#if I hear any transphobia on this post

[leikeliscomet]

Asexual theory 101

Right I keep getting asked on most of my asexual posts 'What does this mean OP? Where's the sources?' so imma make a quick ace theory 101 post so if anyone says they don't get it I can say I tried. Let's go:

'What does being ace have to do with race/racism?/There's racism in the ace community???'

Pretty much everything as people of colour experience various forms of sexualisation and desexualisation at the same time, which is why POC are rarely included in asexual representation:

Asexuals of Color Still Seek to Validate Their Asexuality by Ebony Purks

Stereotypes & media about Black masculinity made it harder to come out as asexual by Tyger Songbird

Your Assumptions About Black Queer Masculinity Are Erasing My Asexual Identity by Timinepre Cole

It's Time To Start Celebrating Black Asexuality in Media By Tyger Songbird

Yasmin Benoit: ‘People had a hard time believing that I could be Black and asexual and at Pride’ by Alastair James

Brown and Gray: An Asexual People of Color Zine

'What do TERFS/transphobia have to do with asexuality?'

There's a growing TERF conspiracy theory that asexuality is the side-effect of transitioning. The LGB movement believes the community is exclusively for 'same-sex attracted persons' and so identities that don't involve attraction e.g. the TQIA should be removed. Most backlash towards Yasmin Benoit, aroace activist, is from white TERFs and conservatives:

Acephobic conspiracy theories have transphobic and fascist roots by Sherronda J Brown

Anti-trans movement has a new target: The asexual community by Yasmin Benoit

'But how can conservatives hate asexuality if they hate sex?'

Because they don't and never did. If the term 'puritan' was used correctly in modern internet discourse, it would be known Christian puritans believe heterosexual sex for reproduction is a gift from god and mandatory so being asexual doesn't exactly fit with that worldview. Their beef is with any form of sex and sexuality that falls outside of cis heterosexual marriage, including asexuality. They're not anti sex but anti sexual autonomy:

"Anti-Sex" and the Real Sexual Politics of the Right by Lee Cicuta (ButchAnarchy)

The religious right is now targeting sexless marriages as “selfishness.” They Want to Ban Those Too by Tyger Songbird

Asexual people targetted by right-wing pundits following landmark report by Harriet Brewis

'What does being ace have to do with gender?'

It's commonly assumed that because patriarchy shames women's sexualities and considers all men's sexuality as biological and unavoidable, that ace women only and exclusively experience desexualisation whilst ace men only and exclusively are pressured into being sexual beings. This can true as a broad overview but it can vary based on race, disability, class etc. This also becomes complex for asexuals that exist outside the gender binary. This is known as 'gender detachment'.

Impossible for Men, Unremarkable for Women by Canton Winer

My Work on Gender Detachment and Asexuality Strikes a Nerve by Canton Winer

'There's asexual studies now?'

Yup. On the general experiences of asexual people in the UK, including discrimination in education, the workplace and healthcare:

The National LGBT Survey (2018)

Ace in the UK Report (2023)

Asexuality in the UK: Public attitudes towards people who experience little to no sexual attraction (2025)

Specific names:

Asexual theorists: Ianna Hawkins Owen, Michael Paramo, Julia Sondra Decker, Canton Winer (non-ace), Sherronda J Brown, Angela Chen

Asexual activists: Yasmin Benoit, Tyger Songbird, Marshall Blount (TheGentleAce)

Asexual artists: Kimberly Butler (TheAsexualGoddess)

And I'm gonna update this with more if they're worth adding. I don't wanna hear any excuses anymore or blame towards aces of colour, gay aces or trans aces for not being specific enough anymore. Read!

[soloorganaas]

the marauders fandom is not the reason terfs brought about a deeply transphobic and lesbophobic supreme court ruling in the UK. i’m going to be very clear about that because it’s something this fandom sincerely needs to confront

the ruling itself was written based on a deep misunderstanding of trans, nonbinary and lesbian identity that stems at least in part from a basic lack of british social education and discourse on lgbtq issues. jkr did not cause that. she is one of many right wing bigots capitalising on it and this case specifically only came about because she put £70,000 behind it

that wealth is based off a franchise which became a household name nearly three decades ago. that franchise is sustained because harry potter is ingrained in popular culture worldwide. it’s the families who flew 4000 miles to take their kids to wb studios. the vast majority of the world does not hear about hp or engage with it because of the marauders fandom

i do want to be very clear about that last point, because its a different issue from whether someone is personally uncomfortable engaging with hp in any way or whether engaging with it affects people in your community. that is a different kind of impact, but the discourse in this fandom is repeatedly blurring it with the broader impact on lgbtq people in britain of hp being so profitable and what jkr does with those profits

when you start talking about the harm that financially supporting the hp brand does as a personal moral issue, you are making this about you. when a supreme court ruling comes down that says very specifically that only cis women can be lesbians and five days later the discussion online is how someone feels about posting hp fanfic, you have made this harm about you. and it’s not about you. it’s about the people dealing with the reality of being lgbtq in britain right now. it’s about the ways in which that ruling directly and indirectly affects us

when i go to work each day and navigate the transphobia still rumbling around even in explicitly left wing spaces of british society i quite frankly do not give a fuck about your 100k wolfstar first war slowburn being taken off ao3. neither do the trans and nonbinary people I work with. neither do the parents of trans and nonbinary people I work with. it has literally zero impact on anybody’s lives here and has made absolutely nothing better

so what I am asking is that instead of posting on tumblr or ao3 or tiktok about the morality of being in the marauders fandom you instead share information about lgbtq issues in the uk right now and the voices of people who live here and are going through it. make people hear us. make people understand

being trans or nonbinary in the uk right now feels suffocating. it feels like a constant battle to not have your identity snuffed out. it feels like shouting into a void and being faced with this terrifying, uncaring silence. or worse. i am genuinely begging all of you to actually engage with that reality and stop being one more person talking over us

[ohnoitstbskyen]

re: Somerton

Not for nothing, but I think we should remember that James Somerton's fans and subscribers are normal people, just like you. They are people who received his output in good faith, and extended to him a normal amount of grace and benefit of the doubt, which he took advantage of.

I don't think it's helpful to respond to the exposé on Somerton with sentiments along the lines of "wow, how could anyone ever think THIS GUY'S videos were any good, ha ha ha, how did he ever get subscribers?" because 1) you have the substantial benefit of hindsight and a disengaged outsider perspective, and 2) it's a rhetoric that creates a divide between you (refined, savvy, smart, sophisticated) and Somerton's audience (gullible, unrefined, easily taken advantage of, terrible taste), which is a false divide, with a false sense of security.

Somerton's success happened because he stole good writing. He found interesting, insightful, in-depth work done by other people, applied the one skill he actually has which is marketing, and re-packaged it as his own. He targeted a market which is starving for the exact kind of writing he was stealing, and pushed his audience to disengage from sources that conflicted with him.

Hbomberguy makes this point in his exposé video: good queer writing is hard to find and incredibly easy to lose. The writers Somerton stole from were often poor or precarious, writing freelance work for small circles under shitty conditions, without the means or the reach or the privileges necessary to find bigger markets. And, as Hbomb demonstrated, when people did discover Somerton's plagiarism, he used his substantial audience to hound them away and dissuade anyone else from trying to hold him accountable.

He stole queer writing by marginalized people, about experiences and perspectives that people are desperate to hear more about, and even if his delivery and aesthetics were naff, his words resonated with people because the original writers who actually wrote them poured their goddamn hearts and souls into it.

Somerton also maintained a consistent narrative of persecution and marginalization about himself. He took the plain truth, which is that queer people and perspectives are discriminated against, and worked that into a story about himself as a lone, brave truth-teller, daring to voice an authentic queer perspective, constantly beset by bigots and adversaries who sought to tear him down. As @aranock, who works with some of the people he targeted, writes in this post, Somerton weaponized whatever casual bias and bigotry he could find in his audience to reinforce his me vs them narrative (usually misogyny and various forms of transphobia), which is what grifters do. They find a vulnerable thread in a community and pull on it. And while you may not have the particular vulnerability that he exploited, you do have vulnerabilities, and they can be exploited too.

People felt compelled to support him, even if his work was sometimes shoddy, because he presented himself as a vulnerable, marginalized person in need of help, he pulled on that vulnerable thread.

Again, he has a degree in marketing, and just like propaganda, nobody is immune to marketing.

