#i also think it should be acknowledged that the white queer 'experience' and the black queer 'experience' are totally different

[griem]

ijbol idk man releasing screenshots of very polarizing things said in a private discord server between friends in a public "callout" post is #the most #tumblrific thing ive ever seen LOL.

#opinion 😱 in tags

[incorrect-jojolands-quotes]

Hot take but I think what we saw in chapter 13 was necessary.

I don't think a lot of people realize how important it is for Araki to portray what he did, even if it extremely difficult to take in. Let me explain.

Araki has discussed about topics like racial and class disparity through both Steel Ball Run and Jojolion, but JOJOLands is different because the discussions are now very direct. We had Chapter 1 open up with police brutality and Chapter 13 open with intense bullying; both acts were committed by people of higher social standing/power and seemingly White (or white passing) and both are harming a dark-skinned queer individual. Not only that, remember that Hawai'i is an island stolen and colonized by the US and many indigenous individuals who were supposed to live and maintain kapu are being forced to endure housing problems, loss of culture, etc. due to gentrification and exploitation of its lands. 2020 was when we saw global protest towards the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor due to police brutality, which has spread as far as Japan in terms of demonstrations and rallies. Araki has made it clear that he tries to take real world experience into his writing, and this is no different. He is also no stranger to portraying law enforcement throughout his parts without glorifying or downplaying their behavior.

As a mutual of mine (who themselves identify as a black GNC individual based in US) has put it, those who identify or even appear as Black while identifying as trans-femme or women are subjected to some of the worse kinds of oppression possible in America. Queer women of Color are one of the most susceptible to sexual violence-- especially when they are young, and the darkness of their skin really plays into it. This is transmisogynoir; it is a hard pill to swallow and acknowledge, even if it feels excessive, and its a multilayer of oppression that connects a person's racial identity, gender, and sexuality as targets of discrimination. It's the fact that one is POC, a woman, AND queer that makes one a target--- not just one or the other. You can’t turn a blind eye to this because it happen constantly throughout America's history and American society even today, but you can't simply water it down or downplay it. In fact, many victims of transmisogynoir have no choice but to downplay their experiences because of their Black identities or because they appear too dark to be taken seriously; when they, especially if they are Black, try to hold people in power accountable, these individuals are suddenly labeled aggressive, indignant, etc. and they are further discriminated for attempting to speak up. Dragona downplaying the bullying isn't them just trying to avoid further conflict but a reflection of how many who were in similar situations like Dragona are forced to simply forgive and forget the trauma they have to endure. To downplay it ourselves is reinforcing the narrative that individuals like Dragona in real life should remain silent and endure their harassment rather than rightfully protect themselves and others from it.

Another thing to add is that the way Japan portrays and treats the LGBTQ community, particularly the trans community. In Japan, the process to legally change your gender is complicated and requires a lot of steps that include, but not limited to, being diagnosed with gender identity disorder, proving you have no kids/guardianships, and sterilization. This causes a lot of individuals to be forced to quickly transition as a means of getting their gender recognized, which takes away the time to let them explore at their own pace, and this is due to how the process can lead to hindering career and life opportunities that wouldn't be hindered had they already transitioned or stayed closeted. Many Japanese trans individuals unable to go through the process quickly either remain closeted or move away from Japan to transition at their own pace. So, as a result, the trans community and its struggles is not as noticed compared to outside of Japan. Another thing to add is that the trans community in Japanese media is often portrayed as comedic relief or a gag. Oftentimes, the trans character or character who diverts from gender conformity (i.e cross-dressing, acting more flamboyant) is the butt of the jokes. Some thing to note is that, when Dragona was first introduced, a lot of people thought that Araki put Dragona in simply for comedic purposes. I had people joke about how Dragona is just there because they believed Araki is trolling. Not only that, the racial issues that Japan has often results in jokes towards non-Japanese individuals in media, especially if they are of darker skin color.

So, Araki putting Dragona in these difficult situations is also meant to subvert expectations that his Japanese, and possibly Western, audience may be expecting. The expectation was to laugh and toss Dragona aside as a single-dimensional character, but Araki instead forced us to face the trauma through Dragona's experience head-on. We are made aware of Dragona's situation, how real and difficult the struggle is, and we end up emphasizing with it rather than laughing at it. Through this, we get a glimpse into real life experiences of trans POCs without it being downplayed and have it show how Dragona is a fleshed-out character with importance to the series. As some have put it, this chapter proved that Dragona isn't just a side character but arguably a complex individual on the same level of importance as Jodio. I don't think it would have been easy to have the same impact if another approach was taken.

While talking to others who identify as trans and/or GNC about their thoughts on the chapter, I was told by many of them that, while Dragona's experience hits close to home and was hard to digest, they appreciate seeing it being expressed and hope it will help other people understand their struggles. One noted how the introduction of Smooth Operators with the backstory as empowering, seeing the Stand as a symbol of surviving the trauma that comes with trans discrimination. I do find this a bit telling with how many people online who are against Araki's portrayal barely mention what trans/GNC people have said about it.

My main concern, as well as what I see people have rightfully critiqued, is the excessive trauma reinforcing the fetishization and violent voyeurism towards trans individuals; it also reinforces the problematic narrative that dysmorphia can only happen as a result of trauma and the trans experience can only be full of pain. There's also the issue that Dragona's experience also happened while they were under age and their harassment is similar to that of Lucy. It's a common trope in Western media to put marginalized people into these situations while upping the ante simply for clicks and pleasure, and even worse when the character portrayed is a minor. As I reiterate, it is a very uncomfortable chapter to read and I don't find it enjoyable at the slightest. Just because I understand why it is necessary doesn't mean I condone the approach done. I also understand Araki as a Japanese man can only relate and portray a queer American's experience to an extent. But, at the same time, the exposure was necessary because it gives us the awareness and a voice to trans people that is lacking within media even today. We need to be aware and acknowledge what our BIPOC trans community goes through as a means of being better humans--- and especially our younger community members. We need to make our society safer for them so they can thrive and have the respect they deserve. Oftentimes, that starts with how they are portrayed and how their experiences are portrayed. While it is still a journey and not every representation will be perfect, we can't simply toss it aside and bash those who try to show something realistic just because it is uncomfortable.

I only hope that Araki wrote Dragona and these scenes as a result of doing extensive research and reaching out to actual POC queer individuals, particularly transfemmes/women, to understand their experiences and have their blessings to use their words to shape Dragona. I feel like that would show that Araki was serious about discussing these issues through his characters rather than simply using Dragona's traumatic experience it for entertainment. I have higher expectations for Araki now, knowing that it may not be the last time he shows a character experience harassment and possibly have Dragona be harassed again, so I will keep my eyes open for this.

[highfantasy-soul]

So I need to get something off my chest about 'writing' and what a show is trying to do vs if the writing is the best to show that.

I haven't seen this complaint so much on Tumblr, but it has been brought up several times in a Discord server I'm in and I don't think there is the best place to address it (it might be taken as too political or an attack against specific people) but I really really needed to write out how I'm feeling about it.

So a massive complaint in this Discord is that the writing of the Acolyte is bad. The ones making this criticism claim that they like the ideas behind the show, but the execution with the writing is terrible and they need to get a whole new writing team for season 2.

So. Hmm. How to not get too in my feelings about that.

Let's take a look at who the writers are. We have:

3 men - 2 of which are men of color, the last I don't know enough about to say if he's part of a specific marginalized identity or not

and we have 7 women - Leslye who is openly queer, 3 black women, an asian woman, a trans woman and activist, and another who I again, don't know enough about to say if she's a part of a specific marginalized identity (other than her femininity) or not.

I didn't do deep dives on them, they're writers, so it's kind of hard to specifically find out 'hey, do you personally have a lot of experience with colonialism/religious trauma?' BUT I think that just baseline seeing how many women, people of color, and queer people there are on the writing staff and the way I could see so many extremely nuanced and real things on screen that I personally know about gives me a good idea about their own experiences/knowledge about such subjects.

