#it is in fact transphobia even if she's not intending to be malicious.

[rjalker]

People I love Murderbot and I am literally aroace and nonbinary and not human and I use it/its pronouns and I'm telling you Martha Wells is only writing it that way because she conflates gender with sex and since Murderbot is a construct without any genitals she goes "well clearly its genderless and wouldn't feel any kind of attraction".

This does not mean you get a free pass to misgender the character. Murderbot uses it/its pronouns. Do not use other pronouns for it. This does not mean you get to ship Murderbot with other characters and erase the fact that it's aroace.

It does mean that you should criticize the way Martha Wells conflates sex with gender (and thus, with orientation). It does mean that you should be aware of this problem in her writing.

It does mean that, if you are interested in writing, especially if you are cis, you make sure you are not falling into the same transphobic idea.

There's nothing wrong with having nonbinary characters who are robots or aliens or anything. It's great, actually, because robots and aliens would not subscribe to the white idea of only two binary sexes/genders.

It becomes a problem when those are your only nonbinary characters, or in the case of The Murderbot Diaries, your only nonbinary characters who actually get to be main characters and appear more than once.

Rami would be great...if te had been allowed to be the main "sidekick" in the book te appeared in, if te hadn't been immediately shoved offscreen so Tapan could run around with Murderbot, if Rami was a reocurring character who appeared in multiple books with more "screentime" and character development.

But that's not what happened. Rami appeared for a few scenes, in one book, and wasn't even the main new character in that book. And aside from ter marriage group being mentioned once so far, te has never been brought up again or impacted the story at all.

Martha Wells could have had Rami being the one to stay behind and get into Life Threatening Shenanigans with Murderbot, but no, she decided it would be Tapan instead. For no reason. The second book could have been made completely and absolutely epic if Rami had been the one to be the sidekick for lack of a better term, but no!!! That didn't happen! Because I guess Martha Wells just couldn't be bothered? There's no good reason for her to have picked Tapan to stay behind instead of Rami. There's no excuse if she was actually trying to provide trans representation. There is no reason she couldn't have had Rami as the main new human character in that book, but she didn't.

And we have not met a single other character in the rest of the series that uses neopronouns besides it/its. Rami appeared in the second book, for a few scenes, and we don't even get to know anything else about ter besides the fact that te identifies as tercera and uses te/ter/terself pronouns and has been appointed the leader of the negotiation. That's it. That's all we know about ter.

That's not good trans representation, that's barely representation at all.

There really needs to be a conversation about how Martha Wells views gender, because it has only improved very slightly since she wrote The Books of the Raksura, and that's not saying much at all if you've seen any of my complaints about The Books of the Raksura.

[olderthannetfic]

Something that frustrates me about the Harry Potter conversation is a lot of people missing the point behind the motivation to boycott it. They seem weirdly focused on the content of HP when it's actually... not that bad? It's not perfect, in fact a lot of aspects are pretty fucking problematic and worthy of discussion, but not uniquely so by the standards of the fantasy genre. Yes, I know the goblins are clearly drawing on anti-semitic tropes. Yes, the house elf situation is fucked. Yes, lots of not-like-other-girls-style misogyny. Yes, Cho Chang was a fucking disaster of racism. I KNOW THIS ALREADY! I'm not an idiot and Harry Potter fans were talking about this for far longer than JKR has been a TERF. But I'm also a fan of the Elder Scrolls and Dragon Age and the Witcher and a shitton of isekai anime and tons of other fantasy medias which are so much worse. Harry Potter is only moderately problematic by the standards of most popular fantasy media, especially for the mainstream standards of the time period it was written. Worthy of criticism, but not dropping it entirely. And actually reading HP and looking back at JKR's behaviour at the time, much of it seems largely unintentional, just that JKR drew on a lot of fantasy tropes that she didn't properly examine as well as her own unexamined biases and she had some flawed understandings of progressivism that were fair for its day but don't fly now, but doesn't seem malicious. The actual authorial intent at least seems to be pretty progressive at least, even if the execution wasn't the best. And sure, it's not a masterwork but there's a reason it connected to so many people, even if a lot of it was luck and timing. We don't have to ignore that and doing so feels dishonest.