YouTube as a system is set up to push for more, constantly more. More content, more videos, more output, more more more more, and part of Somerton and Illuminaughty's success was their ability to push out large amounts of content to the hungry algorithm, even if it was of inferior quality. The algorithm rewarded their volume of output with more eyeballs and attention, and therefore more opportunities to find people who were vulnerable to their grift.

It is a system which quite literally rewards the exact kind of plagiarism that they do, because watch-time and engagement are easily measurable metrics for a corporation, and academic rigor is not. There is pressure to deliver, and a lot of rewards to gain from cutting corners to do it.

Somerton and Illuminaughty and Internet Historian are extreme and very obvious cases, so blatant that you can make a four hour video essay exposing what they've done, but the vast majority of this kind of plagiarism isn't going to be obvious - sometimes it might not even be obvious to the people who are doing it. Casual plagiarism is endemic to the modern internet, and most people don't get educated on what the exact boundaries are between proper sourcing and quoting vs plagiarizing. We had an entire course module at my university aimed at teaching students the exact differences and definitions, and people still made good faith mistakes in their essays and papers that they had to learn to correct during their education.

All of this to say: it is extremely easy in hindsight to call Somerton's work shitty and shoddy, his aesthetics flat and uninspired, and to imagine that as a sophisticated person with good taste and critical faculties, you would never be taken in by this kind of grifter. It is extremely easy to distance yourself from the people he preyed on, and imagine that you will never have to worry about your fave doing your dirty like that.

But part of the point of Hbomberguy's video is that plagiarism is extremely easy to get away with, and often difficult for the average person to spot and call out, and with the rise of AI tools blurring the lines even further, it is not going to get any easier.

So I think we should resist the temptation to think of Somerton's audience as people with bad taste and poor faculties. We should resist the temptation to distance ourselves from the perfectly normal people he preyed on. Many times in your life, a modestly clever man with a marketing degree has fooled you too.

On a personal note, by the same token, I am resisting the temptation to assume that I am too good to be vulnerable to the systemic pressures that produced Somerton and Illuminaughty. No, I've never made a video by word-for-word reciting someone else's work, but I know for a fact that I could do a better job of double-checking my work and citing my sources. I feel the exact same pressure to get a video out as fast as possible, I have the exact same rewards dangled in front of me by YouTube as a platform, and I can't pretend it doesn't affect my work. To me, Hbomb's video felt like a wake-up call to do better.

[doberbutts]

❗️❗️ This is asked entirely in good faith. This post is intended to open dialogue and help with solidarity and understanding. ❗️❗️

I would like to hear specifically from trans men and trans mascs how the system of [whatever the fuck you call the intersection of transphobia, misogyny, and specifically your gender- whether transandrophobia, isomisogny, antitransmasculinity, transandromisia, transmisandry, or any that I have missed as there are a lot of words to describe similar concepts] uniquely targets and affects you. Things that you feel other demographics do not experience. Reblogs and replies are very encouraged! If you would prefer, you could dm or send an ask to be added anonymously by me.

This is in the spirit of wanting to understand. I am listening. I encourage all non-trans-mascs to not speak on this topic and let trans mascs and trans men do the talking here. Reblog the post to spread it, but please say nothing.

Any and all people who identify as trans men and/or trans mascs are encouraged to participate.

This is not bait to start a fight. I will block without hesitation anyone who is actively being a shithead on this post. I want to hear and uplift your voices by getting it directly from you.

Click this to access the trans fem and trans women version of this post.

Click this to access the nonbinary version of this post.

Click this to access the intersex version of this post.

[thechy-fychannel]

I saw a few other blogs doing this so I thought I'd share my input on what I think would happen in the House MD universe in 2024:

the constant jokes abt house and wilson's relationship turns into the fellows jokingly writing fanfic abt their boss and his boy best friend. somewhere along the way they all get very serious abt the quality of it and it turns into a Whole Thing, a 150k+ novel that they vow to take to their graves.

house discovers the fic by accident and sends it to wilson. wilson discovers things abt himself and then he and house discover each other shortly thereafter.

house purposefully posts the fic online and credits the fellows by their entire full names so it embarrasses them more than house and wilson. It's never spoken abt again but it gets way more online attention than any of them expected.

wilson doesn't get how the Cloud works and accidentally uploads his and house's nudes to the google nest hub on his desk. He doesn't notice it until one of his sweet little old lady cancer patients points it out to him during their appointment. He throws the google nest hub into his trash can until he can figure out how to get the naked pictures off of it.

house has an alexa and abuses the hell out of it. sometimes ppl hear him screaming at someone in his office, only to walk in and find a robotic voice replying with "sorry, I didn't get that" and house throws it off the balcony.

wilson gets addicted to online shopping. house has to stage an intervention bc they do not have enough room in their closet for another pair of prada loafers and their kitchen is full of shitty gadgets that wilson bought off temu or something.

some right wing social media influencer comes in with a mysterious illness and ends up getting castrated as part of the solution. 13 personally does the procedure herself and house watches like a proud dad.

a patient reveals chase's grindr by shoving his phone at him and asking "is this you?" abt the headless profile with the ripped abs that says Dr. Feel Good, 0 feet away, in front of the rest of the team.

foreman finds the team doing tiktok dances bc house told them to learn it in order to understand their 15 yr old patient better.

chase medically murders mitch mcconnel and the entire hospital celebrates ding dong the witch is dead style.

there's a whole episode where house faces his transphobia bc of a trans patient that he connects with. the patient tells him to fuck off and go face his own problems instead of pretending to make it right by being nice to one trans person. And house does, even if he's not perfect, he really tries to do better.

13 gets her medical marijuana card and accidentally becomes the team's plug. her main customer is wilson who still supplies it to certain terminal patients. She hears "hey, can I hit your pen?" at least four times a day.

foreman buys a tesla and it blows up in the parking lot. they spend the entire episode trying to figure out who tried to kill foreman, but it turns out that teslas just do that sometimes.

there's an episode where house finds out that netflix is removing his favorite obscure tv show that ran for 2 seasons in 2002 and wilson recruits the team to hunt down a dvd copy of it without house finding out. they somehow manage to find one and spend a ridiculous amount of money on it, only to open the dvd case and find a copy of the porno wilson starred in that one time instead of the dvd of the show. park saves the day at the last minute by finding a copy of it in a box of dvds in her parents house.

[charlie-ver]

Hey, you, the trans man reading this - I love you. I know there's posts like this, but I got down a bad rabbit hole last night and I think there's not enough nice posts towards trans men (:

I don't care if you've finished you transition, on won't be ever able to reach the changes you would like. I don't care if you've been on T for years, or just started, or won't be for some years, or can't or don't want to be. I do not care how you dress. I don't care if you want to be pregnant and have children one day. I don't care if you want hysterectomy and don't even want to freeze your eggs (Hell knows I am not freezing anything). I do not care if you want bottom surgery or if you love what you were born with. Because it doesn't matter and doesn't take away from your identity.

Gay trans men? You aren't just confused straight girls. You are valid in your gender AND sexuality. Straight trans men? You aren't a betrayal the moment you are no longer misgendered. You're still welcome in lgbtqia+ spaces. Because you're a part of our community. One does not lose their place the moment they are perceived and cis or cishet.

Cis men have heard it before, but they won't admit it. All this "if you like x you must be a girl" really just feels like repackaged "if you like x you must be gay". Wanna hear a secret?

HOBBIES, JOBS AND FAVORITE THINGS DO NOT HAVE GENDER.

I like botanical gardens. I love plants. I like looking at clothing, room decor, fabric stores sometimes catch my eye. Because I am am artist, and I take inspiration from these and many more things. Plant care and gardening is not a "red flag" for a trans man in my humble and trans opinion, but it's a sign that you have love to give. And that's beautiful. Just like liking these things does not indicate that a man is gay, it does not mean that your internal identity is any different.

Do not let the world put rails on your patch to your own masculinity. And if you have to hide, that's okay. If you can only be yourself online, that's okay. Trans people will always be here. Trans men will always be here. The best thing you can do is to live as safely as you can. I know this can come off as condescending from a European who has nothing to fear personally, except violence for one month in the year, because my way of being trans isn't "obvious", but I try to take it that my safety means I can try to reassure the rest of you, while you can just focus on your own misery and don't have to be strong for anyone but yourself.

