#or the gay men and lesbians fucking each other discourse

[textualviolence]

"My position on identities and their politics is a fairly simple psychoanalytic one. Identities are necessary in order to function in "reality." I see them as prosthetic devices, which is not to say that they are less "real" than anything else. They are, however, in a conflicted relationship with sexuality and its practices. In some sense, a sexual identity, any sexual identity, is a fundamentally unstable concept. For, as I understand sexual desires, they are always mutable, shifting, contextual, changeable and anti-ontological. [...] This position too, however, seems to me another one of the myriad ways in which we locate ourselves in our sexual beings and becomings. We are all enjoined to select names, to nominate ourselves."

Lynda Hart - Between the Body and the Flesh

[sparkystarlight]

Hey. Hey. You know how when we say ace ppl can still have sex bc it's about attraction not ability. That applies to all sexualities actually.

[usercelestial]

ummm anyways gonna write my taylor/lucy fanfic and then maybe when i come back you'll all calm down and realize yuri is better than yaoi

[womanman]

The Similarities Between Biphobia and Transmultiphobia

I am a multigender bisexual. Before I began to focus my efforts into transgender and multigender activism, I was BIG into bisexual activism. But, because of this, I’ve noticed something peculiar… Something that other multigenders have noticed too.

A lot of modern-day transmultiphobia (particularly those directed towards those who are both male and female) is, quite simply (and I mean this in a very literal way), repackaged biphobia from the peak of biphobic discourse.

This includes, but isn’t limited to:

The “fence-sitter” perspective. Multigenders and bisexuals are seen as sitting on the fence of the binary. We can belong in both communities (gay and straight, male and female). But because of this ability to be in both, we are not allowed into either.

This is because of us being seen as “tainted by the other gender,” or as an “invader”. Both the idea that bisexuals are less “purely” WLW or MLM than their gay counterparts, and the “men vs non-men” dichotomy that we’re seeing be put up, are evidence of this. When it comes to discussion gay and lesbian M/F multigenders, this comparison is very apt. I mean, “your association with men / women has made you unable to belong with us” is VERY on the nose.

The view that it’s “just a phase.” Both existence as a bisexual and as a multigender, from my experience, is seen as something you will go through before you “choose a side”, before you “settle down” with a real, PROPER choice. One of the two choices that you’re given, rather than both.

Making people angry because of how we make them insecure. “If this person attracted to men and women can belong in the queer community,” wonders the biphobe, “What does that mean for the state of my queerness?” And likewise, the transmultiphobe asks, “If this person is both a man and a woman, then what does that mean for my attraction?”

I believe that this is because bisexuality and multigenderism both have… “Both.” In a world, with a binary, that expects — DEMANDS — that you pick either/or, saying “both” (or, heaven forbid, “both, and…”) will always be met with extreme rejection and isolation.

Multigender and bisexual activists could learn a lot from each other. We are so often told to hide or cut off one part of ourselves in order to fit into some sort of (any sort of!) set of norms, and to conform to the male/female binary. We fuck with people’s views of sexuality and gender merely by existing, and we are nothing short of revolutionary for that reason.

[chainmail-butch]

Okay, this is my last post about the Present Discourse but defining Lesbianism in relation to men really seems to run entirely against the grain of being a lesbian. If someone is a bisexual lesbian then that means they're a bisexual lesbian. And, not to put words in other peoples mouths, they're not concerned with men.

They're Lesbians. That's why they're using the word lesbian, why is that a problem.

Two dykes can fuck each other and simultaneously admire a man's ass.

If your beef is 'we need our own special word' then grow the fuck up. Your special word is lesbian. Its right there. No one is adulterating it. It means women that fuck women. There are Dykes, there are Bulldaggers, there are Butches, there are Studs, there are Femmes, there are He/Him Lesbians. Not all lesbians have vaginas. Not all lesbians are women. And in that same vein not all gay men have cocks and not all gay men are men. We (Dykes) aren't special and we aren't excluded from fluidity.

And also sexuality and queerness don't need to be firmly defined. I was ace for a while, now I might not be ace. Shit changes. Hell, I was a guy for 23 years. Shit can and does change over the course of someone's life.

If you're main beef with bisexual lesbianism is the fact that these women have the capacity to be attracted to men then maybe chill. They're lesbians. That's why they're using the word lesbian. If you're worried that Bisexual Lesbians will somehow compromise "The Sexuality" in the face of the straights then I don't know what to tell you.

