#it's a Bad Time to be Queer AND in favor of community care

[batboyblog]

https://www.tumblr.com/batboyblog/767861339473510400/see-i-kind-of-get-the-idea-of-wanting-her-to-at

And frankly, if regular people had done THEIR job of voting in a Harris presidency (especially the more "informed" non-voters or anti-voters who prioritized their own ego), then McBride wouldn't have to make these kinds of difficult choices (at least to the same degree, since I don't doubt transphobes would still do their bullshit) in the first place.

yes.

Nancy Mace who's leading this charge just cares about being on TV, literally thats it. Back in 2021 she was selling herself as pro-LGBT, even saying she was in favor of "transgender equality" now she's screaming about trans women being really men. Why? well in 2021 it looked like there was space for Republicans to move on from Queer bashing and she wanted to get interviewed and be on TV for being part of a new breed of Republican. After this election many people agree transphobia was a useful wedge issue for Trump so she's gonna be the most transphobic of them all, again just to get on TV. So yes, if Kamala Harris had won Nancy Mace wouldn't be doing this because this is only motivated by her wanting to be on TV.

In a bigger sense, if Democrats had won the House this wouldn't be happening, Republicans might rage and stamp their feet about it, but a Democratic Speaker would tell them to kick rocks.

So yeah past McBride herself, the 2024 election was a test, "is transphobia a workable electoral issue" and the answer was "yes, yes it is" so transphobia is gonna be worse, it told Republicans that being transphobic and running on bullying trans people works so they're gonna do more of it, and for Democrats it showed there were few if any electoral rewards for sticking up for trans people. I remember when Harris very first became the candidate there were a series of huge organizing calls, so big they broke Zoom a few times, Women for Harris, black women, black men, white dudes for Harris, etc and I kept thinking "geez there really should be a trans people for Harris" there was a generalized LGBT one which had big names but if there ever was a trans one it was not well marketed. Point being the election did not see a big trans mobilization, which is very bad, you're seeing a few Democrats break ranks and ask "if we get hammered on this issue, and lose elections, and don't see any mobilization or support, should we moderate?" If Harris had won the narrative would be "voters don't care about trans issues, its a loser to run on transphobia" but she didn't so we're in this darker timeline

And being in this darker timeline a good starting point to clawing your way back is to have the ONE! trans member of Congress, the ONLY national trans figure's back at all times. Because beaming the message that even a trans Congresswoman doesn't have the support of the trans community will tell every jumpy Democrat that they're right to be thinking about ditching trans rights.

[sirenium]

This started off as a multigender rant but includes other things, because I'm so pissed off at the queer community for these things that I need to fit it all in one post. Sit back and prepare for this, it's a long read (also feel free to scroll past) being multigender sucks because I feel too paradoxical to be taken seriously. It doesn't help that I'm also agender :/ Like yeah, identity is your own and you shouldn't shave off parts of it to appease others, but damn does the 'passive' hostility and invalidation towards multigender people such as myself make me feel pushed towards changing myself sometimes. You can scream into the void all you want about being normal about multigender people and how they label their experiences, but some people just... never will be. That's what it feels like, from the fucking queer community as well as cishet society. It sucks. I can never be comfortable to explore my womanhood because then my manhood and agenderhood will never be taken seriously. Hell, the fact that I simultaneously experience gender AND being genderless is enough for people to just shit on me and exile me from queer spaces. The fact that I prefer ze/hir and it/its and nounself pronouns is enough for people to call me one of the bad ones. AND, the fact that I am more comfortable being perceived as a man suddenly makes me a 'danger to women'. There are so many issues with how multigender people, neurodivergent queers (literally any kind of neurodivergent, not just the neopronoun xenogender autistic person), queer POC, the list goes on are treated; if you aren't a white woman god help you, god forbid you're a man in any way either. And don't even get me started about how aroace people are fucking treated. I could go on for another few paragraphs about how I, as someone who is aroace spec and a plethora of other things, don't feel safe sometimes. I could go on and on and on. And fuck it, I will (under the cut because this post is already comically long):

'Aroace is a spectrum' this, 'all aroaces are valid' that, until you're romance/sex oscillating or even favorable, until you're polyamorous, until you're also a lesbian or a gay person or m-spec. Even in the fucking aroace community you're held by some bar of being aroace enough, and if you diverge even slightly god forbid. Allo fictives of aroace characters, hell even those who are aroace in a different way, have to listen to the incessant whining of the 'stop making sexual/romantic fiction of this character! they're repulsed in canon!' crowd. It's fucking obnoxious. Aroace people are already not taken seriously, aroallos and alloaces are already not taken seriously, and then you have the clown parade of people forcing their own idea of what they want you to be down your throat. The queer community and its many facets feel so fucking unsafe at times, and that sucks because we're all we've got. Some people don't have supportive family or connections outside of online queer spaces, and this is what they get. It's so incredibly shitty. I don't feel aroace enough because of my experiences, despite also having very stereotypical aroace experiences. I feel forced to constantly be sex/romance averse at times because again, god forbid you're ever favorable. I have two partners, okay? I have partners who I don't necessarily 'love' but care about a lot, and then I have to come across things that erase the fact that I am quite often averse to sex and romance because of this fact! People like me are constantly erased, and when they're represented in fiction people throw a hissy fit. "Oh you're forcing an aroace character into allonormativity!" Hey asshole: maybe, just maybe, aroace people can date just as much as they aren't required to. Fucking. Jesus. Some community this is, for there to be so much exclusion and hatred and segregation.

[androgynousblackbox]

Alright, I am watching the reaction stream of another person to see the video of Jamesy and I have thoughts! -Jamesy is REALLY counting on buttering up to Jessie Gender specifically. He named her so many times trying to "apologize" for weaponizing his audience against her when she told him to not erase her work in Nebula just because his whiny entitled ass couldn't accept that he wasn't invited to the platform. Not a single word about actually going to her and talk privately though, just a bunch of "ooh, Jessie Gender is the kindest, best human being ever and I am so sorry to her", like, bitch, WHY ARE YOU EVEN TALKING ABOUT HER? Jessie wasn't the worst victim of your actions! Your bullshit with her happened long BEFORE anything of this happened, so why the fuck are you even bringing her up?? My only guess is that Jamesy wants Jessie to speak on his favor and "forgive him", hoping that will bring him new good will from the queer community in youtube. I am fucking crossing my fingers and touching wood that Jessie does not fall for this manipulative bullshit. This guy is literally clout chasing because, again, when it came to the plagiarism, Jessie had NOTHING to do here. Jessie, if you want an easy win, don't say anything about this. Don't even aknowledge it. Pretend like a mosquito just farted in another building. You had nothing to do with this and I am sorry this piece of shit is trying to drag you into it to take advantage of your good nature. -"I only cared about the production side of making videos, that is why I bring Nick in as the main writer." This motherfucker really went and did it. He is literally blaming Nick squarely now, because now he is just not a co-writer. No, now he is the MAIN WRITER. Jamesy here was just trying to making his little films and buy expensive ass equipment while telling everyone he was starving on the streets, he only cared about the production. NICK, THOUGH, HE WAS ALL ABOUT THE WRITING. He was the one who put the words and little Jamesy baby boy here only "produced, directed and edited" (omg, shut the fuck off, man, your editing skills are mid at best) everything. -Way too many sob stories. I don't care, man. I don't fucking care that you got fired or whatever conditions you had. Do you have any fucking clue how many people do really struggle to reach the end of the month and they still never even think of stealing someone else's work? Everyone is struggling and yet, you were the one who made a career for fucking years out of stealing the works of everyone else in this community AND THEN, when call out, tried to paint them as the bad guys.

