutionalised.

The more deranged they become, the more crimes they commit, the more of a woman they become. By officially crossing the gender lines, they officially become monsters.

“But weren’t Norman Bates and Buffalo Bill based on a true story?”

Ed Gein was a serial killer who murdered countless women, mutilated their bodies, and used their body parts to create various household furniture and items of clothing. But it was Gein’s creation of a ‘woman suit’ that would allow them to crawl into their beloved mother’s skin which confirmed that they were the original inspiration behind these movie villains.

Despite debate on whether Gein was in fact transgender, a majority believe via police evidence and interviews that they would identify as trans by modern standards.

This brings us to an important point:

To an extent, these films portray trans peoples accurately. Funnily enough, trans people are actually people (shock horror). This means that they can in fact be murderers.

But what these films don’t get right is that they all portray trans people as exactly the same. Like, exactly the same. As in they could at least have tried to be a bit more imaginative.

So, when I was watching An Incident In Ghostland one Sunday evening, I was reminded of the same trope yet again. Well, not reminded, per se. ‘Smacked in the face’ is probably a better phrase to use.

But thankfully, Ghostland did throw in something different.

They chuck in a character that belongs in some found-footage haunted asylum movie!

*Slams laptop shut*

In Ghostland we see two sisters get stalked, held captive, and sexually assaulted and raped by a mentally impaired man and a trans woman. But despite the dominance of the scenes involving the torture, assault, and rape of the women, I want to focus here on the decor of the house they were held captive in.

The house was full of hundreds of vintage dolls.

From the striking image used on the movie poster to the garish aesthetic one can only imagine was inspired by Annabelle, dolls that are painted, dressed, and positioned for use by the woman and the man is central to the plot.

Its the dressing of the sisters in traditional feminine outfits and the application of doll-like makeup to join the other dolls in the house which fits the trope we just can’t escape from.

(No matter how fast we run.)

The Candy Truck Woman, as she is also known, dedicates herself to the process of holding their victims captive and making these women into traditionally feminine objects. It’s the process of creating extreme femininity that defines her role.

Well, that and the portrayal of her trans identity which only goes as emphasising her masculine features. This is embodied by the death of the villain:

Her wig gently slips off her head just before her corpse slumps to the floor.

This suggests that her trans identity is intrinsically linked to her crimes. When she dies, the girls are finally free from her control, and the doll facade ends. She too is apart of the facade. She is reduced to being a bloke in a wig.

The only redeeming feature of this movie?

She is correctly gendered by the credits as the Candy Truck Woman.

*flips through notes*

Yep, that is literally it.

So, why are trans people - specifically trans women - given such roles in the horror genre?

It’s been 60 years.

It’s been 60 years since Psycho earnt its status as the ultimate horror film. But still, to this day, we are presented with horrific portrayals of trans women. It isn’t their acts that define them, however.

If Buffalo Bill was murdering women and comfortable with their gender identity, it would just be another tragic tale of a brutal act. Buffalo Bill is horrifying because they dress like a woman and then commit the acts.

Unfortunately, this link ultimately suggests that those that identify as trans either are or can become mentally unhinged. From there it’s a short trip to becoming obsessed with gender and whoops they’re cold-blooded killers!

And for the uninformed, this almost appears to follow basic logic.

Take me as an example - I’m a cisgender woman. 

Because I am not trans, I do not know what it is like to feel like I was born in the wrong body. It’s hard to understand how it is to be trans when one is not. However, just because I don’t fully understand it because I have not experienced it does not mean trans feelings, experiences, and rights do not matter.

To many, this lack of understanding - especially in past eras when being trans was labelled with far more outdated terms and concepts like ‘transvestites’ - can feel uncomfortable. This is what horror preys on.

You don’t always need a jumpscare to be afraid.

You don’t actually require a demonic nun to keep you from turning the lights out.

By simply being presented with something we don’t quite get, by just seeing something that doesn’t quite click in our brains, we are immediately made uncomfortable.

And that can make us afraid instinctively.

The only way to overcome this fear is, well, to face it! Ultimately, this can be reduced back to the lack of representation and awareness of trans issues and trans rights.

It’s time to talk about Insidious (2010).

Outdated tropes are just that - they are outdated.

They belong back in decades gone by. They no longer make sense in our society.

But the problem with the demonisation of trans women is that it is still shipped out via the big screen. And Ghostland is not the only offender.

Insidious will always be one of my favourite horror universes. And yet it was the first to show me how the horror genre is still propagating the same image of trans women.

One of the most iconic monsters in the franchise is that of Parker Crane, the spirit of a serial killer who was forced to adopt a female identity by his mother as a child. Her abusive actions result in him murdering innocent women while dressed as a woman.

Sure, Insidious pins his murderous actions less on their gender identity and more on the abusive actions of his mother, but the fact is it’s the same story of a man dressing up as a woman and killing women.

And even the finer details of The Bride in Black’s story are replicated in other movies tapping into the same trope.

Sleepaway Camp (1983) features a similar character to Parker Crane. At the twist ending, we realise that the serial killer is Angela, a supposedly innocent girl at the camp. How do we know this?

Because Angela is revealed to have a penis. And, of course, that means she has to be batshit crazy and a killer.

*eye roll*

Angela was assigned male at birth, and their abusive parents forced them to dress like a girl, just like Parker. But yet again we stumble into another damaging forced narrative that demonises trans women:

As they had a troubled childhood, they were trans. And as they were trans, they were thus a dangerous person.

The filmmakers drive this home further by the final image closing the film: all we see is their female face embodying clear mental instability and their male body. It is meant to be disturbing, it is meant to be shocking. Pull out the pencil, connect the dots, and here we are.

What we see is upsetting, and that means trans people must be, too.

She is yet another ‘bloke in a wig’.

And if that wasn’t enough, Angela also provides us with the final segue into an LGBT-wide problem with the entire film industry.

(Mmhmm, it gets worse.)

Movie plot twists have always been praised, pulled apart, and memified via #edgy humour - they are the lifeblood of the film industry. And pumping through its veins is an eternal struggle to properly represent the LGBT community.

One of the ways that this occurs is that LGBT characters often feature as plot twists. They are there to shock us, to surprise us, to be the punchlines of the jokes.

Gay people are the shock twist when they turn down another character’s advances citing “they just don’t swing that way”. And trans people are the shock twist when they are revealed to be murders.

It’s a simple formula which ignores the fundamental complexity of humanity - and it’s this search for simplicity which stops the fight for equality in its tracks every time. We have to accept that people have experiences beyond our own, and these experiences are complicated and new and confusing and uncomfortable.

But they are real.

And they matter.

Only by addressing this complexity and listening to these real stories can we realise that it’s okay to be wrong and it’s okay to better ourselves via learning.

Okay, fine - so everything’s terrible.

Yes. And it gets worse.

Trans women in horror always follow the aesthetic presented by the concept of the monstrous-feminine, a concept erected by Barbara Creed:

Female monsters are abject beings that are a compilation of all the disgusting parts of being a woman.

You know, like periods and leg hair.

The films called out in this article follow this closely, but present this via extreme contrast between the male and female body. By confirming that they are abject and out-of-place beings, the trans women thus become the ready-made female horror monster - the alternative to the Final Girl.

They’re the Blair Witch, they’re the alien from Alien; but in some bittersweet way, they’re finally seen as the women they are.

However.

This portrayal isn’t exclusive to the horror genre. It’s not even restricted to the big screen.

Horror might have it wrong, but we can do our part to do things right. We need to learn, listen, and discuss how it really is to be trans.

Here are just 6 facts to start the conversation:

Trans women are not destined to be murderers. In fact, there is a day dedicated to those killed by transphobia - the Transgender Day of Remembrance (20th November).

A project dedicated to monitoring the murders of transgender people began in April 2009 due to the significance of transphobic-motivated violence (The Trans Murder Monitoring Project).

Last year was the second deadliest year for trans people on record (The Trans Murder Monitoring Project).

At least 48% of trans people fear using public toilets due to fear of discrimination and harassment (Huffington Post).

At least a third of trans students in higher education have received negative comments or experienced negative behaviour from staff in 2018 (Stonewall).

45% of trans people between the ages of 11 and 19 attempted to commit suicide in 2018 (Stonewall.)

In 2019, at least 26 transgender people were murder with some of the cases clearly inspired by anti-trans bias. Most of the victims were transgender women of colour. (This fact came from @macaronimarine​)

If you’ve got a fact or you’ve got an experience to share, I’d love it if you could add it. And if you haven’t completely given up on the horror genre, why not follow this blog and join me for a weekly article on horror films and the paranormal?

I also post a new real ghost story everyday!

Got a ghost story to share? DM me to feature on my archive of real ghost stories.

[transastronautistic]

queer history: a chat with Anne Lister and Leslie Feinberg

you know what i’d love to witness? a conversation between Anne Lister and Leslie Feinberg. can you even imagine it??