Respectability politics never win. Exclusion is never the right choice. There are Bisexual Lesbians in this world, no amount of whining is going to change this fact.

[antiyourwokehomophobia2]

https://www.tumblr.com/lesbianp1lled/760770141578493952/to-follow-up-on-my-prev-ask-there-has-been?source=share

I mean. Would y'all say that a man who is into drag queens isn't gay? Drag queens have fake boobs and they tuck their penis' away. Would you question a gay man who is into them or what?

When it comes to things like this, I have to ask a question: if a woman is solely into other women, only dates other women, only fucks other women, then how is she not gay? You mean to tell me that two women fucking each other isn't gay just because one of them is wearing a realistic strap? I don't really understand this discourse. They are both women. It's a gay act for them to have sex and be into each other.

There are lesbians who fantasize about being able to be impregnated by their partners. They want to be able to have children with another woman. Like. The desire to have children and reproduce is not strictly a straight woman thing.

By this logic, is it not weird that lesbians would want to be artificially inseminated? They are putting male sperm inside of themselves so does that call their lesbianism into question?

Do you guys think that a woman who has a male partner is less straight if the only sex act they do is him eating her out? She never touches his penis. Never even sees it. But he does perform oral on her. Are you gonna call this woman's sexuality into question?

It doesn't matter how realistic a strap is. It is not a penis. Do y'all REALLY want to go down the "strap is dick" path? Are you sure? The strap is attached to a WOMAN. It is lesbian sex. There is nothing straight about it.

Y'all absolutely adore policing lesbian sexuality. Okay. So what level of realism does a strap have to reach before using it makes you bi? I'd love to know. Do y'all also think that liking extremely masculine women is the same as liking men? Is a woman into Paige dumars straight/bi?

Genuinely, what's wrong with y'all lmao.

[olderthannetfic]

Pronoun discourse is just as exhausting in person. A trans girl in my group project for History of Modern Europe refused to use he/him for me because "they/them is neutral" and I looked her in the eyes and said, "I will not reply to group texts, upload anything or share resources if you don't refer to me correctly. I use silence to train my dogs, I use it to train transmisandrists, too." She was furious and spent a few weeks misgendering me... until she realized I was serious and I would let all of us fail this group project because this he/him? Yeah, this he/him had a 100 on every single assignment up until that point and could take the grade hit. If other people can't, well, that's not my problem.

She learned to call me he/him with incredible regularity once her grade was on the line. Suddenly, two words weren't incredibly hard to recall and abruptly, not every conversation with her turned into her lecturing me on how trans women have it harder than trans men. We were able to talk about the actual subject of the group assignment and she was able to remember he/him.

Meanwhile, the cishet members of the group had not struggled to recall he/him for me once, nor had they turned group project meetings into discourse once.

Why are queer people always most vicious with their fellow queers? I'm in MONTANA, and the people worst to me aren't the fucking rednecks, it's other queer people. Rednecks don't condescend to me about how they/them is neutral and good and indicates they're trying their best and trans men have it easy actually. It's the city queers sitting there going, "Rather than just call you he/him and spend this meeting for our group project focusing on the project, I'm going to treat you like the enemy and lecture you." People talk about the concept of a 'queer community' but getting lectured about how trans women have it worse than trans men (because I guess my saying 'use my pronouns' secretly implies I think trans men have it worse? idk, I don't speak bullshitese) doesn't make me go, "Ah, yes. My community! I feel so supported!" it makes me go, "Oh, fuck. Great, I'm stuck talking to an asshole."

Between this, the lesbians I've met on campus who keep making, "gays can't do math or science or history or whatever other subject we're in right now" jokes who seethe with contempt for the privileged gay men, the cis gay guys terrified of doing something perverted who view drag, cosplay, wearing a skirt, wearing makeup or fucking around with presentation at all as not okay/possibly problematic and the NBs who cannot emphasize enough to you that they're one of the good ones who don't dye their hair or wear stupid shit or use neopronouns like the bad ones do, and the utter disgust they all look at anyone with who dares use the word queer, I'm beginning to feel like "the queer community" is one of those things you don't get access to until you're 30+. Alternatively "the queer community" appears to "antis, but with rainbows and flags and ew you think the rainbow flag is for everyone you're so problematic", which is... not great, honestly?