-A lot, and I do mean, a lot of time to "apologize" to Jessie Gender, but you know who he didn't apologize to? Literally none of the authors he stole from. Not the fan whose edit of Korra he used without credit. Not Alexander Avila. Not that person who was harassed to hell and back by Jamesy and his audience when they showed how he plagiarized on his disney video. Jessie deserved to be name dropped at least thirty times, but those people?? They are fucking nobodies. They don't matter. Why name them at all? It's not like their WORK WAS STOLEN BY YOU OR ANYTHING! And that is another thing! Even if Jamesy is really out there blaming Nick for all the words that they took without credit, then what the fuck is up with all the footage, edits and audiovisual works that weren't for you to take? You said your passion is production. That is part of the production, Jamesy. Is this you admitting you fully just fucking stole them and hoped nobody would notice because you are a lazy piece of garbage?

-"Having to do multiple edits because youtube copyright issues was so hard for me, guys, you don't understand uwu. It was so hard on me to make it less obvious I had plagiarized people!" THAT IS ENTIRELY YOUR OWN FAULT, BRO.

-So, hey, funny thing. I was looking to see if other people were reacting or had reuploaded the video so I could put it here. They haven't yet, there is only two reactions, but while I was doing that I found a video of ANOTHER person talking about Jamesy ripping them off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsD-wodn288 Apparently Jamesy had stolen a blog post that this person wrote about Lord of The Rings and they weren't known by anyone, they don't even like that article anymore, but still! Go see that video instead of watching Jamesy and support them if you find value on their work.

-Hey, Jamesy. Jamesy. You do know that epilepsy and head injuries or memory issues don't take you threaten, lie and weaponize your audience against people who call out your plagiarism with the evidence in hand, right? That has literally nothing to do actually, because you had to be aware off of the issue for you to lie about it after someone else brought it up. After the first time it happened, you could have hired another beta reader to tell you that ups, your memory/epilepsy/memory issues/ADHD strike again and you don't remember from where you took that quote from, sorry! You had money for that expensive ass camera, you could have. -Like, my guy, there were so many steps involved here. So many steps from writing, production, backlash and your response to the backlash. Even if any part on this was an honest mistake, something I don't fucking believe in because fuck you, you had millions of opportunities to rectified it and change it. And yet you didnd't. And so here we are, without you receiving not even a miserable fucking like. Go to hell. A mistake doesn't get repeated so many times for years. That was all a choice, bitch. Fuck you.

And here is where I stopped because his voice is like nail on my ears.

Don't look at his video, it's truly not worth it. DON'T LEAVE COMMENTS EITHER, YOUTUBE TAKES THAT AS ENGAGEMENT ANYWAY.

[wolfertinger]

warning for mentions of rape i guess, sorry i got a bit heated here but im genuinely baffled at how people could side with these two after this.

when salem defended wis (who was quite literally berating someone for asking clarification on if she was being exclusionary of other trans peoples' experiences in favor of transfems) by saying he agrees with her as a trans man really fuckin pisses me off as a transmasc person. you dont get to speak on behalf of all trans men and transmasc people. stop fucking acting like youre our leader or something.

mind you, wis replied to this person with, quote, "yes trans people as a whole experience this problem, yes trans women have it the worst out of everyone". everyone.

trans people have it really difficult in life.

trans women have it really difficult in life.

trans men have it really difficult in life.

non-binary people have it really difficult in life.

genderqueer people have it really difficult in life.

trans people have it really difficult in life.

i dont give a fuck if you think X Y and Z suddenly makes being a trans woman much more difficult than literally every other queer identity under the sun, thats not how it fucking works man. queer experiences are not a god damn monolith, everyone goes through life differently, and yes you can argue certain identities get discriminated against in unique ways- THAT IS NOT GROUNDS TO SAY YOURE THE MOST OPPRESSED.

in this day and age you will be systematically oppressed for being trans no matter what label you use, because you're trans. nobody should give a shit about who's got it worse because WE ALL HAVE IT SHITTY. THAT SHOULD BE THE END OF IT.

salem even argues that trans men widely experiencing erasure in media is a good thing and thus is part of why trans women somehow have it harder by default. what the actual fuck????

"you never hear about transphobia in shows, news, games etc specifically targeting transmasc/afab people individually because society views us as "tricked women" no matter what so ofc they're not going to paint us as super evil and aggressive"

1: ah yes, being infantilized and completely ignored is MUCH better than being treated as violent, guys. being brushed off by your doctor/psychiatrist/parents/etc because you're just a confused little girl and should keep those disgusting thoughts to yourself is sooo much better and doesn't make you feel utterly alone and wanting to end your fucking life.

2: this also isnt fucking true anyways, i see trans men get targeted ALL THE TIME with shit like "they're ruining their natural beauty and just need a man to fix them" yknow, leading to rape, or being "violent traitors" which is especially common in TERF circles, spouting bs about how testosterone turns you violent/ugly/brutish... oh hey, doesn't that sound familiar?

and lets not forget wis, at one point, replying to that person with "type in the chat 1 if you feel unsafe around me, 2 if you feel unsafe around (person she was replying to)" essentially getting her followers to rally against someone THAT LITERALLY JUST ASKED FOR CLARIFICATION ON WHAT SHE MEANT.

and for the record, wis: 1.

i just do not understand, why terminally online queer people like wis and salem, are so intent on making a "hierarchy" of queerness. like yes. trans women, do have it bad. transmisogyny is a unique and terrible thing to experience. but, the way the both of them talk about trans men. and honestly. the way a large portion of the internet, talks about trans men/trans mascs. it gets truly bad. even, from other queer people.

in an irl, lgbt community. guess what. nobody cares, about your ASAB. no one walks up, and asks, "are you TME or TMA?!?!". no one pries into your identity. if you look 100% feminine. but ask them to refer to you as a he. they will respect this. salem of course, does not know this, as he has never attempted to seek an lgbt community. and yes. i am aware, he lives in the south, in a religious environment. so did i. in the deep south, where at times, it was dangerous.

i have been incredibly fortunate, in that i have been part of many different real life lgbt communities. some created by myself even, and thus, having experience with irl, chill queer people. they literally, are just people. and yes. some of them, DO end up being bad people, they are not immune to being shitty, simply for being lgbt. our group, rightfully kept them away, because they proved themselves to be a danger, and could not respect basic consent.

the point of a community, especially one for marginalized people. is to BE. TOGETHER. to SUPPORT, and UPLIFT one another! not to create, artificial lines, that no one cares about, irl. wis and salem so desperately, want to be the queen and king of a shitty hierarchy, they are constructing around them, where they always have the be-all-end-all, to everything, and every issue, and are never wrong. i think, as someone who is not terminally online, and has more experience with irl gays, than online gays, it is just scummy.

[full-of-malice]

i sometimes feel like the community can give allos the wrong idea of what it is and feels like to be asexual or aromantic, and especially both.

like i feel when searching for perspectives you either find that being aroace is the greatest thing that ever happened it's so cool and swag or that's it's utterly miserable. when it's more then often both. it's a big package of good and bad.

it's part of you which means it's something so beautiful and powerful and right and wonderful and that's something to be proud of.

on the flip side as a romance favorable aroace person, it hurts like shit. i know that i won't feel like other people. i want to seek out a relationship but i know i'll never love them the way that they deserve and the way that any other person could love them because i will never feel romantically attracted to them. i feel the need to disclose this to people because i don't want to hurt them. i don't want to be a shitty person just for trying to find a relationship.

i've seen allos online claim how Easy it would be to be aroace. oh how they wish they were aroace no more crushes no more problems.

they don't realize that society is so romance and sex focused that you are forgotten and left to the side. and that even your own community might not support you if you aren't perfect. they fail to realize that people around you won't believe you or care. that society tricks you so you feel like you're missing out on things. being queer means that conservatives hates you and even if you don't feel attraction to anyone they still want you dead. like it is not all sunshine dragons and rainbows i swear to god.

also a completely different gripe but i will Kill the asexual extra free time jokes with my bare hands goodness gracious

[zarathelonewolf]

Hi, you can call me Zara, Z, Foxy, Fox, or Razor!