Lister wrote, “I am made unlike anyone I have ever met. I dare to say I am like no one in the whole world.” but i think she’d quickly realize that Feinberg is “made like” her -- that Feinberg has a very similar sexuality and gender expression to her own, and truly gets what it’s like to be persecuted for those things. Lister’d be so thrilled and relieved to find she’s not alone!

and Feinberg? when ze was younger, ze was desperate to find hirself in history -- just like Lister, ze was convinced that “No one like me seemed to have ever existed” (Transgender Warriors, p. 11). Feinberg would absolutely recognize Lister as a part of the big beautiful queer history that ze eventually discovered.

there are many parts of Feinberg’s story that come to mind as i watch Gentleman Jack -- such as when Lister is talking to the little boy Henry, who asks if she’s a man, and she replies:

“Well, that's a question. And you are not the first person to ask it. I was in Paris once, dressed extremely well, I thought, in silk and ribbons, ringlets in my hair. Very gay, very ladylike. And even then, someone mistook me for a...Mm. So, no, I am not a man. I'm a lady. A woman. I'm a lady woman. I'm a woman.”

when i watched that scene, i immediately thought of this passage from Feinberg’s Transgender Warriors:

“...I was considered far too masculine a woman to get a job in a store, or a restaurant, or an office. I couldn’t survive without working. So one day I put on a femme friend’s wig and earrings and tried to apply for a job as a salesperson at a downtown retail store. On the bus ride to the interview, people stood rather than sit next to me. They whispered and pointed and stared. ‘Is that a man?’ one woman asked her friend, loud enough for us all to hear. The experience taught me an important lesson. The more I tried to wear clothing or styles considered appropriate for women, the more people believed I was a man trying to pass as a woman. I began to understand that I couldn’t conceal my gender expression” (p. 12).

over a century separated these two, but people who could or would not conform to their assigned gender suffered in both eras. both of these people longed for a connection to a wider community of people like them, longed to know why people like them were persecuted and hated and told that God reviled them. but while Lister did manage to cultivate a tiny haven for herself of loved ones who accepted her, she never found the wider community that Feinberg found -- the world of “drag queens, butches, and femmes,” a world in which “I fit; I was no longer alone” -- a world that extended beyond gay bars, deep into past millennia as well as across the entire globe!

Feinberg worked hard to dig up the answers to all hir questions of why -- “Why was I subject to legal harassment and arrest at all? Why was I being punished for the way I walked or dressed, or who I loved? Who wrote the laws used to harass us, and why? Who gave the green light to the cops to enforce them? Who decided what was normal in the first place?” (p. 8). what ze concluded was that the rise of class so many ages ago is what sowed the seeds of transphobia.

in Transgender Warriors, Feinberg argues that in ancient societies that followed a matrilineal system and shared all resources communally, whenever agriculture enabled some men to begin accumulating and hoarding resources, an intolerance for gender diversity would also arise (see pp. 42-44, 50-52). once these men had capital, they had power. the Few could use their capital to bribe, to threaten, and to control the Many. eventually these men would twist their communities into a patriarchy in order to ensure that they could keep the power in their own hands. for patriarchs rely upon a rigid gender binary to keep their power, wherein those assigned male are placed above everyone else. after all, if men behave "like women," how can we place them above women? if women behave "like men," will they try to force their way into the dominant group? if some people are too ambiguous to be categorized into either group, what does that say about our argument that this binary is the natural way of doing things or divinely ordained?

i think that there are some aspects of this history that Lister would be excited to learn. she’d recognize herself as one of those women trying to force their way into the dominant group, and agree that the patriarchs of her day were not happy about it. she’d appreciate Feinberg’s scholarship around those religious texts that she as a Christian and Feinberg as a Jewish person shared, how Feinberg shows that it was not God but men who decided that the gender binary must be enforced. Lister would heartily agree that her nature is God-given, not God-hated.

but the conversation between Lister and Feinberg would very quickly break down, for the same reason that transphobia sprung up: because of class.

not long into their discussion, Feinberg would be like “and that’s why Capitalism is the root of all evil and people like us will thrive only once we’ve overthrown the landed gentry and disseminated all the wealth” and Lister would be like. “excuse me. i am the Landed Gentry. the lower classes will get their callused hands on my wealth over my dead body"

and the relationship would promptly dissolve from there -- and i’d take Feinberg’s side 1000% and hope ze could knock some humility into Lister’s classist ass!

but anyway to me the similarities between these two historical figures combined with the stark differences in their worldviews only goes to show what an enormous factor class is! Feinberg notes this fact, that “trans expression” has existed among all classes -- and that social privilege makes a big difference in a trans or gnc person’s life:

“For the ruling elite, transgender expression could still be out in the open with far less threat of punishment than a peasant could expect. For example, when Queen Christina of Sweden abdicated in 1654, she donned men’s clothes and renamed herself ‘Count Dohna.’ Henry III of France was reported to have dressed as an Amazon and encouraged his courtiers to do likewise” (80).

(to be fair to Henry III, his gender non-conforming ways were used against him to justify his overthrow. but for a time, he had the means to express himself and to gather others who were like him into his court.)

if Feinberg had been born in the uppermost class of hir society, would that have protected hir from much of the cruelty and violence they experienced? after all, ze would never have had to scramble for a job, to try desperately to conform to gender expectations just to survive. Lister was able to spend much of her life refusing to listen to the hateful words circulating behind her back because to her face people tended to be much more polite. would Feinberg have had that experience too, had ze not been of the lower working class? would ze have never gone through the pain and struggle that caused hir to dig so ferociously into the history of transphobia and queerphobia?

it’s much less likely for someone at the top of the food chain to question the food chain -- even if they notice how the Way Things Are does work against them in some ways. Lister was unlikely to notice how a social hierarchy that pits the wealthy above the poor is intrinsically linked to the structures that pit men over women and confine each person into a rigid binary box -- because to notice that truth would have been to her own detriment. she may not have wanted to keep the cissexism, but she did want to keep her wealth.

As Feinberg puts it in Transgender Warriors when discussing afab people who fought for the Confederacy in the US Civil War, “just being [trans] doesn’t automatically make each person progressive.”

Lister was not prepared to fight a battle against her own privileges, even if it would also have been a battle against her own oppression. that doesn’t mean that those of us looking back at her story today can’t treasure what we have in common with her! we can. after all, in Transgender Warriors, Feinberg recounts the stories of the more “problematic,” complicated figures in queer history right alongside the ones that better fit hir own views. ze finds value in their stories despite the flaws, and we can too.

but at the same time, we have to acknowledge where Lister fell short, and do the hard work of examining our own privileges and considering how we can be better than Lister. we can instead be like Feinberg, whose marginalization -- as a butch lesbian, as a Jewish person, as a transgender person, and as a lower class person -- inspired hir not to cling to the privileges ze did have as hir only foothold in the power structure, but rather to be the best ally ze could be to people of color, to trans women, and others:

“We as trans people can’t liberate ourselves alone. No oppressed peoples can. So how and why will others come to our defense? And whom shall we, as trans people, fight to defend? A few years before he died [Frederick] Douglass told the International Council of Women, ‘When I ran away from slavery, it was for myself; when I advocated emancipation, it was for my people; but when I stood up for the rights of women, self was out of the question, and I found a little nobility in the act.’ I believe this is the only nobility to which we should aspire -- that is, to be the best fighters against each other’s oppression, and in doing so, to build links of solidarity and trust that will forge an invincible movement against all forms of injustice and inequality” (p. 92).

so, yeah. i’d love to hear these two people chat. i relate deeply to both of their experiences and think they’d find a lot of commonalities between themselves. ...and then with Feinberg i’d love to give Lister a piece of my mind when it comes to her classism.

[residentlesbrarian]

You get rep! You get rep! Everyone gets rep!

Not Your Sidekick by C. B. Lee

This was another book I discovered during the Queering YA panel of ClexaCon 2018. That panel really was where these reviews and my current mission to shine a light on the queer fiction that is present in the library world started. I was blown away by this book! Literally squealed so many times, you’ll see down below. Now onto the review!

Unicorn Rating:

Blurb:  Superheroes? Paid internships? Pretty volleyball players? Oh my! This book is one you will not want to put down and then be sad when it ends, because you just never want to leave the world of Andover and the cast of characters that C.B. Lee has created.

Disclaimer: I will try my best to not spoil anything from the book, but my book loving rambles may give more away than a traditional review. Here we go! Ramble time!

Review:

Have you ever read a book where it was physically painful to put it down? That was exactly what it was like reading this book. The characters are immediately real in your mind the moment they are introduced on the page. The world draws you in and just doesn’t let you go.

One thing that is always hard to swallow in stories with superhuman abilities is how those abilities come about. Who gets them and why? C.B. Lee did a fantastic job of establishing the world that these types of abilities are not only possible but recognized and strictly regulated. There wasn’t a single moment that I, as the reader, had to go beyond a normal suspension of disbelief to make the world work. On that note let’s take a closer look at the plot.

I know I already mentioned how much I loved this book and I am gonna reinforce that statement here with the plot. It was the kind of story telling that pulls you in but also keeps you guessing. Even when you think you’ve figure it out you really haven’t...or at least not all of it. I love the feeling of unraveling a story and spinning theories to see if I’m right and this book was no exception, but usually when I figure something out easily it takes away from the story in the end cause I’m not surprised, but with Not Your Sidekick I was delighted when theories panned out or when I was taken by surprise. A huge part of what made that possible was an outstanding cast of characters that you fall in love with immediately.