Despite the claim that 'they like what the story is going for', the understanding of how the writers are telling that story isn't translating to everyone. I have a little suspicion as to what unites the people who 'don't get' the writing despite claiming to like what the show was going for. Kind of like how people 'liked what the civil rights movement was about, but those leaders and their methods? Get those out of here and accomplish the goals in a different way'. Or reading a classic and having no context for who wrote it or when the story was written and trying to judge it based on your own very limited understanding and claiming it's "bad" because you, personally, are just not aware of anything outside of your own world view.

It's important to be able to identify where your own understanding might be lacking - and acknowledging that just because YOU don't 'get it' doesn't mean that the writing is BAD. It just means... you don't get it. Personally, I don't get every single show made for a very specific audience - especially racialized comedies specifically for the race the writer/performer is. As an example, Dave Chapelle (horrendous transphobia aside) wrote a great deal of his material for his very specific audience of Black Americans. I personally, as a not-Black person, wasn't sure how to feel about some of his jokes - but what I DIDN'T do was say that he was bad and 'I get that he's making fun of his own community, but he should do it in a different way, maybe get a different writer'. Because I'm not the one equipped to judge that. I acknowledge that his comedy is outside my wheelhouse and honestly, for Chapelle's case when it comes to his racial jokes, I simply remove myself from the equation and just look to other Black people and how they react to his comedy to see if he's stepped over a line. (Also, when it comes to comedy, as he himself pointed out, some white people were laughing a little TOO hard at his jokes - I think that's mainly an issue with comedy and poking fun at yourself only to have someone not in your 'group' not take it as friendly ribbing but rather more malicious - and so he dialed it back).

Comedy is a bit different than any other media - I do think that comedy requires a lot more knowledge of the subject matter to know when the person is exaggerating, critiquing, or affectionately ribbing that is pretty important to know before internalizing what's said in the show. If you're not aware of that stuff, you might hear a stand-up routine and internalize a lot of really harmful stereotypes so I think it's ok to step away from comedy that isn't "for you" in a way that I don't think is particularly great for ALL types of media that isn't "for you".

With romance stories - I just don't get why a character would make all their decisions focused around getting a romantic partner, maybe I actively dislike watching/reading about that, but what I'm NOT going to do is say Jane Austen is a bad writer. I can point out things I disliked aside from the romance aspect or even larger writing critiques, but I'm not going to say that 'I see what she was going for, but get a different writer because I didn't get it'. Those stories were intensely personal to her and many people see themselves in the characters she wrote. Just because *I* don't get their motivations doesn't mean others don't.

So, examples aside, I think it's incredibly important that before we say 'the writing was bad', think about if maybe it's just that you don't have the meta understanding of the groups being highlighted in the story. It does give me the ick when people say to 'replace the writing table' on The Acolyte when the story trying to be told is of marginalized groups interacting with massive colonial institutions and the generational trauma that causes - and when you look at the writers....they are part of the groups affected by those issues, and the ones who are saying 'replace them'....aren't (largely).

When you 'don't get' something in media, especially if that media is telling the stories of groups you don't belong to, go to see what those groups are saying. There have been articles written about The Acolyte from the points of view of marginalized groups and meta posted around about how these irl subjects are being handled. In my opinion, as someone a part of such effected groups, I think the writers have done an incredible job with the show.

The main issue I think (good faith) people have is that DISNEY didn't give the show more time to tell its story, but then they lay the issues at the feet of the writers for 'not explaining enough' - but the things they want explained, largely I find are things that...were explained enough if you know the basics of colonization, missionaries, and generational trauma.

Other complaints I've seen boil down to "the show should have told me everything in order, clearly, and told me what to think about it and each of the characters - because I was left guessing, instead of using my own brain to think about it, I have decided it's bad writing because everything wasn't fed to me in a straightforward way" which again, isn't a fault of the writing, it's a flaw in the way you THINK all shows need to hand-hold you. Just because a show doesn't spoon-feed you the story and character motivations, doesn't mean the writing is bad.

Finally, I've seen critiques of the writing (and story) to the effect of 'it's a Star Wars story - it NEEDS to fit into the Star Wars box/expectations and if it doesn't, that means it's bad writing' - which again, kills diversity. You want surface-level inclusion where "yay! It's a woman doing bombings now! Cheer for her!" rather than "Look, it's a woman doing war-crimes and we're pointing out that war crimes are STILL wrong and here's other marginalized people fighting against that!"

So before claiming 'the writers need to be replaced', take a step back and look at why you feel that way, take a look at who the writers are and what story they were trying to tell, and first consider: maybe you just aren't knowledgeable enough about the subject matter. And just because it's not 'baby's first colonizer story', doesn't mean the writing is bad. Maybe you aren't the center of the universe for once and maybe its OK for you to feel a little behind in understanding - it just means there's new stuff for you to learn! Which is a good thing!

Obligatory explanation that all this doesn't mean that you can't critique the writing or that if you critique the writing that means you 100% are who I'm talking to in this post. All I'm saying is that maybe before having the knee-jerk reaction 'get rid of the writers', take a look at it from this perspective to see if you 'not understanding' isn't on the writers, it's on you and your life experiences not preparing you for such a story told in this way.

[aspecpplarebeautiful]

i suddenly feel huge impostorism about not being bi enough. i've known i was ace since forever and realised i was bi+ while in the monog relationship i'm still in today, not by actually being romantically attracted to people but because i realised i could technically picture myself with a partner of any gender (i know the potential for attraction to more than one gender is a definition of bi). once i admitted that to myself i actually started feeling physical attraction to people, thinking i wasn't ace after all for a bit. everything fell apart when i learned about other kinds of attraction and realised the physical attraction wasn't sexual but sensual, more in a "i'd make out with this person" way than a hugging and cuddling way because the last 2 are romantic to me. that's also when i realised i'm on the aromantic spectrum because i only ever experienced romantic attraction to one person who ended up being my partner to this day. and now here's the thing. my bi attraction has become less defined kinda? it's less about kissing now and more just feeling drawn to someone based on appearance but it feels like more than what people describe as aesthetic attraction? the attraction i feel is also not really anything i feel an urge to act on, it's just there. idk maybe that's because i'm in a monog relationship so my brain shut itself off from that. when i feel that attraction it does feel decidedly queer/bi though idk. i'd also feel like a liar calling myself biromantic because despite the potential for attraction definition i've only ever felt romantic attraction once towards one gender. i feel like i'm not bi enough and like i'm just holding on to this identity even though it doesn't actually belong to me, like i'm just making it into more than it is because what if it's always been nothing more but aesthetic attraction, not actually me being bi, what if the queer feelings about this attraction are just me trying to convince myself i'm bi when i'm not.

like what if i'm just an ace demiro monoromantic after all because i really never did feel romo attraction to more than one gender and my tertiary probably doesn't count

Just because attraction is tertiary (that is any type of attraction that isn't sexual or romantic attraction), doesn't mean it doesn't count or counts less. Tertiary attraction like sensual and aesthetic attraction can still be strong feelings, important experiences, etc. for people. Similarly an attraction isn't more or less legitimate depending on if you feel like acting on them. You don't have to identify with tertiary attractions, but it should be your decision how you feel about these attractions and how much they tie into your identity.

Similarly you are allowed to identify as bi even if you've only experienced that type of attraction once, based on if you feel you have the capacity to experience it towards (which to be fair you do acknowledge).

So it sounds like to me that you're worried about being allowed, but labels don't work like that. You don't need anyone's permission, especially if the label is working for you, and most communities are anti gatekeeping, instead going with the philosophy that if a label is resonating with someone, there's probably a reason for that. Labels tend to be these simple boxes too, but in real life people are full of complexities and how we relate to a label isn't always in simple black and white ways and most people get that.

Sometimes a label does stop being useful, and it does make sense to move on from it. But if you're thinking about moving on from a label and it's making you anxious or stressed, that can be a sign too that maybe that's not the right choice for you, or not the right choice currently.

