#its mostly cis people doing it too

[sethsbigtits]

i need literally every fanfic writer ever to stop using the term afab as a replacement for woman like right NOW.

quit saying afab when you just mean woman who has a vagina. PLEASE.

not everyone who is afab is a woman dear god.

[yuridovewing]

i understand the frustration with “i made this gay pairing cis x trans so they can still have biological babies” with no thought to other methods and how ppl assume thats the case when it comes to mothpool aus where mothwing is also the mother of the three, but also…. idk i kinda dont give a shit if someone wants to do that and i dont really think its inherently transphobic as long as its handled with care and respect.

what really concerns me about this debate is how some people are adamant that you cannot portray trans people having biological children in media or youre being disrespectful. and im gonna say as a nonbinary person who doesnt want children for themself- thats kinda fucking weird? like i understand that for some people, theyre trans themselves and theyre speaking from a place of dysphoria, and i absolutely get that, which is why i think the topic should be handled with nuance and diversity in trans characters, but like…. guys. pregnant trans men exist irl. trans women get people pregnant irl. trans ppl’s ability and right to parent and have biological children are being debated irl. we get denied the opportunity to adopt as well.

in a climate like this, are we SURE we want the stance on rewrites and headcanons in the silly cat books to be “if you portray trans characters having children, especially with a gay couple, youre a transphobic freak no matter what!” does it really matter? especially if its being done by a trans person handling the topic with nuance who has a lot of trans characters with varying perspectives?

obviously yes, remember that thats not the only way certain gay couples can have kids, remember that not every trans person is fully comfortable with it and keep that in mind, remember that surrogacy and adoption are also perfectly valid ways to give fan babies- but remember that there are OPTIONS. not that you need to condemn the idea of transgender parents in the first place unless they fit the very specific criteria of “proper transgender representation” and anything that dares deviate from that is proof the op is a transphobic monster (bonus points if theyre a trans creator bc i mostly see trans people getting shit for this and it kinda pisses me off. although idm if cis people do it either as long as theyre handling it with respect)

[critterchitters-closedcaptions]

funny thing about attraction is that i am Not at all interested in cis guys. right.

except for the literal worst fictional men you've ever layed eyes on.

this character is horrible and *will* harm my general health?

comfort character babey.

occasionally theres the just Regular Ass Guy right, but 90% of the time its either women or the literal scum of the earth (or both. lady villains. aaough <3 yes please)

[dq1]

thinking again

[redheadedfailgirl]

Okay so I went on a date recently and idk if what happened was transmisogynistic but it was... Definitely weird.

So I met this enby at a party, made out with her, got their number, and planned a date. The whole nine yards. All's so far so good. And I ask it, as I ask pretty much everybody I'm comfortable with (which I am in this case cuz we already met and she seems alright), if it wants me to pick them up. And they seem surprised at this cuz they live out of the way a little bit, but I'm okay with that and I plan to drive her.

Apparently this, combined with the fact that I paid for popcorn and a soda for her at the theatre meant I was assertive and therefore had 'dommy mommy vibes.' Apparently no one else has ever offered to drive it means i'm definite top in their eyes.

And that's weird, right? Like, I'm doing 'the guy things' that I was trained to do from birth (and that I genuinely enjoy doing most of the time, mind you) and it's expected that that equals assertive equals dominant equals down to top.

I don't even dislike topping, practically or conceptually. I'd like to do it more, in fact. But not when people assume that I want to based off arbitrary features that line up in their head to say 'this person is something along the lines of a man.'

[femwizard]

TMA this TME that

What about TMI?

[chainmail-butch]

i was talking to a friend who's a trans woman about this. she used to be really weird about butch trans women, but ended up being butch herself. she told me she was adverse to it because "it was like watching someone leave their house completely naked. you feel maybe a little embarrassed for them but you're mostly scared for how other people are going to treat them too. [she] thought "well, [she'd] be embarrassed doing the same and maybe they were having a hard time passing. but then finding out they're doing it on purpose, [she] thought that they were making a joke of being trans, like they were enforcing the stereotype of just saying you were a woman despite not making any effort to look like one. [she] was confused as to why anyone would do that, especially when she'd been having a hard time being treated well even though she did everything to make herself like a cis girl." she hated having to put in so much effort into looking feminine but did it because she was sure that's just what you had to do. obviously, probably regardless of how she looked, she was going to be treated like shit on the principal of being trans and after actually talking to butches and thinking about it more, she decided to just dress how she felt comfortable and still be proud of being a woman.