Jess, our main character, was an utter delight to read. From her first moment on the page she felt real and vivid. Her sarcastic wit was refreshing and brought some of the best laughs of the book. One thing that was nice to see was that her sexuality was figured out long before the story takes place so it is just part of her character and is mentioned in a passing description. Her bisexuality is just part of the many things that make her who she is but isn’t at the forefront, which gives her that authentic feeling that some queer characters lack. Her attitude towards her family and how she didn’t have any abilities was a truly interesting dynamic. She didn’t have over-the-top resentment that a lot of characters in her position tend to have in today’s media. She wasn’t stoked about being the only ‘average’ member of her family, but she decided she would do the best with what she had. That kind of mindset is rarely seen in heroines, because most we see are created to be even more extraordinary than a typical hero to make sure no one can say this girl isn’t the hero of the story. There was never any doubt who was going to be the hero of this story even though she had no abilities that anyone knew about.

The dynamic between Jess, Bells, and Emma was very fun to dig into as well. These are three friends who just function through their lives with each other. If one is involved the other two are just a given. Watching as that dynamic changed into one of a less codependent nature but still didn’t change how intrinsically important they were to each other was fabulous. It was so true to real life (super powered shenanigans aside) that as the book progressed they each had different things that required their attention, like jobs and family and school projects, but at the end of the day they were still close and wanted to be around one another after the dust settled.

Now on to one of the unexpected but brightest spots of this book. My baby boy Bells Broussard. He is precious and deserves to get pampered every day and told how much he is loved. From when he was introduced he was a rather literal definition of a colorful character, with his hair and out-loud personality, but you could immediately see the depth under the fabulous hair. Then one line took him from the usual sidekick/comic relief character into a whole new dimension. Finding out he was a transman resulted in uncontrollable squealing and hand-flailing. The fact the reader has no idea that Bells is not a cis male from the beginning is something completely out of the norm. Usually a trans character is defined by that gender identity but he isn’t at all! This is the kind of trans representation that has been so badly needed. I could go on for ages but I’ll save that for the sequel, but when we get there I make no promises!

I won’t say much on Abby as a character, which doesn’t mean I didn’t like her (quite the opposite actually), but I have a hard time discussing her without going into spoiler territory. I will say that the most refreshing aspect of her character was that she wasn’t just the token love interest. She had an entire story and purpose and drive that had nothing to do with Jess. Even though her first mention was as Jess’ long time crush, the moment we actually meet her on the page she doesn’t fit the mold of the bland love interest that is nothing but a pretty face for our heroine to ogle at. The romantic subplot was so well done and woven into the story that it flowed naturally and never took away from the actual plot. I’m gonna wrap this up before I give myself any more chances to spoil this masterpiece of a book.

Something must also be said about the racial diversity in this book! Of the core group we meet, only one is Caucasian, which I have never seen in my life time of reading and it was awesome! Overall, this book and the world it brings you into through Jess, Bells, Abby, and Emma is so engaging that you don’t want to leave when the book ends. It is a brilliant example of how you can have queer characters be the center of your story but not have it focus on that aspect of them. This story is about superheroes and villains and everything that comes with that. It just so happens to be happening to some awesome diverse queer teenagers.  

Queer Wrap-up: This one wracked up quite the tally at the end of the day. We have the main character who is openly bisexual and pining after a cute volleyball player and her friends pick on her about it like you would expect in any other teen book. We also have my BABY BOY BELLS!! He is the best trans rep I have ever read! I literally tossed the book down to call my brother because I had to talk to him about this precious bean. This is also a case where I will count the love interest as an additional queer character cause Abby definitely qualifies, but again I am incapable of talking about her without spoilers, so if you want details then send me some asks. That is why this book not only gets a five unicorn rating but will also be the first inductee to the Sparkly Unicorn Hall of Gay.

Links:

C. B. Lee Website

Goodreads

Amazon

If you love superhero books and are looking for some queer rep wrapped up in excellent racial diversity and a truly enthralling world this is definitely the book for you. I will eventually be doing a review of the sequel Not Your Villain and will link it after it’s posted. If you guys want to discuss anything please don’t hesitate to send me asks. As always if you want to read this but don’t want spend the money without knowing for sure you are going to like it, go to your local library. You’d be surprised what they have on their shelves just waiting to be discovered. Trust me, I’m a lesbrarian.

[snarktheater]

"rejection of femininity by women is its own problem" ok what the fuck? have you even heard of butch lesbians or ever read anything they're written on the subject of femininity, feminism, or the lesbian identity? like, are you actually trying to say that not wanting to be feminine for a woman is a problem???

Short version: no, I am not saying that, trying to say that, implying that, or any variations thereupon. “It’s a problem” doesn’t mean “it’s wrong, always, and you should never do that”. It just means it’s worth examining, especially when portrayed in fiction, when things have no reason to be the way they are, ever.

Long version:

There’s nothing wrong with being butch. All the power to you.

Butch female characters, especially sympathetic portrayals of such, absolutely lack representation across all media, and need more of it.

There’s a difference between someone being butch because it’s the gender expression they’re comfortable with, and someone expressing hatred towards femininity. Let’s focus on the latter, since that’s what I was talking about and you’re the one who even brought up butch women. I mean, there are plenty of examples of feminine female characters who hate femininity, and they’re also part of the problem I was referring to.

You can’t really untangle open hatred of femininity from misogyny, any more than you could untangle forcing femininity on others from misogyny. They’re both part of it; the gender role is enforced and devalued at the same time. That’s how it works. Effectively challenge the system requires upholding neither of these—femininity must become neither mandatory nor inferior.

While a woman feeling or expressing hatred of femininity is not inherently misogynistic, expressing that hatred does inscribe itself in a larger system of devaluing femininity.

A real woman is still entitled to feel however she wants about femininity because 1) she’s real and 2) she has a lived experience with femininity and specifically having femininity pushed upon her by the patriarchy.

Basically: the action of hating femininity, by default, contributes to misogyny as a system, but we can exercise empathy towards the women who do to add context around her individual choice to hate femininity and understand why she does.

[Tangent: this does not prevent a woman who hates femininity from being an asshole. The choice to reject femininity for oneself is perfectly acceptable, but once you start, say, harassing women for embracing it instead, now we might have a problem. Especially if, say, those women are trans women for whom embracing femininity is an important part of being recognized as women at all. I’m mentioning it because, you know, TERFs have been extremely vocal of late]

A fictional woman…is fictional. She is not real, has no real feelings of her own to speak of, and her history is crafted by the author. I know that fiction is supposed to reflect reality and generate empathy, but this is crucial: nothing in fiction is real.

Therefore, a fictional woman rejecting femininity lacks the personal feelings and history that can excuse her expressing hatred of misogyny.

That doesn’t mean you can’t write a character who hates femininity; just that you have to consider your story as a whole rather than the character as an individual (because she’s not, she’s a part of the story). Just like with any representation of a real-life oppressed group, you have to dig deeper and address the problematic element head-on.

Anna Lightwood and her authors do none of that, at least in Every Exquisite Thing. She hates femininity because masculinity equals power and she finds that liberating, which may seem correct under patriarchy a first glance.

But…it’s not. Butch women are not men—even Anna’s own narration, she admits everyone who sees her immediately knows she’s not male, which in and of itself is a whole other problem but besides the point of this discussion—and do not benefit from male privilege. But the story just takes as a given that gender identity, gender expression, and gender as an oppressive system are all intrinsically linked, and concludes that therefore, hating femininity is justified and maybe even rational. Or…really, it doesn’t conclude anything—it just states it, and that statement goes unchallenged.

It’s past 1am, so I’ll cut this short here. Hopefully this is enough of an explanation.

The thing is, sometimes, you’re writing a blog post about a silly short story that you don’t even hate all that much, and you see that that blog post is already over three thousand words long even though you usually aim for the 2k range, and so you decide not to swerve wildly out of your lane to write a miniature essay on femininity even though you’re a cis man, and so you just off-handedly mention it, assuming good faith on the reader’s part and also that they already have some knowledge on the topic, because honestly, it’s kind of feminism 101.

I mean, what’s next, are you going to ask me “What’s wrong with not wanting to be like other girls? Are you saying all girls have to be identical?”

PS: I don’t know who you are, anon, but the phrasing of your questions reads as really…terf-y to me. Maybe it’s accidental, or maybe, in July 2018, I’m just constantly on the lookout and it leads to some false positives. But I just thought I’d say it, because I’d feel uncomfortable leaving it completely unchallenged.

[sergeant-angels-trashcan]

Out of Text

I have a question.

But first, I want you to start thinking about some characters. I want you to think about Brunnhilde(Valkyrie) from Thor: Ragnarok, Shiro from Voltron: Legendary Defender, Albus Dumbledore from Harry Potter, and Raymond Holt and Rosa Diaz from Brooklyn Nine Nine.

The question I want to ask you is this: if the revelation of a character's sexual identity or orientation is not explicitly stated by the narrative, but instead by creators or actors, does it still count?