My advice would be to try and shift your thinking, try and stop worrying as much if you're allowed. If you fit any version of the definition at all, you're allowed. And instead focus on if you feel a connection to the label, if you find the label is useful for you, etc. These are the biggest deciders if a label is right for you or not. And at the end of the day your identity is yours and you decide what feels right for you or not in how you identify.

All the best! Good luck!

[plinkodiskhorse]

on labels

The back and forth over the use of the word “queer” baffles and frustrates me. I think the arguments, and the term itself, are illustrative of a dialectic. Queer is simultaneously collective and individual, affiliation-group and self-identity, over-arching and specific, degrading and embracing. Until a time comes that all variations and expressions of gender and sexuality (and combinations thereof) are free from social and institutional stigma, queer will never mean just one thing.

Queer, as an over-arching term for anyone who is NOT cisgender, heterosexual, or perisex, acknowledges the overlap and interplay of gender assigned at birth, identified gender, gender expression, sexual attraction. A cisgender, butch dyke (a person assigned female at birth who aligns with that identity and is attracted to other women, while expressing her gender in a “masculine” manner) and a faggy, transgender man (a person assigned female at birth who “rejects” womanhood while dating men and expressing an “effeminate” masculinity) may seem very different from one another but can have MANY shared experiences of “queerness.” Both may be targets of transphobia and misogyny — even when one of them isn’t trans and one of them isn’t a woman — and both may be targets of homophobia. “Queer” (can, should) holds space for all of these aspects of self, even when they seem to contradict one another.

(How can a transgender man experience misogyny? When he is not perceived/treated as a man, but as a “failed woman.” How can a cisgender woman experience transphobia? When she is perceived/treated as a “non-passing” transgender woman encroaching upon “women’s spaces.”)

When this hypothetical cis dyke and transfag both claim the word “queer,” there is (or should be, in this umbrella interpretation of queer) an understanding that “your fight is my fight.” We may not be the exact same flavor of queer, but our liberation is interconnected. My freedom, as a transgender man, cannot be won at the expense of women’s freedom. I don’t mean that just in the sense that I would be morally opposed to that situation; I mean it in the sense that the oppression of women WILL impact my own freedom.

The baroque complexities of queerness become further entangled when considering race, religion, and disability. Can “queer” hold the history of racialized gender in America? That black people have been hypersexualized/virilized and subsequently fetishized and denigrated for this projection. That East Asian women have been seen as seductresses or naturally submissive, while East Asian men are desexualized or objectified as seeming young and effeminate. The stereotypes of the hot blooded Latina and the macho Latino. Can “queer” encompass the deliberate destruction of Native gender identities and the subsequent (current) obfuscating mythologizing by white queers? Can “queer” be a place for people who see their gender and/or sexuality as a manifestation of/connection to the Divine while also being a place for those deeply harmed by religion because of their gender/sexuality? Can “queer” accept people with disabilities as people capable of eroticism even if their bodies don’t allow for some forms of sex acts?

As a dialectic, rather than a static fact, queer can hold these things, and there are times that queer will be too broad for all these things and specificity is needed.

As a dialectic, queer is a slur and an academic term. Queer is an acceptable word in a peer-reviewed journal, and has the potential to be “fighting words” interpersonally. What matters is the context and the individual interpretation. And it’s HIGHLY personal.

I was born and raised in Texas from the 90s to the 2010s. I never heard queer used as an insult, except in media from (or set in) the past. If I had heard someone use queer as an insult, my initial reaction would have been confusion. Are you fucking old? Is this the 70s? But I did hear gay used as an insult all the time. And faggot and dyke, if there weren’t any teachers within hearing range. I didn’t really encounter queer until undergrad, as an academic term, an area of study, and then as how my friends self-identified. Because of this, my associations with queer are largely positive.

But I know people who also grew up in Texas, only a 30-45min drive away from where I grew up, who did experience queer as a slur. For them, they may feel more comfortable reclaiming fag or dyke, rather than queer. And that’s their decision to make. And yet, it would be reductive if they were to treat queer as only ever a slur, not as a word with decades of usage in academic and intracommunity contexts.

I like queer as a word that can veil meaning.

It can be a conversation stopper. You don’t get to know the specifics of my gender history, my sexual partners, the roles I take in sex, the acts I enjoy during sex.

It can be a conversation starter. I see you’re different in a way that is similar to how I’m different; let us now ask each other oblique and leading questions that the cis hets around us won’t understand.

I dislike how queer is increasingly absorbed into the corporate rainbow-washing of assimilationists. A company doesn’t get to sell me Pride merch with one hand and donate to anti-trans politicians with the other hand.

I cannot say that queer retains its edge, nor can I say that it has been defanged. I cannot force others to reclaim the word, nor can I gatekeep the word. In the first “queer studies” class I ever had, my professor explained “autonomy” literally means “self-naming.”

There is no right or wrong answer, there is only ever-increasing nuance.

[atwoodsfemalefantasy]

hey guys, i'm the wake of this election i feel like clarifying my stance as a trans inclusive radfem.

i know a lot of people don't agree with me. i know a lot of people think i can't be both. i think differently.

i started calling myself a radfem because i was disgusted with libfems' defense of pornography. i still call myself a radfem because i believe in getting to the root of the problem, i don't coddle men, i don't particularly care about men, i criticize things like makeup that libfems support. i don't believe in fixing the system, i believe in female liberation. i believe in liberation. i believe in separation, and female only spaces.

and like radfems, i do know that misogyny and women's oppression is based on sex-not gender. however, i also believe that gender is a social construct made by men, that more than two genders exist, and that people can be physically categorized as a sex that is not their gender.

i do not think that trans women are fetishizing womanhood, or are creepy men playing dress up and trying on the female experience. there are some trans women who might be that way, but the vast majority are just people who want to live. i do not think that trans people are a threat to biological women, or to the feminist movement. i believe in intersectionality: my feminism is not based on straight white women. my feminism support all women: women of color, queer women, and yes. trans women.

now, how can these things coexist? to me, it's fairly easy, although it hasn't always been. for a while i held these beliefs simultaneously, and struggled to combine them into one value. but i get it now.

my feminism is not centered around trans women. but it includes them. because while trans women do not have the same experience as cis women, it's still a female experience in its own right. just as i can support black women and disabled women, whose experiences of womanhood are very different, i can acknowledge that not every female experience is the same. i fight for all women. but i don't hurt cis women by my support of trans women- i've found that's actually fairly easy to avoid.

i still do believe that women deserve female only spaces. i don't know the exact solution for this, because i also know that trans women especially deserve spaces free of men because they are at a high risk of violence. maybe the solution is we have women's shelters and trans women's shelters. i'm not entirely sure.

i also believe that it is not transphobic to talk about women's oppression based on their sex. it isn't transphobic to say women have been oppressed based on their sexual organs and bodies. it's not transphobic to talk about how girls have been oppressed based on their female anatomy. it's not transphobic to talk about the cis woman experience. because it's correct that trans women do not fully understand what it's like to grow up with the female sex characteristics. it's correct to say that cis women experience misogyny in a very specific and individual way. because here's the thing: the trans women experience and the cis women experience are different. i acknowledge that these are different experiences that each group can't fully understand. it's not transphobic to say that trans women don't fully understand cis womanhood. but as cis women, we should also try our best to educate ourselves about the trans experience. about the homelessness rates, the suicide rates, the homicide rates, etc. trans women have been watered down my social media to something gross and anti woman and an easy choice. that isn't true. to be trans is a death sentence for many. to be trans is dangerous. Stonewall was begun by a trans woman. trans women are much more complex than many people know, and it isn't at all like trans women are leeches feeding off women's struggles. just as we can speak on black womanhood as a different experience from white womanhood, and know that these experiences are very different, yet are able to come together, we can know that trans womanhood is a different thing than cis womanhood, but both can support each other.

