#if in theory taylor was relating their transience (haha....nah seriously their Transness) to this cis autistic person's experience....

[unproduciblesmackdown]

i’m always 2 exhausted even by thinkng about it to even begin discussing At Length what’s So Exhausting About Billions’es Handling Of Their Trans Character (which is way way better than it could be) but like, some of the main points of it are

taylor can outright say that they’re nonbinary One Time, but otherwise their gender can only be Made Relevant via other people misgendering them and/or by being transphobic towards them, and this happens like. loads of times. and sometimes in ways that feel a touch excessive / kind of indulgent in reminding us like haha don’t forget this character Is Seen As ___ by people and their body and presentation is a matter of Fascination for cis audiences, but not necessarily respected, and we can see the character navigate this but they won’t discuss it at length b/c why would any trans person Want to talk about being trans OR have another trans person in their life to talk to, cuz what are the odds of That. 

in relation to that last point: taylor can’t talk about their Not Cis experiences / reality, or even hardly mention it directly / by name, but the show can keep writing them as reaching out to random useless cis people in their life when these cis people are having some kind of super particular individual problem, and taylor laying out some really REALLY watered-down, vague, indirect version of their being trans as a way to show they Relate to whatever dumbass situation this awful cishet person has gotten themself into. being in some kind of frustrating situation? feeling alienated or isolated or undermined or misunderstood or judged? well i guess you’re experiencing a tiny bit of the trans existence! except you are not. and like, of Course a character would look like an asshole if they were like “boy taylor, now that i’ve had a rough week due to some really dumb problem, i think i understand what it must be like for you to be nonbinary!!!” but it’s fine if Taylor Chooses To Relate Their Transness to whatever some cishet loser is dealing with. no, being #outed as i-do-bdsm is nothing like being an out lgbtq individual. and like all these people in taylor’s sphere are nightmare people who don’t deserve their sympathy in the first place but that’s another gripe lmfao

can’t believe that was the “brief overview” version lmao but anyways, i was thinking about another weird and kinda frustrating thing that someone brought up on twitter

well actually it was kinda what two people were talking about on twitter, and the first thing was how like, yknow in a show like this where the ppl focus of the series (supposed to be axe and chuck i guess like eugh can you even imagine) are Supposed To Be Assholes? it’s always like, how those main chars in “prestige drama” are generally men who are *meant* to be seen as shitty and probably dumbasses, and yet like, there’s an inherent Sympathetic Treatment in focusing on them and in having their godawful exploits drive a lot of the plot and action and suspense and etc, and it’s not exactly enough to just say like “oh but you’re suppoooosed to Know that they suck”

but the second thing was how in “Prestige Drama” Tv With Shitty Protagonists, there has this tendency to have the crappy usually-cishet-white-abled-men main chars be like, not ever really display any “””especial””” level of bigotry?? saying something how like, any big -isms or -phobias seems to be reserved for the “”””real”””” bad guys. and that kinda ties in a bit i think with how, even if there’s the “well they’re supposed to seem unsympathetic” justification, they’re still........not really supposed to seem too unsympathetic. and it’s not that anyone would ever think it’s ~realistic~ for a nonbinary person to be in the world of High Finance and be able to announce their pronouns and have their identity for-the-most-part respected by everyone right off the bat, and i sure don’t want billions to be going for that ~realism~ on this one thing (especially when it doesn’t exactly try to strictly hold itself to Realism in plenty of other regards) and have taylor dealing with constant misgendering and likely no one with authority consistently watching out for them in this manner and people telling shitty jokes behind their back and etc etc etc which might be more ~realistic~ but please don’t.........

but at the same time it’s awfully convenient that apparently everyone at axe cap is such a committed Trans Ally that even when taylor defects by the end of s3 and everyone is like “booo hiss we hate taylor” they all feel free to disrespect taylor in pretty much any way Except for showing any signs of transphobia, ever. very nice that none of these characters have to bear the burden of being labeled A Real Jerk for insulting taylor on the grounds of their being trans (other insults are fine). like the guy on twitter said, bigotry is only for the Really real bad guys who really only need to be one-dimensional or in the background or otherwise not given that much attention.

like it exasperated me So much when there was some scene with axe and wags and wendy (like, scream. already i’m in hell. for gods sake) where wendy’s getting the green light to try to sabotage taylor’s relationship with their dad (to.....destabilize their fund?? just kinda bum them out, possibly??? it seems to be the latter 9_9 ) and axe is like “yeah fuck it, go for it, grrrr i hate taylor >:| “ and wendy says something in which she then Pauses and adds a footnote to her sentence, in which she clarifies that by “them,” she is referring to taylor, not taylor and [someone else she’d mentioned in the same sentence]. it’s just exhausting, ugh. like, yeah yeah believe me everyone who uses singular They pronouns knows allll about how oh no, there’s the chance for Ambiguity now!!! we never have that problem with other pronouns ever!!! and it means we deserve to force people to pick He or She! and it’s just like, ugh. yeah thank you for reminding us that these three bastards who are currently plotting how to permanently destroy a familial relationship of tay’s are nevertheless being sure to Respect Their Pronouns while doing so!!! not that they *shouldn’t* but like, as fucking though. and it’s just so......fucking unnecessary ugh. you don’t have to awkwardly make sure to point out you were using ~the singular They~ right then just as this clunky reminder that oh i’m not Transphobic @ them tho........like shut up thanks so much. i would like for taylor to never have to interact with wendy again, but god knows im sure that wish won’t come true. like, you didn’t have to clarify in the first place. and it’s so nice that all these nightmare individuals are such committed #allies. ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh