#hyperscrutiny

[roguetelepaths]

the thing is that yes, post-hunger games young adult dystopia books like divergent are soulless copycat cash grabs that don't hold a candle to the thing they're imitating, but also I highly suspect that part of why they were so popular during their heyday is that they're just what being in high school is like

[taliabhattwrites]

Transmisogyny is not about being a 'masculine woman'.

Hint #1: A lot of trans women, such as myself, are not particularly masculine. Some of us are, and I know several trans butches, but the majority of us perform femininity, often because we are punished and gatekept from care if we are not perceived as performing our "chosen" gender adequately.

Rather, transmisogyny is about--as May Peterson so excellently put it--rejecting the imperative to inhabit, embody, and perform manhood.

Read that again--transmisogyny is the specific corrective, policing mechanism directed at those of us who refuse to be coerced into the patriarchal notion of the "male sex", a refusal that is punished by specific manifestations of degendering, monstering, sexualization, hyperscrutiny, fetishization, and violence. We are treated as a combination of failed, neutered man and barren woman, marginalized on the basis of choosing to shape our sex and don the banner of womanhood while being unable to further patrilineality in a society absolutely fixated on and organized around the heterosexual, reproductive mandate.

The mechanisms underlying transmisogyny crop up in many places because the root of societal transmisogyny is societal misogyny and the over-arching structuring of our entire civilization into a regime of heterosexuality. That is not the same thing as everyone being subject to transmisogyny.

Because, to be blunt, at the end of the day, when the chips are down, we all know who's treated like a troon and who isn't. Those of us who cannot be absolved of the original sin of being branded with the male sex keenly understand it to be the source of our disposability.

[auramgold]

i asked my girlfriend abt the magnus archives reference to confirm

and it drives me FUCKING INSANE how callout poster #1, without a HINT of fucking irony, named themself fucking CEASELESS WATCHER, which is apparently the god or something of THE FEAR OF BEING SCRUTINIZED

this person NAMED THEMSELF CHEEKILY AFTER THE FEAR OF THE FUCKING PANOPTICON and said they weren't a transmisogynist

they made a 150 page google doc about a trans woman because she posted about a homestuck poll under the pseudonym of the fear of being stared at and scrutinized and judged from all angles and claimed they weren't a transmisogynist

"no siree bob, i'm not a transmisogynist, i'm just larping the FUCKING PANOPTICON to stare at a trans woman for posting about homestuck because i think she's evil, here let me highlight usernames for 150 poorly-formatted pages to prove it"

it is BEYOND FUCKING PARODY. the person harassing a trans woman. hyperscrutinizing everything she does and every third or fourth or fifth degree social connection she has. documenting in detail everything she did. basically named themself "eternal panopticon". says they aren't a transmisogynist for LITERALLY NAMING THEMSELF AFTER THE HYPERSCRUTINY THEY'RE FUCKING DOING

are they aware of what they're doing? is it a dogwhistle? i physically cannot tell if hanlon's razor applies here. do they actually believe they're doing good under THE NAME OF THE PANOPTICON or are they signaling to the other transmisogynists how they want to be let in the cool boys club?

it doesn't matter in the end. whether they're a hapless rube or an intentionally malicious actor, they're still wielding the weapons of social murder. it doesn't matter if they think they're doing actual justice, no matter what they say, they're still trying to kill her in the end.

and people act like the term "transmisogyny affected" isn't useful.

[taliabhattwrites]

This is not an exaggeration in the slightest, by the way. Sister Janice Raymond and her Transmisogyny Bible are the product of a deeply Catholic ontology of bodily purity, treating "medicalized intervention" as something akin to blasphemy against the "wholeness of spirit".

Crucially, in order to promulgate this argument couched in pure vibes and quackery that TERFs somehow passed off as feminist scholarship for decades, Sister Raymond, one of the most transmisogynistic individuals to ever have lived, acknowledged that trans women change our sex. She also said that we do so because we failed male socialization.

Now, this doesn't mean that she considers us free of the taint of maleness or doesn't happily contradict herself when she feels it's more expedience to libel us as one gender rather than the other--Raymond is, after all, a rabid transmisogynist--but it bears noting that if you actually read the Transmisogyny Bible, the book that contains basically every modern Gender-Conservative objection to trans healthcare and trans people, you will read, in its very first pages, an acknowledgement that trans women bodily change their sex.

That popular discourses about trans women have drifted so far to the right that many people who consider themselves progressive and allies to trans causes go around saying things like "Nobody is saying you can change sex" (an anxiety about sex's immutability I covered in more detail here) and also treating 'male socialization' like an inescapable taint that all trans women are marked by, that we have to actively unlearn as though we were indistinguishable from cis men and led highly privileged cis lives prior to the moment of transition, indicates not merely that Sister Raymond in some sense achieved a total victory, but that the consensus on trans women in the mainstream has become thoroughly devoted to denying us womanhood in any material sense.

That is to say, denial of recognition--one of the very foundations of transmisogyny--has become an inextricable part of trans politics, especially towards trans women.

I didn't spend 25 years fucking around with terfery to deconstruct and critique it just to have people come along to say "but they saaaaay they hate men so that's why they hate trans women" with approximately negative analysis to back it up.

You can't just look at their words, you have to look at their actions. Really you have to look at everything they say, not just the parts that support what you want to believe. Hell, Janice Raymond herself outright acknowledged that trans women are female and aren't male socialized. Just ask @taliabhattwrites. Or rather check her twitter for her live read of The Transsexual Empire.

Also, terfs are not the primary source of transmisogyny.

Stop trying to put men at the center of women's oppression.

[uncanny-tranny]

I wonder if the discontentment some people have with their gender stems from the contradictions in expectation for their gender.

I mentioned this in passing, but as a man, I've found there's this simultaneous expectation to be hyperindependent and hyperindividualistic while also being concerned about if the people around you accept your masculinity or manhood. It's an interesting paradox to both be expected not to care but also to care so deeply that it alters how you see yourself. It's the contradiction of hyperveneration and hyperscrutiny and, even, hatred of manhood.

This isn't even touching on the intricacies of nonbinary and intersex experiences with the way people enforce these (cissexist) contradictions of what you "should" be.

[almoststardust]

Wonyoung adds a sixth songwriting credit to her name with a song called “Blue Heart.” It was inspired by her “work in this industry,” she says, seemingly alluding to the hyperscrutiny idols, specifically female idols, experience from the media and netizens. “People in the world [are] very aggressive to us,” she says. “So some girls choose an icy blue heart more than a warm red heart so you can be strong.”

[qqchurch]

who the fuck is cooking up bullshit incest discourse on I'm In Love With The Villainess when the incest in question is apparently between two antagonists that get exposed and exiled out of the country and the story, and is never mentioned again????

the anime isn't even out yet and it's already like this, omg, 🤦‍♀️

i haven't even read this series but now i have to look it up to actually see what's wrong because it's always fucking yuri that gets this hyperscrutiny aaaAAAAAAAA—

[uselessheretic]

Obviously they'll keep going with "anything Ed does in his Babygirl Kraken Era is actually Izzy's fault", that interpretation may buckle at some point and then it's jumping to "This Is Bad/Racist Writing" lol at no point does Ed retain agency or responsibility for what he does

yeah that's what i'm worried about 😭 i wanna be careful to not make fun of the idea of people being critical of writing or the potential for racist writing since it is a very common trope of portraying moc as hyper violent. so i can understand the concern from people, but also i am just placing my faith in the creative team for right now because so far i've found the way they navigate race and identity to be really solid. here's hoping that continues! but i do understand why many poc would feel incredibly wary of something like that occurring for stereotypical racist writing. that and ik that poc are often dismissed in literally every fandom when bringing up very valid concerns about the source material, so i personally want to be careful to make sure i'm not mocking that idea, ya feel me?

but like the writing team is p solid and diverse and david jenkins is very open to feedback from the actors/crew so i think it'll be fine. like ik vico said that if they wanted something to be different they just talked to him and he was like "yah bet that's cool go for it!" so i just feel like taika is smart enough to be conscious of his character's racialization and that he is nowhere close to shy and will just say something if there's a problem.

but like dndndn i do worry about how i don't think fandom is always the best at critical engagement and can take shallow standpoints often divorced from historical context to justify certain viewpoints. they're also not very patient and have a hard time differentiating between flawed characters vs bigoted writing. i think there's a good chance that a part of fandom might get so absorbed into an ideal of edward who has his more glaring flaws sanded down, that when that comes into direct conflict after 1+ years of no new content, they might immediately jump to a conclusion built on incomplete information that the writers are wrong and bigoted.