i also don't think it's wrong or transphobic to say that we need to teach trans women. because it is true: trans women were socialized as men. that can make them dangerous. cis women have every right to be scared about that. your fears are valid. however, trans women are not men. while they have been socialized as men, science has shown that their brains still work almost identical to womens' brains. it's okay to be wary around people socialized as men. i won't claim that cis women need to stop being afraid. but trans women aren't the enemy. it isn't transphobic to say that trans women were socialized as men, and it's not transphobic to be wary of biological men. all of women's male centric fears are valid. but i've met so many trans women: they're lovely. they need to educate themselves. they need to unlearn their male socialization. it isn't women's' job to teach them, but i for one am willing to teach them. but if trans women educate themselves, they aren't a threat. they aren't.

i also support any woman who reads this and decides to keep centering their feminism on cis women. i support that. it's okay to focus on cis women. just please include trans women. you don't need to prioritize them, or even fight as hard for them, but recognize that they are inportsnt and try to include them and support them. you can fight for only cis women as long as you don't hate on trans women. it's okay to fight for cis women and female only spaces, but being bigoted to people scientifically proven to be telling the truth about their experience will not help. being hateful does not help.

my point is. i am a trans inclusive radfem. i realize there are nuances and shades of gray here. i realize that women have every right to prioritize cis women because the fear of biological men is very very real. i realize that trans womanhood is very different. but i believe that trans women are women. i believe trans men are men. i will keep supporting them, because it does not take away from cis women to fight for trans rights.

for anyone like me who's struggling with supporting trans rights but also being a radfem, it's not black and white. spend time thinking. both can coexist.

[itsbinghebitch]

I was trying not to get involved in everything going on right now but after reading your last post I just felt I had to say something. Firstly you seem like a really mature and thoughtful person which is such a breath of fresh air in online spaces in general. The way you're handling the situation is really admirable and your words really resonated with me. I'm relatively new to this fandom (I watched KPTS after the shitshow in January) and, after learning what happened, I've done my best to keep my distance from the cast and BOC and just focus on the story and characters. Based on what I'd read about the case I was willing to give Build the benefit of the doubt but the recent leaked messages make that nearly impossible which is also preventing me from enjoying the series which I've come to love. What makes it worse is that I'm an artist who loves VegasPete and, just like you, every time I try to make art with them, I keep thinking about all the awful comments Build made about Bible and it feels plain wrong to draw them together. Even for someone like me who's not emotionally attached to the actors it's really hard to separate them from the characters and it's making my fandom experience pretty miserable. I have very complicated feelings about the whole ordeal - on one hand as a queer person like you I'm tired of people's homophobia and bigotry being swept under the rug, but on the other hand I've seen first hand what an abusive relationship can do to a person so I can't help but feel some compassion for him too. I truly hope he can reflect on his mistakes and heal and grow as a person. Maybe I'm just too old for celebrity culture and drama but I do feel the need to be able to discuss issues like this one in a calm and level headed manner instead of falling victim to black and white thinking and turning things into a witch hunt. Sorry for the rant and feel free to ignore this message, your post just really resonated with me and I wanted to share some of my thoughts on the matter. I hope you have a lovely day/night ❤️

thank u sm for this message.... i really appreciate you taking the time to write about your experience and i'm glad you felt like you could share ❤️

there isn't a clear-cut answer to the whole debacle. whoever tries to sell you one is a scammer or is speaking out of an emotionally clouded place (as i was last week lol).

taking a look back at everything, i think it's important to acknowledge:

1. multiple things can be true at once: you can feel hurt by build's comments and still feel sympathy for his predicament.

2. you should be able to discuss these things without feeling like you'll get, idk. fandom black points. or get blocked by everyone who thinks differently than you (which happened to me), or even hounded and hacked by people to the point of getting your blog shut down (which happened to blramblings).

3. it's really fucking hard to be a fandom creator in these circumstances. i'm really sorry to hear your art has been impacted. especially in the case of vegaspete, i tend to believe there was an "aura" inextricably linking biblebuild as actors to who they were representing on screen. no one but biblebuild could've been vegaspete for me. it was their contrasting facial features, it was in their on-screen rapport and chemistry for me. their choices in portraying the characters, the behind-the-scene interviews... that aura mesmerized me for an entire year literally. and it's not only fine to admit that the situation complicates your fandom art, it should be an *active conversation* we have as fandom creators. because let me tell you, i don't write fic on top of my insane job out of the goodness of my heart. it's because of that spark of joy i feel, that stepping out of the regular day to day. the moment that joy isn't there anymore, it becomes labor. and let me tell you one thing i DON'T do. it's FREE LABOR corporations fuck me on the daily already so why would i let them do it as a hobby too

so yeah thanks so much for sharing your thoughts <3 i rly rly appreciate it and sending you lots of good vibes. who knows what the future holds in store for us etc. etc. but we out here!!!

[danny-chase]

I've read the Jason figurately coded posts and they aren't really any different from other coded discussion. They also usually do talk about actual female characters like Steph. I mean you can like canon black or indian characters and still talk about Raven's literal black/indian coding.

To me - my understanding of coding is when something is intentional. My understanding of Jason having female mentors, or getting killed off for man pain, was that it wasn't intentional commentary. I think those things are coincidences. I think if the writers wanted to make Jason a female character, they would have made him a female character, but these were back in the good old boys club comics days (which exists until now) and I'm kinda sus about any conversation that claims male characters written by men in the comics industry are female coded because. Well. A lot of writers were super sexist/racist/homophobic, and unless there's interviews of the writers explicitly expressing their intent to code a character... it's more just people looking at coincidences or parallels between characters and making assumptions that it was intentional coding. Don't get me wrong, the coincidences/parallels are interesting, but to me they're more indicative of how the male power batman fantasy makes the story lame and annoying not proof of coding taking place

Raven is a completly different situation than Jason, her creative team explicitly based her design off of an Indian women (has been verified in interviews), gave her a bindi, had scenes where she wore traditional Indian dress, and if I'm not completely mistaken or talking out of my ass I believe Marv took inspiration from different Eastern religions while writing her story. Now whether this is coding or cultural appropriation is kind of a fine line. Judging it by standards now - I'd say it leans more towards cultural appropriation, even now Raven still has what looks to be a bindi for aesthetic purposes (depending on the story it's associated with her evil father which is... questionable at best) while still remaining a white character who's both percieved by the audience and by the creative staffs at white. Judging by standards at the time? It's a bit more complicated I guess, I wasn't alive in the 80s. Does this mean i think future iterations of Raven should stay white and stop appropriating Indian culture? Not exactly - i think they should take a restorative justice approach: acknowledge that hey, we fucked up, and then give Raven to an Indian writer/creative team who can showcase a more authentic experience and come up with ways to incorporate her ties to the culture respectfully - say by making Arella Indian, and showcasing parts of Hindi culture on Azarath

I've quite literally never been a part of online fandom before DC so i haven't seen too much coding discourse. Obviously, there is coding in comics. But so many times I've seen people claiming coding exists without looking at the very clear authorial intent behind why the characters say what they do. One example not related to either character: people claiming Chuck Dixon queer coded Tim. I'm sorry. He's literally a raging homophobe, and Tim not wanting to have sex in his run is Chuck using him as a mouthpiece for his abstinence campaign... not queer coding. The context matters, and I'd rather people be honest and just say "hey i thought this was interesting about the character, here's my interpretation of it even though it's not what the real author intended" than lie about the content that's there. Coding in comics does exist, it does happen intentionally by certain authors. But making it up when it doesn't exist doesn't exactly feel productive to me... it just feels misleading and like you're trying to justify why your fave is the best

[merverse]

just finished the sun and the star and im posting this from my phone but i have to write my feelings down so spoilers of course:

first of all, i get it. this is not a fanfic, this is an actually rick riordan book and i can't expect it to go dark even though the story and the characters on it totally deserve to be put into a more mature light, so i'm trying to be more open about all this, but..... i'm really disappointed.