That's very interesting to hear. That is the consistent impression I've gotten from well meaning trans women.

I had to wrestle with the whole, "declaring myself a woman without making the effort," thing. When I first transitioned I put on dresses, tried on makeup, and got cute jackets. None of it felt right. I knew, entirely, that I was a woman. But doing all of the things women were supposed to be doing made me feel even worse than when I had lived as a man, which is saying something.

I eventually figured out that there is plenty of effort to being a butch woman. There are still styles, there are still pieces of gendered clothing, there are still gendered actions, they're just hidden in plain sight. They're all the things I wanted to do and all the ways that I wanted to be perceived that I couldn't understand until someone (Leslie Feinberg) held a mirror to my face (SBB) and said Butch. Then it all clicked.

I've been doing HRT for three full years now. I've been socially transitioned for three full years now. It is work. It is a challenge. It is walking out of the house with nothing but your soul and what you choose to armor it with. For some women the armor is a dress and a full face of makeup. For me its leather and boots.

I love my sisters deeply. I love women deeply. I love womanhood deeply. But my womanhood is also deliberately not womanhood. My selfish desire is a world where I can be exactly who I am without having to justify it to every woman, trans or cis, that crosses my path. But that's not gonna happen any time soon.

As so many butches, cis and trans, have said, It is a difficult road to walk and I have no choice but to walk it.

[chlover-my-shingles]

Im kinda bored and moving so heres a smth to make it more fun (its mostly just stuff i want to do but i know id procrastinate on it if i don't so smth like this)

note game time!!!

10 notes : i write a diary

20 notes ; i make up a language ( i have way too much free time) and write the diary in that langaige

50 notes ; i actually interact with people and actively seek social interactions ( i know scary)

100 notes : i keep programming and make a lil game

250 notes : Imake a fanfic of some media (idk yet my brain doesnt do thinking)

and

1000 notes (orbly wont happen) : i do something a bout the fact that i am probably maybe mot cis (idk i have no idea ehat im thinking or doing but its always been like that)(i might come out to some close friends or family members (unlikely), seek personal help, take care of myself and change idk im questioning)

might add or change some stuff depending on how many notes this gets, i dont expect much

EDIT : whatl i wake up amd 110 notes?? in like 9 hours????

[pawberri]

thank you for all the posts you've made, your takes are always so refreshing to hear.

I want to know your thoughts (if it's okay with you, you can also totally ignore this) about all the "men hate" I see online. like I (poc transmasc non-passing) get it, there are genuine societal gender problems. transmisogyny does exist-women face more challenges than men do. but it genuinely hurts when women, especially trans women, think it's funny/quirky to call men trash or say they want all men dead or whatever. idk I just am hoping someone else understands, you know?

There's a lot of nuances to this question. First, I just want to caution against focusing too much on trans girls as the perpetrators of this. A lot of the asks I get from trans men seem to really fixate on trans women as the perpetrators of hard line gender essentialism. I really think trans girls are not the main people we should be focusing on here. If a trans woman is saying this stuff, take the time to analyze her ideology outside of that pithy comment and consider how much trauma and how little power she has in the world. That said, trans women are affected by this kind of ideology just like us, and they rarely have the power to wield it against others in the way cis people can. I know it hurts to feel isolated by your own community, but that kinda gets into my second point.

Part of dealing with this is learning an impulse progressive cishet dude have had to get used to over the decade. Sometimes, "men are trash" or even "kill all men" are not literal phrases. They are things women say when they're in the throes of trauma to vent their frustration. "Men are trash" in particular is generally pretty lighthearted and used to complain when you have a bad date or something. You have to get used to analyzing what someone actually means and airing on the side of empathy. You, as a man, are the one with some amount of systemic power over that woman, so you are the one who needs to prove you are dedicated to not being a misogynist. The same thing happens when my friends say they hate white people. I have to assume they don't hate me given that I'm their friend, but that I still have some of the negative traits of whiteness. I need to care enough to be a good friend by being anti-racist and checking myself on my behavior. I need to be willing to prioritize their comfort over mine. That includes not becoming this meme:

Now that that's established, there ARE times when "all men are evil and should die" is an actual ideology. It's an ideology that hurts tons of minority groups before it hurts the most powerful, but it's also not really great if we assume it only hurts cishet white guys. Following it to its logical conclusion, it just proposes a reversal of oppression dynamics. This gender essentialism is a key part of radical feminism, trans exclusionary or not, but it leaks out of that community to general feminism all the time.