Take, for example, Dumbledore. At no point in the Harry Potter saga does the  narrative explicitly state that Dumbledore is a gay man. Nothing in the bulk of Harry Potter canon even hints at this. All we have is creator assurances. Does that count? Or, in the absence of any narrative support, are we free to think and write about Albus Dumbledore as bisexual, as asexual, as demi? Is it disrespectful to character, to creator, to fellow fans, to not take JKR at face value? And does this dismissal of creator statements open the way for people to then say “well, maybe he’s straight after all?”

Brunnhilde/Valkyrie is trickier--in comics, I believe she is canonically bisexual, but in the movie, the only hint of her being bisexual is in a cut scene and in the interviews given by the cast. The same can be said for Shiro, though his same-sex relationship did get some screen time. But neither of these characters come out and say “I’m gay, I’m bi, I’m pan, I’m ace, I’m trans.” How much weight do we give what actors and creators say? How much leeway do we, as media consumers, give to creators? 

My bisexuality isn’t the most important thing about me, but it does inform how I view and move in the world. If people know, sometimes it informs how they treat me. Is it enough for writers and directors and producers to say that it wasn’t important to the story arc for it to be stated? Knowing how important my identity is to me, is that enough?

Rosa Diaz and Raymond Holt are completely different. These characters explicitly state “I am gay, I am bisexual.” It is not the entire focus of these characters, but it is important to them and thus given narrative weight. There is no ambiguity, no winking at the camera. There is no “we added an LGBT character to round out our diversity--we didn’t say it on screen or in text because we didn’t have time, but we promise! They’re totally gay!”

I know my feelings on this are intrinsically linked to the fact that I am bisexual and that I crave representation. I'm HUNGRY for it. I can only imagine it’s the same for other people. 

So here are my questions:

Is something stated outside of canon enough?

Or is accepting that as representation settling?

If the creator does not or cannot address this in canon, does it still count as representation? Does it have the same impact? Does it even count at all, or is it something that is simply “open for interpretation”?

I don’t know the answer. That’s why I’m asking. This is something that I, as a content creator, want to make sure I’m aware of and thoughtful about. And certainly I don’t have studios or CEOs breathing down my neck and telling me not to offend the straight white demographic.

This seems like a strange twilight-area, neither here nor there. it’s not the same as taking a character generally seen as straight and deciding as a fandom they are not--taking the narrative and molding it to suit our needs, like fans have done with Sherlock or Supernatural or any number of superheroes--nor is it a character who clearly states how they identify, like Rosa Diaz and Captain Holt, or Will and Jack from Will and Grace. 

[smokeybrand]

The Worst

I wasn't really planning to touch this one because I'm so goddamn tired but this sh*t with the Duggars is itching my booty so I'm going in. I got time today. Josh Duggar f*cks kids. Some of those kids were his own sisters. He was caught, convicted, and sent off to conversion therapy camp instead of jail because his pops' unwieldy power in Arkansas. In 2015. This all came out in 2015 because of rather diligent reporters and investigators. That's when we found out about the transgressions, which actually took place before then. Dude went through all of that, did all of those terrible things, BEFORE 2015! By the time all of this came out, the "issue" had already been resolved and that coward hid behind his "faith" through PR snippets and cats just okey-doked it. Sure, the Duggar lost their show, but who cares? They're still supported by the religious zealots on the Right. They still wield unheard of power in Arkansas, all because the Duggars are “Christian” in the “right” way. Because they're "good" people. Well, it's 2021 and ol' Joshy-boy is facing forty years for the same sh*t he got busted on, way back before 2015. I guess f*cking kids is “Christian” in the “right”, according to how these people interpret the bible. Why the f*ck is this even a thing? How the f*ck is this a thing. More importantly, where the f*ck are all of these bible-thumping, Conservative hypocrites, who support straight up insurrection, now that one of their own is about to be nailed to the wall for the most heinous sh*t a person can do? Today, I awoke and chose all the violence.

Duggar was convicted as a minor but was never held accountable for his bullsh*t and now, some sixteen years later since he was exposed as a predator and threat, cat is on the hook for some verifiable, factually provable, horrific sh*t. The feds found terabytes upon terabytes of graphic child porn on his personal computer. Dude had a whole ass Ashley Madison account a while back, for which has since apologized,but those thing are used strictly for adultery. So, Joshy-boy is on record for molesting kids as a minor, cheating on his wife through the interwebs, and has now got the feds on his butt, because he picture of kiddy butts on hand. You see, that's a patter of escalation. Josh Duggar is a monster and it makes me wonder how that monster was allowed to roam or, more importantly, how man other monsters are hiding in that f*cked up family. Of course, the family is denying the claims but, with that verifiable history, you can really be telling me this asshole ain't out here f*cking all of the underage partners he can get his hands on. Really? He f*cked his sisters, man! There are no limits to this dude's disgusting predilections. He's been doing the same sh*t he got nailed with from before, for decades. Why would he ever stop? Who stops their bullsh*t, especially after getting caught and let go with a slap on the wrist? If I burn down an orphanage and you make me pick up trash as a consequence, I'm just going to keep committing arson on sh*t because picking up trash ain't sh*t. The juice id definitely worth the squeeze at that point and I am thirsty, bud. So was Joshy-boy, but for kiddy-diddling, not theoretical arson.

Josh Duggar has been getting away with f*cking kids for decades. Decades of slipping the noose because of his clout and the fact his family is viewed as 'God fearing.” I'm not even going to get into that toxic mess, and how it enabled this scumbag, but ol' Joshy-boy has little girls in his own home, where, because of his "faith" his word is law. What the f*ck is he doing to those kids? He diddled his little sisters. That's fact. He was convicted of that in the court of law. That's fact. He has a record for that and was never properly disciplined for it. That's fact. If he could do that to them, and get away with it unscathed, it's not unheard of to think he could do it to his own. And that's not to slight his boys because, if he's been doing this since he was a kid and escalation is a thing, pretty sure a little boy butt is fine now, too. Of course, this is all speculation on my part but I'm comfortable throwing around these alleged accusations considering the actual evidence onhand. I'm comfortable say Josh Duggar f*cks because he f*cked his sister when she was a kid. One is more than enough, bud. Which is why I don't understand how he has gotten away with this sh*t for years after. Why wasn't Duggar put on a list like a regular person? Why wasn't he forced into proper therapy? Why wasn't he watched like a hawk for the rest of his life? Why was he allowed to escape consequence and re-offend for decades? Why were his sisters forced to interact with this dude on that show for years, when every KNEW what he did to them? Why the f*ck was he allowed back around kids and no one said a peep until the feds found straight up, hardcore, graphic child pornography on his home computer?

Sh*t like this is why i don't understand how Conservative people feel like they know the moral way. They use the bible as some sort of blanket, get-out-of-jail-free card, refusing to even acknowledge their transgressions. Even Matt Gaetz is doing that sh*t. Sure, he's leaning heavy into the "cancel culture" lie, even though there are literal Venmo receipts of him buying sex from a minor, but he claims this a witch hunt predicated on his loyalty to 45 and his strong Conservative values. Values that are intrinsically linked to that Jesus jargon. So, according to him, he can traffic women for sex, at leas one of which was underage but we'll see how many actually were, while being engaged to a woman he claims to love, but this is persecution? This is a politically motivated attack? He's the victim? Really? It doesn't even stop there. Most cats who still believe in 45, and i mean actually believe in him because they think that asshole is some sort of real life Second Coming, conveniently dismiss his long record of adultery, the fact that he uses their faith as a disingenuous prop, and, more to the point of this discussion, THE COUNTLESS ACCUSATIONS OF CHILD RAPE! Dude beat up a fourteen year old before raping her, because he wanted to take her virginity by said rape, but Epstein raped her first, so she was “defiled” when it was his turn to rape her and he was mad about it. So, I repeat, Trump beat up the fourteen year old girl before he raped her, for already being raped. Your president did that sh*t and I know he did because she sued. Put that in your pocket because we're going to circle back around to it in a bit.

There was an entire documentary about Epstein on Netflix and 45's name is riddled throughout it. There are Cosby levels of victims in his ledger and, like Cosby, where there's smoke, there is definitely fire, bud. Trump has for sure f*cked at least one child and that's more enough. He should be castrated and tossed into a hole, not uplifted as some great leader who is going to lead America into it's next golden age. If you actually think that, you're a f*cking idiot, and I mean that in the most aggressively disrespectful way possible. If you actually, in your heart, believe that Donald f*cking Trump is some sort of moral barometer, that he is the one best fit to guide this country into the future, you are the worst kind of person and don't deserve a voice in our democracy. The girl who sued him over her traumatic experience, is in that doc and recalls her story exactly the same way she's told it for decades, exactly as i heard it a decade and half ago. See? Full circle. This chick sued him and he settled. He paid her to make that sh*t go away, per usual, the December before his inauguration and no one talked about that. The difference in her case and the many, many, other settlements, is the fact that Trump doesn't pay anyone without at least three appeals or the Feds force him. He shot this chick an undisclosed amount of loot almost immediately. I don't even think her case made it to trial. I think they were still in Discovery and he whipped out the checkbook. Why was that? Maybe he didn't want her talking after he became President? Or maybe because she could substantiate the horrible f*cking claims she has never deviated from making, for two whole ass decades? I f*cking wonder.