I know this will get a lot of queer people very angry but I'll say it: there are 492 anti-queer laws proposed in the USA, not counting the ones that have passed. We should probably focus on that instead of going for each other's throats and then saying we're a "community".

--

I don't think it will get many queer people around here angry, but yes.

We have more of a need to draw together into a community when everyone's dying of AIDS or getting beaten up or trying to stop laws that make it illegal for us to exist.

Some people have the privilege to shit all over that community. They don't see it as one, but it is.

[aroacesafeplaceforall]

Right this is discourse so keep scrolling for the ones who want a peaceful life

Addressing this:

Racist: I’m really not, I’ve spoken multiple times on this and it’s easy to find those posts. ALL I SAID WAS I DONT LIKE SOME RAP MUSIC and in general I prefer music I can relate back to me. (Aka aroace vibe songs, some general angry music etc lots of ones about mental health, sad and slow songs or dance music) or my characters (rebellion music this contains more rap to my knowledge) I would also like to state that I suck at ID-ing music genres so I may be listening to more then i know

Ableist: I don’t even know what that is so I can’t exactly address it?? I will say I’m welcoming to all plural (??) people, I just ask that the host? The main guy? Don’t claim things on behalf of an alter (??) such as: if they’re (main person) not aroace but the alter is, the main person shouldn’t speak about aroace things, only the alter and viceversa

Aggressive antiship: which is hilarious as I wrote gay fics in my free time. I’m not anti ship, I’m anti some ships… like every other person

Exclusionist: no. Never. I’m 100% welcoming to all sex favourbility and I challenge you to find different. Just because I haven’t spoken about it doesn’t mean I’m against it?? I personally am not sex favourable so I can’t speak on it from a personal perspective… idk this one’s weird NEXT

M spec lesbian and gay exclusionist: bestie this one made me laugh as one of the main reasons I got hate on my old (first) blog was I said I supported lesbians who may one day be attracted to men (I don’t remember if the term mspec was a thing then-) secondly; what’s a gay exclusionist?? Like a homophobe?? Huh???

I won’t even address the darvo tactics one. As a) this is the internet and b) lmao. And c) I could say anything and this person would still say it was DARVO. I literally apologised to one of the people involved privately and in full (an ask send from my main, like 200 words ish) and they just never replied to it and their next post was a reblog still calling for me to apologise 6 hours later…

So get fucked with that one. You’re clutching at straws there. I don’t want you on my blog and you’re already blocked but this post is for those I missed in the blocking game. Leave. We can exist away from each other.

[my-precious-hellscape]

fuck yeah your tags got posted because you said a shit take. own up and learn. bi lesbians are valid. its just another label in the vast sea of labels. people are trying to kill us and are killing us. why bother with such useless and pointless policing?

you aint a terf or whatever people are calling you, but you start siding with the exclusionists when you spit that shit. why separate the community even further? did you ever actually ask a bi lesbian (or any mspec lesbian or gay for that matter) why they chose to identify that way, or did you just see someone else shilling the fact theyre problematic and that warped your perception and you decided to follow their line of thinking?

Since this is one of the dozen or so messages I've gotten (and thank fuck it's not more, people really just wait for an opportunity to harass a transwoman, huh?) I'll respond to it. Thank you for saying I'm not a terf, it really means a lot. I did own up to the tags I left, I even posted them myself! To be fair, no, I never ask a bi lesbian why they identify the way they do but then again, neither did you, right? Or any of the messages I've received. No one bothered to ask me why I stand where I do. What I did see though is lesbians that are pissed off they're just not allowed to have a space of their own. Lesbianism excludes men, you cannot be attracted to men and be a lesbian. There are, as I said in my tags, a fair number of terms that could be used instead that don't carry the same weight. I honestly fucking hate that all queer discourse boils down to throwing insults at each other, like I wasn't even that secure in my position on this side of the argument! Now though I feel pretty fucking entrenched.

Once again thank you for the kind words and I do hope this gives a somewhat accurate depiction of my side.

[ihopesocomic]

I'm glad you made Hope and Storm BOTH lesbians. In MP, I feel like the creator made Nothing bisexual just so fans could ship her a male as well besides Hover if they wanted to (Because originally, her romantic partner was even a male lion 💀). Like, people only make bisexual characters these days because they're afraid to make characters who are actually gay. In TOH for example, Luz doesn't have any other love interest besides Amity, she could be 100% lesbian but nooo. She needs to appear straight to people who don't like the ship. It really bothers me a little...