If you need a safe place to went, come to my asks. If you don't want me to post them and just read them, that's ok. You can be angry, you can vent, you can cry, do whatever you need, but, obviously, no transphobia or anything (: Special love goes out to trans men who are of the aroace spectrum, because honestly, the aroace discourse never seems to die, it's just dismissed. Reminds me of something. Hm (: I wonder.

Anyhow. Come to me to cry, for a virtual hug, for a distraction, if you'd like. Feel free to ask for art. Want me to draw your trans characters with flags? I can do that, for free, for you. Ask or dm is enough (: Art and listening is the best I can do, but I'll do my best to do it well.

I love you. You deserve to live, you deserve to be happy, and you also are wholly entitled to cry, to complain, to be sad, angry, loud, afraid. You are a human being with emotions, you deserve to feel them. Nobody can tell you what your internal identity, what your gender is. Because nobody else can know that. Only you can.

So let me repeat: It does not matter how you dress, whether you are on T, whether you want surgeries or love your body as is, whether you are skinny, fat, or muscular, what accessories and clothes you wear, how your voice sounds, how you act, how you carry yourself and what you like. The only thing that matters is how you feel. And while we're at it, yes, you may change your mind, but it still doesn't invalidate your identity in the moment. There was a time where I thought I was biromantic, but I dropped that because I wasn't, and nobody gave me shit for it. Because nobody should. Whatever you feel right now? Valid. Do you identify at a trans man but don't use he/him? Valid. Do you identify with more genders? Are you maybe a man only sometimes? Or are you more at the same time? All of that is valid, if you feel like a man in some aspect or on some part, you are one, if that's a label you want. If your gender makes more sense as a man, then yeah, you are one. Nothing else but how you feel matters.

I love you, and again, I'm here for you if you need that. I can only listen and draw a little something for you, but maybe that's enough for some. If it can help a bit, I can do it for you.

Anyone derailing this post will be blocked. I have no patience for derailers.

[transandrobroism]

an observation from several posts/conversations that could really help in avoiding a lot of misunderstandings: often when people talk about 'transmisogyny', they are using the term 'transmisogyny' to mean at least three different things simultaneously and conflating different meanings of the term in discussions. in general usage i've seen 'transmisogyny' used to mean:

transmisogyny-as-phenomena - i.e. 'transmisogyny' as a term for the intersection of transphobia and misogyny, a common feature of transfems' experiences;

transmisogyny-as-framework - in which transmisogyny is elevated to the level of a conceptual framework for understanding all transphobia. under this meaning everyone is encouraged/expected to conceptualise their experiences of transphobia through the lens of transmisogyny and run it through a filter of "how does this relate back to transmisogyny as the primary driving force for all transphobia"

on top of this both uses of the term are also conflated with the TMA/TME framework that divides people into two neat categories of those affected or primarily targeted by transmisogyny (transmisogyny affected, or TMA) and those exempt from transmisogyny and only accidentally impacted by it (transmisogyny exempt, or TME).

conflating all these meanings with each other is how you end up with soggy takes like "rejecting the label of TME is denying transfems the right to define and discuss their own oppression" which is a real thing that someone (transmasc) said to me. treating these concepts as all interchangeable meanings of the term transmisogyny contributes to a lot of the discourse and (frankly) animosity about discussions of transandrophobia, because when someone says something like "idk i just don't think transmisogyny is adequate as a robust framework for understanding how all transphobia works" or "dividing the world into TMA/TME is a flawed way of viewing transphobia and replicates the gender binary we're all trying to dismantle", that's a critique of transmisogyny-as-framework, but is read as a rejection of transmisogyny-as-phenomena, and thus is viewed as invalidating transfems' experiences.

add to that the fact that i've seen some people insist that transmisogyny is not just an umbrella term for the ways transfems experience transphobia but just means the intersection of transphobia and misogyny - but at the same time people insist that AFAB (trans) people are all exempt from transmisogyny by default and that our experiences should be discussed as 'misdirected transmisogyny'. which renders the de facto meaning of the term 'transmisogyny' an umbrella term for transfem experiences from which anyone not transfem is exempt.

the conflation of terms and definitions means any critique of transmisogyny or TMA/TME is taken as a denial of transfems' experiences. it also means that when transmascs propose a term like 'transandrophobia' - meaning the intersection of the identity positions of 'trans' and 'man', or more broadly a term for commonly-shared experiences of transmascs - that's read as an argument that all men are systemically oppressed for being men (it's not) and/or that transmascs are proposing transandrophobia-as-framework (again, not the case). but because 'transmisogyny' can refer interchangeably to both transphobic phenomena and experiences and a proposed conceptual framework for transphobia in general, the term 'transandrophobia' is misconstrued as a conceptual framework. we say "we've come up with a term to describe our experiences as transmascs" and people hear "you need to conceptualise all your experiences with transphobia in terms of the oppression of transmascs and centre our experiences in your discussions about your own marginalisation".

the reality is that most people discussing transandrophobia are not denying that transfems experience transphobia or denying that transmisogynistic phenomena happen. objections to the TMA/TME distinction are objections to a conceptual framework that treats all transphobia as just transmisogyny in a trenchcoat, and not a denial that transfems experience transmisogyny or are 'not oppressed' or whatever else.

for the record, i have no beef with transmisogyny either as a term for the intersection of transphobia and misogyny or as a term for shared transfem experiences. my critiques of transfeminst thinking are theoretical, namely:

transmisogyny-as-framework presupposes that the major driving force of all transphobia is a desire to target/punish trans women and that everyone else is caught in the crossfire. i don't think that's adequate as a conceptual framework because transphobia is better understood as a result of a gender-essentialist society punishing all non-normative performance of gender. it also relies on a lot of faulty assumptions about the transphobia that transmascs experience. transphobia experienced by transmascs is treated as a category-typical experience of transphobia (i.e. trans men get the 'just transphobia' version, whilst transfems get the 'transphobia plus' version)... but also transmasc oppression must be framed in terms of 'misdirected (trans)misogyny'. you can't treat trans men as having the most typical, 'basic' experience of transphobia whilst also insisting all transphobia is actually a form of transmisogyny misdirected at other trans people. those two positions are mutually contradictory. if all transphobia is actually about transmisogyny then transfems are getting the default transphobia experience and transmascs/trans nonbinary people/etc are all getting variations of that, not the other way around.

if you want to use transmisogyny as a framework for understanding all of transphobia, you cannot label anyone as exempt from transmisogyny. if transmisogyny is the proposed framework for understanding all transphobic discrimination of any trans person of any gender, then you are saying we all exist in a system of transmisogyny. therefore none of us are exempt from it. and if you're proposing transmisogyny-as-framework for all trans experiences, then all trans people get to weigh in on it, because you're applying it to all of us. i get to disagree with the framework being coercively applied to my experiences and i should be able to do that without being called transmisogynistic, because critiquing a framework you're asking every trans person to submit to is not synonymous with hating on trans women or denying their lived experiences or saying they're not oppressed. you can't insist that transmascs are TME by default whilst also insisting we only ever discuss our experiences as 'misdirected transmisogyny'. and you definitely can't label all transmascs as exempt from transmisogyny whilst simultaneously insisting we use transmisogyny as the conceptual framework within which we understand our oppression. that's trying to have your cake and eat it.

the TMA/TME framework is just reinventing binary gender but with extra steps. especially since in practice determining whether someone is TMA or TME seems to involve an awful lot of focus on people's assigned gender and what genitals they were born with.

a lot of this theorising follows a very radfem pattern of dividing everyone into two gendered categories, labelling one of those categories to Privileged Oppressor Class, and then heavily policing who gets to belong to the Oppressed Victims Class based on their genitals and socialisation. at which point you're just doing TERFism from the other direction. any framework that proposes we can understand gendered experiences in terms of a strict binary is automatically throwing intersex and nonbinary people under the bus. a comprehensive theory of trans experiences must have space for nonbinary identities and intersex experiences otherwise it is incomplete.

i'm making this post in good faith and i'm not denying the impact of transmisogyny on transfems. but i do think theorising around transmisogyny and TMA/TME as a framework have a number of flaws and i'm not going to use those frameworks to talk about my own experiences because they are theoretically inadequate. a robust theory of transphobia and trans experiences must have room for all trans experiences within it, as well as overlapping experiences of gendered oppression such as intersexism, misogyny, butchphobia etc. TMA/TME ain't it.