the writing was flat. the only reason i had any sort of sympathy to the characters and what they were going through was because i already knew them beforehand, but even then they felt like.... strangers. i think rick needs to stick with first person povs, because (and this also something i struggled with when reading the heroes of olympus series) he can't do multi character stories that well. i thought mark could help with this, but it honestly felt all over the place.

and i was expecting some character inconsistency throughout the book and messed up timelines once again, but it still surprised me how obvious those mistakes were. for example, we have nico being an advocate for change: people change, they learn from their past experiences and evolve throughout their lives and this is the whole reason why we are going into this quest! the whole reason why nyx is after me! and not even a couple of chapters later he finds out one of the giants did just that and found love and acceptance and he just flat out refuses to accept this. uhm, what? will has to remind him he's all about change? nico: oh yeah! my bad! forgot we were doing that

( see: chapter 19: ‘You see the trogs,’ said Screech-Bling. ‘You see Bob the Titan.’ Will smiled and squeezed his hand. ‘Nyx hates what you represent – change.’ / and then, chapter 22: "Nico scoffed. ‘You didn’t meet Geryon. You don’t know what he’s like.’ ‘Was like,’ said Menoetes. ‘Was. Because now you don’t know what he is like.’ Nico was left speechless. ‘Maybe we should give him a chance,’ said Will. ‘We both know people who were once terrible and then turned things around.' )

and don't get me started of the morals on this book. we get it, it's a book for middle schoolers, but you don't have to state the message of it every single chapter for it to be obvious. we get it, this is about changing and owning up the past but trying to be better in the future. not everything is black and white. okay. oh, ur gonna mention it again? oh, ur gonna get a goddess to spell it out for no reason at all? okay.

and god.......... the whole solangelo situation, i'm so SAD. i love them together, i adore them. but those stories about how they got together........ nico somehow deciding he was gonna tell the entire camp he was gay........ will kissing him for the first time just when he was grieving jason after he died (why. why would any of them think this was okay. WHY)........ i know these situations "make sense" and are explained in the book, but i don't like them. i don't. and i refuse to acknowledge them.

well, no. i'm actually going to acknowledge the whole coming out scene and how the story treats the whole thing. (disclaimer: not every queer person has to agree on this, we all have different experiences and that's fine, this is just my opinion on the matter) i hated how it felt like they were using nico's character as this big pamphlet advertising the "gay is okay!". i know his sexuality is a Big part of his character, and he is the first gay character in the pjo universe, but why did it feel he was also the first queer demigod at the camp? why did it have to be a big deal? i think the whole scene about juniper messing it up and him "choosing" to ask will out and also come out to the entire camp at the same time was..... unnecessary. i didn't need him to say he was gay in front of the entire greek camp, he can be used as an inspiring story for any other demigod just choosing to hold will's hand at dinner.

(and is...... a greek camp...... i can understand internalized homophobia on nico bc of his upbringing, and also anyone can have it no matter their experiences, but..... a greek camp..... and a public coming out scene after the whole thing with cupid.......)

(side note: not even one mention of patroclus and achilles. NOT EVEN ONCE.)

and i think what really sealed the deal for me was hazel. well. THE LACK OF HER. does nico remember he has a sister? does mark knows he has a sister? does rick???????? me, throughout the book: oh so this is the chapter where i get some hazel and nico crumbs! no? okay so the next one! oh, still no mention of her? so the next chapt-

she's mentioned 6 times. 6 times. and only once he's allowed to actually think about her. i hated it. and it was worse with reyna.

(the fact nico thought about annabeth and percy AND JASON? (WHO HE WASNT CLOSE WITH AT THE MOMENT) WHEN HE WAS GOING THROUGH TARTARUS ALONE? BUT DIDN'T THINK ABOUT HAZEL? HELLO?)

and even thought the message of the book is about how light and darkness can coexist within one self (as we are... repeatedly told..... all over again...), it still rubs me the wrong way how, at the end, darkness is still portrayed as something.... bad.... that u have to live with. like will says "‘But now I know that it’s not about conquering, or vanquishing, or any of that kind of hero talk. Sometimes it’s better to learn to live with the darkness.’" uhmmmmmmmmmmmm

all that being said, it was a..... fun book. not life changing and I'm definitely ignoring its existence, but the plot was entertaining enough and i did cry when bianca, maria and hades showed up because i adore the di angelo family. also will has powers! that's cool! i guess!

oh, and nico's little demons/children/whatever they are..... cute. in my head they are like those dust bunnies from ghibli.

[shplingo]

Hi just popping in to say I am so sick and tired of every queer space I encounter having no support or mindfulness for POC. I’m mostly white and fully white presenting so it’s entirely likely that I’m just not exposed to better groups, and I hope that’s it. Cause I’ll go to queer events, queer support groups, join discord servers for fandoms with tons of queer people, and it’s like going to mormon church again

Queer spaces irl I’ve attended will propose a solution for an issue in the community, and I’m thinking, woah. Not everyone can take that kind of action. And there’s this sense of being the most victimized and I know it’s a space for queer people, it’s not made to talk about race but like isn’t it??? Yo I KNOW there are queer black and brown folk where I live, and dude nobody needs this space more than y’all

I just feel like we can’t talk about queer rights in the US without talking about the systematic oppression of like half the population. We should be working together. What about queer POCs??

And it’s happened several times in fandom too. I’ll be in a space that’s super queer and queer-friendly, and because of this we’re typically into media that discusses queer experiences, right? Well that media often has like strong instances / representation of people being fucked over for their race, and yet we don’t talk about that

Discourse, headcanons, even just plain old obsession will be laced with this ignorance and it’s like. No you can’t actually talk about this character who is queer and brown and only acknowledge their queerness, when both of these aspects of them are clearly equally as important to their character. Why are you portraying this character as silver instead of black? Why do you hate this one character so much but love their narrative foil who is just like them but fights back instead of turning the other cheek?

I want to talk about the things I love, and I also want to talk about their problems. I want to be saving our state for every queer person, not just white queer people. But I’m angery and tired and I just want to talk about shit without being That Guy. I’ll be the fucking dude but maybe we should all be the dude actually. Discord servers are looking like my mormon lecture classes—a bunch of nice white liberals dancing over half of history in a discussion About History

[rjalker]

made with speech to text, so there might be some types. If a word is seemingly not part of the sentence, sounded out and I probably meant a similar sounding word.

The word is not transmisogynistic, either in origin or in use. Trans men and transmasculine people need terminology to describe their experiences, and anybody claiming that they don't even have those experiences to begin with and therefore don't need a word to describe them is just a bigot. No ifs or buts. It's literally just bigotry. It is literally just people trying to silence and oppressed minority to avoid acknowledging the oppression.

Transandromisia and any other variations are not transmisogynistic. It is not bigotry towards trans women for other trans people to talk about their experiences, and claiming it is is just absolutely fucking ridiculous. These people are also usually the kind of people who say that non-binary people don't face any specific forms of oppression, and so shouldn't ever talk about exorsexism.

The backlash against trans men and transmasculine people talking about their experiences is just another instance in the long line of harassment campaigns against queer minorities on this website, mimicking the aspec harassment campaign that lasted years, and the recent backlash against M-Spec lesbians.

Anyone who tells you that you're not allowed to use this word or that you should use another word instead, is not worth listening to. Some of them will pretend that they are okay with specific words being used, like anti-transmasculinity, but that word was specifically developed for black transmasculine people to use, so white people insisting that a bunch of white people need to only use that word is just racist.

It's also just flat out bigoted no matter what for someone who is not a trans man or not transmasculine to tell trans men and transmasculine people that they are not allowed to talk about their experiences and that the word they've chosen is wrong.

Transandremisia is the intersection of transmission and misogyny when it is targeting trans men and transmasculine people. The people who have a problem with this word either think and insist that trans men and transmasculine people don't experience misogyny or don't experience transmisia.

Sometimes they will just admit out loud in front of the entire world that they don't think trans men and trans masculine people experience either.