TL;DR, this ain't it, anon.

I wasn't gonna respond because quite frankly this broke my fucking brain. But this won't stand. So congratulations on being the person to ruin my day because now I typed all this up when I could've been working on the comic.

While yes, it is a problem and a way for /corporations/ to use bisexuality as a disingenuous way to have their cake and eat it by saying a character is "bisexual" without actually delivering on queer representation, to both appease LGBT+ audiences and anti-LGBT+ scumbag bigots, and there is really special discrimination against lesbians in media, what we're NOT gonna do is assume the mere existence of a bisexual character is a statement against lesbians, cuz that's just flat out biphobic.

About TOH, the creator is bisexual herself. So of course bisexual people are allowed to put themselves in their own fucking content, just like I'm allowed to have lesbians in my own fucking content. Luz has shown interest in both men and women (and it wasn't comphet either) and nothing about the show, especially after s2e8 made Luz "appear straight". What a wild thing to say.

Yea sure I'm a lesbian, and I love seeing myself represented, but when sapphics exist in content, we all win. My bisexual friends get to see themselves, and I am a happy fucking camper because I'm a simple woman who just wants to see two girls holding hands. And when lesbians exist in media, my bisexual friends also get to see two girls holding hands. I think they call it being happy for each other. Crazy concept, I know.

If I were you, anon, I would continue on in life working on not having that shitty perspective you've graced our inbox with. - Cat

-

Sorry to kickstart Pride Month in this fashion, folks but… don’t be like this?

And because we know it’s coming: we’re not posting any discourse about this. You can get mad at lazy representation like MP without dragging bisexuals and bisexual representation down. C’mon now. - RJ

[withswords]

one micro phenomenon from the "sometimes gay men and lesbians fuck each other" discourse that i still think about was how people who were upset by this statement were always coming at it from the perspective of, 'this is dangerous and bad for lesbians, it's offensive to say lesbians want to fuck men,' presumably because they were lesbians who find the idea of sex with men repulsive, which is fair enough. but it's sort of taken for granted that any man, even a strictly gay man, isn't particularly opposed to fucking women (because 'men are hypersexual' etc), and that presumably as the person topping there's less investment in an act that might contradict your sexuality, therefore less violation. i don't have any conclusions to draw about this really i just think it's an interesting aspect of how we parse masculinity/ manhood.

[orc-apologist]

if i have to read one more ounce of slur discourse i'm gonna fucking lose it.

they're WORDS not weapons, first of all. y'all ascribe WAY too much power to words. they're not the source of our oppression, banning them from language except for a minority won't solve our oppression.

not to mention that policing language has VERY EVIDENTLY not accomplished anything over the past couple decades. in fact, i would argue that language policing has been turned against us and used as a tool to oppress us. by that i mean that it is actively used to stir up ridiculous culture wars about "can't say anything anymore" in bourgeois media like Fox News

there is a reason queer people especially have historically always taken a different route, reclamation. that is to say GENERAL reclamation, instead of that weird mix of reclamation and language policing that is common nowadays.

that reason is that reclamation is much more effective at stripping a word of its power, especially of its power over you. banning it, shunning the use of it and all who do instead INCREASES the word's power because it tabooifies it. that taboo will make its impact more intense.

limited reclamation forces us to draw lines between us. it divides lesbians and gays (which is an especially dumb ones considering lesbians also get called faggots), cis queers and trans queers etc. it even very easily pits these groups of people against each other, just because someone has a different outlook on what word is appropriate to say.

what matters in the use of words is the linguistic field of pragmatics: how it used and to what effect. the semantic meaning of a word is often secondary to its pragmatic use. yes, at its core the word faggot is a word demeaning towards gay men and generally gnc people. however, amongst those it is used differently and therefore receives different meanings, such as a general term of affection.

for example, i let my cishet friends call me faggot (well the German equivalent Schwuchtel). they don't usually use that word but in certain fitting situations they do, often for humorous effect when i do or say something particularly faggy. of course, i let them know that while I'm fine with it, other gay people may not be so i don't want them going around using it. but what I'm trying to say is that them using that word for me, to describe me, to address me, is not degrading and oppressing me. quite the opposite, it makes me feel a lot more comfortable being outwardly gay around them. that is because they do not use it as a slur, even if that is the meaning of the word.