[genderkoolaid]

i’ve been seeing that “nooo tboy mutual don’t reblog that transandrophobia post, there are so many other non-reactionary frameworks that you can use to understand your experiences” post go around (unfortunately from. a lot of my mutuals.)

and it’s really frustrating to me bc like. i would love to hear them!!! i would love to discuss different lenses of viewing the specific kind of oppression that transmascs face, i would love to learn about different perspectives!!

but so much of what’s out there either 1) doesn’t include us at all or 2) insists that our oppression isn’t anything more than transphobia, or that it’s just misdirected transmisogyny, or that it’s just transphobia and misogyny, but no discussion of how transphobia and misogyny interact to specifically impact transmascs. it just feels so disingenuous and dismissive because whenever we talk about our experiences, no matter what language we use, we’re shut down over and over and over again.

Godddd I saw that post the other day and could not help but roll my eyes. Saying there's "so many other frameworks" to use disregards a fundamental reason why this framework is being created in the first place: transmascs, across different ages and races and other variables, feeling silenced and absent in other models of society, even those claiming to be for trans-feminist. Like if you are trying to convince trans guys to not use the term transandrophobia maybe start by acknowledging the absence of proper frameworks to discuss the unique position of trans men & mascs. & you know damn well none of these people will acknowledge how every other iteration of "transandrophobia" ALSO got shut down for being Problematic™, including "isomisogyny" which was literally just misogyny with a prefix attached to assure cis women that we would never DARE to imply that transmascs might be oppressed by the same social force as them!

But that's the problem with people trying to make the discussion of anti transmasculinity palatable! They want to have a version of this discussion that isn't threatening at all to the deeply ingrained anti (trans)masculinity in queer spaces. Literally any criticism, no matter how lukewarm or carefully handled, is labeled "reactionary." After you get rid of everything that people hate about transandrophobia theory you are left with none of the things that make it valuable to transmascs + everyone else who benefits from this discussion.

[communistkenobi]

I'm curious how you stomach going thru Tom Cruise's entire filmography when he's such a massive piece of shit. Like I feel like I'd just be thinking about all the women in films he has costarred in and abused beyond reason the entire time.....

I’m going to step very slowly into a minefield so please bear with me:

I don’t find that approach to art particularly helpful or interesting most of the time, and even if you do (which I don’t begrudge you for) I don’t think anyone has a principled stance on the matter, which would prohibit you from watching any film ever made, because the production of film under the current economic and social conditions of the world is itself unjust. Perhaps this is a lazy cop-out - if the moving image is evil then all actions vis a vis said moving image are equally damnable and therefore equally permissible. However, everyone carves out exceptions for what they can stomach (MY favourite celebrity would never do that) or cannot stomach (see: depp, jkr), myself included. And that’s not even getting into the actual issues of the content of the art itself. iirc Tony Gilroy scabbed during the writers strike to finish the Andor S2 script and I still watch it and enjoy it! I am also glad they fired Gina Carrano from the Mandalorian for her transphobia and white supremacy meltdown on twitter, and her character on that show is permanently ruined for me now because of it. I will not be able to enjoy anything involving Noah Schnapp as a direct result of his Zionist views. And so on.

An anecdote I always liked that I heard from a prof is his explanation of what a social position is: once a music band reaches sufficient fame, one of the members will inevitably sexually assault someone. So this might sound overly cavalier, but I don’t care to litigate the moral character of Tom Cruise or figure out exactly what he did or did not do (I’m not familiar with the abuse allegations you mentioned), nor do I care to do that with most celebrities, because that would mean accepting the assumption that doing so will give you an answer as to whether you should continue enjoying their work. I don’t generally find this assumption helpful for how I interact with art, nor does it give me the answer I want - which is always, inevitably, no I should not enjoy this, because accruing that much wealth and fame is unjust regardless of who they are or how hard they worked or their talents as an artist or etc., and this injustice structurally produces abuse (#MeToo is a response to this structure). Like the fact that celebrities exist as a social position is itself a problem lol. 

Now does this mean you can engage in celebrity worship, free of any guilt? Again I don’t know if this is a productive question, or if the answers it gives you will be helpful. I find it generally distasteful, but I likewise engage in celebrity parasociality - I watch Tom Cruise press interviews! I enjoy hearing his little stunt anecdotes and it’s not just because they’re interesting, I find him charming and fun to listen to. And we all had a great time when Pedro Pascal was posting the word socialism on twitter. The examples are infinite.

And maybe this is all just motivated reasoning (I don’t want to consider myself a bad person, etc) to let myself off the hook, but it would be effectively the same critique as like, consuming the MCU despite its deep ties to the US military or what have you. Which again, I have engaged in this argument on this blog, and will almost certainly engage in it again! I will mock anyone who still likes Harry Potter on both moral grounds (JKR is abominable) and aesthetic ones (you have dogshit taste). I am also not principled in this regard. You can call me a hypocrite and I’ll agree with you. But I find a lot of movies ideologically despicable (see: Top Gun) or made by awful people (see: Kubrick) and still really enjoy them. This is not a contradiction for me because I (generally) do not operate under the assumption that my engagement with art first requires me to figure out if the artists are good people or not.

And a lot this is adjacent to the point you’re making, and is a strain of discourse I’m anticipating in this response, so maybe this all sounds off topic or overly defensive, but this leads into the broader discussions surrounding the politics of like, ‘moral consumption’ and using the quality of the moral character of an artistic object or artist as a guide for what you should buy into. your mileage will ultimately vary, including my own. and personally I’m really enjoying Mr Tom Cruise!

[sexybread-png]

its weird as hell to barely draw black women and when you do you make them more masculine each time……….. on BHM

do better

hello anon! i hear your complaints and i would like to discuss, if ur amenable, as i can only really listen if i can understand

firstly, to address my lack of drawings of black women, i will not argue. its true i could stand to draw more black women. most art i make is fanart and most media i get interested in lacks black women to make fanart of. therein lies my issue. ill be sure to expand my taste in tv shows and look for medias that include more black women and poc in general. /srs

now, on the issue of drawing them more masculine, i will need you to elaborate. is it the pants? the muscles? is it the hairiness on my most recent post?

assuming its the latter, i will have to disagree. insinuating hair on a woman's body is more masculine than none is in of itself a statement that reeks of misogyny, racism and transphobia.

women have body hair. some women have a LOT of body hair. it does not make them any less feminine/any less of a woman.

heres an article on the history of shaving, and a reddit post of a woman's relationship with her body hair.

id like to highlight this part of the article:

now, ill admit these are not from the point of view of a black woman so i'd be interested to hear that perspective. however, i've received many comments that were happy about the representation of hairy women in my art and i will always take into consideration the way my art makes people feel. this art has made ppl feel seen.

you'll notice, ive also drawn galinda with a happy trail. i just like drawing hairy women.

on another note, here are some drawings ive made of black women:

could you point to me what makes them more masculine ?

or was it the fact that i drew elphaba with a bush

[sunshine-zenith]

A thought — Ballister and Ambrosius’s relationship probably wasn’t public in the movie until the end. They probably weren’t secretive about it, given how Todd (someone neither of them like or would confide in) was clearly antagonistic to Ambrosius after Ballister’s jailbreak, but even then that just might be because their connection was well known — they liked each other more than any of the knights liked them, most being neutral overall to Ambrosius and outright bullies to Ballister. No one in the public seems to know about them

Media perception is a reoccurring factor in the movie, with the opening scene giving exposition in the form of a news cast. During it, Ballister is shown to be controversial, with a there being a few comments questioning the Queen’s choices related to him. Ambrosius is also brought up as someone everyone’s looking forward to seeing officially knighted, with no one questioning his relationship with Ballister or even bringing it up

While everyone is fearing and hating Ballister after the Queen dies, Ambrosius is still popular among the masses — people stop him in the streets to get his autograph. Nimona, who admittedly probably didn’t do much digging into Ballister beyond the initial news reports on the Queen’s deaths, seemed surprised that Ballister and Ambrosius had a connection. She even had an “ohhhhhh” moment after picking up on their vibe the first time they saw each other post-arm chop (and yeah she initially calls Ambrosius Ballister’s nemesis, but she clearly clocks that something romantic was going on given the “arm chopping is not a love language!” comment). She also asks if he wants to die in a (literal) closet, which like. Y’all.