Now, I'm not, in anyway, saying the Left doesn't have their issues. Of course they do. When you get to a certain amount of wealth and power, your moral compass goes wacky and you end up in the papers for giving everyone herpes or trying to start a cult or some sh*t. Celebrities are f*cking weird, bud. What I am saying is the fact that most of these ridiculously damaging and hypocritical f*ck problems, tend to err on The Right more than the Left. I mean, Hilary Clinton has buried bodies, for sure, and i don't mean just Benghazi but, since 2000, the Right has been riddled with some of the most egregious acts you can imagine, in terms of Christian morality. There's a list you can check out on Wikipedia and that hard "R" pops up a great many times. Lots of infidelity on the Left. Lots of the OTHER stuff AND infidelity on the right. It's pathological with these people. The harder you thump that bible, the harder you're apparently thumping some strange. Be it trans trysts, adulterous liaisons, getting it the gay way, straight up sexual battery, or outright rape, the Right is just out here, throwing their sh*t around at whatever will gush. However, when caught, they hide behind their “faith” as a deterrent from actual accountability. It's f*cking disgusting, dude. I mean, Bill Clinton got head from a co-ed in the Oval office but Trump gave head to a nine year old in one of the elevators at Mar-a-Lago. These are not the same and just because one overtly pretends Jesus is his savior, doesn't mean he should get that pass or that the comparison is in anyway apt.

The cognitive dissonance between espousing the virtues of Christ and actually living them is always so stark with these Conservatives. It's a tool to them, not a calling, not a guide. But so many of their proliferate eat that sh*t up. F*cking why? These people are pandering to you. They don't respect your beliefs. They literally f*ck kids. How can they be good Christians and do sh*t like that? None of those people are genuine in their belief. How the f*ck can you just give these assholes the pass? How can you exalt them as idols worth following, protecting, and aggrandizing? None of those frauds worship the way you do. Hell, the people you look to in order to deliver the Word, don't even live the Godly life. They're multi-millionaires flying around in personal jets they bought from Tyler Perry, because God told them they shouldn't have to fly coach with all those demons. Those demons are you, you f*cking sheep. That's how they see you. From your Orange demagogue to your sycophant senators to your televangelist false idols, you are the demons. You are the fodder. You are the rubes. And they know you'll turn the other cheek as they spread them kiddy cheeks, because all they have to do is hold a bible upside down from time to time and say “God is good.”

[bi-asstronaut]

hi! a good friend of mine doesn't understand nb genders (especially the fluid ones & agender). she thinks nb ppl have a mental problem, bc as she sees it- gender is about deciding (between female/male), while nb is not deciding. in general she's very understanding and open, but I couldn't explain her (plus I'm cis and don't want to say something harmful). how would u answer the question of "why are nb genders are actual genders? why are they not a problem of making decisions?"

Hi Anon! Thanks for sending me this ask. I’m not an All-Knowing Expert on nb genders because I’m nb myself, since everyone experiences their gender differently, but I’ll do my best to answer your question.

It can be very difficult for non-nb people to understand what being nonbinary means or “feels like”, simply because they’ve never experienced gender outside the binary themselves, so I understand why your friend has a hard time seeing where we’re coming from. Nonbinary isn’t a disease or a mental illness, just like being binary trans (a trans man/woman) isn’t, and it’s also not about not making a decision. If anything, I think being a cis person has more to do with not making a decision than being nb does - Cis people are comfortable with the gender they were born as and don’t have to go through any of the processes nb people (and binary trans people as well in some cases) may have to; processes, which, to me, are filled with decisions. Am I really nb? Do I want to change my name? Do I want to alter my body in any way? How should I dress to best express who I am? Does dressing how I want to/expressing my gender have any consequences for me? etc. I hope that answers your question of why I think nb genders aren’t about not making decisions.

To understand why nb genders are actual genders, I think it’s important to understand that gender is largely a social construct. What many perceive as being something inherently “girly”, feminine, “boyish” or masculine is actually just… stuff. It’s just objects and concepts. A dress or a skirt is just a piece of fabric cut and sown in a certain way, but lots of people think it’s inappropriate for a man or a boy to wear because it’s “girly”. And to think that the notion that gender is determined by chromosomes can shut down any argument because it’s biology is actually wrongful and completely ignores… actual biology. For example, a quick google search gave me Klinefelter syndrome, a genetic mutation where a person is born with an extra X chromosome, so that their sex chromosomes are XXY. In rare cases, they can even have two or three extra Xs (XXXY or XXXXY). Physically, this shows as low levels of testosterone, which means less-developed “male” characteristics and more-developed “female” characteristics. An example that may seem even more out of this world are people who have a genetic mosaic, where they possess XX chromosomes in some cells and XY in others. How are we supposed to determine whether this person is male or female if we go by chromosomes alone? I think it’s much easier to just ask what the person feels like.

(Not to mention the fact that the biology argument completely erases the existence of intersex people, but I don’t know enough about this subject to speak about it.)

With that said, I think one of the keys to “unlocking” how someone can be nb is being able to differentiate between sex and gender. Typically, sex is defined as what’s going on with your body, while gender defines what goes on inside your head. That means that your body and your gender don’t have to match up whatsoever. Trans women are still women and trans men are still men if they identify as such, regardless of how their body looks. This also goes for nb people - We’re still nb, no matter what our physical characteristics may be and how we choose to dress.

I’d also like to point out that a large number of non-Western cultures recognise more than two genders and otherwise gender non-conforming people, but these genders are often intrinsically linked to that culture’s traditions and beliefs and should therefore not be used by people outside that culture. A relatively well-known example of such a gender is “two-spirit”, which is used by some indigenous North Americans to describe “certain people in their communities who fulfill a traditional third-gender ceremonial role in their cultures.” (Wikipedia) The fact that many non-Western cultures recognise and have recognised more than two genders for centuries should be a good indication that identifying as nonbinary isn’t a new thing made up by hipsters and teens who just want to be cool and different.

tl;dr:- gender is a social construct built on concepts and things that have come to be seen as “girly” (feminine) or “boyish” (masculine), but which have no inherent gender, such as clothing- sex/physical characteristics and gender are two different, separate things and they don’t have to match up- using chromosomes/biology as an argument against trans and nonbinary genders is wrongful and erases intersex people- more than two genders are recognised in many non-Western cultures

This got really lengthy, but I hope it answers your questions and questions your friend may have! If you want me to elaborate or answer another question, feel free to shoot me another ask.

And if there’s anything in my reply that’s offensive, wrong or could be worded better, please let me know.

Further reading and watching (I’m on mobile so I apologise for the ugly links):- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nlc8H4WUqEs (“Proof that there are more than two genders”, uploaded by Riley J. Dennis, a nonbinary person)

- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjIGlYSe6iDxaIAsFhQ7eLoYlo35JNAKy (“The ABC’s of LGBT+”, uploaded by Ash Hardell)

- For your friend about being genderfluid and agender specifically: http://gender.wikia.com/wiki/Gender_Fluid (the definition of being genderfluid)

- https://www.google.dk/amp/s/www.teenvogue.com/story/what-is-agender/amp (a rather lengthy article that includes an agender person talking about what being agender means to them, a doctor who works with gender, pronoun usage, and other things) (I only skimmed it, but it seems respectful and good)

[utopianparadoxist]

if someone were transgender, how would the game assign a class? like, could a trans boy be a prince or a bard, or only have the neutral or female-oriented classes? also, what about people who identify as nonbinary?

So the first thing to note is that any gender can be any class. Hussie confirmed that girls can be Princes on twitter at some point, I don’t really have a link or anythin but I thought I’d point that out.And in my view the gender restrictions were always canonically shaky in the first place. They were delivered by Calliope early in Act 6, and Calliope understands a lot about the game (I think she’s right about her descriptions of Active/Passive classes and I use her definitions as my own), but I don’t think Calliope understands very much about gender or identity by that point.I mean, that’s a plot point! Calliope thinks she’s incapable of feeling red romance because of her species…even as she expresses profound fascination and interest in it. Calliope, like all the characters, is influenced by a status quo of heteronormativity and gender essentialism. What she says about how often any class is any gender reflects 2 things:

1) Her own views on gender and identity, which at this point are still limiting and self-restrictive in a way she explicitly grows out of just like every other character in the comic, given that she starts dating Roxy.

2) The patterns of the four sessions she has access to and draws sources from. Calliope doesn’t analyze all of Sburb–she analyzes Sburb in the context of Homestuck, just like we the audience do, and where the conclusion she draws is incorrect, it’s informed by a bias towards preestablished gender norms.