As though it's not recorded in history going back decades, before most of the people arguing that trans man and transmasculine people can't talk about their experiences have been alive, that trans men and transmasculine people and even just non-binary people who transition and look like men, whether or not they identify is transmasculine, face even more severe forms of misogyny than cis women do.

Trans men and trans masculine people are regularly denied necessary and life-saving healthcare because that are specifically trans men and transmasculine. They are denied access to gynecological care, abortions, even just regular fucking doctors visits.

Bigots who have been drinking the Red fem juice and pretending that it's okay because they're trans love to pretend that being a trans man magically gives you all of the privileges of cis head white men, as though the trans modifier doesn't exist as a form of oppression.

Anyone who tells you that you can't use this word is just straight up a bigot. They will pretend that they're not, but that's literally what they are. They literally just hate trans men and trans masculine people. They literally just want to police minorities so that they cannot talk about their experiences or their oppression, because they love radical feminism and especially white radical feminism because they want to insist that only people who identify as women are ever oppressed, and if you don't identify as a woman, that magically means that you have never experienced any misogyny in your life because they think that whether or not you are impacted by bigotry depends entirely on your internal identity and not your material reality, like the fact that everyone around you thinks and sees you and treats you like a woman.

People who hate trans men and trans masculine people will insist that women are always the most oppressed person in the room no matter what at all times, which is just peak white feminism and radical feminist bullshit, and then in the exact same breath they will tell you that trans men are actually really privileged for being treated like women. Even though they just said that people treat women horribly in every single situation ever.

People who hate the fact that trans men and trans masculine people are creating words to describe their experiences will not ever give you a single straight fucking answer for why they think these words are bad. They will contradict themselves every other fucking statement. And they won't even care. They know that they are fucking lying, they know that they have absolutely no real argument based in facts.

Do not listen to anyone who tells you that this word is bigoted and that you can't use it and that only bigots use it. They just flat out hate trans men and transmasculine people. Yes, even if they themselves are trans. Yes, even if they are also a trans man or transmasculine.

This is literally just another harassment campaign against where minorities to fracture the queer community. It happened to non-binary lesbians, It happened to buy people, it happened to pan and Omni and poly people. It happened to a spec people. It happened to mspec lesbians. It is currently happening to intersex people as well as trans men and transmasculine people. And one of these days they're going to pick a new target to pretend like they've never existed before or never had problems before and all of this bullshit is just going to repeat itself.

anyone who tells you that trans men and transmasculine people do not face any unique forms of oppression or any forms of oppression need to be identified or named or even acknowledged at all, is literally just either a white feminist TM, or a radical feminist, or probably both.

You cannot claim to care about intersectionality and intersectional feminism and intersectional transfeminism and then insist that trans men magically gain privilege by identifying as men, when that is literally not how the world works at all.

If you have to constantly deny reality in order for your argument to quote unquote work, when it very obviously doesn't work because you have to keep contradicting yourself over and over and making up new excuses as for why the other person is wrong, and then almost immediately resort to insults against the person, instead of actually providing any evidence for your argument, that's really really telling that you have no actual fucking argument.

TLDR. Anyone who tells you that trans men and transmasculine people can't use the word transandremisia or any other variation is just a rad fam. They might be a trans inclusive rad femme, but that doesn't make them any more equipped to actually talk about real feminism and real-world oppression and anything of actual importance, because everything they say and think is poisoned by the radical feminism that they are happy to accept as long as they think it benefits them.

And yes. They literally are saying that trans men and transmasculine people aren't oppressed.

"No one is saying trans men aren't oppressed" then what ARE you saying? Because every post of seen by someone who genuinely believes that "transandrophobia truthers" are transmisogynistic has been invalidating what trans men deal with, refusing to allow us the space to come up with terms for our experience, and vehemently opposing us using terms like transmisogyny. Every single person has been belittling, gaslighting, excluding, and/or dismissive of the discrimination trans men deal with.

If I'm wrong and transandrophobia ISN'T discrimination against trans men, if the term is actually transmisogynistic in origin, then tell me! Explain it to me! If I'm wrong, I want to learn more!

If I'm wrong, tell me why.

[jack-bytez-genuine-corner]

you don’t have to experience the heightened levels of oppression that a black queer does. someone who is black AND queer are doubly harassed because of the color of their skin (something they also cannot change) AND their sexuality. i’m sorry you had to face homophobia in high school, nobody should have to experience that, but that was exclusive to you being gay. it wasn’t exclusive to you being gay AND white. can you imagine being harassed for being gay AND black??? can you imagine walking down the street and someone calling you the n-word because of the color your skin and then calling you a fag on top of that????? the idea of intersectionality is very real for black and brown queers and for white queers to act like asking you guys to acknowledge the white privileges you have shouldn’t be that difficult for you to understand. we sympathize with you for the oppression that you’ve faced as a gay man but why can’t you do the same for us when we have to live every day being black AND queer? that’s literally all they were saying and to derail a post that is very true like that, does so much more harm to black and brown queers in ways that i don’t think you understand. again, i feel like you were trying in good faith and that’s the way i’m coming to you but if you weren’t, then op had every right to block you because it is exhausting having to explain why being black and queer is dangerous in the world without white people telling us our experiences don’t matter.

I failed to keep this short so no one is going to read it but here it is after 7 revisions:

* If you feel the need to explain these things than I regret to inform you: I know. POC face outsized oppression for simply existing in America and they often times get silenced and shoved to the side. I actively aided in a local, small BLM rally and gave out water. I held a sign and that's all I did, because it isn't really my place to speak or advocate to others when the people who are directly affected should have that power instead. I've been to rallies and really internalize the fact that it isn't my place to speak, so I don't. That's why I said nothing that is close to undermining the struggles POC face, cause I've actively seen it and heard it from victims. I've seen and heard the terrible state of reservations in the US. But OP was undermining the struggles, and deaths of others on the basis of their skin which is a thing that nobody should be doing. And if you want to act like that didn't happen, their response I believe speaks for itself in it's entirety with a blanket refusal to read an inch of what I wrote. They could not give a singular fuck less about the struggles of others is the vibe I got and still have.

* I thought a lot about what to even post on this ask and on OPs post and made several drafts, but would delete them cause "It's not my place to speak" but when what I'm seeing is "The events I experienced don't matter cause of my skin color" I decided to post it. The only mistake I made is the assumption that the average person is capable of kindness, when really a majority of people are selfish and don't care about ANY issue unless it hits them directly, and I'm the weird one for actively caring about issues that don't affect me in the slightest. It's my bad for assuming there's any level of nuance online, any room for thought that isn't, ultimately, echochambers.

* The active statement I saw from OP read a lot closer to "White people who suffer oppression don't REALLY suffer" which actively carries weight for the oppressor by undermining any oppression as being acceptable as long as the victim is white. Can you get more oppressed than dead? Cause under OP's logic a dead white trans woman is actively less tragic than a living Black trans woman. That's not intersectionality and recognizing white privilege, that's victim blaming someone in regards to their race, because you're ACTIVELY minimizing the violence on a racial basis which not only defends the oppressor but actually minimizes the perception of white privilege, cause ultimately I'd agree with the economic, legal, business, political, religious, historical, healthcare advantages of white privilege but I think the line of that ends when someone is straight up murdered for being trans, is denied that opportunity to work because they married a man. Because if it's the EXACT SAME oppression, should it matter less cause they aren't getting pulled over at random by racist cops? Should it matter less cause they technically have a better chance at better funded education years ago as a kid? Cause white people DO get opportunities POC do not on a completely BS basis, but is that so strong that it's straight up acceptable to say that a white queer who gets fired for being trans, gets kicked out of their house as a 13 year old for being gay is just not that bad, and if they talk about that experience they are stealing the opportunity for POC to talk. Should white queers just never talk about any oppression they face, cause that's the read I've gotten from those I've known since I've been aware I'm gay. Is that really the message that should be internalized, cause that's what I read time and time again: If you talk about your experience you are directly harming POC so you need to sit down, shut up and just never talk about how you got beat for your sexuality because then YOU'RE the oppressor.