Before the Queen’s death, all their PDA is in private (on the catwalk) or subtly around other knights (helping each other put on their armor with lots of heart eyes and lingering hands). Otherwise, their interactions are those of Two People Who Are Close but aren’t necessarily explicitly romantic (Ambrosius wanting to throw hands on Ballister’s behalf, teasing each other, Ambrosius cheering with the crowd). Granted, there wasn’t a lot of screen time for them to just be happy before Everything Went Wrong.

We can’t really judge whether they were private from their interactions after the Queen’s death, since most are focused on a “so this traumatic thing happened and I don’t know where we stands right now” vibe or have them just fighting. The three times Ambrosius says he loves Ballister, one was just the two of them on the catwalk, one was in a mental rant and not actually out loud, and one was while they were trying to hide their identities. Ballister continues to defend Ambrosius, saying he’d believe them if they could just talk and that the arm thing is just “complicated,” “part of their training, up until Ambrosius outright tries to arrest them (which might as well be a breakup without saying “we’re breaking up”).

In the comic, the Director says she knew about their relationship and that she disapproved. Given how much she manipulates things, it wouldn’t surprise me if she knew in the movie, and encouraged them to downplay things at least — “you should keep your private lives private so you don’t taint your public images/yes we support you, obviously, but you’re here to protect the people, not show off to them/you don’t want to overshadow things with more controversy, wait a few years until after you’re knighted/what if this is just a phase, it would be a mess to clean up if you go public now/people will talk if they hear Gloreth’s only current descendant, a promising young man, is being courted by someone they aren’t certain about who comes from nothing and can’t pass your genes on/you have each other, shouldn’t that be enough?/etc.”

We don’t see them be in a relationship publicly until after the wall — the symbol of fear of the unknown, systematic abuse and oppression, refusal to learn and grow, and let’s be real homophobia/transphobia — comes down and the Director — the one going to murderous extremes out of fear of change — is dead

I dunno. This movie is a large celebration of being queer, but it’s also about how queer people are demonized by society to the point of everyone suffering. Ambrosius is the model minority everyone loves but no one knows because all eyes are on him; Ballister is both tokenized and targeted from the moment the public meets him, having to prove himself over and over until the public unquestionably turns on him entirely; and Nimona is called a monster for just being herself. All three already had to hide who they really were. I’m not 100% sure if Ballister and Ambrosius were out or not about being together, but it’s not a stretch to see, and it fits in with the themes/arcs of this movie

[genderqueerdykes]

I saw your post about AMAB Enbies and how non-binary isn’t a monolith and wanted to say I appreciated seeing it. As a 25-year-old socially anxious, autistic, and ADHD AMAB enby person, it’s hard for me not to feel like a lot of trans and LGBT spaces treat me like a fox in the henhouse, especially when there are physical attributes I can’t change, like my height and build, and how “manly” things like my hands and face are. I can’t exactly change my facial structure, nor do I think it’d be authentic to myself if I did or could. (Apparently, it’s a problem to have a well-kempt and styled beard?)

Unfortunately, when I interact with the local trans community, most conversations circle around whether I’m planning on medically transitioning or “getting some work done.” I don’t feel like I have something to transition to; I just need to work on improving my physical and mental health. They also often ask if I’m happy with my style/aesthetics, which I’m not. But it often feels like a catty jab because, one, who has the money for a professional boy-mode-ish wardrobe, a boy-mode/family-safe wardrobe, AND a gender-affirming wardrobe? There is some overlap between those three concepts, I know, but still… I can’t wear a tank top, fun/crazy button-up, and a pair of khaki booty shorts in an office setting, or god forbid, around parents or certain friends. XwX

A lot of my autistic and ADHD tics were “corrected” in harmful ways that have made me more restrained and subdued to a point where my excitement might seem a bit disconcerting at times. I used to talk with my hands a lot and fidget a lot, but since it wasn’t something “good boys” did, the behavior was “corrected” by my parents and the community I grew up in. I’m always kinda anxious and paranoid now in groups of semi-strangers that I’ll make a major faux pas and everyone will hate me or dogpile in correcting me.

Anyway, thanks for letting me ramble in your asks. I just wanted to say thank you for speaking out because some of us are afraid to. ^^;

hey i just wanted to say thanks for sending this ask! i really appreciate it because it irks me that people just participate in this behavior and act like that's what's to be expected or right. it's not okay, and i'm sorry you have firsthand experience with this, but i absolutely do not blame you at all whatsoever. it's fucked up that a lot of spaces for people who fall outside of the gender binary are beginning to police AGAB which is just. absolutely outrageous behavior from a community that is supposed to embrace and celebrate diversity in identity and how we experience gender outside of the binary...

but instead toxic people become obsessed with the biological sex binary. i don't know how to put it any other way than it is transphobic as fuck to say you don't feel safe around an entire group of people with/born with one specific genitals. their genitals have nothing to do you with you! nothing! those are their genitals, leave them the fuck alone! this is LITERALLY the "we don't give a fuck about AGAB" community and bioessentialists and transphobic queers are loudly and proudly excommunicating anyone from the community who was born assigned male at birth or has a penis in general.

i'm sorry to hear that people are so uptight about your body and physical appearance. the thing is that we are supposed to be embracing diversity in our bodies and appearances and experiences but yet they see someone who is... tall? or has a defined chin? or an adam's apple? or dense muscle tissue? or facial hair, like you mentioned? and suddenly they're... a threat? what the hell is this? it's transphobia, that's what it is!

you shouldn't have to transition if you don't want to. the thing about being non binary is that you presenting that way, especially if it's how you want to present, is literally challenging and stepping outside of the gender binary as we know it today. you are not required to go over the top and be the most femme person to have ever walked the earth. you're not required to have surgeries done or take hormones or dress different or change your voice... you don't have to change anything about you that you don't want to. that's one of the core principles of the trans community and we are letting down such a massive part of our family by behaving this way.

you really hit the nail on the head by bringing up your tics. i am so sorry that you have to deal with that worry- a LOT of people who are hostile toward amab transfems, trans women, and transfemmes in general target them specifically because of their mental health and/or neurodivergence. i've noticed this in person, especially if the amab non binary person in question has a loud voice and doesn't notice or has hearing damage and has to speak loudly, if they have tics as you mentioned, if they talk a lot or enjoy long conversations, if they try to explain... anything, people will target them for being "hostile" or for "arguing" when they're doing nothing wrong

people have gotten too comfortable in calling people with these features, especially people with deep voices, facial/body hair and penises, make someone "scary" or "dangerous". people are literally gladly applying radfem logic to the nonbinary community and not questioning it. radfems are attempting to rope in nonbinary afab people as they view them as "confused women," so the more we support this behavior, the more we lose grasp on our own family and community. we can't allow people to think this is okay behavior

i don't understand why people are okay with cis butch women but not okay with butch or gender non conforming transfems, trans women and amab trans people. i despise the notion that amab and intersex people can't be gender non conforming. why is gender non conformity reserved for afab people? has everyone forgotten (or patently ignored) the rich history of amab non binary and gender non conforming people we've had over the many decades of recorded history throughout our community in this modern era?

amab people should be allowed in these spaces, because there are just as many ways for amab people to step outside of the gender binary as there are afab and intersex people. everyone is capable of stepping outside of the binary for their identity and nobody has the right to police what that looks like. nobody. if one genuinely has trauma being around people of certain body types, seeking some type of therapy is crucial, because this is projecting one person's specific trauma on to an entire group of people, and it's spreading like wildfire and becoming the default in these spaces

this is not an attempt to derail, but rather to point out that this affects ALL trans people: fearing these traits in any person of any agab affects trans men, transmascs, intersex people, and other trans people in general. someone can have these features for a variety of reasons. also, if we're leaving out trans men & mascs, and we're leaving out trans women & femmes, AND we're leaving out AMAB people in general... how the HELL is that a trans community? there's no community to be had there whatsoever! that's an echo chamber! that's a radfeminist belief breeding ground!

