#like being Black and nonbinary and XYZ other things in this hell state is so aksjhdflasjdfhla

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Hi, I saw your post about blonde hair and whiteness being associated with good and dark hair and poc features being associated with evil and I don’t know if it’s the same or derailing so I won’t reblog it with this addition but it kind of reminds me of a similar thing, where whiteness and lighter features are associated with femininity and darker ones and poc features with masculinity. And I know femininity isn’t inherently “good” nor masculinity “evil” but it’s something I’ve noticed that gets me upset. How female characters whether human or otherwise will often be lighter than their male counterparts, how most heterosexual interracial relationships will have the girl be lighter skinned or white, and the boy be darker skinned or a poc, and how most lesbian/sapphic couples will have the more feminine partner be lighter-skinned/white while the more masculine partner will be darker-skinned/poc, for example Lumity and Catradora and some other examples(and this is no shade to either of those ships because I like them both a lot but it is a trend that exists a lot). There are some exceptions such as Revolutionary Girl Utena and The Prom but they are rarer in comparison.

Stuff like this leads to woc and especially Black women, but ESPECIALLY those with darker skin being seen as less feminine than white women or nbwoc. In lots of Black media the Black women are all lighter skinned with looser curls and lighter eyes and are often played by biracial actresses(usually half-white), while the Black men are darker-skinned and played by fully-Black actors. Likewise, straight interracial relationships featuring a Black partner almost always have the male partner be Black. And if it’s a Black woman in a wlw ship the non-white partner will be more feminine than she is. A lot of Black femmes and other woc femmes with dark skin often don’t feel femme enough because the standards for femininity often bleed into the lesbian community where everyone’s prototypical idea of a femme lesbian is white and slim. I even saw some stories of young Black girls not being allowed to be the princess in a school play because “Black girls can’t be princesses” similar to how someone said that a Black girl couldn’t play an angel in a play but the white girls could. It’s as if the standard for femininity is whiteness which leads a lot of Black girls and women to feel like feminine enough because they are too dark and idk it is something to think about. I hope this isn’t missing the point of your og post or anything but I feel like it is worth mentioning. I’m sure they’re are lots of videos on it too. It’s so unfair.

No you're totally right! I think something that cis people like to do is ascribe morality to femininity and masculinity. and it's not always F = Good and M = Bad because obviously femininity in men and masculinity in women are punished extremely violently, but they do play into (feminine) innocence a lot while also playing into the colorist/racist idea that lightness equals morality. hence why often times when someone is described as angelic or the epitome of innocence, the character will be a blonde haire blue eyed girl, specifically. and other times when, even if she doesn't have that pheontype, she's still a girl.

you also see it in the conded (and sometimes not) "women and children = innocent" framing that people will use to draw sympathy for a terrible phenomena.

And like I said, there's lots of times where masculinity is the standard for morality and femininity isn't (like the masculine aloofness versus the feminine emotionality). but in America especially (where I am currently) how we view masculinity, femininity, gender neutrality, and everyhting in between is inextricably linked to race and white supremacy. what makes a manly man and a womanly woman and a deviant of these binary ideals has a lot to do with white christian views on sex, gender, and sexuality.

and i could talk about this for ages but we'd be here all day ksajhflsakj

[chappell-roans]

I fucking hate people so much. some people are afraid to come out, other just dont want to even if they feel safe and some people are straight but are gnc or explore their identity and these people are not fucking entitled to an explanation.

"evidence he is one of us" celebrities aren't just dolls you can project onto theyre real people and I cant begin to imagine how uncomfortable and violating is must be to have people write shit like this for millions of people to see. if you're actually queer and closeted its a damn nightmare but even if you aren't is so invasive. even if you come out as straight people still ship you with your friends and insist theres a secret conspiracy going on.

these aren't characters in a movie where you can whine about queerbaiting or queercoding and I dont understand how they as a queer person wouldn't understand how forcefully outing someone or speculating on their sexuality is inappropriate.