* This is the only time in my life I've EVER talked about the harassment i received from bigots IRL online, and I excluded a lot still because I get told to sit down and shut up on this. I want you to REALLY think about why I don't talk about it when I'll appear as a racist (Or an oppressor, you pick) cause I'm silencing others by just stating my own experience. The only people I've told about it IRL I can count on one hand, and the only post I make of it online I'm STILL downplaying it in an attempt to not suck oxygen out of the room for other voices SOLELY BECAUSE I'm white and therefore feel like I can't talk about it without silencing others who have it worse. The only reason I brought it up to begin with was that OP unabashedly undermined a thing that took a lot of years of my life to get over, and then when given that experience, basically told me to fuck off. That's not just a lack of kindness, it's straight up enough to make me depressed for a whole night and really attack the idea of allyship is worth it when the people who claim they care about this exact issue are just straight up willing to say that A experience doesn't matter cause of the color of someone's skin. That's the direct read I got, and I know I should try to be better and try to make sure people who are oppressed in ways I'm not get help and are allowed to just exist without fear of persecution, but I've never felt more slapped in the face than when I read that. Cause ultimately, nobody wants to be told their struggles don't matter. The struggles and oppression of POC I honestly rank as one of the most important issues facing society, cause it's criminal how many Black neighborhoods are treated as not important to upkeep, not important to give clean water to, not important to give quality healthcare to, let alone the sadistic violence committed onto those communities by those who should be helping them ala cops and government. It's fucked up beyond belief that having a Spanish or Korean last name can get your resume shredded when applying for a job, it's not right that Black people get discriminated against in home loans. These are horrible, deep issues and I don't need to tell you that, as there's endless amounts of Black people who are more educated on those topics who can explain it and tell you how they would fix it. It's not my place to do that speaking so I don't, but I never intended, nor think I did, undermine their struggles. However it's beyond screwed up that real people's real, horrific deaths don't matter cause of the color of their skin. After all, the oppressed person was white, so it's more acceptable and less tragic.

(As a tangent, you're downplaying what I experienced just as much as OP did, cause I'm not "Doubly oppressed" like it's some sick competition. I don't believe for a nanosecond that you're sorry for that either, cause again, I'm not in your immediate in group and therefore, as an other, my problems aren't really that important.)

[theblackvelvetcollective]

Musings from the Black Velveteen: The More You Know, the Black History Month Edition

by the Black Velveteen

Black History Month is back again, the same way it’s come back around since 1970. Wow….1970? Majority of Black folks have been celebrating Black history month for...only 51 years? Half a century is quite a bit of time for our Black History Month celebration to be so cyclic; and yet, Black folks will typically respond to that with “well Black History Month IS during the shortest month of the year”. Honestly, that bothers me to this day. What also bothers me is the way our African diasporic experience is framed. I remember every year on Martin Luther King Jr. Day (in January for those who may not be familiar) my predominately white all-girls private school had us read excerpts from Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. It wasn’t until I was in college at the University of Memphis (with a 33 percent African American student population) where I read “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” accompanied by “Souls of Black Folks” by W.E.B DuBois and various other writings from Booker T. Washington, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Phyllis Wheatly, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker and Nikki Giovanni, just to name a few. My world, even as a young Black kid, was opened and I began to really see how expansive my culture and people were. But even then, I was only scratching the surface.

Most Black History Month (BHM) programs discuss three people in three ways. Dr. King as the “model negro” that the white folks love to sanitize and laude as the type of Black person Black people should aspire to be. Malcolm X as Dr. King’s antithesis; the “mean negro”, if you will. And then Rosa Parks, the Black woman to satiate the “feminists.” Those Big Three are legends within the Black cultural experience, but every February, they’re reduced to a two-sentence acknowledgement, if that. I began to wonder, “Well if my people are so expansive, and our history so rich and vast (even with all of the violence and pain): Why don’t we know more?” The answer that I discovered is that our historical perspectives are focused on cisgendered, hetero-presumed men that are, by definition of their outspoken rhetoric, leaders and representative of the Black community at large. This inequitable focus has limited our understanding of our history and how truly amazing it is.

Let’s think about that for a second: Imagine if we shifted our perspective from a patriarchal viewpoint and started to look at what Black women and femmes have done for not only Black people, but the world at large. 

In 1944, a young Black woman named Recy Taylor was raped by six white men. Rosa Parks was an NAACP organizer that connected with Recy Taylor and helped organize with Mrs. Taylor to share her story and demand justice. Rosa Parks founded the Committee for Equal Justice for Mrs. Recy Taylor and gained the support of notable Black, queer activists such as Mary Church Terrell and Langston Hughes. Mrs. Parks and Mrs. Taylor organized intentionally and were able to bring international attention to Mrs. Taylor’s case. Without knowing this about Mrs. Parks, one would not know that she was a main architect of bringing such attention to the patriarchal violence Black women were experiencing in the 1940s in America.

Another great Black queer feminist icon who is consistently left out during Black History Month but absolutely should be honored is Ms. Marsha P. Johnson. Marsha is the mother of the LGBTQIA+ civil rights movement as she was prominently involved in the Stonewall Riots 1969. In Greenwich Village in New York, many of the bars were run by mafia bosses. One night the police raided the Stonewall Inn and a riot ensued. At the heart of that riot was Ms. Marsha throwing rocks and hollering; this would ignite a new flame to the civil rights movement, one that was inclusive of Black trans women and Black queer folks. Marsha’s unmuted battle cries and righteous rage led to the birth of a movement that saw the founding of the first ever US trans rights organization, STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries) with Ms. Sylvia Riviera, it saw a drag queen defy the gender binary (the “P” stood for “Pay It No Mind” in reference to Ms. Johnson’s response about her gender), and her legacy continues on today with many Black trans women demanding the removal of police from Pride activities and spaces.

Lastly, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Ms. Ida B. Wells-Barnett. We learn about the 19th Amendment and women getting the right to vote, but rarely do we hear about Ms. Ida B. Wells. Ms. Ida was a journalist and activist that had witnessed the horrors and trauma of the lynching of Black people across America. Rather than succumb to the overwhelming emotional trauma and grief lynchings were known to bring, Ms. Ida decided to write about the lynchings investigating and documenting the atrocities, something that had never been done before. Ms. Ida was not new to the “you know what: I’ll do it myself” school of thought. Ms. Ida traveled to Washington, D.C., to attend the National American Woman Suffrage Association’s Parade, organized by Alice Paul and Lucy Burns. She was subsequently told that the Black women suffragettes would have to march in the back. Ms. Ida was never going to participate in a segregated suffrage parade; so when the marchers passed, she boldly and intentionally stepped to the front of the parade. Ms. Ida did this because she wanted to make sure future generations would benefit from her action. These Black women are mothers of movements, icons, and leaders with their own rich history of defiance that young Black people, like me, are able to benefit from. Their bravery, radical honesty, boundless love, focus and determination more than qualify them as legends of Black History. As February comes to a close, I hope others are encouraged to look beyond the white-washed, sanitized and misleading narratives that typically invade Black History Month. Instead, shift your perspective to learn more about the mothers of movements, the Black queer history that is Black History, and the truly expansive nature of Black culture.

[makingqueerhistory]

People using black trans women to make a point (and usually be really shitty) is a real problem.... got told at a ballroom event by a cis fucking white gay man that I "was biologically female" and that out of respect for the black trans women who created ballroom, I should "know to stay in my place" (I was literally just gently correcting him on the use of pronouns to address me, and he went on a rant about boohoo afab trans people are so mean for not wanting to be seen as women boohoo denaturing ballroom by existing in it). And like its not the only time I've witnessed this kind of bs in irl queer spaces... How dare these people use black trans women to justify their shitty behavior. I think they would have wanted you to shut up and stay in your place, actually.

This sounds like an awful experience and really makes it clear that the more we glorify historical figures, the more people will use them as tools rather than seeing them as people.