🇮🇹 and 🇷🇴 but I mostly speak English and Italian.

I identify as a human woman/man (more a woman than a man), a Utahraptor and a fox, and I feel that I am polykin as a result! I like to be defined as any of these three kintypes. The Fox self I feel the most has tail, ears, and mouth of a fox. The Raptor self I feel the most has a tail and, well, raptor legs.

I am perisex, mullerian to be precise, but I support the intersex community. I believe intersex people have the right to self-determinate and that society needs to stop oppressing them through various methods used on a medical, social, economical, political, religious scale. I believe slurs directed at them should not be used in language anymore, just like any other slur directed at any other minority, unless it is intersex people themselves who want to reclaim said slurs. If I made this explicit, it's because the struggles of intersex people seem to not be as acknowledged as the struggles of many other queer identities, so I wanted to make it clear that I am among those who want that to change. I am ready to be corrected by any intersex person for any mistake I may make when speaking of intersex experiences.

I would strongly prefer She/Her as a pronoun. Like, very strongly. At least right now. Even though I identify as a boy, my identity as a girl is much much stronger, hence why I don't really click with the bigender or trans label for myself. I just don't feel that specific way.

EDIT: This situation is different now. I now identify with the bigender label for myself. My masculine identity is stronger nowadays due to me gaining a bit more confidence in my identity, even if just online. You still shouldn't use he/him to refer to me, I do not like using those pronouns for myself and I am still a boy also, even if I only use she/her. Just because these pronouns are traditionally feminine, doesn't mean that is the only meaning they have to me.

I feel that I am most likely arospec, very dubious on acespec for now. I could be:

AroAceflux

Demiromantic and Allosexual (aroallo)

Biromantic and Bisexual for men and non binary people

Almondromantic/Almondsexual

Cinthean/Uranic

and when I feel attraction I experience it mainly towards men. I also find myself attracted to non-binary individuals who present in a more masculine way, and demiboys also.

I have only twice been attracted to a woman and it was not intense. I happen to experience internalized transphobia ("not enough of a woman to be a woman, not enough of a man to be a man" sorta stuff), and hopeless thoughts of other kinds. This makes me spiral and experience sex repulsion and in rarer instances, romance repulsion also.

I want to be in a QPR one day. My ideal relationship includes emotional investment from the parties involved, and erotic stuff. I want to be cared for and care for someone in many ways, except for the romantic part most often, though sex is ok. My romance repulsion has become so frequent in a short span of time that I will roam my surroundings as if it were the default, lol

(EDIT: This is no longer the case, I have been craving romance a lot more. I have recently realized that a lot of my issues with romance stem from such an abysmal low self esteem that it could be likened to the Marianne Trench. Literally the only thing I believe is good about myself is the fact that my English is very good. Oh, and my poems... Though I think people do not like them very much so my self esteem is tumbling down the stairs again lel. You can find them in the "poetry" tag.)

I am BDSM favorable. I also do not think that liking or creating dark content makes you a bad person.

I do not ascribe to veganism, and although I am not anti-vegan, I do not agree with the political side of veganism. Especially the misanthropic side of it. In case anyone reads it and is a vegan, whether for ideological or purely dietetic reasons, here are my opinions so you know who you are interacting with.

If you on a vegan diet due to personal reasons or because of medical issues? Good, fantastic, who the heck am I to judge someone for that. If you personally can't handle the thought of eating a non-human animal? Good, same thing, I cannot judge you for this personal preference, a lot of raw meat can and will look disgusting to a lot of people, and not everyone may want to get used to it, and also not everyone may be comfy with the idea of eating an animal; there could also be issues with its texture. However... If you think others do not have the right to choose their diet depending on their medical issues, which may preclude them from a vegan diet (and maybe they have already tried the diet and it really really didn't help/caused more issues than the ones it set out to solve)? Fuck off. If you think humans should die because "animals are so much better" (I have unfortunately seen some extremist have this misanthropic view, all while forgetting that humans are animals themselves)? Fuck off. If you want to tell omnivores to end their lives and equiparate them to nazis? Fuck off. I am not currently accepting debates on this point of view of mine. I used to but I am not currently open anymore.

Transandrophobia exists. If you do not think it does I hate you, because I love my transmasc peers and they also experience transphobia in a way that is particular to them, just like trans women and non-binary people. The bigotry directed at trans people may stem from the same harmful beliefs, but that does not mean it may not show itself in different ways and affect different trans people in different manners. Therefore transmasc peers need a term to describe their experiences and having one does not mean they are trying to one-up trans women, or that they are trying to oppress them. No queer identity is more oppressed than the other, the discussion goes both ways. All queer are wanted dead by the state and what little privilege one has from stealthing can be taken away from being outed in a second.

FMA:B and IDW'S 2005 Transformers comic series are favs. Currently enjoying Gachiakuta, Dislyte, Infinity Nikki, Guild Wars 2, Bleach, Fire Force, Soul Eater and Kimetsu no Yaiba!

The profile is from a Picrew made by @makowwka on Twitter/X, known as mischa.makowka on Instagram. The background picture was taken from the Art Against Apartheid toolkit, with artworks from artists in support of Palestine!

If ya do not support Palestine, get outta here! Also, if you're a TERF or generally homophobic, transphobic, ableist, racist, xenophobic, etnophobic, antisemitic or islamophobic... Be warned that we will not interact smoothly!

I am a leftist in case it was not clear. Progressive, pro-LGBTQIA+, pro-non bigoted belief in religion.

I am basically copying what Is posted as profile of my account and using It as a presentation post as well. I added a few things.

If you want to chat, please feel free!!!! Foxy Is here!!!!

[understandableparadox]

Queer Charecters in One Peice.

The queer community lives and dies but those who remain in sight. What constitutes this sight? From top down, it's Activism. Advocating for yourself, those around you and those you will never see. Community, advocating for yourself and those around you. Then there is seeing yourself as something worthy of protecting, worthy of expression.  Worthy to speak in your own defense. That was an exceedingly pretentious opening for a post regarding one piece and its themes but I do believe that it's a good flat layer in which we can build our understanding of the importance of seeing Militant Queer characters. 

To be militant means to be combative and aggressive in support of a political or social cause, often in favor of extreme and confrontational methods. It is often shown to be a negative state of being. Survivors of the rise of JpegTubers angrily waving their stick puppet around yapping yelping and parking because a lesbian was miffed that she was only socially acceptable as a tab on someone's browser may sit this explanation out, please enjoy the cookies, pizza and soda left outside of the seminar hall, don't bitch about them being store brand tho. 

We still see this bastardization of what it means to be militant in shows and movies, Milquetoast hand wringing writers eager to join the laughs at the straw men they crafted with dyed hair and pronouns waved about to pantomime the faux outrage they believe comes with being militant. “Ah yes, those Snowflakes will most certainly care that I'm placing this Sticker on the back of my truck~! Mmmm, their outrage, delightful, tasty, a Special Little treat for a Special Little Man~ WAIT NO, BIG MAN, BIG MAN, BEHOLD THE BALLS ON MY TRUCK, A SIGN THAT MY OWN BALLS ARE JUST AS SWOLLEN AND ENGORGED, A BEACON OF MASCULINITY THAT ANY MEDICAL PRACTITIONER WILL WEEP AT!” What was I talking about…? 