As a young person on Tumblr and Twitter, this deeply affected me. I internalized the idea that you can "just be a girl." It was repeated by some trans girls, but also a LOT of TME people. It was framed as trans inclusive, but it's trans inclusive in the way "political lesbianism" is lesbian positive. It posits gender as a moral choice that is completely up to the individual and unrelated to biology. It's the lazy version of "gender is a social construct." I felt sick and disgusting for wanting to be a boy because tons of well-meaning friends of mine had made it clear that "being a boy" was a choice, and it was the wrong one. "Boy" was a social category that could and should eventually be eradicated. Trans women were conditionally supported because they, in theory, made this future possible. This didn't amount to actual support, of course. It was an ideology mostly spread by afab queer people that mostly benefited afab queer people. There were a few trans girls who spread it, maybe some due to genuinely believing in the ideology and some due to social pressure, but there were also a lot of people straight-up grifting as trans girls who used this thinking to feel powerful in a niche community of teens. Remember fucking Yandere Bitch Club???

At a certain point, I genuinely thought of being a man as an unambiguous moral failing, and I lashed out at out trans men because of it. I wanted to feel powerful, and here was a type of man in my community I could shame and exclude. I still feel bad for making a bunch of ~girls only~ stuff in HS that excluded the one out trans dude at our school, my friend, because he was just a ~binary man~ and leaving him with no friends and no community. I treated transphobia like it wasn't a real oppression on its own and, in doing so, perpetuated transphobia. It happens a lot.

I wasn't really able to accept that there was nuance to the concept of manhood until I read this article while struggling to accept my own gender:

This is a pretty seminal piece of writing. It has its flaws, of course, but the empathy and intersectionality it highlights was life-changing. It also shows that this kind of thinking is largely perpetuated by TME people and hurts trans women greatly.

Gender essentialism is a bad ideology, it's a transphobic, transmisogynist, racist, etc etc ideology. It's literally essential to patriarchy. But it's also very easy to repackage into leftism and easy to dogwhistle. As a result, it's natural to be hesitant when you see someone saying they hate all men, but you have to tread extremely lightly and actually care what they're attempting to express. Because, yeah, men as a social class still hold power over women. They still have reason to fear and hate men.

I'm writing a comic about this stuff, actually, so look out for it in the future..........

[max1461]

Weird gender discourse thing that I'm sure people have commented on before is that in vaguely-progressive-but-not-explicitly-sex-positive spaces (and probably in some of the explicitly sex positive spaces too), masturbation is viewed as something empowering for women but sad and kinda gross for men.

Actually, this extends outside of just progressive spaces. A lot of misogynistic incel-adjacent guys seem obsessed with how much they jerk off and how pathetic this is of them, while basically not seeming to talk or think about female masturbation at all. Obviously it's not exactly the same thing, but it still points to a weird double standard.

I think the reason for this is probably the confluence of a few dumb ideas about gender, and about men specifically. The first is that men are universally obsessed with sex, to the exclusion of all or most everything else. The second is that a man's worth is dependent on his ability to seduce women. The upshot being that if a guy jerks off a lot, this is both a vindication of the presumption that he is sex-obsessed and an indictment of his ability to actually acquire sex from real life women. The general negativity towards male masturbation follows from this.

My impression is that regressive ideas about female masturbation mostly exist in the form of an absence: women are presumed to lack sexual agency and so in many cases it is not even presented to them as an option that they can masturbate. Anatomically speaking it also seems like it's more difficult for the average cis woman to reach orgasm than the average cis man, so the lack of explicit information on how masturbation works if you have a vagina is perhaps extra detrimental. On the other hand men are assumed to be highly sexual from a young age (this is its own issue—if you start paying attention to the way young boys are sexualized, it marks itself out as a pretty unsettling aspect of the culture), so it's assumed that masturbation is something they will figure out themselves and do in excess unless they are actively dissuaded from it.

Anyway it's fine though. There's nothing wrong with jerking off. It's literally no big deal.