"use of our symbols" this isn't a cult Anna

for real. all of this. it’s all horrifying lmao. the gatekeeping is insane. isn't the goal that anyone should be allowed to do anything they want? shouldn't promoting/accepting nonbinary identities include people who use the pronouns they've used their whole lives? it's like, okay, on a policy level, yes, we have made HUGE strides globally and here in the united states, from abolishing sodomy laws and instituting protections rather than attacks and it's much safer to be an LGBT person in most places than it was 30 years ago. however, so many people have gotten so stupid and a lot of it is just terminally online bullshit but the policing of gender and sexuality and everyone having to have a label or else they're "appropriating" is insane. someone can be a straight cis man who considers himself all those things, but he dabbled in college, and found out it wasn't for him. is that appropriating culture? it just seems so suffocating. and i know a lot of this is because things online are communicated terribly and emotionally in black and white instead of the millions of shades of what the OG rainbow flag was supposed to represent (do we need a new flag for a new identity every week?). idk. we should be pushing toward the point where nobody has to come out or label themselves for other people's sake, not creating more divisiveness where there is literally no reason for it. someone said this to me on here the other day but i can't for the life of me remember who, but it really does remind me of what people get offended by now: are you bi but with a preference for men or women? what percent are you? like that's legit demeaning and offensive (if the person brings it up that's a little different but still stupid to try to quantify who you wanna fuck lol), but there are kids who have like 7 labels to describe how much/how little they wanna kiss people of xyz gender and it's like baby! you're a baby! you haven't even held a hand yet! you don't know! and it's OKAY not to know! i wish we could embrace the unknown instead of trying to label every bit of it. then when labels change, it feels earth-shattering, instead of it being a new exciting feeling to be attracted to somebody, or a new way to express yourself, or not do anything, or just doing whatever the hell you want without judging yourself or having others judge you.

[fidespeaks]

Laying The Groundwork For How Privilege Works

Okay, so before I get into any other topics on this blog I want to talk about privilege.  I feel like it’s something we’re all simultaneously very aware of but a lot of us fall into this trap of very quickly forgetting about how it works.  Or, alternatively, it’s something we know exists because we frequently use the term for it but we forget the nuances of multiple layers of privilege when it comes to talking to people in marginalized groups that aren’t our own.  So, that’s kind of what I want to discuss with this post before anything else: multiple layers of privilege, how they stack, and how we should stay conscious of them while being allies to other marginalized groups.  

A lot of what I want to talk about today is pulled directly from and reflection upon the book: Me & White Supremacy by Layla Saad.  If you haven’t read the book before, it’s similar to a guided journal that’s meant to be completed over the course of a month and if you’re serious about your allyship and supporting BIPOC & BLM, I highly suggest you read it.  But be sure you’re in a decent state of mind - some of the things you may uncover while doing the work can be pretty heavy, especially in my experience. 

Now I know a fair number of people are probably thinking: "but Fides, I’m (multiracial, biracial, a good ally, def not a racist, have experienced discrimination, am a person of color, ect).  Why do I need to read this book?”  to which my response would be to point you towards one of the very first sections of the book, titled “Who is this work for?”  which actually inspired the entire post that I’d like to write today.  Layla begins that section by clarifying:  

This work is for any person who holds white privilege. By any person, I mean persons of any gender identity, including gender-nonconforming persons, and by who holds white privilege, I mean persons who are visually identifiable as white or who pass for white. Therefore, this includes persons who are biracial, multiracial, or white passing People of Color who benefit under systems of white supremacy from having lighter skin color than visibly Brown, Black, or Indigenous people. 

And that seems pretty simile, right?  Not all people experience privilege or discrimination to the same degree and sometimes the ways that we do experience discrimination are vastly different from one another.  I’m completely aware that this seems like... honestly really obvious stuff, but I remember first reading this and the first week of work titled “Me and White Privilege” in which Layla discusses that lacking one kind of privilege does not mean you don’t still have white privilege and thinking... wow.  I’ve definitely tired to pull this “oppression olympics” shit before.  Sometimes I didn’t even do it on purpose.  Sometimes I was just trying to explain that I understand and I can relate.  But that brought the conversation back to me, and that’s exactly the problem. 