Oh yeah if i ask you to come up with a list of characters that follow this little diddy. A well meaning, white suburbanite, oft well to do who is overly vocale on social issues much to the detriment to their own social circles. Switching the tracks, a young black woman with a protective hairstyle or Big afro. Maybe a green jacket in most weathers.Attends rallies and goes about abusing bullhorns via shouting about black issues, often alienating her from her own friend group or creating discord between them because she may have white friends that are rather Perturbed by her rhetoric.  The second may be played to attempt a positive characterization but it still comes from the same hay bale. 

This character comes from a shift in public perception that the Advocates words must be genial and pleasant if it is to make the mark. That their struggles must be made palatable and consumable to the larger audience if they are to be accepted. Of course this is a larger load of shit then the streets of london prior to the advent of public plumbing. 

Yes this is the Malcom x vs Martin luther bullshit again, a million smarter authors have penned this shit enough time for the squids to beg for a bit reprieve and I promise i'm not going to go over it to much as I have nothing clever to say on it aside from a brief summary of pop cultural digestion and acidic markings. 

Martin Luther is seen as the Soft Figure, the Proper advocate. The one that will go to a place and make a heart warming street and march and hope the police will beat them a little bit softer or hope the towns water pressure isnt as bad (an unforgivable assertion by the by, those marches were massively disruptive, you cant march that many people down a large street and not have it be in some way fucking disrubtive.) This gets turned into someone like Professor X, one who balks at his own power and helps humanity in hopes of appealing to the shared empathy of all. This is contrasted to Malcolm X, the black panther movement, the Threat of violence in service to a social cause. The Scary Other. This is morphed to magneto, the one who demands mutant acceptance now but is revealed to be a mutant supremacist. Song Meet Dance. 

Now what the fuck does all of this have to do with one piece? Simple. It is the story of the Militant Other. 

But do I hear someone say, it's a shounen manga that's filled with gratuitous fighting! Of course we're going to see those labeled as the “other” being militant! Well I must simply retort that you are trespassing, please leave im vary scared, im holding a sword and quivering in place, my fucking teeth are chattering, get out please, you can have a bottle of water on your way out but take no more I beg of thee. 

The story of one piece is about characters that are othered at birth, made others by circumstance and society or choosing to embrace their otherness and becoming militant.  Who shall we look at first? The main character?! Oh you treat me so well, what a delight~!

Now Luffy and his story isn't inherently tied to him being queer but it sets up a very clear arc path for other queer characters that we will see later on in this post. If you are not aware, luffy is almost violently asexual, by violent i mean in that way that if I was an obnoxious power scaler i could easily list it as a power feat. please note the episode when he first met boa hancock, a woman drawn to be sexually attractive with the explicit power of turning people who find her cute or attractive into stone. Luffy gets hit with this and just ignores it. Fuck you it counts and I like it… ok im sorry, i dont know how you reacted to that information, that was so rude of me, im so sorry, please sit down, you can have another water bottle ontop of the courtesy failed robbery water bottle you recived. Please try to remain hydrated. 

Funny aside, Luffy is Himself. He is always Himself. There is no situation in which he can act as anything other than himself in all situations the self that he embodies is indelible. He understands this about himself thus surrounds himself with people that are able to not change the self but help the self become more with the promise of the same happening to those around him. 

He is also astoundingly passionate in what he believes in, he is passionate about the causes of his friends, he is passionate about the causes of people he finds to be good. This passion often shows itself as Extreme, Violent and one may even say Confrontational. Of course some may not consider punching someone directly in the face multiple times as confrontational but apply your better judgment to this matter as you consider it. 

Luffy is a militant activist. When he supports a cause, it's mostly for its ideological aspects. He believes that people should be free in the most basic of terms, they should be free to travel, grow, eat, laugh. Anything that hinders that is a direct insult to Luffy's ongoing system of thought and means you are going to be punched or ignored. 

Lets keep going down the line to see who else fits in this theme, shall we? No? What the fuck man? I gave you two water bottles, and they're like…Good water bottles, they don't even have those squiggly walls, they're like… smooth plastic square bottles. 

Well I'm going with or without you, starting with my beloved Bon clay. We meet bon prior to the start of the alabasta arc, fished out of the water by the straw hat crew in which he gives his express thanks, here we are given a stark humanization. We get to see him eagerly match pace with the energy of the crew, eagerly feeding into their jokes, showing off his powers, laughing with them.  

A side note. Laughing has always been made a huge deal in one piece, whether it's the other characters' starkly unique laughs or most arcs ending off with the crew and cast laughing. It's a show of celebration, that you are in a joyous mood, that you are Happy. I wonder if that's important to any narrative theme… anyways

I think this is all astoundingly important because they show bon clay as a fun weirdo who is in love with the self they have become before they are shown as a part of the villains crew. It establishes that they are more than their narrative born role as a minor antagonist, they are a complex human that is capable of complex thoughts and ideology. Show cased by the end of the arc, the exact moment that i fell in love with them, like really fucking hard. I'm talking about running into senpai, bread in mouth. My hearts going doki doki, doctors are flipping shit trying to label it as heart arrhythmia but oh no it's not you P.H.Dick it's the power of love burning like a goddamn cyclone smashing into a oil refinery, that explosion isn't disrupting the wind flow but it is sucking up those flames like a really well thought out sexual innuendo that your super duper impressed by and think is really funny and want to congratulate me on for making such a cool sexual joke. 

They sacrifices himself in order to allow the straw hats to escape from alabasta. Ending their appearance with a heartfelt farewell to the crew that they have fought with only a day ago, that he was willing to kill on orders a day ago. Leaving them with the words

“One may stray from the path of a man, one may stray from the path of a woman, but we never stray from the path of a human.”

FUCK THATS A REALLY GOOD LINE, anyways we see him again later in impel down in one of the hell layers, with even the scorching heat and arid air unable to squash his eccentric personality like the god damn wonder they are. Dancing in the depths of hell they soon hear that luffy has broken in and rush lower through the layers to meet up with them, Eager to join up and fight with him. 

Again, we are seeing behavior Vary similar to luffy, that actions which serve their passions are to be taken always. A passion for friendship, loyalty, all of that. The willingness to serve time in a massive human rights violation of a prison…ok thats a little vague, thats most prisons… Anyways we do get to see more of bon clay's belief system as we meet both our next queer character and our next militant character. 

Ivankov. They to me are the true exemplification of all three levels of advocacy in service to a group of peoples existence. At the most basic level, ivankov cannot hide who they are, it's impossible, I mean look at her! He has powers that can increase the size of their face, they wear makeup so thick it can be peeled off, they are Violently of the self. 

For their community, we have the new kama queendom, she has created a paradise in the depths of super hell jail to protect those around her. Even outside of the jail he has done much of the same by creating the okama queendom, the island outside of government control in which men and women flock in order to be able to express their true selves. Notably, despite ivenkovs ability to turn men into women, many of them do not make use of this power. They are free to express themselves without the expectation of fitting into that role visually. That's the community aspect to me. 

Then we get the more militant activism, ivenkovs role as a member of the revolutionary army. The way he provides an outpost in the middle of the grand line, his funding through his miracle medical work, his willingness to fight for those she will never ever see. 

And there are more, we see other queer characters in the revolutionary army, and they have yet to be shown in any sort of negative light. Their militant activism, their willingness to fight and rally others to fight for a cause is shown to be positive. 