[mysteriousmaninthesmoke]

Next - Latest

SOOOOO..... I have been seeing animal HRT show up on Twitter a lot in the trans community because of @ayviedoesthings little dragon comic so I thought "Hey why don't I join the fun." But there are two problems.

I'm a straight cis mostly white guy and

I AM HORRIBLE AT DRAWING ANYTHING THAT IS NOT A ROBOT!

SO I DECIDED! ah to hell with it I never cared about my masculinity, I am a being of ADHD, autism, OCD, AND CHAOS! FATE GAVE ME A MALE FORM TO EXIST IN!! I WOULDN'T GIVE A FLYING FLIP IF TOMORROW IT GAVE ME A FEMALE ONE!!! and also I'll just do it in a written story. but I am not doing someone going through the whole HRT process. 1. because I would probably be very grim describing it and 2. my brain won't stop thinking about what would happen if the military had access to a drug that would turn their soldiers into animal soldiers. SO HERE IS

PROJECT CHIMERA

Part 1

General Samuel grumbled as he rode the elevator down. If it was up to him he would have never approved this project. If it was up to him he would have never tested this on former soldiers. If it was up to him he would have gone with the doctor with the German-sounding name instead of putting the cryptic scientist who somehow knew about the project and contacted the government about being in charge. And if it was up to him he would have never would have never put himself as the one to be reviewing this project. As the elevator stopped and the doors opened Sam saw a man in a lab coat waiting for him. "Ah, General. So nice of you to visit us." said the man. Sam assumed this was the scientist. Doctor Thánatos. "Come in, Come in. I got something big I want to show you." The scientist turned around and quickly walked down the hallway. As Sam walked down the hall with the scientist, he noticed big cells to his sides with humanoid beasts in them with the names of the occupants by the cell, one of whom he recognized. Sergeant Thorn, one of the best hand-to-hand fighters he knew, before she lost her legs and an arm in an explosion. But now it looks like she was more than a fighter, she was a beast. Not only were her legs and her arm back, but she now sported green scales and a long tail. She resembled a female version of the villain the lizard. Suddenly Thorn jumped towards him, causing him to step back. her claws struck the reinforced glass wall that divided them. She let out a guttural laugh. "Ah, it's nice to see a familiar tasty face." She said licking her teeth "What's wrong soldier. Don't you know time changes people?" Sam was shocked. This was not the Thorn he knew he knew. She was tough, but she would always rather make friends than start a fight. "What's wrong captain. Not happy to see old friends captain." Said a voice behind him. Sam quickly turned around and saw in front of him a creature with dark black feathers covering its body, razor-sharp claws for feet and hands, and giant black-as-night wings sprouting from its back. "Oh sorry is it General now?" It said from a sharp-beaked mouth. Sam turned to look at the nameplate. Pilot O'hares. Sam knew him. One of his old drink buddies. He had heard that he quit the Air Force when he crashed his favorite jet, one he had gone on so many missions with, saying he would never fly again. "Ah, Ignore them. They aren't important right now." Sam turned to the scientist who was at the end of the hall by a big metal door. He was about to question what he did to his old friends when he noticed something. Three empty cells, one of them having more dust than the other. Doctor Harris, Private Gorgonzola, and Private Tompson. "I got some questions for you egg head. Why the hell are these people in cells, Why the hell are three of them empty, AND WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO THEM!" The General yelled angrily "I was told they would look more human like this far into the project and not like animals. They also shouldn't be acting like ones too." The scientist only let out a laugh. "Oh I will answer the first and third questions but I will only answer the second once you see what's behind these doors. Now the cells are for ours and also for their safety. The normal drug that excuse of a doctor is selling is quite too slow, so with some modifications, I was able to speed it up, though it does seem to increase a person's animalistic instincts. Still, I see that as an improvement. My version is much more suited for the battlefield." The scientist pressed some buttons on a keypad and the metal door opened. "Now let me show you my personal project."

This is part 1 and part 2 will be out soon

[the-dreamers-hotel]

Transmasculine people are treated as boys, not men.

I’ve been noticing a lot of conversations in regards to the struggles that Transmascs specifically have on this platform. Frankly, it’s a refreshing thing to see as I so often see us ignored both by those who hate us and those who claim to be our allies.

Nothing prepares you for the jarring impact that going on T, presenting fully masculine, having surgery, going to the gym, entering male spaces permanently etc etc has on your relationships with others.