In the chapter “Me and White Privilege”, Layla specifically goes out of her way to point out that white privilege specifically is separate from, but can sometimes intersect with, other kinds of privilege (class, gender, sexuality, age, able-bodied, and so on).  She then goes on to make a slew of examples, stating that just because a person lacks a certain kind of privilege, doesn’t mean they don’t still (in the case of her topic) have white privilege.  She also clarifies that it works in reverse and finishes her thought with off with: 

“...and having white privilege with other privileged identities adds to the amount of overall privilege that you hold.”

it’s this thought that brings me to my idea of the day: in my own personal experience, people on tumblr tend to forget that just because you are in possession of one form of privilege it does not mean you suddenly don’t still benefit from holding another. Layla uses white privilege as an example, but it goes in any direction.  If you’re straight and BIPOC, you still have straight privilege.  If you’re white, gay, and neurodivergent, you still have white privilege.  And I’d like to even take it a step farther, to incorporate a concept I’ll be discussing later: your experience does not define the experience of a person who is lacking a type of privilege. 

What I mean to say is: someone who is eastern asian is going to face an entirely different, albeit similar, kind of discrimination vs someone who is latinx or black.  If you’re of color, or if you’re gay, or if you’re transmasculine, you don’t get to speak for or over other people who have similar but different circumstances to your own.  Every voice matters and each voice ought to be given a chance to speak and add it’s opinion.  The experiences of someone who’s nonbinary are going to be completely different from the experiences of someone who’s binary trans.  Hell, even the experiences between lesbians and gay men are incredibly different:  minorities aren’t a monolith and treating them as such silences other voices.  You cannot decide just because you belong to a group that you get to speak for them. 

But that’s a different topic that I want to tackle in multiple different forms, because it goes in a lot of different ways.  What I mostly mean to do today is to clarify that when someone else who has lacks a privilege you have speaks to you - listen.  And I know it’s really fucking hard not to be like “oh yeah, I've been there dude, I’ve had xyz happen to me before so I get it” because it’s a way of empathizing, especially for neurodivergent people.  But you have to listen and you have to make sure that you’re not overfocusing the conversation back onto you.  A simple “I understand” is enough and if you don’t, as for clarification.  And if they don’t feel up to giving it, try to research yourself or ask if you can ask another time. 

Most importantly to all of this however is this: we have got to stop hiding behind our own lack of privilege as a way of excusing our shitty behavior.  If someone calls you out (or in, which I highly encourage over calling out because... people on tumblr don’t fucking know how to call people out in a productive fashion but I’ll get there trust me) you CANNOT say as a defense: oh, you can’t talk to me like that I’m neurodivergent.  Or if someone calls you out for being transphobic you can’t say “oh you can’t talk to me like that, I’m POC”.  Hell, if someone calls you out for being a fucking asshole, you don’t get to flip it around and be like “naw, you can’t say that, because I’m this that and another thing”.  You can clarify, especially if there’s a cultural difference or you’re neurodivergent, but you don’t get to hide behind shit. 

And you especially do not get to turn around and tell someone who’s calling you out for abusive behavior that they’re (racist, transphobic, homophobic, etc). They aren’t calling you out because of your identity, they’re calling you out because you’re a manipulative brat.  That doesn’t have to DO with those things.  Lack of privilege does not give you an excuse to be abusive.  End of conversation.  But... I suppose to end this conversation today, I’ll say this: CONFLICT IS NOT ABUSE, which is actually another book that I want to read and incorporate into these essays.  So I’m trying not to put the cart before the horse. 

Anyway, hopefully that clarifies at least a little bit the trend I’ve noticed of people forgetting that lacking one kind of privilege doesn’t magically mean they don’t have another.   The fact that you’re trans doesn’t exclude you from being racist,  your race doesn’t exclude you from being homophobic, and none of those things give you a right to be a jerk.  But they all do make it a little bit easier to understand when someone else comes to us with their own story of oppressions. 

Thanks for reading <3