banning a word often has the opposite effect through a series of bourgeois-led culture wars. they are powerless against us taking their word and using it for ourselves. there is no culture war to be started based on that. banning the word gives it power, reclaiming the word takes that power away.

in the end, though, neither will solve oppression of any kind. new words can be created, that is a part of language. language itself, the words within it, are not the source of oppression (like our dear Judith Butler would say LOL), they are at most a means to enforce it by giving it shape. so long as oppression remains we can ban and reclaim all we like, new slurs will pop up regardless. oppression itself must be broken, which is only possible ending class society, by ending the rule of the few over the many through divide-and-conquer methods. the source of all oppression is the need of the ruling class to divide the ruled classes along lines such as religion, gender, sexuality, and race to pit them against each other. THAT is what must be fought and I'm frankly tired of wasting time on who can say what word.

[soundwavefucker69]

honestly I agree with the joke of getting queerbaited by the MCU is like losing chess to a dog. I do. but I'm interested in queerbaiting in the MCU on like. an academic level. like stevebucky happened bc you put a bunch of men in a room that never processed their intensely homoerotic friendship in college with their roommate they randomly stopped talking to five years after graduation and can't figure out why when they think about that guy they feel weird. they got told to queerbait and so they did but bc of their unprocessed bisexuality they actually made an incredibly compelling narrative that ended just the way their cishet life did: Steve walking away from his "college roommate" and getting the wife and the picket fence and a couple of kids, maybe, and disappearing from the narrative forever without ever once considering or mentioning the impact of his friend on his entire fucking existence. bc you know. that's how it's supposed to end.

lesbian queerbaiting was not allowed incidentally bc for queerbaiting to work women have to actually have emotionally compelling arcs that complement each other and women only existed as props in the MCU, with all of its male directors and male writers and male execs and the one random female writer that would pop up on a team of men every five movies or so and try to give the women a little depth before she never appeared in an MCU writing room again.

buuutttt alas the MCU can't do that anymore bc they're running out of male heroes and there's more female fans and everyone's fucking mad at them. enter the female directors and writers who have been excluded from the boys' club for a long time and they're not really pissed about it entirely, it's not like the MCU will be considered anything but cheap television that's criticized for its relentless monopoly and abuse of overworked and underpaid CGI artists bc they're not unionized that was designed to sell market appeal and never once respected movies and television as an actual art form. so it wasn't like they were missing out on joining the boy's club that will eventually collapse anyways bc you literally cannot keep a franchise running for 20 fucking years. people get bored and people that want to get into it look at the backlog to understand what's going on and go nah no thanks.

problem is male execs are still here working with the ladies and telling them what to do. they're not bitter, not yet, but oh holy hell will they be, bc who queerbaits in 2024? are you still relying on that? Just let them kiss!

anyways, the only reason I feel compelled to watch the MCU now is bc i want to see how vicious the fighting will get. I want to see how far these new writers and directors will push the side of queerbaiting intentionally. the accidental stevebucky tragic love story was fine, but now I'm more interested in the psychological warfare with the writers and the old boy execs.

honestly when the MCU starts generously allowing gay love stories I'll probably lose interest bc the gay love stories will be boring and sanitized and scrubbed clean of grime to be acceptable as possible. and it'll collapse in on itself in a fiery cataclysm before they get to the point where they can even allow a little purposeful toxicity and messiness, not the toxicity pointed out by someone who's entire career is rage farming discourse with video essays on YouTube about how this relationship is a bottomless pit of abuse bc someone had a trauma reaction once and got mad at their partner who didn't deserve to get yelled at. they won't even get to the actual fun gay love stories that make sense for the medium, considering being a superhero is actually really fucking traumatizing and traumatized people are sometimes shitty bc of their trauma. but. ya know. whatever.

[utilitycaster]

I’m I the only one who finds it alarming that most of this fandom who ship Imogen and Laudna (especially on twitter) don’t realize the unhealthyness thats going on in their relationship? They literally see two women to are affectionate with each other and say “ENDGAME!” “GIRLFRIENDS!” “MARRIED!” “KISS KISS KISS!” Then they focus on quotes that are kinda alarming, and Imogen’s Jealousy is pretty fucking Alarming! Saying that they are in love and just haven’t realized it yet. (Don’t get me started on that one blog on here counting down the days “till imodna realizes their in love.” I find it so fucking annoying.) Loving someone and being IN love with someone is two different things. Also another thing! I HATE THAT PEOPLE CALL THEM LESBIANS! THE BOTH HAVE EXPRESSED FEELINGS FOR MALE PERSENTING PEOPLE! I dread the day when the campaign ends and they don’t end up together or during the campaign fall IN love with someone that’s not each other. Especially if it’s a male persenting person, because the Laura and Marisha will be harassed and the shippers will yell Queerbait, also the men hating/haters will be in full force. 