I use the phrase “humble beginnings” a lot in my real life conversations, it is a (mostly humorous) explanation that I do not disconnect my childhood from the identity I live as. I am, and always have been, a man. But I was raised, and experienced life as, a young girl – with all the experiences, good and evil, that comes with that. Many transmascs can sympathise with this, I’m sure.

Now, years into transition, so often I am met with disdain from female friends and family because of the mentality that as a man, I must adhere and promote patriarchy. There something so upsetting about being treated as a caricature of all evil men. Even more so when I see how I am invalidated in every other way.

“Welcome to being a man” because I complained about something simple.

But contrast this with a flippant comment on how you trust me with x, y, z because “its you”. Not as a show of my character and our relationship, but as a sign of how you view me – how you truly see me.

Some people can use your name and pronouns and even align their terminology with your gender all while their “he” really means “she”. It is easy to change language, much to many transphobe’s claims. You can convince yourself that’s what you mean, but if you don’t view someone as their identity – it is noticeable. This unfortunately affects all trans-people.

I am (apparently) toxically masculine, unaware of femme issues, a hater of x,y, z and entirely unable to like or understand feminine things and yet, cis people will treat me as lesser than a whole man in any given circumstance.  I am too manly to relate or discuss issues that affect AFAB and Transfem people, but I am not too manly that they berate, infantilise or reduce me.

Transmasculine people are treated as boys, not men.

It is truly baffling to try and comprehend how the cisgender mind can erase and recreate gender identity for transmascs so easily. Ironically, and I’ll touch on this subject again in the future as I think about it constantly, trans people must face misogyny and transphobia constantly.

Transmascs are seen as fragile, small and a non-threat. This is rooted in misogyny, a view put on women for as long as we can remember identifying them. And even this is deeply transphobic as it invalidates our transition from AFAB to male or masculine.

While transfems suffer unimaginable horrors and terrorism, let us not forget that transmen must also be fought for. We all have to stand together against patriarchy and the ideologies it pushes.

Correct transphobia in all its forms. Transmisandry and transmisogyny go hand in hand and both must be violently and aggressively crushed.

Compassion & Comradery,

TDH.

[cypionate60mg]

Hi! I love your work. It's really thrilling to find art at the intersection of philosophy, gender, and the erotic. You seem to be really thoughtful and intentional about your presentation of these pieces, so I'm curious about why you tag everything with "autoandrophilia" which IME is a pretty loaded word with a complex etymology. Would love to understand more!

Thanks, and good question. My answer is very long.

Before we go any futher, Blanchard's typology is transmisogynist bullshit. It's oversimplified, misinformed, and unimaginative. He actually abandoned the term 'autoandrophile' and has since switched to 'autohomoerotic'. More controversial online circles of trans people half-ironically identify with Blanchardian typology. For some, it's like MBTI, and for others, it's their self-diagnosis. Depends on the person.

When contemporary Western psychology began to take shape in the Wednesday Psychological Society's weekly meetings, one of the 'defects' they discussed was homosexuality. According to E. James Lieberman's biography of Otto Rank, he said in an informal setting that homosexuality is "love for one's self as seen in the persona of another like oneself whom one admires...strongly built up on narcissism. It is an ego symptom and not a sex symptom." Sound familiar? I don't think Blanchard's typology is all that different from that of early European psychoanalysis.

We see this same critique levied against trans people. That we're confusing attraction for identity, our self-love is fetishistic, and we're narcissistic neurotic perverts. But we can't just dismiss and ignore it, because we do indeed see trans people say things like "I can't tell if I want to be him or fuck him" or "become the person you'd want to date." 'Autoandrophile' starts to sound a lot like 'gender envy'. So what is actually happening here?

To even approach answering that, let's ask more questions. What does it mean to love people who look like you? If you are estranged from your own body, or if your body changes over time, is it morally objectionable to love a specific version of youself? Even a future one? It it also morally objectionable for that self-love to have a sexual dimension?

Trans people are expected to have the clarity of mind to separate who they are from who they're attracted to. (It's one of the demands society makes to ensure you are 'of sound mind' while still being suitably pathological to deserve hormonal/surgical treatment.) But if you don't necessarily identify with your body, then you already exist outside of that distinction. Like an open window, the barrier between inside (self) and outside (everything else) becomes troublesome.