I'm just so annoyed when people try to shit on the contents because they're missing the point and confuse the actual problem in a way that weakens their argument. I don't give Harry Potter money anymore because JKR crossed some lines for me in real life, totally separate from Harry Potter as a piece of media, and I don't want to fund her bullshit because she is so influential it is hurting people. The content of her books is utterly irrelevant to this decision. She could have penned a goddamn magnum opus and it wouldn't have mattered. So I'm sick of people bringing up books that are "better" or ragging on the contents of Harry Potter because none of that is the point and never was the point and it comes across as just taking advantage of a shitty situations to dunk on a popular thing or those who enjoyed it. Yeah, it was a mediocre fantasy series. But it hit the right emotional escapist buttons in a lot of kids even if it had the moral nuance and depth of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles anti-drug PSA. Having to drop it sucked for a lot of people because it can't be replaced and yelling about how bad the writing was doesn't change that because it never was about quality. JKR's TERF transformation was in many ways a betrayal of JKR's intended audience considering how the text preached acceptance and love and starred an abused, unwanted child getting to go to magic school where he's special. Pretending Harry Potter should be dropped because its content has issues obscures the actual problem of a raging transphobic having money and influence and that not everything created by bad people is poor quality so boycotts might require giving up access to things you actually like or are valuable and that's not always an easy decision to make.

JKR was a probably decent person with fairly liberal politics when she wrote Harry Potter. The books, while imperfect, are not more horrible or full of problems a dozen other popular fantasy properties. JKR become a TERF later in life and while she may have had ingrained transphobia prior to this when she wrote Harry Potter, that is not the same as the virulent hate-movement she's part of now and we should recognize how easy it is for people to get drawn into hate-movements. Any argument to boycott should be about how she's using her money and influence to affect real life laws and attitudes unless you want to try and get people to also drop half the fantasy genre.

--

[thereadingmoon]

TW: Transphobia and gender dysphoria

Spoilers: A lot! Part 1 here

TL;DR: "A female!Aiden could’ve had a message to add to the novel, because representation is deeper than just making a character this race or this gender. Representation can and should be meaningful, and not just face value." Anyway, here, I spiral about the in-world ramifications of a female!Aiden. This could either mean he's gender non-conforming or this sci-fi justice and criminal rehabilitation system is transphobic and would willingly misgender someone in the program. This is a very suppositional and theoretical ramble.

A female!Aiden has a lot of cards to bring to the table, but I don’t know if any of them would complement the story. That’s the issue, I think. All elements of a story must do something in a story, otherwise they’d be scrapped. What is the artistic merit of a female!Aiden and what could a female!Aiden bring to the story other than representation?

I have an interesting take on this idea: the introduction of malicious misgendering in these thought-prisons and possible parallels to the transphobia in the justice system. This idea involves some hinting in one chapter, as well as some off-the-cuff headcanon worldbuilding. Let’s look into it.

Aiden is caught in some sort of technologically advanced prison/rehabilitation center in an autocratic state. Turton didn’t say anything about the state’s views on sexuality and gender orientation, but I like to assume that they’ve solved heteronormativity and are generally relaxed on the ideas of gender identity. Let’s assume that Aiden identifies as male, and thus he is only given male hosts in the prison. If he was alright with being placed in a female host, they’d place him in a female host, no issue. That’s the simple headcanon.

But the introduction of gender-blind hosts changes some things. Let’s look at Aiden’s in-world thoughts on the possibility of having a female host.

My hand grips my cane. Whoever this Mrs. Derby is, she’s acting oddly and asking the same questions I am. Perhaps I’ve found another of my rivals.

Or another host.

The suggestion makes me blush, Ravencourt’s familiarity with women extending only so far as acknowledging their existence in the world. The thought of becoming one is as unintelligible to him as a day spent breathing water.

The 7 ½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, Chapter 15

It’s very vague, and it’s possible that Aiden is mixing into Ravencourt’s feelings, but as we see here, Aiden at this moment could either be ambivalent, on the fence, or uncomfortable with having a female host. In-universe, Aiden adopts his hosts' mannerisms, memories, emotions, and their biological conditions. To me, seeing how Aiden would react to a female host would be very interesting compared to just having a female host for shits and giggles or just-so representation. How would he feel, as someone who prefers identifying as male? Would he feel a discernible difference, biologically or socially? How would the people he met and knew treat him differently in a female body?

That last part is something I’d love to see. Throughout the story, we see Aiden try his best to work past his host’s limitations. With Sebastian Bell, he’s coming to terms with the man’s moral failings. With Lord Ravencourt, he’s forced to find someone else to be his feet, eyes, and hands due to his immobility. With Johnathan Derby, he constantly had to keep Derby’s addiction and perversion in check. If he were placed in the body of, say, a female servant like Anna was, he would have to find workarounds for both the sex and class stratification, furthering Turton’s critique on the treatment of working class women in his setting. If, alternatively, Aiden was turned into a higher class woman, it’d be interesting to see how we’d interact with the world around him. Or, it’d be a gateway to paragraphs of Aiden waxing poetic about gender dysphoria and sympathizing with the plight of women.