As for the specifics, there’s tons of ways trans/nonbinary people could interact with Sburb. Dream Selves are idealized selves so I guess trans people who find that powerful and gratifying there could be an element of transition to the transformation. God tier powers are reality warping enough to enable that kind of thing in dozens of ways, too. Not that that’s necessary, obviously. Lots of trans people don’t want to transition and I suspect some people would consider it being presented that way kind of cheap. There’s also tons of ways to enable more honest gender expression through the Alchemy system. For instance, I read Jake as non-binary or genderfluid and I think he expresses that potential fairly well. So there’s that. There’s also people who read, say, Roxy and Dirk as trans–and since Calliope is at the mercy of her sources which are historical documents that track the mythologies of the players as they present them, there’s not really any way she’d know better.I think Sburb is always best interpreted as expansively as possible while still holding to the existential philosophy that informs its game design. So the answer is anyone can be anything they feel called to, wherever they fall on the spectrum. Sburb is interested in having its players self-actualize, and that can happen in as many different ways as there are stories to tell–whether we’re talking about rises to heroism narratives, or coming of age and coming out narratives. (Coming out narratives are intrinsically heroic narratives anyway, in my view.)

[teachanarchy]

Like any "ism," feminism is rich with jargon, which can lead deeply personal conversations to turn unnecessarily dense. And while some terms are entrenched, others are contemporary additions to an evolving lexicon. To help you break through, here are definitions for everything from "feminism" and "misogyny" to "bropropriated" and "feminazi."

The basics

Feminism: Belief in and desire for equality between the sexes. As Merriam-Webster noted last month: "the belief that men and women should have equal rights and opportunities." It encompasses social, political and economic equality. Of course, a lot of people tweak the definition to make it their own. Feminist activist bell hooks calls it "a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression."

Patriarchy: A hierarchical-structured society in which men hold more power.

Sexism: The idea that women are inferior to men.

Misogyny: Hatred of women.

Misandry: Hatred of men.

A little deeper

Hostile sexism: The one most people think about. Openly insulting, objectifying and degrading women.

Benevolent sexism: Less obvious. Kind of seems like a compliment, even though it's rooted in men's feelings of superiority. It's when men say women are worthy of their protection (off the sinking boat first) or that they're more nurturing than men (therefore should raise children). It's restrictive.

Internalized sexism: When the belief in women's inferiority becomes part of one's own worldview and self-concept.

Misogynoir: Misogyny directed toward black women.

LGBTQ: The acronym for “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer.” Some people also use the Q to stand for "questioning," meaning people who are figuring out their sexual or gender identity. You may also see LGBTQIA. I stands for intersex and A for asexual (sometimes also "allies").

Cisgender: A term used to describe a person whose gender identity aligns with the sex assigned to them at birth.

Transgender: A person whose gender identity differs from the cultural expectations of the sex they were assigned at birth.

Gender fluidity: Not identifying with a single, fixed gender.

Women of color: Women who aren't white.

Title IX: Protects people from discrimination based on sex in education programs or activities that receive federal financial assistance.

Victim-blaming: When the victim of a crime or harmful act is held fully or partially responsible for it. If you hear someone questioning what a victim could have done to prevent a crime, that's victim-blaming, and it makes it harder for people to come forward and report abuse. Groups working to eradicate abuse and sexual assault are clear: No woman is guilty for violence committed by a man.

Yes means yes: A paradigm shift in the way we look at rape, moving beyond "no means no" toward the idea that consent must be explicit.

Male gaze: A way of looking at the world through a masculine lens that views women as sexual objects.

Privilege: The idea that some people in society are advantaged over others.

On the Internet

Bropropriating: Stealing an idea from a woman and putting it into the world as your own.

Manterrupting: When a man interrupts a woman, especially excessively. Examples: During the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards when Kanye West grabbed the mic from Taylor Swift, who had just won an award and was trying her best to accept it, to let everyone know "Imma let you finish, but Beyoncé had one of the best videos of all time.” Or, during September's presidential debate when Donald Trump interrupted Hillary Clinton 22 times in the first 26 minutes. Or when Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell interrupted Elizabeth Warren’s recitation of Coretta Scott King’s 1986 letter against Jeff Sessions, but allowed Bernie Sanders to read it the next day.

Mansplain (verb) mansplainy (adjective): When a man explains something to a woman in a condescending way when he either 1) doesn't know anything about it or 2) knows far less than the woman he is talking to. Sorry, if you already knew that.

Manspreading: When men take up excess space by sitting with their legs far apart. This is such an actual thing that in 2014 New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority launched a campaign to get guys to close their legs to make more room on the subway.

Feminazi: A derogatory term for a radical feminist.

Woke: Rooted in black activist culture, it means you're educated and aware, especially about injustice. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Ca., has told young people to "stay woke." If you're thinking about it in the context of women's rights, look at the #SayHerName campaign, which works to raise awareness for black women who are victims of police brutality.

Types of feminism

Intersectional feminism: If feminism is advocating for women's rights and equality between the sexes, intersectional feminism is the understanding of how women's overlapping identities — including race, class, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and disability status — impact the way they experience oppression and discrimination.

Transfeminism: Defined as "a movement by and for trans women who view their liberation to be intrinsically linked to the liberation of all women and beyond." It's a form of feminism that includes all self-identified women, regardless of assigned sex, and challenges cisgender privilege. A central tenet is that individuals have the right to define who they are.

Women of color feminism: A form of feminism that seeks to clarify and combat the unique struggles women of color face. It's a feminism that struggles against intersecting forms of oppression.

Empowerment feminism: Beyoncé's Formation comes on at the club, and you and your friends hit the dance floor hard. Empowerment feminism puts the emphasis on "feeling," though some feminists would argue feeling amazing is not a great gauge of how society is actually supporting your self-expression and flourishing. Sheryl Sandberg's perpetually controversial Lean In, which focuses on how women can make changes to achieve greater success in the workplace, is another example of empowerment feminism.

Commodity feminism: A variety of feminism that co-opts the movement's ideals for profit. Ivanka Trump has been accused of peddling this brand of feminism, using her #WomenWhoWork campaign to sell her eponymous lifestyle brand.

Equity feminism (conservative feminism): Christina Hoff Sommers, a resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, is a champion of what she calls "equity feminism." In her view, "equity feminism" is focused on legal equality between men and women, while "gender feminism" focuses on disempowering women by portraying them as perpetual victims of the patriarchy. In the words of President Trump's advisor Kellyanne Conway: “I look at myself as a product of my choices, not a victim of my circumstances, and that’s really to me what conservative feminism, if you will, is all about.”

Waves of feminism

*Some feminist scholars are moving away from "waves" since it can give the appearance that feminists aren't always actively fighting inequality. But if you see them, here's generally what they're referring to:

First wave feminism: Kicked off with the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention to discuss the "social, civil, and religious condition of woman" and continued into the early twentieth century. It culminated in 1920 with the passage of the 19th amendment — giving women the right to vote.

Second wave feminism: Began in the 1960s and bloomed in the 1970s with a push for greater equality. Think Gloria Steinem, Dorothy Pitman Hughes, Betty Friedan. It was marked by huge gains for women in legal and structural equality.

CLOSE

   Feminist activist Gloria Steinem explains what keeps her up at night in today's political climate.    USA TODAY

Third-wave feminism: Beginning in the 1990s, it looked to make feminism more inclusive, intersectional and to allow women to define what being a feminist means to them personally. Also, Buffy.

[aion-rsa]

Lovecraft Country Episode 4 Review: A History of Violence

https://ift.tt/3baPa4w

This Lovecraft Country review contains spoilers. The episode is available to stream now on all HBO platforms.

Lovecraft Country Episode 4

Christina pulls into the Northside in her silver Bentley, unscathed, backdropped by Rihanna’s “Bitch Better Have My Money”, perfectly capturing her vibe of wealth and privilege and lack of fucks to give. A mood. Neither the destruction of Ardham Lodge or Tic’s ill-advised murder attempt have slowed her down, and she’s up to her usual cryptic nonsense. She’s looking for Hiram’s orrery, apparently the key to his time machine—because why not?— and has upset the local wizard wannabe, Captain Lancaster. Now, she has to contend with Winthrop’s branch of magical miscreants on top of playing whatever game she’s playing with Tic.

In “Whitey’s On The Moon” Christina was very delicately manipulating her father and Tic for her own agenda, under the guise of helping the Sons of Adam reach their goals. With Samuel apparently out of the way, she is now openly engaging in a power play, which is fun to watch even if I do hope the primary focus remains on the Black characters.

Christina’s arrival on Leti’s doorstep kicks off a National Treasure-like adventure for Tic n’em to find Titus Braithwhite’s hidden pages from the Book of Adam before Christina, or any of the 34 remaining lodges do. After some resistance, Montrose agrees to help Tic and Leti on their quest, given his research into Dora’s history, and into the Order of Ancient Dawn. The dynamic between Tic and Montrose, and the undercurrent of violence, makes them fascinating to watch.

Tic, Leti, and Montrose find Titus’ vault entrance in a Boston museum, and follow its north tunnel, across a chasm, past a death trap, beyond a puzzle door, and through miles of increasingly flooded passageways to Leti’s elevator— in the northside of Chicago. Magic, amirite? Some viewers will take issue with how little time is spent on the puzzles and code-breaking, which are the funner aspects of a “treasure hunt.” With Montrose’s knowledge of the bylaws and all their fictional references, they breeze through obstacles like a disappearing plank.