we cannot let radfems and transmisogynist let nonbinary spaces become "gender non conforming women, afab trans people and people with a vagina only" spaces, because at what point, why are you calling it the nonbinary community? people need to be brutally honest and call those spaces women's spaces, or EXPLICITLY tell people that they are made only for people assigned female at birth. that wouldn't be ideal but it would at least make this transparent so people would know to avoid that and possibly start up their own safer spaces for ALL trans people

leaving out amab trans people no matter how they identify means your space is not safe for ALL trans people. it needs to be safe for every trans person no matter what they were assigned at birth. we are failing a huge portion of our community for no reason other than for people to project their trauma onto a group of people that haven't hurt them. we can't let down our family like that. it affects us all. we are stronger together and the nonbinary communities become more nuanced and develop better resources and enable all trans voices as opposed to 1 very specific type of trans person

thank you for this ask, sorry for such a long winded reply but i am so sick of people being awful to amab trans people in general. you deserve to be able to be non binary openly and talk about it with other queer people. i hope you're able to find safer spaces to be who you are, you deserve that just like any other queer person. you don't deserve to feel like you're walking on eggshells the entire time you're around other nonbinary people because you were assigned a different sex at birth, and you have different genitals than they do... that's literally antithetical to transness as a concept and queer community on the whole

you don't have to adhere to a strict binary just because you are amab and trans, i hate how people tell you and other folks in your shoes those exact things. you know who you are, you are a non binary person, and i hope more people begin to challenge this behavior and speak up for others, because this is literally not queer community. this is petty infighting being influenced by transmisogynist politics that does not belong. that has nothing to do with queer community, that is an attempt by radfems to disassemble our community at every possible level.

please for the love of god stop giving them that. it's hurting us all

[bxyp]

Could you maybe do something with a ftm reader who has a lot of scars and tattoos especially on his back and like Ghost sees him shirtless for the first time? Without Ghost knowing your trans? And it just being fluff and a little bit of angst?

If you don't feel comfortable doing this its okay!!

Sincerely: a very cool person

His priority is your well-being, not some scars you have.

Summary: You have been shot, and Ghost, as your comrade, helps you treat the wound. What could go wrong?

Pairing: Simon "Ghost" Riley x FTM Reader

warnings: SWF content, "Ghost" '22, transphobia is mentioned, post-surgery scars are described, military, soldier! reader, blood, wounds were mentioned, reader gets shot.

word count: 592

Being transgender in the military wasn't easy. Sneaking into the shower right after everyone had left to just take a shower, just without anyone knowing. Just to make sure no one judges or looks weird. It wasn't easy in the army. The service here was even harder…

Being wounded in the line of duty was not unusual, even the best soldier could receive a scratch. And even now you are leaning against some old tree in East Asia. Things never go according to plan, that's part of the job.

Eyes barely open, this job is not for the weak. That's why you clench your teeth while Ghost starts pulling you out of your gear to put bandages on your gunshot wound on shoulder. Of course you wish you could do it by yourself but right now you priority was to not get infection.

"Keep your eyes open, soldier." Ghost’s harsh tone didn’t let you relax even for a second, which was probably for the best. He didn't pay much attention to your tattoos or scars, figuring he could take a closer look at them once he stitched you up.

You feel his gloved hands slowly pour the alcohol onto your shoulder. Sharp pain simply drowned out all your thoughts. Every cell of your body felt like it was on fire. "Fuck! Be gentle, I’m bleeding.” You spat as soon as you unclenched your teeth. Everything hurt so much, your mind could barely focus on one thought.

"I'm well aware of that." He said that once he found the nearest piece of cloth to cover the bleeding, he would help you get to your feet and get to the nearest evacuation site.

He picked up the radio and said something, but you could barely hear what. Only thing you got was that he said that you had been shot and you both needed to evacuate as soon as possible. He probably said something else, but your head hurt, along with that damn shoulder that felt like it was being cut off, slowly, piece by piece. His skillful hands quickly tightened some fabric on your shoulder. And without giving you time to come to your senses, he picked you up, throwing your good arm over his shoulder. “The evacuation helicopter will be there in a few minutes. Get back on your feet."

You both slowly walked towards the place Ghost lead you to. Only now did you remember that he probably saw your scars… Those top surgery scars that you covered with everything you could. Those scars that you hid. These white lines are right under your pecs. You worked hard to make them hard to see. But neither cream nor some beaty products could remove them. A constant reminder of who you were born…

Anxiety rise in you, your stomach became a tight knot. You're afraid that he saw the scars that you tried to hide. “So, about what you saw…” You were afraid he might tell someone. The military was not the most acceptable place. Here you will have to fight not only on the battlefield, but also earn your place among others.

“I don’t care who you are, lad. My job is to keep you alive, not to pry into your personal life.” His words can be harsh and cold. But you don't see any condemnation here. He considers you his equal. Ghost wasn't the nicest person, but he wasn't an asshole who treated you differently just because you weren't like him.

The rescue helicopter was visible in the distance…

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𝔑𝔬𝔱 𝔪𝔲𝔠𝔥. ℑ'𝔪 𝔰𝔱𝔦𝔩𝔩 𝔤𝔢𝔱𝔱𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔲𝔰𝔢𝔡 𝔱𝔬 𝔴𝔯𝔦𝔱𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔰𝔦𝔫𝔠𝔢 ℑ'𝔳𝔢 𝔟𝔢𝔢𝔫 𝔞𝔴𝔞𝔶 𝔣𝔬𝔯 𝔞 𝔴𝔥𝔦𝔩𝔢. ℑ 𝔨𝔫𝔬𝔴 𝔦𝔱 𝔴𝔞𝔰 𝔰𝔲𝔭𝔭𝔬𝔰𝔢𝔡 𝔱𝔬 𝔟𝔢 𝔞 𝔣𝔩𝔲𝔣𝔣 𝔰𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔶, 𝔟𝔲𝔱 ℑ 𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔫𝔨 𝔦𝔱 𝔴𝔬𝔲𝔩𝔡 𝔣𝔦𝔱 𝔪𝔬𝔯𝔢 𝔱𝔬 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔊𝔥𝔬𝔰𝔱'𝔰 𝔠𝔥𝔞𝔯𝔞𝔠𝔱𝔢𝔯.

[velvetvexations]

im sick to death of seeing certain buzzwords in posts and going to ops blog to search "tme" and its filled to the brim w blatant unmasked transphobia and strawmen and vitriol. i cant go anywhere to get away from it; i cant just "log offline" or "lean into my birth assignment to get out of consequences". i have tits and a beard. who tf is excusing me for anything? what the hell do they mean "misdirected transmisogyny"? is the trans woman being targeted in the room with us? or does some theoretical trans womans feelings getting hurt hearing whats said TO ME ABOUT ME more important than the beatings ive taken?

im tired and i feel like a cornered rat. thank you for being an oasis in a fucking desert.

"AFABs lean into their birth assignment to get out of consequences" is literally an MRA thing and I'm not saying trans women are MRAs but that is word for word an MRA thing that they are saying. I do not know why trans women are saying MRA things. If someone pointing out the MRA things they say bothers them, they could stop saying MRA things any time they wanted to.

[heliianth]

Hi, I saw your repost of @i-heart-hxh and wanted to ask you a question of why you consider the zoldycks patriarchal in nature. Someone here pointed out that while the ones with the most authority in the family are indeed men (silva, zeno, killua who is a boy who is the heir, etc.) they aren't explicitly sexist in nature because means they would hate any sort of non gender conformity. They allow kalluto to dress in feminine clothing, illumi to have his pseudo sexual alliances with hisoka, and the alluka misgendering seems to come more out of fear of her then explicit transphobia (still not okay though, obviously). Of course, this is assuming that gender norms are the same in hxh verse/Japan (I think the wiki says that japanese boys used to dress like kalluto did?) or that the zoldycks are just androcentric but not necessarily sexist/homophobic. Sorry for the wordy post, just wanted to see your pov.

Hi thanks for asking !!!!

I'm not sure how organized this will be because I have a lot of thoughts. First I want to talk about how Kikyo is treated.

Here we can hear Kikyo's thoughts on it herself—"No one ever asks me first!" The context is that Zeno is releasing Killua from his cell, and she's lamenting that he just does it without her permission. This is of course because Zeno ranks above her. But the way she says it—"ever"—implies this is a reoccurring problem, that her views or opinions (maybe just on parenting, maybe in general) are frequently dismissed or minimized.

There is also the case that Milluki is deliberately made a mama's boy in order to make his character more comical, or to degrade him in the eyes of the audience.

This attitude toward Kikyo seems pretty pervasive to me as well. The butlers don't seem to think too highly of her—I showed this panel ^ in my response. At the very least, Tsubone doesn't seem to be fond and considers her lesser than Silva or Zeno, probably in regards to composure and conduct.

This exchange also colors my perception of Kikyo's place in the family. Viz translates it a little differently than the 2011 anime, which I watched first. I went back to grab the raws for it and double check, as is responsible when there's a translation discrepancy like that.