Hi anon,

I agree with most of this; I'm answering under a cut in the hopes that people who will be upset by an answer will be able to avoid it, without me having to explicitly discourse tag it and in doing so throw it to people who troll that tag to get mad at things. Also this is SUPER long and covers a lot of the thoughts I've had percolating on the CR fandom/shipping culture in general.

I think I and a lot of people who primarily deal in meta/analysis in this fandom have been inching ever closer to a lot of the points you've made here, and I am generally very willing to be the one who snaps and says "yeah has anyone noticed the emperor has literally no clothes on like what the fuck".

Let's start with the end and work backwards: It's happened before, it will happen again if Laura and Marisha's characters do not get together, and it's irritating, but like, I will take a good story and the consequences of a shitty segment of the fandom rather than the path of least resistance every time. I almost said something to this effect on the positive vibes ask last night, but like...there will always be people who are hateful and stupid on the internet, so you may as well stand in your own truth rather than fear their consequences. (Not that I don't respect the choice to quietly avoid harassment; I am the way I am because I know at this point I can take a pretty hard hit and shut it down, but that has not always been the case.) Anyway, people called an actual canon ship between lesbian characters queerbaiting last campaign, so it's not like those accusations hold any weight or need to be taken seriously; outside of their tiny circle, everyone thinks those people are idiots.

I do, as a bi woman, hate the tendency among hardcore shippers to erase bisexuality. They do it because a bi character's competing ships cannot be as easily dismissed as 'obviously can't happen, they're gay or lesbian', and they don't care how biphobic they look doing it. You are absolutely correct: Imogen and Laudna have both indicated interest in men or masc nb people. (Others have also pointed out that people tend to exclusively use he/him pronouns about Ashton when they are being critical of them, so they don't care how transphobic they look doing it either, apparently; also I don't think Ashton identifies as a he/they lesbian but there are in fact people who do identify as such so like...if your goal is to eliminate Ashton/Laudna as an option by saying Laudna is a lesbian, against all evidence to the contrary, you also need to make a number of presumptions about Ashton's sexuality and gender identity as well.)

This brings me to a tricky section about fandom in general but I think it's worth saying. In the real world, homophobia and transphobia are very real. They negatively impact our lives in heartbreaking and deadly ways. It is still the norm in most US media for the bulk of relationships shown to be between a cis man and a cis woman, and for protagonists to be cis and straight (note: also often able-bodied, male, white, etc but the focus of this discussion is queerness so I'm not covering all axes of oppression). However, in many fandom spaces, queer characters and ships are the fan favorites. Tumblr's userbase does skew heavily queer, and additionally, tends to skew towards women. In other words, a lot of things that are very true in real life do not hold in fandom spaces.

Which is to say: we're in a situation where an F/F ship is the massive juggernaut for the fandom right now. It does not mean that lesbians (or bi women who enter into relationships with other women) are not oppressed in the real world; it does mean that within the highly specific space of the Critical Role fandom, people are more likely to be in favor of this ship than not. It also means that a lot of the people who aren't into it are not homophobes, but are queer people - often even wlw - who are saying "I would like F/F ships! I would like them to actually be good." Like, to me, the only difference between Imogen and Laudna and every M/F canon relationship on network TV that's made me go "you're telling me they should be together, but I don't see it" is that they're both women (and I would bet a large sum that for a lot of people, this isn't about the dynamic, but purely about the gender of the people involved, ie, if Imogen were a man played by one of the men in the cast people wouldn't ship it, where as I personally can comfortably say I'd ship any of the canon ships from past campaigns regardless of character gender. This also admits that biological essentialism is fake and that Exandria is pretty gender equalthough, which some people don't want to do.)