In last week’s episode, Leti’s elevator descends beyond the basement into a tunnel of death, and now we know where the tunnel goes. If there was a question of whether Leti was aware of her white neighbors’ bodies, her reaction seeing one float by should assuage any lingering concern that she knew—but her casual acceptance that they’re back in Chicago could be seen as too convenient. It’s reasonable to assume the other tunnels they didn’t take have equally puzzling endpoints, and the possibilities of what those hold are chilling and exciting.

Tic, Leti, and Montrose find Titus’ vault, and Tic unlocks it, revealing a chamber full of the remains of Indigenous people. When they attempt to remove the Titus’ pages from the hands of a corpse, Yahima (Monique Candelaria), is reanimated. Yahima tells tale of translating for Titus before refusing to continue. We know all too well that “exploration” often means exploitation, and it comes as no surprise that Titus murdered their entire family to coerce Yahima to translate his scroll. It’s even less surprising that he would imprison them, in life and in death. Lovecraft Country is awash in unsubtle homages to colonialist and racist harm.

Back in the relative safety of Leti’s home, Montrose slits Yahima’s throat. Montrose is a tortured man, and is made more so by the weight of the knowledge he’s learned about the Order of Ancient Dawn. As a Black, queer, man, he is already up against hate from racists and homophobes. And now he knows that an already unfair world is even more unfair, that magic gives advantage to those who would seek to harm his own, even without the additional power magic affords them. His son, forever entwined with magic and the legacy of the Sons of Adam, is always in danger because of his forebears. Montrose is heavy with fear, and Michael K. Williams embodies this with a superb performance. Fear drives him to destroy the bylaws and the only person alive capable of reading pages from the Book of Adam.

Read more

TV

How Lovecraft Country Uses Horror to Tell Black Stories

By Nicole Hill

Culture

Link Tank: How the Horrors in Lovecraft Country Are Bigger Than the Supernatural

By Den of Geek Staff

This episode expands the world of Lovecraft Country and gives us a sense of how vast the narrative is. As Leti tells Tic when he insists she and Montrose take the elevator to safety, “it’s not only just getting dangerous, he got kidnapped, I died, can you stop acting like this is only happening to you!” Tic has been seeing himself as the lone protagonist, the singular hero, but he has never been facing this alone, nor is he the only one who has been affected.

Ruby, for instance, is estranged from Leti. And outside of their brief attempt at sisterly bonding and cohabitation, Ruby is completely removed from Ardham and the Sons of Adam. Yet, even Ruby’s limited proximity to Leti makes her of interest to Christina and William. When she goes to apply at a department store for the upteenth time, she finds another Black woman —who applied “on a whim”— has been hired instead. She drowns her sorrows in booze and blues, at Williams’ invitation, and laments her circumstances. When she has sex with William —questionably ignoring his satanic-looking body art/modification— we know that there’s an ulterior motive, but Ruby doesn’t know magic exists, or that there’s reason for her to be pawn.

Tic behaves as though he’s the center of this universe, but we see magic touch everyone. Take Hippolyta. She has never trusted the story she was told about George’s death, and has sensed a wrongness about it. At Leti’s housewarming party, she is drawn to the orrery, which she takes; the very same magical orrery Christina and Lancaster are looking for. When she and Diana are driving home from Boston —without Tic n’em who took the magic tunnel route— she’s drawn to Ardham, and changes course, straight into the shoggoth’s den. We can call it instinct, but Hippolyta seems attuned to magic. Tic may not be the only person with an intrinsic magical connection.

It would be easy for Lovecraft Country to rest on a Chosen One and leave all of the heavy lifting to its male lead, but it’s clear Misha Green has a bigger vision for the show, and seems eager to give each character an opportunity for heroism. 

What makes this episode so compelling is how it introduces magic to the characters who have so far been on the periphery. Ruby and Hippolyta are both beginning to glimpse the real world, the magical world, and the story can only be elevated by their full immersement into magic and the complex structures of powers that surround it. Lovecraft Country continues to broaden its scope, while maintaining its sense of intimacy. The satisfying way it marries character-driven drama and sci-fi spectacle continues to enthrall.

Additional thoughts:

On Montrose: As of this episode, Montrose is queer-coded but not explicitly queer. In episode one, George tells Tic that Montrose got the worst of their fathers beatings. In episode two, George remembers Montrose greeting the league baseball players when they’d leave for the season, and Montrose recounts the beatings he got for that. Both implying that part of the abuse was their father’s response to Montrose’s perceived softness. In this episode, Tree suggests to Tic that Montrose is “getting close” with Sammy, who we met in episode one being intimate with another man.

Tree should be fought upon for being messy, in regards to both Montrose and Leti.

On Yahima: Yahima is Two-Spirit, which is an Indegenous-American umbrella term for a unique gender identity that can encompass intersex and transgender identities, but doesn’t always. Visually, Yahima reads as a trans or gender non-conforming person, and as such, the camera’s gaze repeats familiar, harmful patterns in media that sensationalize and otherize trans/intersex bodies. Yahima is also violently killed, which is another, unfortunately common trope.

There is something to be said about normalizing non-standard expressions of gender, and including characters who just happen to be intersex could be powerful. But that inclusion cannot come at the expense of those being reflected. Lovecraft Country makes a point of naming injustices, but the storytelling in this episode doesn’t justify Yahima’s inclusion, and the potential harm to trans/intersex viewers may be an injustice in itself. As always, intent < impact.

On Tic & Leti: I both like the idea of their relationship and am exhausted by it. It’s hard to determine whether they are bonded by shared attraction or shared trauma, and even if it’s both, it feels a lot more of the latter. Keeping them platonic feels like the more subversive choice but there is power in opening yourself to another person.

Ruby, girl, I get the appeal, but what is you doing? 

Hippolyta. Sis. Please.

The post Lovecraft Country Episode 4 Review: A History of Violence appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3bz7hBk

[thesydneyfeminists]

Celebrating Black History Month and Akwaeke Emezi

By:  Brittany L. for The Sydney Feminists

Image source: http://www.equaliteach.co.uk/getting-black-history-month-right/

February is Black History Month in North America. Before I delve any deeper into what that means for me, I thought it would be helpful to give a bit of background on the history of Black History Month. In the US, Black History Month began in 1926 as “Negro History Week,” the brain child of Carter G. Woodson. Woodson chose to celebrate Negro History Week during the second week of February, the birth week of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. Negro History Week was popular across the US for years, but it was not until the height of the Civil Rights Movement it transformed into Black History Month.  In 1976, President Ford declared Black History Month a national observance and it has been celebrated in schools across the country ever since (http://time.com/4197928/history-black-history-month/). Technically, each Black History Month has a theme. According to the History Channel, 2018’s theme is “African Americans in Times of War,” which “honors the roles that black Americans have played in warfare, from the American Revolution to the present day” (http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/black-history-month). That being said, the History Channel doesn’t mention Marsha P. Johnson in their write up of the Stonewall Riots once. So, maybe take their word with a grain of salt.

As someone who was born and raised in the Northeastern United States, I have a lot of memories associated with Black History Month. Mostly, they blend together in my mind, because they all followed along the same line. In first grade my class read a picture book about Martin Luther King Jr. Afterwards, we talked about what it means to have a dream. Then we colored in cardboard cutout clouds and filled them with our own dreams. This artistic trend continued throughout most of elementary school, with vague topics like justice and equality thrown in once we hit fourth or fifth grade. I don’t think we talked about slavery or racism in the US at all, even when we briefly covered the American Civil War. By seventh or eighth grade, we finally started learning about the Civil Rights Movement and why it was necessary. I use the word “learn” lightly here. It wasn’t until much, much later I truly came to know about the people and events of that iconic era. From the ages of six to eighteen, I was taught the same handful of stories during Black History Month. There was Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass. Occasionally someone would mention Malcolm X and W.E.B DuBois, but only softly and obliquely, like curse words. Those handful of individuals were the only parts of black history I was ever introduced to as a child in the public school system.

After graduating high school, I shipped off to Virginia for university. Things were different in the heart of the once Confederacy. I hesitate to say they were worse, because people paint the south negatively in the media, and truly the north is home to just as many bigots. But around the same time as my geographical move from north to south, my world views shifted drastically as well. The feminism I started to concretely develop was intrinsically linked to my understandings of race and queerness in the south. During my time at university, I audited a course called “Queering Colonialism.” It dealt intimately with the many and sometimes conflicting intersections of feminism, queer theory and race studies in the context of the continued colonialism and imperialism of the US, Canada, Australia and the UK. By that time, I had already figured out most of the stories I heard growing up were slanted or skewed to some degree. But that course forced me to reanalyze everything I knew to be true. One of the many life lessons I continue to take away is how much the histories of the US and other colonized countries are whitewashed. What we do learn about non-white history must not uproot the stakes of white supremacy. I cannot speak for everyone in the United States, and certainly not for anyone in Canada, the UK or the Netherlands. However, I imagine my experience of Black History Month, as a white person taught largely by white people, is sadly not untypical.

