#no hate to you but they're typically just used by people who fetishize queer people esp asian queer folks

[aloeverified]

The reason yuri(wlw) ships are relatively less popular in anime that yaoi(mlm) is that more often than not the male characters form such nuanced, deep and meaningful relationships with each other but with female characters there's always more shallow comical rivalry than not. Compare Ino and Sakura's rivalry/friendship to that of Naruto and Sasuke in canon and you'll know what I mean. That being said, the scene in forest of death where Ino tells Sakura that she's blossomed into a beautiful flower is so beautiful😩😩

inosaku still solos narusasu any day of the week

[thorne1435]

That's the goal as laid out by prominent figures in the TERF/RadFem sphere, namely Posie Parker and J.K. Rowling.

The general consensus appears to be that trans women are pedophiles and/or perverted men who want to force their sexual fetishes on everyone who sees them and trans men are...somewhere between misguided sisters trying to escape the patriarchy and perverts tantamount to trans women who want to corrupt children and convince them to mutilate themselves.

I don't hear much from other NBs about what TERFs think of us, so I'm just going to assume they think it's some immature bullshit kids are doing for attention. That's pretty typical.

Either way, the goal they have in mind for all of us is a bit muddy. I've seen talk of forced detransition (which will cause suicide rates to dramatically increase, thereby being tantamount to killing), forced sterilization (which is kind of the funny option to me. Isn't that what they were so scared of in the first place??), and in more extreme cases, the death penalty (that particular idea seems to be favored from a religious angle, and is often paired with the idea of trans people as pedophiles and corruptors).

You can say what you want about the intent of these people, but continuously spreading hate and panic about our very existence while also outright dismissing or ignoring explanations of why their perspectives are flawed doesn't exactly make them look like they have our best interests in mind. I mean, I understand that evil people don't exist and that these people probably have *someone's* best interests in mind, or they think they do. It just doesn't seem to be the best interests of trans people in particular.

Anyway, back to female-only spaces: I don't think trans women necessarily belong in a female space, but I don't think they should ever be barred from a women's space. I hope that distinction is clear, because it's the big one, to me. I mean, following that logic, male spaces and female spaces would both be made up of men and women alike (with a good sprinkling of enbies here and there), but at that point, I have to ask the question: is it more important that we divide people by sex or gender?

As a gender abolitionist, I don't really think the two sexes are different enough to warrant any genders or specific presentations or specific social roles, and that means that it's gonna be a hard sell to get me to agree to separate people by either metric.

I will always believe that the most progress comes when barriers are removed, not enforced.

Though that being said (and i think this is the part the terfs get mad at me about) I understand that (cis-het)men's spaces exist, in our current society. They're usually shitty and misandristic as much as they are misogynistic, that is to say they're actively harmful to both men and women, but I'd rather just integrate other genders into those spaces and tear down whatever "men only" status they have. I think that would be more helpful than just boxing off certain areas as (cis-het)women's spaces. Especially since they'll *have to be* cis het spaces, no matter how you make them.

This was sort of my initial point: the more trans inclusive a space becomes, the more awareness it gains of how thin the gender binary is. That's why the idea of male-only and female-only spaces, as I describe them, is so silly. If it's just a gathering of people regardless of gender who are affected by patriarchy and want a place to discuss it, free of oppression, then...shit man, we just reinvented queer spaces. So what's the point?

Listen, time for wisdom:

There will never be a trans-inclusive "All-Girl" space.

Fundamentally, to define a space as "All-Female" or even "All-Women" is to define the term female or woman. Both of those things are nebulous at best, and that means they will, usually, resort to the usual take: "Woman means adult human female." And "Female means a fertile, vagina-having, motherly, She/Her cisfem." TERF shit.

The only people who would make a rule with such a premise are TERFs themselves or traumatized cis women who really do believe that the mere presence of a man is a threat to their safety. Neither of which--as you're probably already aware--are going to be very trans-inclusive.

We can talk about why people think this way another time. For now the important part is, if you want to feel safer or more socially integrated, seek out all-queer or all-trans spaces, not all-woman spaces. Queer people will understand you more than cis people ever could.

(And yes theoretically this applies to trans men as well if you replace every feminine thing with a masculine one. Gender restrictions are antithetical to trans people as a whole.)

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

Personally I hate the "no meaningful way" argument. Imo it's meaningful just by those characters being who they are and not having to constantly remind people "I'm queer!" or "I'm bi!", etc. Rosado, and I know some others feel similarly, is the only one I'd argue is way too "in your face" and is similar to Heather from RD/FE10, where you keep getting a constant reminder about the primary trait of that character.