Do you see now why I like the mirror metaphor so much? When you look in a reflection, that's not technically you. But it only exists because you are there to cast an image. The room's mirror image, too, is not necessarily real, but you gain insight into the room, maybe even see it in a new way, precisely because it's reflected back inaccurately. Your conception of yourself is filled out with detail when you cross-reference it with another version of yourself, one that doesn't exist in the same way you currently do.

It's some ontological quantum gender shit. And it's not unique to trans people. Cis people can experience it too, but they rely on the assumption that it's natural to have an oppositional 'counterpart', a 'complementary' partner. Somebody who completes them. Why, then, can't I complete myself?

We find ourselves back at your question. If Blanchard isn't going to use 'autoandrophile', then I will. One man's trash is another man's treasure. I'll use it to:

disrupt its definition.

challenge trans assimilationists.

discomfort cis men with my desire to be like them, or worse—to encourage them to define their masculinity.

provoke people into thoughtful discussions.

make people feel less alone.

But mostly, I use it so that when people look for the term, this blog will come up, and they'll see my porn. Or art. Or whatever they'll want to call it. And they'll start asking themselves the distinctions between any of these things.

There's so much more I could say about all this. Autoandrophilia's relationship to beauty standards, its usefulness (or lack thereof) as a coping mechanism for the limitation of transition, etcetera. But I'll stop here for now.

Much love, CYP60MG

[brazenautomaton]

like in order to reject the TERF argument that "trans women can't be real women because they don't have the abusive horror of female upbringing," it's not necessary to go "actually we did, it was a completely isolated exception to how society treats my gender at every other point in time," and that's actually stupid

also, you know the universal trans woman experience of wishing to be good enough to earn the right to be loved, to prove through some talent you shouldn't be left behind?

that's what it feels like to be raised as a boy. that is literally the male gender role. women are human beings and men are human doings. women's worth is innate, men's worth is contingent on performance. if you were raised as a boy, you were raised as someone who had to earn the right to be loved. and if you are a woman, and look around at other women, cis women don't really have a lot of experience with that.

because feminism is sexism and feminism is incorrect, and because everyone is obligated to be feminist and nobody can examine feminist beliefs for accuracy, when you try to explain these things with feminism, you end up with absurd takes like "trans women are raised like women by a society that does not think they are women." That's all you can do when your ideological framework does not allow you to ever look at or ask about the experience of being a man.

but it can't be defeated, ever. no matter how wrong it is and how consistently, people won't be able to retain the information in their minds. feminism will always be good at its core and thus the factual claims it makes must be "mostly true" with only a little excess of "some people take it too far." people who can envision all sorts of counterfactuals for the sake of argument are incapable of even entertaining the hypothetical idea that the word "feminism" might not map 1:1 with "being good and not being sexist." Because popularity won't let you.

[our-lesboy-experience]

it's upsetting to see people online against your identity who are queer, themselves. I'm mostly desensitized to it because I'm trans lol, but I do still experience frustration towards the people so hellbent on ripping apart the queer community with their intolerance. Just pick up a book, listen to other people about their experiences for ONCE in your life, people. 'Oh it's just fetishistic cis men' when a huge chunk of us are multigender, or nonbinary, or anything but cis and/or binary men. And yes, there are binary men who are lesboys who deserve just as much respect and I'm tired of accepting this idea that if you're a binary man you cannot be a lesbian, cis or otherwise. It's absurd to pretend that sexuality is a box with correct and incorrect ways of being, because that's what cishet homophobes believe too. It's no better to be anti lesboy than homophobic.

I know, when we're placed in a world that seems so man centered, and you're pressured to be into men as a woman when you're not, you can feel insulted by lesbian men and stuff like that. But once you learn that queer people being queer differently than you aren't trying to hurt you, you'll thank yourself for it. Once I stopped believing in some made up rules, my rollercoaster of an identity isn't so confusing or stressful anymore. We can view gender AND sexuality like this, and that's where a good chunk of progressives fall flat. Because when the average person thinks of 'lesbian' they think of women attracted to women exclusively, with hardly any room for gender fuckery or malleable attraction... and the 'nonman x nonman' definition isn't much better. It's still rigid with its allowances.