The desire to fight for a cause throughout one piece is shown to be an overall positive cause, all forms of it. Whether it's through the more peaceful methods such as otohime or through violence and confrontation such as Fisher tiger. 

So to reiterate because this is getting hella long, I love One Piece because it allows its queer characters to fight for what they believe in, in any way that they desire. That queer characters are allowed to be weird, they are allowed to be evil, they are ugly, beautiful, powerful, anything and everything! 

Thank you for reading.

[zaebeecee]

on today’s edition of Zae’s Been Thinking Too Much While Crocheting…

Fandoms have got to stop romanticizing hatred.

• On media literacy and the sanitization of unhealthy relationship dynamics •

(I know, I know, this sounds like a bunch of pretentious buzzwords that mean absolutely nothing, but trust me, I’m going somewhere with this.)

The idea of the Enemies to Lovers (EtL for the sake of the rest of this post) trope isn’t exactly uncharted waters as far as fan communities are concerned. When two people who seem to be relatively compatible butt heads, there’s definitely something engaging about it; forced hostility born from attraction has a unique energy to it that can be a hell of a lot of fun to play around with in any kind of fan community context, from fanfiction and fanart to role playing. That said…

Two characters hating each other is not proof that they’re actually in love, and people need to stop acting like it is.

To clarify, I AM NOT TELLING PEOPLE WHAT NOT TO SHIP. Additionally, I am absolutely not knocking the EtL trope. My fellow Internet Olds will remember a time when deviantArt was considerably less of a cesspool than it is today; back in the mid-00s, in particular, dA was one of the best places you could go to find fan communities for all different fandoms and share art with each other. I bring this up to say that I am so much in favor of the EtL trope, there was over a year that I ran the largest L x Light Death Note community on dA.

The EtL trope is great, provided there is more between the characters than simply hating each other.

You might be wondering why I’m bringing this up at all if I’m very much a ‘ship and let ship’ sort of media analysis queer, and the answer is pretty simple. Scientific studies have shown, time and again, that the media people consume has an effect on their perception of the world, whether we mean for it to or not. And, the more we obsess over that media, the more it starts to impact how we interpret reality.

In other words: scientifically speaking, obsessing over a ship that involves looking at two people who hate each other and calling it love will make you see real life abusive situations as much less destructive than they really are. This sounds extreme, I know, and I want to emphasize that it doesn’t make you okay with people being abused. It simply makes you interpret the situation differently.

For clarity’s sake, I am talking about one kind of ship and one kind of ship only: when the two characters, in canon, have absolutely zero interaction that doesn’t involve overt hostility, and people point to that hostility and say it’s proof they’re actually attracted to one another, frequently even going so far as to say they’re canonically in love because they can’t stand each other. I’m not talking about characters who are clearly mad about being attracted (see: tsundere anime girls who yell at a guy or other girl, but they’re frequently blushing, or they get genuinely flustered when their friends tease them about having a crush). I’m also not talking about characters who start out as enemies and become friends, or end up having to work together and build a partnership, or realize their fight was stupid and agree to put aside their quarrel.

I know there are a lot of phrases that we’re familiar with from our parents and grandparents (and so on) generations, takes we know are incredibly bad and are things people need to stop saying. I’m sure you’ve heard at least one of these things, like:

“He only picks on you because he likes you.”

“She’s ignoring me, which must mean she’s playing hard to get. I should try harder to get her attention.”

“If they didn’t care about me, they wouldn’t get so upset that they hit me. After all, I made a mistake, and they were just worried about me.”

(The third one is the thing that tends to strike people as the most absurd, but the lengths some victims will go to be at fault for their treatment is shocking and incredibly depressing.)

If you look at two fictional characters who hate each other and interpret that as love, you will start to interpret real-life mistreatment as signs of concealed affection, because that’s what you’ve done to the ship that you mentally obsess over day in and day out.

And look, there isn’t anything inherently wrong with shipping characters who hate each other in canon. Feelings can change. People can evolve. If you write fanfics or comics where the two of them develop something beyond despising each other, great. The problem that comes in is when you aren’t shipping characters despite the fact that they hate each other, but rather, you’re shipping them because they hate each other.

It all boils down to whether you enjoy something with awareness that it’s bad, or whether you’re making excuses for bad things so you don’t feel bad about enjoying it. It’s fine to ship enemies; it isn’t fine to excuse their mistreatment of one another and say it’s because they just like each other so much and can’t handle it uwu. It’s fine to love a villain; it isn’t fine to excuse their behavior and evil acts and say it’s because they’re the mistreated ones actually and the bad things they did are someone else’s fault and the villain is innocent sweet baby uwu.

What I’m saying is, if you can’t handle the complexity of characters genuinely atoning for past bad behavior and want to sweep it under the rug and pretend it didn’t happen or it wasn’t that bad actually or it was proof of a GOOD thing, you probably need to put down the EtL and slowly back away. It’s better for you in the long run.

[sunfoxfic]

I think part of the reason why I'm always going to at least somewhat identify with the terms "cis" and "straight" is that there's so much weird rhetoric drifting around the queer community that tries to say that queerness - particularly queer attraction - is Inherently Different from cis/straight experiences.

Honestly, I've seen a lot of pushback against this idea in discussion about what separates trans and cis gender identity. A lot of people acknowledge that actually, cis people can have just as deep and meaningful and nuanced conceptions of gender as trans people! It takes many forms - whether it's called Cis+, or bringing up that crossdressers and genderqueer people who still identify as cis historically have had a place in the queer community, or whatever it is.

Discussion of attraction doesn't seem to have gotten that far. Like, okay, I'll bring up an example.

A long time ago I saw a post on tumblr which was a person talking about how they write sex scenes between people who they personally are not attracted to. It was really great! They talked about how physicality is a gender neutral trait - that everyone has skin and bones and fat and tendons and veins, and genitalia has very little to do with the way they write sex scenes because they focus in on those traits. But this was framed in the way that they're always able to write queer attraction, because queer attraction focuses in on physicality in a way that straight attraction just doesn't.

And, I don't know, it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth? To imply that no straight person has ever cared about their partner's traits aside from the parts that are homogenically sexy? To imply that lesbians always have more in common with gay men than they do with straight men, or that gay men always have more in common with lesbians than they do with straight women?

Aside from the reality that there are a lot of queer people who are quite vain when it comes to these types of things (and no, you can't "no true Scotsman" your way out of that), this rhetoric also discourages straight people from relating to queer people - and yes, they can relate sexually, because sexuality isn't this blessed thing that's So Different from any other human trait or activity.

Straight people can find skin and bones and fat and tendons and veins sexy. They can find someone attractive not because of how well they fit the mold of mainstream attractiveness. I thought the goal was to make this happen!

Straight people should be allowed to relate to queerness without their sexuality getting defined as queer without their consent. And I don't mean that as a backdoor for people who want to detach themselves from the movement out of embarrassment, I don't mean that because I want to exclude people who don't fit inside the norm but don't want to adopt a label more specific than queer.

What I'm saying is that, for better or worse, there will always be people who don't feel like the word "queer" works for them, but that doesn't mean they can't relate to queerness. Trying to redefine queerness so that these people either have to take on a label that makes them uncomfortable or deny the way they relate to the queer community does no one any favors.