If Aiden was maliciously misgendered when he’s not comfortable with being female, it also brings up a whole lot of in-world ramifications that are disturbing: in the Evelyn Hardcastle universe, the justice system would be as shitty to trans or gender nonconforming folk as our present justice system. Making Aiden a woman if he is uncomfortable with it suggests that the people who run the rehabilitation program are fine with misgendering people on purpose. This is horrific when you remember that the goal of this rehabilitation program is to keep the prisoners inside long enough to the point of losing their sense of self and forgetting who they were to make them “better people.”

Just to be clear: This is not me shitting on the idea of a female!Aiden. This is me overthinking the lore of this universe once this point of purposeful misgendering is brought up. This book doesn’t shy away from talking about issues like sexism or elitism. In fact, this book was meant to be a sci-fi critique on the idea of making these prisons a reality in our world. Bringing up transphobia in the justice system in such an oblique but horrific way would’ve been so memorable. In doing so, it would’ve added to the discussion the story is setting and added context and consequences in the rules the author was setting. A female!Aiden could’ve had a message to add to the novel, because representation is deeper than just making a character this race or this gender. Representation can and should be meaningful, and not just face value.

I personally would love to see a novel that addresses malicious misgendering in a technological mental prison, but that novel isn’t Evelyn Hardcastle because that’s not the story it was intended to be. Literature is first art and then a platform for social critique, and it’s a platform that can only handle so many ideas before unravelling. And the best part is that even if those ideas aren’t intended by the author because we can impose our own ideas and feelings on pieces of media in any way we like!

If you’ve read this far, I’d be open to hear your thoughts on a female!Aiden and possible storylines or any musings you may have, because there are a whole lot of possibilities to be made here.

Want to see more essays like this? Check out my blog’s masterlist for more hot takes or book recommendations.

[illusionlockarchive]

pazam: a mess, truly a mess

so i usually dont do these kind of posts, i guess you could say its a call out of some sort? but i never liked that word, i prefer rather to just compile sources on WHY people would believe that a certain person is not truly as nice and understanding as they seem. consider this more of a psa post, detailing on whats going on with pazam on the sfm community, why so many people are against them.

So, a while back, tumblr user jymble made a post on the main tag stating that pazam was transphobic. they linked back to this post, which contains screenshots of pazam in a group chat stating that they do not feel comfortable with the idea of trans people. now, this did happen 9 months ago, true. however, for the record, pazam is already an adult, 24 years old, so they should have some tact. and as further and more recent events will show, they actually havent changed that much at all, at least not as they claim.

the screenshots should be in the post, but here is a transcript

[Screenshot one]

Pazam:

What????? Why?????

I literally HAVE NOT been doing ANYTHING malicious to them

And if it did I apologized

Yes I do have discomfort about them but I keep it to myself

Why are you doing this????

[End screenshot one]

‘Them’ here refers to trans people in general. Notice the defensive and victimizing stance they almost immediately take upon being confronted about their feelings on trans people.

[Screenshot two]

elliott:

of COURSE you dont

sammaku:

Like specifically

Elliott hush

Pazam:

This whole concept of transness and changing your gender physically

I hate to say it again but it weirds me out and it makes me question my own gender which flings me into anxiety, depression, and obsession

sammaku:

Its fine to not understand but are you willing to learn about it

Pazam:

I don’t want to talk about this anymore

sammaku:

That depression anxiety and obsession just comes with gender issues

(the rest of the text is cut off)

[End Screenshot two]

notice once summaku asks them if they would at least be willing to learn about it, pazam immediately deflects it by saying they dont want to talk about it anymore.

[Screenshot three]

Pazam:

Seriously??? That’s all it takes????

Wow I’m a moron

I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused to you

@.aziraphale @.elliott @.sammaku

I just don’t get this stuff period

And I’ve gotten into trouble with this stuff before

I’ll probably never understand it for the rest of my life but I’ll try to be more tactful around y’all

Especially since you’re all young

And I’m like an adult

[End screenshot three]

While at first this would seem like they had finally learned their lesson and apologized, the things they add on after the @s become quickly worrying. Not only do they admit to ‘have gotten into trouble with this stuff before’, meaning they have probably shown their transphobia in other places and been called out, but they also stand firmly on the fact that they will never understand it or ‘get’ it.