This is how Viz translates it:

Now in the 2011 anime, Silva is a lot more vulgar—or harsh, I suppose—to Kikyo. I recall he tells her to shut her trap, or to stop whining, or something similar. That is actually the more accurate translation.

This is the extracted raw text:

Silva: しばらく好きにさせとけよ Kikyo: だめよ何言ってるの (next bubble ->) キルが立派な後継者になれるかどうか今が一番大切な時期なのよ Silva: わかってるじゃねーか (next bubble ->) じゃあつべこべ言わず黙ってろ

It's the final bubble which conveys that vulgarity.

DeepL's translation gives: "Then shut the fuck up and keep your mouth shut," and when both speech bubbles are conjoined, it gives "You know what I'm talking about, so why don't you shut the fuck up?"

QuillBot's results are pretty similar: "You get it, so stop whining and just be quiet."

What a way to speak to your wife, huh? Killua's little mental chart in the Election Arc shows that he seems to think they love each other, but Killua is also an unreliable narrator when it comes to his family's dynamics. In fact, Killua himself also reflects this attitude—he's very dismissive of her. He openly threatens Kikyo on multiple occasions and calls her annoying, etc. He also canonically has behavioral problems around older women who hold authority over him. This is probably learned behavior, mirroring the way other people treat his mother. It just sort of adds to the idea that she's not very well respected.

Now, maybe this is just because Kikyo married in. Maybe if Silva had a sister or something, she would be treated better. All we can do is speculate on that, but everything with Kikyo is canon.

When it comes to the issue of gender nonconformity, it's way more vague and up in the air. I think I see it differently than many people. We don't know much about Kalluto, but he's introduced as joined at the hip with Kikyo, and Killua seems to think they love each other. Though as we've established, he's not the best source.

However, he is practically the only source just because we see so little of Kalluto.

My interpretation is that Kikyo dresses up Kalluto in clothes she likes herself, or at least heavily influences his style, because they are so close. It may be because Kikyo has such little respect, that she clings onto Kalluto, her youngest. If that wasn't the case, Kalluto might dress differently.

I went to search the HxH fandom wiki for something similar to what you said and found this in the trivia section: "The furisode was born in the mid-1500s as a garment for both male and female children of middle- and upper-class families. Only around the 20th century did it become a strictly feminine type of kimono, although gender differences existed before that. Therefore, Kalluto's choice of clothing could be in keeping with his mother's tastes since she was introduced wearing a very outdated (by real-world standards) bustle gown. / How the obi (sash) is worn can depend on the wearer's sex where wearing around waist is done by males, while wearing underneath the breasts is done by females."

There's no citation so I did a cursory google search, and this information seems to come from the wikipedia page on the furisode, which elaborates: "According to one 17th century text, boys could wear furisode until their 18th year, or until they went through their coming-of-age ceremony, which usually occurred in late adolescence. Girls were supposed to cease wearing the furisode upon marriage, or upon reaching their 20th year.[4] Initially, furisode did not differ noticeably between the sexes, but fabric designs started to become more gendered in the 19th century.[5] In the 20th century, furisode became restricted to women and girls only, as part of the increasing gender-specificity of children's clothing that developed in the wake of Western influence.[6]".

So in the case of the Zoldyck family, I do believe that Kalluto's is moreso a case of tradition, rather than gender nonconformity. But that's not to say this is the only interpretation. I think it's reasonable to conclude Kalluto dresses like that himself, considering he continues to do so once joining the Phantom Troupe. Again, all we can do is speculate.

I admit my conclusions on Illumi are similar, we just don't have enough information. Based off what I know and can remember, I'm not even sure if the Zoldycks are aware he's technically engaged to Hisoka, though I could definitely be wrong (because Hisoka hired him, right?). I also fail to see how their relationship would be a problem before that engagement—I never got homoromantic vibes between them beforehand. I know people do ship them. It just goes over my head I suppose.

As it pertains to Alluka, it's very hard to say whether Nanika is the cause for their transphobia because Nanika is effectively the vehicle that creates an allegory for transness in the first place. We can't exactly ask, "If Alluka didn't have Nanika but was still trans, would the Zoldycks accept her?" because, again, Nanika is the way the Togashi has decided to deal with these themes. Nanika is the transness and within the allegory, the Zoldycks (minus Killua) are transphobes. It's also worth it to point out that Illumi uses 「弟おとうと 」 (otouto—younger brother) when referring to Alluka, which doesn't seem to me to be a result of fear the way the English pronoun "it" might be. More info on gendered terms in reference to Alluka in this google doc.

Finally, the values of the Zoldyck family in of themselves are sexist. They clearly value physical strength, obedience, and disparage empathy/compassion. Killua is considered "weak-minded" "moody" or "erratic" (depending on your translation of 「でも暗殺者としては失格だよムラッ気があってさ 」) for his kindness and rejection of his hierarchical power in favor of his desire for connection.

These are not inherently female traits and I'm not trying to say they are, but within sexist society, they are perceived as feminine, meaning women are devalued and men are ridiculed for displaying them. Women in the Zoldyck family are given respect and power in regards to their proximity to traditional masculinity—strength, loyalty, maybe whether they are blood-related to the current head of House—and obedience to the family. In my eyes there's clearly a misogyny problem here.

I do believe that if a woman happened to be the strongest of the Zoldycks, she would be head of House. I've previously said in a genderbend scenario with Killua as a cis girl, I believe she'd still be heir. But I also believe she'd have more familial expectations in regards to dress and conduct—not too masculine because that's queer, but not too feminine or else that's weak. Maybe patriarchal was too strong of a word because it implies there's some rule that the male father is always on top, regardless of strength. But you see what I'm saying, right?

Hopefully this clarifies my stance :3

[2demondogs]

Hiii!! I love your work so much and would like it if you could do some angst(?)/comfort with Arthur and FTM reader?

If you're comfortable with this, reader might experience some transphobia while trying to get his hair cut short at the barbers, and they refuse to cut his hair. When he comes back to camp and Arthur sees that his hair isn't cut and he looks disappointed and upset, Arthur comforts him and offers to cut his hair instead.

Thank you!! I love this prompt... everyone's experiences are different, so I drew a lot from my own here. This was cathartic as fuck I hope it is for you as well.

Since the relationship felt ambiguous to me this is as well. Can be read as platonic or romantic <3

Words: 2.2k Tags: Period-typical transphobia, misgendering (explicitly in first scene); gender dysphoria, hurt/comfort thru out

I don't serve your kind. The words keep replaying in your head as you slow your horse's run to a trot, slurring into the next warning of: 'n' neither does anyone else 'round here, girl and whatever the barber had said afterwards.

Your ears had rang with the sudden rush of blood to your face when he pointedly said girl, so you hadn't heard much besides the clearing of your own throat and the tense, panic-airy good day, then you were forced, by polite expectation of your apparent subhuman nature, to utter instead of—

Instead of doing what?

Slitting his throat?

It wouldn't even have sufficed to relieve the blackness that filled your gut to bursting.

The words were spoken the same as any declination of service might be, the way it almost always is. That silent look over your figure, head to toe, and some kind of parental disappointment. Pursed lips or a frown, scrunched nose or not, and always the same, disquieting look that begs the question of who raised you?

As if this festering discontent is as blase a decision for you to make as a toddler playing in cow manure. Some work past the fence, but it's easy when you're young and small and you can wriggle through the wooden boards nailed to the posts. Except you're too old, now, for mucking about in mud that you are smart enough to understand is shit.

As if it's a decision at all.

As if you don't already fear, sometimes, that you are mucking about in shit, whatever it could mean.

As if, as if, as fucking if.

And by the time you are starting to feel the anger again, you're blinking and Bill is barking his usual who goes there? from his post watching guard. You ignore him, your mare recognizable enough to answer one of you, if not just me.

Everything melts into hot wax, burning behind your eyes. Exhaustion, and some reactionary, snapping-dog hatred of Bill for how deep his voice is, for all the hair coating his arms; suddenly, you hate every man in camp, keep your eyes on your horse as you dismount and leave her to socialize with the others. A greenness is taking root inside you, turning the fires of maladaptive respect and twisted-sweet envy into a purely Grecian kind.

Even over reason, it burns. It's so much easier to be angry, for now, than it is to let yourself cry.

Men don't cry.

Arthur is always lurking. Built for looming around, he is, but unsure where to go about it. Any other afternoon, that awkward habit would endear you. Now, he is the last and first person you wanted to hear say your name.