[ichthyosophy]

on the topic of abolition of the term “paraphilia”:

i often see an argument like “well, you know, technically, all kinks and fetishes are considered paraphilias!” or something similar. it became especially common in the past year or so since the identity of “paraphiliac” became more popular and extended beyond the several most stigmatized attraction patterns to more socially acceptable sexual interests. this argument is typically used in favor of the destigmatization of paraphilic identities. however, even though this statement is technically true, i believe that the only position it can meaningfully support is the idea that we should get rid of the term “paraphilia.” i`m not driven by a sentiment that “paraphilic” attractions are bad or immoral. there is simply no good use for the term (unless your goal is to exclude some "problematic" sexualities from the broader queer discourse) and, frankly, no meaningful scientific backing to it.

i assume that the history of the psychiatric term “paraphilia” is known to most people who will ever find themselves reading this post, so i refrain from going into details on this matter. it has been criticized by scientists and human rights activists alike, but the term is still present in the DSM and ICD. given that the diagnosis of “paraphilic disorder” is predominately used in a forensic context, i tend to believe that the reasons behind this are purely political rather than scientifically objective.

usually, when we talk about “paraphilic” attractions, we understand them as recurrent and intense patterns of sexual arousal to unconventional erotic stimuli. but how can we measure the intensity of erotic desire? where is the objective line and what`s the difference between conventional and unconventional erotic stimuli? there are no cross-cultural studies on the statistical prevalence of “paraphilic” erotic preferences i`m aware of, and for many reasons, i genuinely doubt that such a study can be conducted. what erotic stimuli are considered “conventional” varies greatly depending on the culture and the time period we want to examine. we can see it by paying attention to beauty standards, to erotic art and texts, to attitudes towards intergenerational relationships, homosexuality, or polyamory in different communities and different eras. none of the “conventional” for modern western society erotic stimuli actually constitutes a cultural universal. therefore, the psychiatric concept of “paraphilia” is rooted in western universalism.

of course, we can try to change the definition and conceptualize “paraphilias” as a socially constructed cultural phenomenon rather than a psychiatric condition. anyway, in every given society will always be some people with statistically uncommon, "abnormal" sexual interests. with this premise we can easily come up with the idea that the same pattern of attraction should be categorized as “paraphilia” in the culture for which this attraction pattern is atypical, but as “normophilia” in another culture for which it`s more conventional. i guess it could work out, but… with this framework we will, for example, inevitably return to describing homosexual (homophilic?) desires as paraphilic at least within the context of some particular cultures. it`s a controversial area and it will be used in bad faith by many. here it`s the moment when it stops being a scientific issue and becomes a political one, and i would prefer if everyone was strategically careful with such matters.

the DSM-5 makes a distinction between “paraphilias” and “paraphilic disorders,” where paraphilic attractions are non-pathological in themselves and don`t constitute a psychiatric diagnosis but are necessary diagnostic criteria for “paraphilic disorders.” to be diagnosed with “paraphilic disorder” patient has to experience distress or dysfunction caused by their abnormal attraction and/or engage in criminal/abusive sexual acts. i know that many pro-paraphilia advocates see this change as a giant and fundamentally important step forward. i must say that in my opinion, it`s not sufficient at all.

well, if the term “paraphilia” is misleading and unscientific, the term “paraphilic disorder” is just outright bullshit. individuals with atypical sexual interests experience ego-dystonic ideations because of the overwhelming social stigma they face in daily life, it`s a sociogenic phenomenon. that`s why people with less stigmatized erotic preferences experience distress significantly less often than people with more marginalized attractions. nowadays, when a homosexual person is distressed and ego-dystonic due to the stigma around their sexual orientation (which may be kinda less common than a decade or two ago but still is a very real and widespread situation, especially among gay people from more homophobic cultures or those with more conservative/religious upbringing), no qualified mental health professional will diagnose them with “homophilic disorder.” moreover, there is nothing pathologic about an oppressed individual experiencing some form of distress because of the oppression they face. sure, individuals with such feelings should be able to safely receive help and counseling from a mental health professional if that`s what they desire (however, i would argue that community support is endlessly more effective in most cases), but it`s, in fact, a normal human reaction which shouldn`t constitute a diagnosis.

the psychiatric trend of pathologization of abusive/criminal behavior also makes no sense. crimes and abusive acts are not “mental disorders.” so-called “paraphilic disorders” are the only subgroup of mental disorders defined specifically based on criminal history. you know, heterosexuality and homosexuality are also “recurrent and persistent sexual interests” that may result in distress, dysfunction, or criminal/abusive behavior. for example, heterosexual teleiophilic male rapists, the most common kind of sexual abusers, are not diagnosed with “gynephilic disorder” even if their crime was motivated by their heterosexual teleiophilic desires. so why does it become diagnostic criteria when it comes to “paraphilic” abusers? there is, once again, no scientific basis behind it.

with this text, i don`t want to police the labels people choose to describe their identity and personal experiences. of course, if you find comfort in an identity descriptor like “paraphilia” and want to reclaim it for some reason, feel free to do so, and have fun. however, if reading this post will eventually lead at least some people to question the validity of the concept of “paraphilia” as an objective scientific phenomenon and the political implications of using this term, i would be quite happy about it.

do we really need the term for sexual desires socioculturally deemed abnormal? luckily, we already have a good word for abnormal and marginalized sexual interests, and the word in question is “queer.” basically, the distinction between "queerness" and "paraphilias" is "non-normative sexualities that have gained some degree of social acceptance in a western sociocultural context" and "non-normative sexualities that haven't yet gained social acceptance in a western sociocultural context."

fetishes (technically considered paraphilias) are queer, kinks (technically considered paraphilias) are queer, and marginalized sexual orientations (technically considered paraphilias) are queer too. deal with it.

[whiskeysmulti]

30 Days Of Pride- Day 12!

Remembering Orlando

.Whiskey.

8 years now and it's still terrifying to think of.

But that's a sad reality in the queer community. We think we've made these bars and nightclubs our own so we'd have a safe space to be ourselves and be accepted, but even then we're not. Even then it's not even a safe space anymore.

Consider this a rant and call me a bitch if you need to, but it needs said. No one cares if you die when you're queer. And I'm not meaning this in a literal sense. But in the fact that the media paints a bad enough picture of the community with every stereotype they use and half the time we're just used for some made for TV sob story movie, it's never normalized like cis, straight relationships are as they're constantly thrown in our faces. And then something happens. It's usually an "isolated case" of one hate crime against an LGBTQ person and it's brushed aside. And even when it's a tragedy like Pulse was, no one gives a shit. No one cares that someone lost their life partner. Someone lost their child. Someone lost the only family or friend they might have still had. It's like we're not even human in the eyes of the news. I saw the damn comments on the Pulse shooting broadcast and was absolutely disgusted at the majority being a long the lines of "good." or "This was god's work, now go back and get the rest of them." Bunch of bullshit hate speech was all it was, they do the same with most LGBT deaths.

As bitter as it sounds of me, that's something I always think of when I remember the Pulse shooting. No one cares if you die when you're queer, in fact it's like doing them a favor. 49 people lost their lives that night, 49 families lost someone who could have meant the world to them and people celebrated it. And in contrast, 49 people who might not have had anywhere else to turn where they could be themselves safely, lost their lives and people still celebrated it, they did the same with Club Q. It happens almost every time a queer club is shot up. And people wonder why we call it being in the closet when we're not open about ourselves? Because we literally have to hide, because this is how the world views us. This is why we still need pride. So people understand us better and so tragedies like Pulse can be prevented from happening again in the future and that one day others can look at us as humans who have a right to live.

[9w1ft]

Regarding the discussion about Taylor and flagging and her power to influence her fans. I don't completely agree.

Yes, I agree that she doesn't have the power to change the heart of a deeply homophobic person. But I believe she has the power to make some of her fans think.

If some kid is head over heels fanatic over Taylor and kinda thinks being queer is gross, and she says it's not... it doesn't sit right in their brain. (ME! +YNTCD, etc...) Some of them clutched their pearls and stomped out of the fandom. But considering the numbers since, I don't think it was that many...