Image source: https://www.nysenate.gov/newsroom/articles/february-2018-black-history-month-state-new-york

Black History Month is essential to the curriculum of public and private schools. It carries the legacy of black excellence and is a potent reminder of the power and influence of black communities. But our experiences of black history cannot start and end in the month of February. Black history must be an integral part of the feminist movement; so much of feminist history is black history. We need to acknowledge this history, as a community and in our individual lives. One way I have tried to incorporate black history into my feminism is through the written and spoken word. Prior to university, my experience with black writers was reserved to Langston Hughes and Chinua Achebe. Both are well worth reading. Equally so: Audre Lorde, bell hooks, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Zora Neale Hurston, Jesmyn Ward, Alice Walker, Roxanne Gay, etc, etc, etc. Black women and nonbinary people have been dominating the literature scene for decades in the US. Not to mention the sundry of African authors and non-American black authors. Plus trans, nonbinary and queer black writers. The lists go on and on. Unfortunately, I can’t cover all the amazing black women and nonbinary authors in this short piece, or even in a hundred short pieces. I hope after you’re finished here, you go out and do your own research. If literature isn’t your thing, find a black woman or nonbinary actor, singer, painter. Don’t stop with the arts. Learn about black women and nonbinary scientists, inventors, revolutionaries. Make black history a part of your feminism in tangible and expansive ways. Listen to black women and nonbinary people, every day. Learn their stories.

This week, I want to highlight one particular black author, Akwaeke Emezi, a nonbinary, transgender, Igbo and Tamil writer and visual artist. Her debut novel Freshwater dropped earlier this month and has been making huge waves in the literary scene. Her YA novel PET is due for release sometime in 2019. Emezi has published several short stories, various interviews and a handful of nonfiction articles. If that’s not enough, she’s been featured in Vogue and has produced a gorgeous video art series titled THE UNBLINDING. Emezi was raised in Nigeria and holds several degrees, including an MPA from New York University. Visit her website (http://www.akwaeke.com/home) to get a taste of her breathtaking work. My first experience of Emezi’s writing was her piece on gender transition and being ogbanje (https://www.thecut.com/2018/01/writer-and-artist-akwaeke-emezi-gender-transition-and-ogbanje.html). It continues to be my favorite. In it, she voices the pressing question, “Our language around gender identity is often so Western, how can we intersect that with non-Western realities?” Western feminists would do well to probe not just the language we use for gender identities, but sexualities, ethnicities, religion and more. In the light of Black History Month, we should ask ourselves how feminism can be coded as both White/Western, and, more importantly, what we can do to change that.

Although much of Emezi’s writing is applicable to today’s political climate, she beautifully melds the political with the personal. Her intimate accounts of her unique lived realities draw readers towards things they never knew they didn’t know.  Before reading Emezi’s article, I was ignorant of the ogbanje. Still, I felt connected to her voice and her story, despite my isolation from the specific topic. One quote struck me deeply: “It has been grueling to remake myself each time I learn more about who or what I am — to take the steps that such remaking requires, to bear the costs. Sometimes, those costs are worn on your heart, like when the people you love no longer have space in their worldview for you. Other times, it’s the body that bears them, in markings and modifications.” As a feminist and as a human being, I feel passionately about the art of remaking yourself. My experiences of remaking are different than Emezi’s and all of yours. For each of us, it is difficult work. But it is always work done towards the end goal of becoming your most authentic self. Akwaeke Emezi’s writing and artwork is a vestige of her own personal journey and a potent reminder of the necessary work we all must continue to do to be better.

Image source: http://www.akwaeke.com/

Sources:

http://www.akwaeke.com/home

http://therumpus.net/2018/02/the-rumpus-interview-with-akwaeke-emezi/

http://thestylehq.com/need-to-know-akwaeke-emezi/

https://www.thecut.com/2018/01/writer-and-artist-akwaeke-emezi-gender-transition-and-ogbanje.html

https://granta.com/who-is-like-god/

https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/neq4mq/akwaeke-emezi-freshwater-book-interview?utm_source=broadlytwitterus

Good Reads Interview with Akwaeke Emezi

http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/black-history-month

http://www.history.com/topics/the-stonewall-riots

[vitalmindandbody]

With ‘Orange Is the New Black’ season 4, drama becomes formulaic

Orange Is the New Black has become a slowly molding piece of bread. Its unpleasant to chew and swallow. Andwhats the point?

Once upon a time, we were hooked on the super binge-worthy Netflix show, based on the memoir by Piper Kerman about her year in a womens prison. Season 4 lands in our queue today, and who knew a show about an upstate New York women’s prison would hook Americans?

The prison dramedy setup created a fun formula. Everything has to take place either in the prison, is part of an attempt to get out of prison, or exists in a flashback of the past. Any possible stories about the future can be only fantasieshere the women are cut off from the outside real world.

Its been a perfect structure for creating conflicts, because the most interesting things happen between diverse women who would not normally mix. Hence, viewers are thrust into a world full of candid though at times surface-level dialogues about race and class, as well as unforeseen friendships, surprise romances, and prison-specific hierarchical conflicts.

That used to be enough.

In season 4, Piper (Taylor Schilling) is meaner and more of a badass at the prison because of her prison fame, panty-laundering business, and the fact that shes been burned by friends and lovers alike. She becomes a lone wolf. Alex (Lauren Prepon), whom we last saw in a harrowing cliffhanger, gets into other types of trouble. The guards and new warden Joe Caputo (Nick Sandow) deal with ramifications of the new corporate prison system. And there are of course some key lines about systemic racism from quite a few of the characters. Theres more narrative backstory for other peripheral characters, but there are so many people that its hard to keep track of everyone, let alone care. In terms of narrative structure, it feels like a lot of the dramatic conflicts have already been resolved. So, what else is there to do at Litchfield?

A celebrity named Judy King (Blair Brown), a curious combo of Martha Stewart and Paula Deen, rolls into Litchfield. We get more backstories, and there are new romances in the prison. A Bill Cosby one-liner even finds its way into the pop culture-obsessed dialogue. But whats keeping us hooked that hasnt already been resolved? If Orange Is the New Black is to continue its must-stream vitality, it needs to make us care again. Weve become the Litchfield prisoners, complacent with the system, robotically binging until its overor hoping for some drama that will also shift the shows trajectory.

In season 3, the romance died down between Piper and Alex. Piper became very involved in her prison-specific business. Thats when audiences began to drown in origin stories, because the writers room couldnt count as much on that high-stakes romance. At the end of season 3, we saw a dramatic finale with an attempt at breaking out but not reallythe women escape through a hole in the fence, and merely go for a swim.

Season 2 ended in a similar way, with Miss Rosa (Barbara Rosenblat), a cancer sufferer, driving away in a stolen prison van, hitting and killing the manipulative Yvonne Vee Parker (Lorraine Toussaint) on the way. We are somehow satisfied by these end-of-season breakouts; wanting the prisoners to have some sort of future in the real world. But we also accept that if they do they will no longer be a part of the show. This is where the possibilities inherent in this type of prison narrative start to feel more limiting. People get out or stay in; there is no in-between.

This limited structure can be linked to the prison film genre, as described by David Wilson and Sean OSullivan in their book Images of Incarceration: Representations of Prison in Film and Television Drama. They note that movies about prison encourage us to identify with the prisoners and in our hearts we want them to win. But with our head, when they lose, we perhaps accept that this is the way it must be.

And so it is with OITNB. Except that in this show, we end up identifying with practically every character prisoner or guard and also accept that winning doesnt necessarily mean getting out of prison or beating the system. Winning could be overcoming a drug addiction, which happened with Nicky Nichols (Natasha Lyonne). It could be getting proper mental healthcare, which is what we hope for Suzanne Crazy Eyes Warren. Either way, winning takes place within the context of the prison.

More contrived is the queer romantic intrigue in this show, which seems to be aligned within strict film tropes like Catholic girls boarding schools. Think 1931’sGirls in Uniform (1931). In it, a young woman named Manuela is sent to a strict all-girls boarding school, and falls in love with her teacher. We see the dynamics and consequences of queer love in an all-women environment, and the ways it is reprimanded, punished, and seen as immoral. These types of dynamics transfer even to the present-day OITNB. The lesbian sex may be more porn-like and less punishable for being queer in and of itself, but its still punishable because, behind bars, prisoners shouldnt be touching.

Look, the show has done a lot for rising stars. Uzo Aduba (Suzanne Crazy Eyes Warren) won an Emmy for her performance. Actors like Samira Wiley (Poussey), Danielle Brooks (Taystee), and Adrienne C. Moore (Black Cindy) bring vital person-of-color narratives into the mainstream. There is a believable and beautiful trans narrative in Laverne Cox, the very smart and complex character of Galina “Red” Reznikov (Kate Mulgrew), and serious butch bad-assery with Boo (Lea DeLaria). But despite all of the great things that have come out of OITNB, the plots have gotten weirdly repetitive, character reveals less engaging, and romantic intrigue getsblas. Season 4 fails because it is less about the shows intrinsically interesting characters and their situations, and viewers are left with the glaring limitations of setting the series in prison.

Screengrab via Netflix US & Canada/YouTube

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