And of course, as jymble points out, the implication that the people they were talking to were only acting like that because they were young.

A while after this post was made, Pazam had posted an apology, and went onto contact jymble asking for the post with the evidence of their transphobic to be taken down. The reason? They were afraid people would see it and think they were still transphobic and not give them a chance.

In this more recent post, you can see the conversation play out between Pazam and jymbles. Long story short, Pazam feels that it’s unfair that that post is still up after they apologized, and jymble of course said they would rather not take it down, people deserve to know what they did and take their own conclusions, even if that involves avoiding them. How does Pazam respond? By flat out deleting the apology post. I’d love to show the apology post to give you both sides of the story but I cannot anymore, because Pazam in a very bizarre move just deleted it because they got mad a trans blogger wouldn’t take down their post with proof.

Here’s the transcript of the screenshots:

[Begin Conversation]

rebloggidy (Pazam’s personal):

I’m by no means transphobia-free after learning what I’ve done but at least I know my actions and am making an effort to be a better person towards trans people.

rebloggidy:

Hi again. So I hate to be that person but would it be ok if you took down that post about the transphobia claims? I know it took me 9 months to apologize but if people only see your side of the story and not realize the post I saw they’ll take it out of context and still think I’m transphobic. Do you understand?

jymble:

... i already told you im not taking down the post.

[jymble sends a screenshot of her own message in a previous conversation, the screenshot reads as follows:

however, i dont think im taking the post down, nor am i entirely comfortable with you interacting with me either. people deserve to know how you acted with this stuff, until youre really and truly *better* with it instead of just trying, and i was a direct target of it]

jymble:

you oughright told me "im by no means transphobia-free", word for word sorry, but i told you before. im not taking the post down.

rebloggidy:

I remember that. But what I'm trying to say to you is that if people who read it out of context will immediately think I'm still transphobic without the other side of it (my comment)

And I don't want people to think that in the future

jymble:

if people make assumptions without looking at the entire situation, thats on them

i am not deleting the post and thats final. people have a right to know what youve done, and they have a right to be uncomfortable

rebloggidy:

I'm ready to take down my post because frankly, I'm sick and tired of having to justifiy something that I did 9 months ago, and that people grow and learn even not 100% during that time and I'm ready to move on.

I'm still into smile for me and feel free to make a blacklist of my name so anybody who rbs my work on your dash can have it hidden or something.

Take care.

[End conversation]

a lot to unpack here, but perhaps most notable is when jymble simply stands her ground and tells pazam she wont take down the post, pazam straight up decides, without being told to or anything, that they should take down their apology. later on, they made a post stating why they deleted the post, and saying they had ‘been forced to’.

I also would love to link it here, but as of now of writing this, like, not even an hour or so after I had seen that post, it got deleted. The only memory I have of it is a conversation I had with my boyfriend about Pazam, in which I copypasted a fragment from that post that read:

“ So for those wondering where the apology post went, I was forced to delete it. I wanted to archive it in some way so I could pull it up for reference, but there was no way I could. Also I didn’t really want to see it every time on my blog because quite honestly it’s upsetting to look at.”

There are some lies and twisting of truths here. Pazam wasn’t forced to delete it, they decided they should do it as a way to somehow get back at jymble. And the excuse that it was upsetting for them to look at is just inexcusable, what matters most, letting people know of what youve done and that youre sorry, or just never addressing the situation?

But, well, I’m just hoping you’ll take my word for it. As you see, Pazam has officially deleted ANY traces of acknowledging this situation on their blog.

This worries me. If Pazam is truly as concerned that they will be seen as transphobic as they claim, why are they deleting anything that could give them a chance of showing their own side of the story?

Now, that is the end, for now, of Pazam’s history with transphobia. However! It is not the end for some other very shady things.

Namely, Pazam has consistently whitewashed characters from Smile For Me, specially Kamal, and when called out on it, simply deletes the asks.

Want to know how I know this?

I sent them an ask myself. I had come across this picture of Boris and Kamal:

And I knew that this wasn’t right. I can understand using light colors and doing watercolor, but if they can make Boris’ hair brown and vivid enough, why not Kamal? He looks like another character completely, or like he’s deathly sick! 

So I sent them an anonymous ask, perhaps a bit exhasperated, true, and my wording could be better. It went something like: “i am begging you to draw kamal with darker skin”.