Writing characters should just come out naturally. You shouldn't need the character to say "I'm xyz" - you should be able to infer that from dialogue alone. For most of the Engage cast, that's definitely the case. You can generally figure out where the characters stand from dialogue, behavior and actions.

Characters shouldn't be written simply to fulfill an LGBTQ+ stereotype, but should be those things as part of their character - it should not be their character. Real people are just that - people, but some are LGBTQ+ and that's just one facet of them.

Typically when it's done in what these people are suggesting is a "meaningful" way, it's the only aspect that character has, repeated over and over until you forget they may even have other characterization. Frankly, as someone who is LGBTQ+, I find it to be a huge disservice to make characters whose personalities revolve solely around being LGBTQ+.

Kyza, also from RD, is another awkward instance of LGBTQ+ whose existence solely revolves around his/their (masculine appearance and uses gender neutral pronouns in the JP script - you can thank the localization for taking that out) one-sided love for Ranulf. Personality whomst? All I see is a character that exists for the sole purpose of filling the FE LGBTQ+ quota.

Imo it's almost always the actual LGBTQ+ characters that are written the most shallow. The primary aspect of their existence is to obsessively remind the audience that they're LGBTQ+. Monica reaaaaally blurs the lines, since I'd argue she has some personality outside of Edelgard, but they basically just made her obsessively in love with Edelgard to the point it's like 80 percent of what she talks about, rather than making her a good, intricate character who also happens to be in love with Edelgard. Considering I shipped them before Hopes even existed, I'd like to think it says a lot that the level of reminding of her romantic feelings is absolutely overboard.

Also, Niles iirc was kind of controversial because of his oversexualized characterization and being the only same sex option for men. It ended up feeling more like a fetish situation, and I'm sure there were ace men (or even not even ace but just generally uncomfortable with it) who didn't like it and wanted another options.

Basically I find that IS is not particularly capable of writing openly LGBTQ+ characters. If the character has to say they are and we can't infer that just from dialogue/etc alone (ex. Alfred), chances are that's going to be more or less their only personality trait and they're not going to have much of a characterization outside of that.

I feel like we got very lucky with Yuri. One could somewhat argue for Jeritza, but since his only same sex marriage option is Byleth and he has zero indication of any romantic interests with any other guys, it feels more like a forced "here let's add another same sex marriage option to shut them up".

Yuri is a man who views himself as a man, and wears makeup for the sake of appearance (i.e. not to hide injuries, etc) and because he likes it. He calls men "cute" from time to time without it being explicitly romantic, and it's not a constant repetitive quote that happens so many times that you can predict every conversation he's going to have.

Those among other things, he breaks gender norms perfectly while still having a complex and wonderfully written character. He's a good character who also happens to be queer - not a queer character who is just written to be queer for the sake of being queer. Wouldn't ya know it too - he's one of Houses' most popular characters. He's one of the best written characters as well imo and clearly written with more attention and care than most LGBTQ+ characters.

Also funny how people argue about the supports being so gender neutral about Alear, when people were actively complaining that Dimitri and Claude weren't made bi and saying their supports could've been, like Edelgard's with Byleth, just the same exact thing regardless of Byleth's gender. That people just wanted the options and didn't even care if the conversations were altered based on gender. Now all of a sudden, now that we have that, it's a problem?

There really is no making most of this fanbase happy, I swear.

People on Twitter denying that Engage’s cast is very queer coded is really funny to me lmao

Like, to an extent, I can understand it seems cheap and inoffensive just to make Alear’s romances gender neutral and them being the only ones to have paired endings is sad. Fair.

But deliberately ignoring how fruity the Engage cast is? What? Supports between Fogado/Alcryst, Fogado/Pandreo, Diamant/Amber, Etie/Goldmary, Celine/Hortensia are very gay! Anything that comes out of Alfred’s mouth is gay! Merrin is very les to the point her personal skill is her escorting women like the handsome gal she is!  Kagetsu and Chloe are very open and brazen with their gay words (okay maybe the former is explained by language barriers but honestly he’s probably queer, too)! Rosado personally executed the gender police himself!

Part of the criticism of Engage’s queerness is that no character “uses it in a meaningful way” i.e. explain deeper parts of their characters, and Twitter people compared it to X, Y, and Z characters from the game that shall not be named, and idk, personally in a game with a tone like Engage, it matters less to be specifically descriptive and matters more to be more playful and fun with it. It’s not like Fates where there were only two same sex S support characters and so they had to be written with that directly in mind for their characters (which Treehouse then removed, damn thee), but Engage from the jump tries to be more feel good and hopeful, so not only does there not really need to be character arcs intertwined with implied differing sexualities, that opens the avenue for more of the cast to be read as queer/queer coded by fans.

Idk, that’s what I feel anyway