Now if tomorrow she were to clearly, unequivocally acknowledge the controversy and say something along the lines of "there are some fans that think they're doing something good in 'defending' me from 'accusations' of not being straight and it break my heart. You defend people from being accused of a crime. Not of love.". I have even seen the effect of the 'fav' in question saying something along the lines of "some of you fling such vile and homophobic language in my name, it makes ME feel ashamed of you".

Yeah, you might lose some fans. And no, I have a hard time imagining Taylor Swift actually voicing that 'her fans' are anything else than perfect little angles so I don't think she'll ever say 'the things you say in my name make me want to throw up', let alone 'you're part of the reason why I have had to live in a bunker for a decade, you hateful bigot' but. One day, maybe when she's ready to take the leap and she doesn't mind the speculation of "oh... So what if it was true??" she might address it head on. And that would for sure have an effect. The cognitive dissonance of your idol telling you how you feel about something is horrible is powerful. (it's the whole reason why we have PR partnerships and 'influencers'. Because it works.)

i agree with you somewhat.

through my time here, i would say there has definitely been a slow migration of and increase in the number of swifties towards the idea that taylor is not straight, through taylor’s actions, as you have mentioned. the community at large is definitely in a better place than it was in 2018.

but while she can influence some of her fans, she won’t reach all of her fans. i think most people who are fans of taylor care deeply about if taylor thinks they are weird or not, so if taylor called out this kind of behavior as weird and gave a continuous amount of her attention to gaylors or kaylors, over time people would change their tune because they want to believe taylor likes them. still, in the absence of a continued campaign, i do feel that most people would gravitate back to how they originally felt and to their original behaviors as they forget the new taylor presented to them in favor of the one they are used to imagining her as. there’s like a short interval where some people course correct, but these days it feels like not even 24 hours pass before people go back to the same behavior, often reinterpreting what she said to fit it.

maybe one day she’ll really do it, really rip the bandaid off. but i think that presently, taylor doesn’t have plans for a continued effort to change this behavior. and i think there are reasons why. perhaps, shifting her attitude like that would introduce new variables when she wants to be able have some control of what is going on. from her perspective and her life priorities, why introduce that risk. and so, in the absence of her calling out bad behavior time and again, i think it’s reasonable to suggest taking a different course by adapting to the climate on our own.

[i-dont-like-your-peaches]

Lost Queer Headcanons

Jack

Aroace; All the folks who ship Jack in m/f ships are cool and all but my personal way i would write him in an au would probably be him being not super romantically/sexually involved with anyone ,he has relationships with like 10 women so far. But I think it would be funnier if he was just trying to be friendly and personable as the doctor and elected leader on the island and people kept falling for him

my way I’d write him is having a ridiculous amount of female characters (and some male but they’d never admit it) all fall for him and think he reciprocates at some point but he just needs to be nice so people will trust him to stitch up their wounds and stuff

Kate

bisexual but has a strong preference towards women/is sapphic leaning, for a long time after leaving her stepfather she fully identified as a lesbian for a while and her flirting with men is entirely to remain less identifiable/get favors from people, (semi canon) but she’s also a huge girls’ girl and is defensive of a lot of women on the island

She’s had a long list of wlw situationships on the island, her longest one was with Anna Lucia,which is also why she was crying when she was killed bc they were dating for a while, but Claire, Juliet, Shannon, and for a short time Sun when things were bad with Jin are all on her list

Sawyer

bisexual but very masc leaning, similar to Kate though he flirts with women so much to get what he wants out of them, but unlike Kate is deeply ashamed and embarrassed of it and projects a lot

Sawyer and Kate also have a friends/rivales-with-benefits relationship, so they flirt and hook up a lot but they aren’t exclusive to each other

Claire

Trans man who’s egg cracked in high school when he was getting into more alternative crowds, he started experimented with his gender more, which was one of the things that led to him and his mom’s big fight, but he repressed his true identity when he was dating his boyfriend because he “wouldn’t want to date a man”, and he was in the fence for a long long time until after having Aaron and meeting Charlie, his crush on Charlie’s was actually just mistaken gender envy

and after everything he went through while pregnant the idea of womanhood and pregnancy became associated with those trauma and pain and loss of control over his body

Locke

Unlabeled, his sexuality is island/silly , though him and Ben have something going on definitely👇, he experimented in college and when he was in the hippie commune a lot too, if anything he dosent really care about other people’s sexual preferences and thinks of relationships as a more fluid thing #Ally/silly

Ben

Gay and sex-repulsed asexual, his idea of sex is mind games and he was never really interested in that stuff. He mainly out of anything wants people to be close to no matter what, so his obsession with Juliet was less a crush and more wanting her to be close to him and him only

Boone

Saw someone made a joke about Locke being Boones new boyfriend. Which the writers missed out on making the funniest twist of lost being Boone as a very repressed gay man instead of him banging his sister so it’s canon to me. He’s a “libera who “doesn’t believe in guns and goes on marches” from Shannon’s own admittance, to which he gets very embarrassed about and furiously denies. He’s very in the closet and embarrassed about it though. And the type of gay to be very lonely and feel disgusted at the idea of getting a boyfriend or something (despite secretly longing for closeness and connection) has a bit of an adrmiration crush on Locke though it’s mostly because he seems to be the “Ideal Man”

Juliet

Trans woman who became a fertility doctor and found out she was a girl after studying and having experiences with women through medical school including her sister. She was originally an endocrinologist but her egg cracked and she switched her major, though learned to source and administer her own estrogen from it. She is also so soft spoken as a part of voice training, (but also because she doesn’t like loud sounds in general)

Hugo

Trans guy for the vibes, his dysphoria only worsened his mental health in a lot of places though, his feelings about his weight also came from growing up around 2000’s heroin chic culture and the way they treat women that weren’t mega skinny. but after getting rich he started hrt and got top surgery, his chest used to be much larger so he just has regular man boobs now

Mr Eko

This is another one based entirely on vibes, he refers to himself as Mr and has people do it as well, and his religion is deeply intertwined with his own gender identity believing it was gods design for him to be a priest regardless of how he was born, he’s pre-op and doesn’t bind instead preferring to walk around shirtless, although he has PCOS which led to his facial hair growth

[jack-bytez-genuine-corner]

Rant [No, I won't make this a habit I promise I just needed to get this off my chest]

People who don't know that intersectionality exists shouldn't be allowed into any community. Being near told that the experience of violence I've had doesn't matter cause of my skin tone is some of the most disgusting, vile shit I've seen in my life. And it came from a POC, someone who should OUTRIGHT KNOW why that's bad.

People get murdered by bigots for simply existing, and we have members in the Queer community who truthfully want to argue that THOSE people getting killed isn't that big of a deal cause of the color of their skin and the oppression they faced doesn't matter. I know ABSOLUTELY NO ONE wants to view racism as a mindset, but it's that. It's the idea that the suffering of some doesn't matter because of an innate characteristic they can't change. You aren't an ally if you believe that some people's suffering simply doesn't matter to your in group, you aren't an ally if you believe in acceptable causalities.

This is why I REALLY don't like anyone who is gay and is ambivalent on trans people's right to exist, this is why I don't like people who refuse to talk actual racism in favor of stoking a stereotype of all white people being innately racist. Because if your actual want is to help others, than you need to confront those issues head on, not let others take the fall for you, not relitigate racism into a more "Acceptable" form, but actually deal with the problems that exist instead of blanketing that shit under "DAE white people XD" but actually going for the issue. There's racist white people in the community, we can ACTUALLY TALK ABOUT IT, but instead it's vague BS meant to stoke division.