fandom ain't really the best at nuance and i think it gets people confused when protagonists of color do bad things. altho again, i do feel like there has to be some empathy here because i know this is learned behavior after years of poc in fandom feeling as if they need to defend the characters of color from hyperscrutiny. like you have people in star wars saying finn is disregarding rey's consent by grabbing her hand, or people in the hannibal fandom who talk about how jack is an abuser and evil and vilify him completely because that makes it easier to uplift hannibal/will instead of recognizing jack as a nuanced chara as well. (also will is into hannibal's atrocities so idt we need to spend time vilifying jack as if there's a threat here 😭)

but it just sucks because it's taking on a defensive position that then sucks away agency from ed himself and erases key aspects of his character. there's so many poc in the show and that's great bc we can have a huge range of personalities. because there's so many poc, ed is able to be more morally gray and violent and full on babygirl because he's not being forced to represent the entirety of communities of color as the singular brown rep!

[aeide-thea]

i’ve been spottier lately than i’ve ever been in my life, and like, i’ve been trying to treat my skin very gently while it’s having this crisis which does finally today seem to maybe be starting to work, knock on wood, but like—

it’s been interesting to go through this, and to compare my fairly equanimous experience of it with how frustrated and self-hating eg Baby Sister gets about her acne—and like, she’s never had it as bad as some people but she’s certainly had it worse & for much longer than i have, so i don’t mean to pat myself on the back abt being comparatively more evolved or whatever; more like, i can really see how all the work i’ve put in wrt decentering decorativeness (or, like, not even so much ‘decorativeness’ as ‘desperately wantingneeding my own appearance to gratify me and experiencing a sudden whole-body flush of shamemisery when it inevitably doesn’t, for a bunch of reasons including—but very much not limited to—genderstuff’) has paid dividends in helping me let this happen without real angst? instead it’s just been like, huh, ok, skin is cranky & doing an unaccustomed thing, sounds like that’s my cue to be patient & gentle with it and avoid… the same self-critical physical hyperscrutiny i’m already avoiding? cool, glad i built up those muscles already: thx past self!

[girldraki]

Ok to be fair in regards to Socialization Discourse i assume the fact that we became a weird hermit at age twelve probably is at least part of why we didn’t get all that hyperscrutiny or whatever that according to twitter all queer and neurodivergent people experience as children but still

[jageunyeoujari]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_G9mnMtWfGY

rly liked this analysis of criminal. the reciprocal gaze of celebrities & the general public & the enthrallment both sides have of the feedback loop of spectacle & fame but how this is inherently harmful & dehumanizing to both sides... taemin is both the victim & perpetrator of this dynamic & the duality of his work being a labor of love but a corrosive love that constricts in an industry based on hyperscrutiny & strict image maintenance... but art still having meaning in & of itself to him & while act 1 is a sort of hell/purgatory, the necessity of creating a new identity will lead to act 2... taemin concerns himself a lot w the Gaze & duality & self-indictment/self-obsession in his work but criminal took it to a new level.

[tube-sun-truther]

Y e a h. From Debbie Hayton to Blair white to Brianna Wu, being one of the good ones works until it doesnt - it works because you become a shield for transmysogynists to hide behind, "im not mysogynistic I have a tranny friend." Until it doesnt. until you yourself have your own rough scrapes with Transmysogyny, until you need to process your own trauma, until you become a person. And then suddenly all the sterotypes of trans girls as a threat are levelled against you with vitriol. And if you pay attention - the spectre of that mysogyny raises its head in every one of these discussions. TME folks, cis and trans alike, level accusations of "you make me feel unsafe, you're unsafe tobe around, you're a threat" The portrayal as trans women as a threat, especially to cis women as predators and trans men as groomers into transness, is a spectre that is none too subtly invoked in these discussions - we are portrayed as offputting in the same language and terms that creeps and stalkers at a bar are. the language of discomfort replaces any meaningful or material analysis of oppression, and the hyperscrutiny we're subject to allows us to be exorcised from any social group in which our existence becomes politically uncomfortable.