He knows, you think, both about the day's events and to remind yourself that you could be asked by anyone else what the sour stink rolling off your expression is all about, only to have to stammer through a lie.

Still, you freeze and splay a hand over the pages of your journal where it rests in your lap, and then gain the sense enough to shut it. Most of it had been words that would've been difficult to read from where Arthur stood, but there were drawings peppered throughout you'd rather he did not see.

He's standing in front of your seat on your bedroll, a respectful few feet back as always, thumbs hooked into his belt. Gun belt nowhere to be seen; it must be a day off or a late-starter.

"Yessir?" You answer him. It's a teasing formality, but the lack of oomph behind it makes his face twist.

"Thought you was gettin' your haircut today, mister," Arthur says, nodding at the thicket of hair still dusting your shoulders. His raises his brows, half concerned and half prying for a story, if there is one. That would endear you, too. "Y'get some trouble instead?"

Warmth raises in your cheeks. You glance at your journal, and then the bushes that line camp, as if both might speak for you. Even if Arthur won't spit invert or crossdresser at you — though the way being treated as you were this morning leaves you feeling so raw, you're suddenly afraid his heart might have changed since those months ago — it feels impersonal and also far too personal to tell him.

Violated, you realize, is how you've felt since this morning. Seen through by the eyes of hate, and violated. That burning in your skin is crawling.

"Sort of," you finally say, and the pause clearly perks his ears.

He sucks on his teeth, slides his thumb over the stitching on his belt for something to move. "You been mean-lookin' since you got back, man," Arthur says, but his tone of voice asks: Are you alright?

Men never do ask what they mean. You had to figure that out quick when you were surrounded by so many of them, of the most emotionally-withdrawn variety to boot.

Sometimes it pisses you off. You ache to be foolish in the right ways, instead of the ways that you are.

Another pause, as you ask yourself once if you should tell him, and then stare into the grass poking up around his boots instead of actually pondering the question. You suppose you knew you would the moment he called for your attention.

Why is it so difficult to accept his concern? Why does it hurt?

Tearing your gaze from the ground, roving it around camp and finding nobody close enough, you bite the bullet. "Barber turned me away." You sigh, drop your journal on the ground beside your bedroll and draw your legs to your chest, before readjusting against the stiffness of your packer pushed uncomfortably into your gut.

God, I feel extraterrestrial.

His brows furrow. "Why?"

You just look at him, shoulders sagging. He seems to recall, as if it's something he could ever forget. Does he really forget?

"Oh," he says, rubs a hand over his mouth. His nostrils flare, and he points vaguely at the ground as if condemning the blades of grass in place of the barber. "That's bullshit. How would he...?" Arthur trails off, shakes his hand, realizing it probably isn't the question to ask you in this frame of mind. "That's real bullshit. I woulda hurt him."

You blanche. "Arthur, it ain't that— it ain't nothin'," you lie. "Not worth that."

"Yes, it is," Arthur says, as if he's disagreeing on the weather.

You can't help wishing he were right, that you could have slaughtered everyone who turned that evil eye on you without soaking your hands through to the bone with blood. Before Dutch came along, before you had a place — as transient as it is — there were no rocks to cling to, because only pebbles are laid out for men like you. If it weren't for the hatred spread so far, you'd think you were the only one born wrong.

Sometimes, you feel that loneliness, anyways.

There is no want me to do something about it? asked in the silence that follows. Although you can feel it lingering in the air after he sighs, you also know Arthur isn't a stupid man.

There is no justice for you, same as anyone deemed degenerate in the way you are, and he knows this as well you do. There is no use pretending that there can be, not today and not tomorrow. Twenty years from now, maybe fifty, maybe the very day you lay dying— but not today, and not tomorrow.

The promise of it beneath Dutch is part of why you've stuck around, despite that promise being made in the utmost secrecy.

"I'll put the bastard out of a job, at least," Arthur offers. "Won't even charge ya."

"You know how to cut hair?" You ask.

He offers a small smile, lifts his hat and bows his head. "Can't promise it'll be handsome," he says, running a hand through his own choppy hair before re-settling the gambler on his head. "I been cuttin' Hosea's, lately, old coot can't work the scissors. Used to cut John's, before we could trust him with scissors."

Your mood lifts, menially. "Is that to say you're still cuttin' John's?"

Arthur laughs. Nothing gets a belly-laugh out of him like picking on John. Somewhere, some sixth sense probably made the other man sneer with no apparent cause.

"Nah, he's too literate now. He could actually tell me what he's thinkin' 'bout," he waves a hand, then feigns a disgusted expression. "I'd prob'ly end up stabbin' him in the head."

Clearly, he's more comfortable raising your spirits this way. You don't blame him; it's easier, too, for you to get distracted from your grief than to explore it.

Most of camp is busy, the women washing and mending and reading, the men doing the hard labor and lazing around. Even out in the sticks, even above the law— those divides still find us, you think, and ignore the complexity of how you fall victim to them, too, in your own ways.

The canvas flaps of Arthur's tent are already drawn down to keep his cot in the shade, and you're thankful for the privacy despite the slight claustrophobia inside it. Sure, you've shared tents with Hosea and Lenny who both are afflicted with a constant chill only drawn canvas can resolve; and with Javier who draws the flaps because he is forever roasting, seeking the same shade that's found here. Something thick clogs the air as Arthur takes a pair of scissors from his shaving stand and drags his fingers through your hair to straighten it out, all before you've even stopped moving, as uncoordinated as most of his friendly gestures are.

Kindness just the same.

Could be thick in your throat, too, maybe that's why your eyes feel dry enough to burn — but neverminding that, you swallow and say: "Thanks, man."

Arthur grunts behind you. He's so much taller, he doesn't need you to sit to see clearly over the top of your head. It stings, a little, and then it fades.

"Ain't nothin'," he says. "How short you wantin' this?"

You try to think of anyone but him to compare your desired length to. He's already being nice. You can't let yourself appear admiring.

"Sorta like Bill," you say.

"Wanna be baldin' in the front like 'im, too?" He asks, and you can hear the shit-eating grin before he snickers alongside you.

It should probably worry you how quickly he works, pulling chunks of hair taut and snipping straight across the ends. First, a solid inch comes off your nape; then he's working closer to your scalp, rough but confident. Most finer movements, you've noticed, seem to come natural to Arthur despite his inelegance with the rest of life's motions.

You can feel the boxy pattern he cuts in. Cookie-cutter, probably, because you suppose Hosea is the only one he's ever done-up who really cared to instruct him on flattering his face shape.

That thickness raises in your throat again, and your chest presses against its bindings with the heavy breath you take to try staving off what must be tears. Only some, does it lighten, as the weight of untrimmed hair is loosened and felled.

Thanks doesn't feel like enough. You aren't often so... whatever you had been since you got back from town. And Arthur still took your vulnerability in his hands by his own volition, without asking for anything in return. Gratefulness blooms from that tacked-on clause, because you know the plight of where's my favor? too well from that false girlhood.

A haircut amongst thieves really ain't nothin', he's right — your hair has been cut by many a fool before, in shops and in camp — but whether or not it's just a haircut is a better question. It is, then it isn't, and then it's too much to think about all at once and you feel overwhelmed, slinking out of your own head and back to the present, staring ahead at the beige, stained canvas of Arthur's tent as his hands work through your hair.

He's ruffling it and nudging your head towards the barrel his shaving mirror stands on before you're fully back in reality. You need to get a handle on the spacing out, you know, but you never realize it's coming on before it does.

"Take a look," he invites as you step towards the looking glass. "Tried not to do y'too nasty."

You lean over, fix the part of your hair after running a hand through it, just to feel the difference. It's a weight off your shoulders, mentally, and you find yourself smiling.

"Looks good enough for a hat," you say, give him lopsided grin.

He snorts. "Careful." Arthur tosses the scissors back atop the barrel. "Might inflate my ego."

It's choppy and slightly cockeyed, if you look carefully, which you don't.

Straightening, you itch with the urge to hug him. Contentment wavers. Another moment of social expectations reaching into your heart, twisting around the feelings, making you wonder if men ever get that urge or if it was too womanly of you to even consider it— and Arthur must sense your pent-up intent.

He doesn't offer an embrace, though you've never known him to be one to shy from it. Instead, he claps your shoulder and squeezes in something quite like one, offers a crook of his lips.