I'm not a perfect human being, but if anyone ever tells you that your suffering isn't meaningful cause of your genitals or your sex or your pronouns or the color of their skin, know that they are wrong, period. I've never been more insulted online and I literally have "Loser" in my bio, and I didn't think this place could rival fucking Twitter in terms of facilitating awful people.

Over 60K notes lowkey justifying why certain people being literally killed is acceptable. 60K notes basically justifying that the oppression queer people who are white may face isn't meaningful. Maybe I'm reading into it too much, but good lord kindness is *fucking dead* in the world and at this point I should pack in my expectations for humanity cause even the people who have FIRST HAND EXPERIENCE WITH THESE SUBJECTS are more than willing to shield the god damn fucks cause CERTAIN people just have it coming. Like fuck being an "Ally" if this shit flies. Like I felt pretty angry when I saw how little care was given from BLM towards other minority groups who faced police brutality, but I figured a rising tide raises all ships. I felt pretty angry with how little coverage of missing Native women cause they just disappear and nobody cares, but maybe it's OK that some people got coverage when they went missing cause rising tide. But 60K notes... On a post that's justifying that certain people can't face oppression or face violence cause of their skin color DESPITE being gay, DESPITE being Trans, DESPITE all that...

Just fucking pack it up I guess, we're fucked. If 60K people just can't see why oppression is bad period, regardless of who it's at, then fucking pack, it, up. Set the nukes off, suck us into a black hole, humanity is a god damn waste of time for everyone involved because people can't even be assed to SEE how innocent people being hurt is bad. "Oh but MY oppression is worse!" OK? Good for you! You won the contest! Except this isn't a contest against who had it worse, it's a contest to prevent ANYONE from having it AS BAD AS YOU DID, and squabbling over this BS just enables the exact same division that allowed you to be treated like dogshit in the first place!

And yes, if you push the idea that queer white people can't face oppression, you are shielding the bigots who do the oppressing, full stop. You're using the exact same argument misogynistic, old, white fucks make about how women are "Asking for it" for having the NERVE to dress how they see fit. It's disgusting. Period.

[ninjakittenarmy]

A couple things from an asexual. And some of this is gonna involve correcting common behaviors most Allos don’t do but are way too normalized and need to be combatted so just know none of this is meant as like, an accusation to all allo people or anything like that.

Give people the benefit of the doubt when they express discomfort with sexualized stuff things, be it in a given space or in media or in a conversation. Doesn’t actually matter if they’re ace or not, you don’t need the specific reason. Don’t automatically assume everyone expressing discomfort with sex is queerphobic or sexist unless either they imply it or have a noticeable double standard, ie. they were fine with cishet people being just as sexual. DO NOT JUST ASSUME THEY WERE ACTUALLY FINE WITH CISHET PEOPLE BEING JUST AS SEXUAL. I can’t stress this enough. You need to see it happen or have them say so. The amount of times I’ve been accused of this with no evidence whatsoever is astounding.

If someone says they’re asexual as a reason they’re not comfortable with something sexual, do not bring up that not all ace people feel that way. Yes, sex favorable ace people exist. You can easily infer that the ace person in this situation isn’t one of them. This also goes for ace representation.

If someone says queer representation is bad representation because it’s not sexual enough, call them on it. That’s never ok to say.

While I totally get why “there’s no platonic explanation for this” became a common saying, it is probably best to retire this one. It’s extremely alienating. A lot of us start feeling uncomfortable, insecure, and unwelcome if we actually are that affectionate to our friends or would like to be were it not for the assumption.

If someone counters the above statement, don’t automatically assume homophobia without further explanation for why they are doing so. I know this one’s difficult. Trust me, I get it.

TAG YOUR NSFW POSTS. Seriously, I swear that this has just evaporated over the years. I don’t even care if their site is taking down posts with those tags. If you cannot tag it and have it stay up, then don’t post it on the website. I don’t care if the policy is shit, it doesn’t mean you can post untagged fetish content and porn where people can’t avoid it. Do not punish us for a website’s policy. Post it somewhere else.

There’s this really annoying trend where people say to make your own spaces without stuff we’re uncomfortable with if we don’t want it but anyone who tries gets called a puritan and harassed. I saw a poster I usually agree with call out a furry con for not allowing fetish gear or diapers or such because of how much queer history there is in the community and how it seemed “Christian”, implying that this is an insult. One, being queer doesn’t mean every space needs to allow every fetish, two, there’s no evidence that these people weren’t queer, three, so what if it was religious? Religious queer people exist and they’re allowed to be religious in a way that doesn’t abandon all sexual mores so long as they aren’t discriminatory. Banning fetish content from one con is not discriminatory.

Acknowledge that more sexual and more progressive are not the same thing.

It’s not actually just allo people who do this. Some sex favorable aces and romance favorable aros do all of these things, as do some sex/romance repulsed people who still like to engage with sexual/romantic stuff. That’s bad too. You being aro or ace isn’t an excuse to discriminate against your fellow aces who aren’t comfortable with this. A lot of people from a lot of minorities support bad status quos because they don’t suffer as much as others and think the others are complaining too much. That’s not ok.

I don’t have much to say about aro people specifically other than that everything I said that applies to sex most likely applies to romance. I’m not aro myself. If anyone wants to add some stuff for aros, it would be appreciated.

Asexuals and Aromantics, can you list ways Allosexuals can help your community?

[fandomsandfeminism]

Every time I sit down to read about queer history, I'm always struck by how deeply sexuality and gender and gender expression used to be interwoven. (And for many of us still are.)

These days, I see people arguing that straight cis drag queens and GNC folks aren't "actually lgbt+" (one of the limits of using lgbt+ rather than queer), and acting like trans/nonbinary/genderqueer folks are a wholly separate group than lesbian/gay/bi/etc folks. People, lgbt+ people, talking bad about xenogenders and neopronouns because they are too weird, just for attention, giving us all a bad name, etc.

But this separation between gender, sexuality, and presentation is *new*

Looking back at history, especially within US and Western Europe, and either you were a heterosexual man/woman who presented accordingly, or you *werent.* That was the divide. If you transgressed on any 1 of those things- you were transgressing on ALL of them.

Being gay/bi inherently called your gender into question. Being gender nonconforming immediately reflected upon your sexuality. There wasn't a divide between these concepts. They were one and the same. You were *normal* or you were queer. And of course, not all gay/bi/lesbian folks were crossdressing (how else did one stay in the closet?) , and not all people in gender nonconforming clothing had a sexual interest in the same sex. But these ideas were constantly melding together. To be a man was to be straight and dress "like a man." To be a woman was to be straight and "dress like a woman." They defined each other.

In much of the country, you could be arrested if you weren't wearing at least 3 pieces of "correctly gendered" clothing. That's the rule that got a lot of folks arrested in gay bars- regardless of sex or gender. Even after same sex dancing was technically legalized, crossdressing would get you beaten and arrested by the cops. Cops would "inspect" bar patrons to ensure they were dressed in the "correct" clothes when raids occurred.

And that's not to say that the community was ever fully free of assimilationist/exclusionist factions. There have always been groups, generally of cis/gender-confirming gay, lesbian, and bisexuals who argued in favor of respectability and fitting in and showing a willingness to leave the crossdressers and drag queens and butches behind if it meant they could keep their white collar jobs. If it meant social tolerance and safety for *them.*

But we should be able to recognize that the heart and soul of queer Liberation is in unity and embracing the weird, not shunning it. That we are strongest when we stand together.

I don't think it's WRONG for us today to distinguish gender, sexuality, and presentation as different aspects of identity. But I think we should be very very careful to not let that nuance lead to exclusionary or over-compartmentalized thinking about queer issues.