And i dont know how to convince people that no one is safe from it. it can happen to every one of us. its happened to me twice - one disagreement with a gay man sent me from beloved pillar of local community to persona non grata, because everyone was willing to believe the rumours about the sexual perversions of the tranny, and another disagreement with a trans guy had me instantly branded a groomer trying to trans kids.

Selling out our sisters gets us nowhere, because the forces of transmysogyny make all of us vulnerable. Anyone in the world can accuse me of anything, and they will be believed, because of course the tranny is a deviant. I can be sexually assaulted and no one will listen, because of course the tranny lies. Selling each other out gets us nowhere, policing each other's emotional despair for the approval of a fickle audience will not protect us, and I dont know how to convince people that it will happen to them too.

it is so depressingly bleak that, as a trans woman, the single easiest way to generate and maintain social capital is to dismiss the rest of your sisters as privileged, hysterical infiltrators who need to stop rocking the boat

[queernuck]

i shouldnt get involved with drama but like...this is just above and beyond like you are seriously looking at someone who I think is incredible, who has gone through a whole lot, who has been DIRECTLY victimized by Amerikkka (as a result of the OG 9/11, not the Good One) and yet you think you get to talk shit about her because...of normal-ass blogging. not even anything she did, just a callout of someone associated with her, sketchy behavior of someone in the same sphere that is connected to various others and also overblown in that criticism and just...yall just really hate trans women! thats it!!! when we have leninist v primmie debates, you look at the trans women and target them in the most reductive and violent of ways. when we discuss Foucault, who’s problematic for reading that? trans women! the hyperscrutiny of trans women creates an environment where the exact same action or even more blatant ones can just be passed over. it is just the absolute worst, it creates that kind of like, plausible deniability when awful trans women ARE outed and there ARE awful transmisogynist understandings of their actions rather than ones that look at how women abuse trans women, how gender non-conformity and race and gendered experience of the body (and the gendering of race and racialization of gender!!) are all combined into this fucking awful reactionary politics FUCK

[maxellminidisc]

I love Sandra Cisneros but like lol she's going on a rant on this show about how there's not enough Latine representation and OF COURSE she's like "its only ever a black and white issue", "im tired of seeing 1 or 2 token [Latines]" and, "the community is the only one doing the work". She only brings up the black community and their representation.

UMM HELLO, DOÑA CISNEROS, THATS HOW YOU ACHIEVE REP LOL You don't just say "hey give me rep" to other minority communities and get it. The black community has invested decades, nay centuries, fighting for representation on their own, and the hypervisibility they're exposed to as a result isnt a gift or blessing for them either. Being constantly exposed to violence, hyperscrutiny, generalization, vilification, etc. is NOT a privilege.

The perceived notion that black artists and achievers are getting MORE attention than other minorities isn't real, its a childish lazy notion; its literally centuries of struggle, hard work, and determination to elevate the community through community.

Like that argument is a such a pervasive problem in the nonblack Latine community. We constantly expect for other communities, especially the black community, to uphold our struggles for us. We consistently are guilty of the "what about us?!" bullshit when black people achieve any kind of success or milestone (Gina Rodriguez I'm looking at your ass). And the most irritating bit is that we expect this support when we do absolutely jack shit as a community to confront issues of antiblackness and colorism. Lets be honest with ourselves here!

[sunbeambisexual]

ik ur mutual with navya, do u know what happened? she changed her blog to inactive

this site and the rampant hatred and hyperscrutiny it puts bi woc under has taken a huge toll on her mental health and she’s come to realise her habituation to it has become a means of self harm for her so she’s leaving 

[saccharinescorpion]

listen i understand that it sucks when “girly things” are the target of unfair mockery and hyperscrutiny but like, can’t we do this with like… i don’t know, The Babysitter’s Club. As Told By Ginger. literally anything without “that toddler is going to have the BEST big brother in the WHOLE wide world (until the instant she turns 18)”

on a related note someone on Twitter was like “wow remember how fucked up the Twilight Series was about Leah Clearwater??” and it made me remember how over the last couple years there’s been like, a sort of a movement to reposition Twilight as this wonderful thing that was so empowering for women, and it’s like… what about the actual, real life female members of the Quileute? were they “empowered” when Meyer used their heritage as romance novel worldbuilding without any compensation? if we’re talking about women, why don’t they count as women?