This way of thinking really feels like an unexpected result of the demand to stop talking about uncomfortable aspects and people from queer history. It comes to the point where the good people can't just be good people, they have to be saints, martyrs, gods, images of perfection, and if they are all those things, using their names is enough to validate any point a person tries to make.

Marsha P. Johnson can't just be a transgender woman, who was imperfect, but did her best to support the community around her; she has to be the progenitor of the queer community and the reason that any queer person has rights.

Oscar Wilde can't just be a deeply flawed anti-Semitic man, he has to be the epitome of the dandy archetype who led the way for all queer men. Of course, if we acknowledge his bigotry and imperfections, that means we must ignore the moments where he did get things right, and how, deserved or not, his name and legacy have served the queer community in positive ways.

Then there is Walt Whitman. A queer poet who has meant so much to me personally, and was racist. He has deeply impacted the roots of the queer community in both Europe and North America, and those roots are tainted by racism. There are letters from other queer heroes of mine, telling him how he taught them how to love themselves and be queer at the same time. My other favourite poet Langston Hughes also loved Walt Whitman's work. None of this erases the racism.

If I wanted to justify my love for Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes could become a tool to do so. An incredible Black poet who shaped my understanding of compassion could become just a name to use to win points.

Having all these stories in my head can be difficult, I have written around 150+ of these articles now. To be vulnerable for a moment, a part of the reason I went to therapy for the first time was because I was beginning to experience second-hand trauma from some of the things I have seen and learned. But I love these stories, I love them so much. Queer history is not a tool, or a trump card, or a point in your progressive bingo, it is a series of stories, a web of truths, and a legacy of imperfection that is just waiting to be explored. So seeing people use them, use these full massive intertwining stories, with no love, no respect, no care, can be incredibly disheartening.

When looking into history, the whole truth can feel like an impossible goal. So many things are lost over time and misinformation has won out over fact more times than we like to think about. But we can do our best, and look for reality beyond the fiction, and some people will still choose fiction, but truth is the antidote, and I believe it can always be found.

[themathomhouse]

also, talking about intersectionality is supposed to remind people that their experiences aren't universal and before making sweeping statements they should consider if another perspective hasn't been sought. people often say that people in straight or "straight-passing"* relationships don't know what it's like to have people threaten you or comment or hurl abuse at you, but as someone who's been in an interracial relationship I can assure you that we do. I got more shit for being with a Black man than I ever did with a white woman. I bring this up not to confirm my place as Oppressed™, but to say that it means that organisations in particular ought to seek diverse perspectives before saying only one group has had a particular experience.

legit I think this might be in part what terfs have an issue with - that they as (especially but not exclusively) white women are being asked to acknowledge that other groups experience many of the same things (or worse!) as those they claim only happen to cis women. there are plenty of men who know exactly what it's like to feel unsafe walking alone at night, and actually men are significantly more likely than women to be attacked, mugged, or murdered. but if your activism is about being at the bottom of the pile and feverishly guarding your position, you can't really accept other people's realities without feeling like part of your identity has gone. it's probably also why it lends itself so well to conservative thinking - your identity is tied to being oppressed, so if you managed to get rid of the oppression, who will you be then?

let's not go down that rabbit hole as a community. queerness isn't about the ways in which we're oppressed, it's love and joy and community!! pride is a protest and a riot and an acknowledgement of what it took to get to where we are, but there's a reason it's also a party. everything can't be about how our lives suck.

*I also think the concept of "passing" isn't entirely useless but is often used as a bludgeon to fight further about one's place in the oppression Olympics hierarchy, and can sometimes serve to erase elements of people's identities so that they can continue to fit in a little box that serves a rhetorical point

here’s a reminder: intersectionality doesn’t mean “special Extra Bad oppression,” it’s the concept of different aspects of someone’s life impacting their experiences with individual identities.

intersectionality isn’t a club that only the Important identities are a part of, it’s a framework to expand our analysis and understanding of oppression and the lived experiences of minority groups.

intersectionality Doesn’t Mean “any and every individual gay man is going to have it better than any and every individual gay woman” (because lesbians have the Gay and Woman modifier, while gay men only have one). intersectionality asks people to acknowledge how gender can impact someone’s experiences as a gay person.

a white cis able bodied gay man is experiencing intersectionality because white cis and able bodied are all things that Intersect with their gay identity. asking people within privileged groups to recognize how that privilege impacts their lives Without erasing the ways that they are marginalized is like. The Point.

“x group doesn’t experience intersectionality because they aren’t Oppressed Enough” is literally the exact opposite of what intersectionality is supposed to be doing as a term. we Want people to think in terms of how every aspect of their lives influences their experiences so they may then think about how people who are different from them have Different experiences.

“gay men Always have it better than lesbians” cuts out conversations about people of color, trans people, intersex people, disabled people, marginalized religions, and More within gay spaces.

it also fails to acknowledge that Circumstance and Luck play a factor. all forces being equal, sometimes individual gay men Will have experiences that individual gay women do not and vice versa. white able bodied cis gay men are murdered sometimes, you cannot assume that someone with a different label than you Has It Better than you do based entirely on said label. human experiences do not define themselves by labels, they just happen.

[spacelazarwolf]

I still dont quite understand the idea of trans men not having male privilege? you can be oppressed for being trans and still be a Guy. im just confused bc , at least In My Personal Experience, ive been treated better since I transitioned, and I dont see how one cancels out the other

sorry if this is rambly or disrespectful at all, im just Confused

i think it's important to differentiate privilege from conditional safety. privilege is something that cannot be revoked (or can only be revoked under certain extreme or specific circumstances, like an able bodied person becoming disabled), something most people don't even realize they have until they examine themselves. conditional safety is something you are painfully aware of and try very hard to maintain, because it is something that can be revoked. it's also something that still doesn't grant you all the benefits of privilege.

both privilege and conditional safety are things that should be acknowledged by those who have it because there are many people who don't have either, but the lived realities of someone with privilege and the lived realities of someone with conditional safety are going to be extremely different.

a non trans example:

a white person, a white jewish person, a black person, and a white supremacist are working in the same office. the lived realities of the first three people will probably look something like this

white person: objects to the presence of the white supremacist but can choose whether or not to engage with them and doesn't fear for their safety.

white jewish person: cannot choose whether or not to engage with the white supremacist because their safety is at risk. will likely have to actively hide the fact they're jewish or risk potential violence (this happened to a white jewish friend of mine. she was working in a lab, someone else working there was a white supremacist, and when he found out she was jewish he started stalking her and sending her death threats and eventually came to her home and she had to move).

black person: is immediately unsafe and at risk of potential violence.

is the white jewish person objectively safer than the black person because they're able to hide their jewishness while the black person can't hide their blackness? absolutely.

is the white person objectively safer than the white jewish person because they don't have to deal with the psychological toll of being in hiding and constantly fearing violence? absolutely.

two other issues i have with the "do trans men have male privilege" discussion are that 1. that assumes that every trans man is passing, can pass, or wants to pass, and 2. it lacks intersectionality. when i was looking up examples of male privilege for my post, almost all of them were entirely based in able bodied cishetallo white manhood. one example often given is "men make more than women", but that doesn't take into account the fact that black men only make marginally more than white women while facing more job discrimination and economic disparity. examples that rely on sexuality or sex assigned at birth don't take into account queer and trans men. examples about respect at work don't take into account race or disability.

and the fact is, these things cannot be taken apart and looked at through one lens at a time, because black men have to exist as black and as men at the same time. disabled men have to exist as disabled and men at the same time. trans men have to exist as trans and men at the same time. queer men have to exist as queer and men at the same time. in a world where the ideal man is an abled cishetallo white man, men who are not that do not have the luxury of compartmentalizing.

in conclusion, can some trans men achieve conditional safety by passing and going stealth? absolutely. in this current climate where true male privilege is really only granted to able bodied cishetallo white men, can trans men achieve male privilege? imo, no.