It's time to leave boxes behind as a community. That's why when I'm elected as president-

sirenium is going to be participating in the election this november. make sure to vote lesboy no matter who

[unreadpoppy]

bg3, infographics, misogyny and you

Preface: this is a long ass post that I wrote some many weeks ago, and that because of some stuff I've seen, I'm compelled to finally post it. It's very like a spurn of the moment thing, not extremely well thoght out but I still think it's relevant.

.

Recently, a few people have posted some, in my opinion, really insightful infographics showing the difference in content to how many works (in AO3) there are to the female characters vs the male characters of BG3 and I've been thinking about how it relates to fandom in general, but also...everything.

As a quick rundown, what happens is: almost all of the female characters have a lot less content when compared to their male counterparts (at least writing wise). And I think this is a great moment to stop and think on why is that.

There's a lot of point to begin with but I want to begin with something larger and that is the society most of us are raised in. Obviously, I can't speak for everyone, but I think it's fair to say that most people grew up in places that had its fair share of sexism and give it or take, that does shape how we view the world.

I'll speak from my own experience. Even thought I had a mostly liberal upbriging, I went to a very conservative school and when I was growing up, I saw a lot of videos on youtube that anaylized media in what i can only describe as "god forbid women do anything". Video after video, I saw people commenting on how x female character was a mary sue, how she made no sense and ruined the plot, so many video essays on the """strong female character trope"""" that would end up just enforcing gender roles again. And I'll be honest, this DID affect how viewed female characters.

The best example I can give of this is with bg3 itself. There was one day that I stopped and realized that Minthara was the first time I ever obsessed over a fem character as much as any male character. And the second thought I had after this was 'oh my god why???'

Why did I always cater more to the male characters than I did to the female ones, when most of the times, I liked a lot as well?

I'd like to point out that I've seen the topic of "Most fic authors are cis straight women" being brought up a lot and frankly, I'm not the biggest fan of it. First, because I think it's overall a very...heteronormative way of seeing stuff and it's assuming a lot of stuff that puts a sour taste on my mouth (as a queer woman myself, I really don't like that implication but that's on me). Second, because saying that 'obviously women are going to write more about men' feels very...weird. Third, I just think that this argument fails to really question the why of it all and gives too simple an answer to something is anything but.

One can make the argument that these female characters are written differently than the men, and yes that is true and it's even historical (I wrote a whole project on the invisibility of women in theater through the ages and a lot of it has to do with how women were written, but that's a story for another time).

But I don't think that's true for all cases. It's easy to blame an imaginary writer's room than question that you might have internal biases.

Because at least it's what happened to me. I grew up hearing how female characters were inferior to the male characters and it affected how I viewed them. It's something I had to stop and reevalute and it led me to appreciate characters I once loathed.

And it sucks to realize that. It sucks to realize that even as a woman myself, I was not immune to commiting sexism, that I hadn't fully outgrown the shit I saw as a kid. Does that make me a bad person? No. You're not to blame for being raised in a way that leads you to have certain prejudices.

But it doesn't mean you can't do anything about it.

And no, the solution is not to suddenly go write a bunch of femslash. Because no one is saying that you should feel ashamed for writing more for men, or forcing you to like female characters. But, I ask you to do something much simpler.

Think on the why. Why, even when we love female characters, we don't show them as much love as we do to the male ones. Why we might feel more compelled to write for the men than for the women. Because sometimes it's questioning ourselves that we can find something about us we didn't know and change how we engage with media.

And you can brush this off as just fandom stuff, but I think it does, in some ways, also reflect a bit on how we act as whole as a society. Hell, writing this whole thing made me think of how the way I was raised still interferes with my own sexuality (which is a very personal topic for me to get on here but it was worth mentioning). What I'm trying to say is that sometimes something small is an easier way for us to understand the bigger, systemic issues around us.

I know that it sounds like there's nothing to be done cause fandoms have always been like this. But, personally, this sort of conformity to the norm causes more harm then good. Things won't change unless you decide to do something about it. And the good thing about fandom is that it's small enough that doing literally anything can create some impact than, I don't know, trying to solve big, real life societal issues.

This is getting long so I'm gonna try to wrap this up quickly. No one is shaming you if you write or obsesses more or even care more about male characters than you do female ones. I just ask you to think about it and be honest with yourself. Because then maybe, just maybe, next time you engage with another media, you might end up enjoying a female character much more and obsessing over them just as much.