I waited, checked. But nothing came of it. They never answered it.

Pazam flat out ignored when they were told they had drawn a canonically brown man with skin way too light. Not even a lone text post saying ‘hey anon, i dont agree with you’ or ‘hey anon im sorry it wont happen again’. Nothing. No word, no opinion.

And with this situation going on with them evading responsibility, I can’t say I’m fully surprised.

And, yet another thing. People had expressed concern over the fact they had drawn their Flower Kid, who is 17, in very intimate and close positions with Dr. Habit. It included nuzzling faces, cuddling in bed together, wearing his coat...

And they did hear the claims this time. As of now, their Flower Kid is 24, according to them.

Except... They do not look 24. At. All.

this is a 12 year old. at best. short body, stubby legs, big head. those are all attributes of a very young character, usually children. like, legitimately, thats how childrens anatomy is in real life. the younger the person, the bigger their head is in proportion to their body.

We have already had an adult trying to justify drawing their flower kid who barely looked like an adult if at all in intimate situations with Habit. Let’s not let it slide by again.

And yes, I’m aware Pazam claims that those pictures were not supposed to be interpreted as romantic, ‘only platonic fluff’ and that they intend to keep it that way, but I have talked to my boyfriend who is a survivor and he said it very well could be a case of someone just trying to cover their tracks.

BUT, all that being said, maybe this one particular instance could be just us being wary. Still, it does not diminish all that they have done, specially ignoring the whitewashing claims.

What you are going to do with this information, I do not know. Maybe you don’t care and will keep reblogging their content. Maybe you’re disgusted by them. But I’m just here to give you the facts. Personally though, I’m not willing to give them much of a chance after the way they’ve behaved. They are 24 years old, three years older than me, and I think I could do a better job of handling a situation like this, frankly.

[rjalker]

you know what no just giving it its own new post so more people see it.

--

My original joke post:

"Oh, my security consultant's profile has gender marked as 'indeterminate', and doesn't list any pronouns? I will simply not reffer to my security consultant with any pronouns."

--

My new addition:

And see this is funny for these characters, but it's literally just part of the gods damned overarching problem with Martha Wells' ideas about gender.

None of these characters ever ask Murderbot what its pronouns are. It doesn't list any pronouns, so they don't use pronouns for it, but they never ask.

None of the characters ever list their pronouns in their feed profile even AFTER they all start hurriedly listing their sex. (because again to be blunt that is what they're doing. None of these characters have been trans this whole time without us knowing. They are not listing their gender, they are listing their sex)

Even when Murderbot uses they/them pronouns for a random one-off character, it's not because that character uses they/them pronouns, it's because uh well they didn't list their sex in their feed profile, so we're just....gonna call them they/them because we don't know what sex they are and don't know what we should call them but nooooo it's not like they actually tell people they use they/them pronouns, nooo, we can't do that even though it would take two seconds!! Nope!!! /sarcasm

You can't tell people The Murderbot Diaries are great trans representation when the characters who literally have floating internet profiles attached to them don't even list their pronouns, okay, people? Just don't. Please don't.

Rami, Maro, and Tapan not knowing Murderbot's pronouns so not using any pronouns at all for it is funny, but it's literally a symptom of the larger problem with Martha Wells' views on gender.

Why didn't they just ask it what pronouns it uses? Why? Because that's not something Martha Wells has ever imagined doing. Because Martha Wells thinks that having the characters list their sex in their bio is revolutionary, as though that tells you anything about their gender or pronouns.

This is the same fucking problem The Books of the Raksura had. Moon just fucking goes around arbitrarily assigning strangers with genders and pronouns based on how he perceives their appearance. He was like "oh this person is a man obviously" until he saw they had breasts then he was like "oh whoops no lol it's a woman". I'm not even joking. He regularly checks to see what genitals people have before he decides what he's going to refer to them as. Again this is not a joke or an exaggeration. And Martha Wells thought this was revolutionary.

The Murderbot Diaries are not as transphobic as The Books of the Raksura, but that does not mean they're now suddenly great trans representation.

Moon literally refuses point-blank to ask a kethel what its name or pronouns are, and switches between using he/him and it/its pronouns for it depending on how much he wants to murder it in cold blood at the moment. Again this is not a joke or exaggeration. I use it/its pronouns for it because those are the pronouns I use and I'd like to murder Moon.

Martha Wells needs to actually talk to and listen to trans people and fix the transphobic ways she writes before anyone should be telling anyone her stories have great trans representation.