Part of why I've been so frustrated is that, at least from my perspective, the overwhelming majority of hate and harassment I've seen within the fandom in Campaign 3 - and in Campaign 2 - has been from people who have shipped Marisha and Laura's characters. There has, in fact, been pretty considerable hate as well as measured criticism levied towards M/F ships (we're seeing some with Ashton/Laudna here, but both Fjord/Jester and Caleb/Jester, the latter of which I actively dislike and have openly criticized, received pretty vehement hate last campaign and most of it came from people who shipped Jester with Beau) and M/M ships (less harassment per se but people who shipped Caleb with Jester said some truly awful things about Caleb/Essek; also while I have not, you know, harassed people, I have said essentially the same things about how Taliesin and Liam's characters are shipped every campaign despite often having little connection as I have about Marisha and Laura's. I just don't talk about it as much because while I think and have said that Ashton/Orym is basically nothing - and that Widomauk, which most people vaguely classify as M/M, and for that matter, Percy/Vax, all are basically nothing - no one who ships those has called me a cunt or reblogged my posts in an abusive manner or called me out for the grave sin of preferring canon to fanon, so I respect the ship and let ship of it all.) For that matter, the bulk of hate towards Beauyasha came from people who shipped Beau and Jester. Like...I am confident there are people who dislike this ship specifically because it's between two women, and they are homophobic, but that is not the quarter where I think most of the criticism on Tumblr or Twitter is coming from.

So let's get to the last point. Why do people ship two women simply because they're standing next to each other? Why do they ignore countless red flags - and I am specifically talking about treating Imogen and Laudna's relationship as healthy and loving; not about shipping it in general. I cannot stress enough that if you treat Imogen/Laudna as some kind of toxic Briarwoods situation and are into that, I support that entirely.

There are a few reasons. First and foremost, I think a lot of people project onto characters rather than letting the characters provide them with differing perspectives. I find this deeply sad. It's not that you can't draw parallels between your own life and that of fictional characters or see yourself in them - you're supposed to! But it says something depressing about your empathy if your qualifications for which characters speak to you are only those who match your demographics. Like, I've said before, but my favorite characters from past campaigns are Vex and Fjord, and they have a lot in common! If you relate to one based on their themes of Who You Are In The Dark and the mask you present to the world over a face you don't particularly like, you will probably relate to the other! But also...I am a cis bi woman, I am not a person of color as both those characters are often considered coded to be (though am an ethnic minority), nor did I personally experience extensive emotional abuse and poverty as a child. I think there's value in wanting to see people like you! But also...representation is not just "I want to see people like me"; it's also "I want to humanize people who are not like me". If you cannot relate to someone simply because they don't match your gender or sexuality, then that's a really shallow and cold way to interact with the world. And, specifically in relation to queerness within Critical Role: this is a world that has consistently been depicted as not having homophobia or transphobia. I understand wanting to explore these themes and seeing characters who have experienced them, but like...this is not the media that will reasonably have a one-to-one portrayal of homophobia or transphobia, and you often will need to bend over backwards and project a lot of stuff that simply isn't in the canon to read that into them because the worldbuilding simply doesn't support it. And, to be clear, you can do that; but at that point you're applying a lens that only you can obtain, so you shouldn't be surprised if few people come along with you. (I also think it's kind of dumb to watch a show with 5 cis men on it, four of whom are married to women, and be mad that the story has men in it and that those men sometimes are attracted to women; unpacking this would easily double the length of this already incredibly long post though.)

So: this sets a stage for people coming into the show saying "who looks like me, or can I make to look like me" rather than engaging with what's actually going on. Part of why I've been hesitant on Imogen and Laudna the whole time, though started out much more open to it, is in fact that it was heavily shipped from quite literally the moment that Laura and Marisha were indicated to be playing two women who knew each other from before. We knew nothing about their dynamic other than "existing friendship". So I think a lot of people put the cart before the horse and started shipping, and I do think - and I could be entirely wrong - a lot of them, deep down in their hearts, know that they are twisting their interpretations to match an idea of these two characters that has increasingly been proven not to be true onscreen. Like, I think a lot of people kind of realize that Imogen is putting Laudna in a horrible position here; I think a lot of people realize that their so-called 'unconditional' love that transcends words means there's no room to resolve or even express conflict. Perhaps they don't, but like, I'd like to give people the benefit of the doubt. It's just...I think that because this ship is so all-consuming within the fandom, and because so many people have staked their identities within the fandom on it, they don't know how to leave it and are scared of retaliation if they do.

This is backed up by the slow shift I've described - Imodna started out with "they're already girlfriends" or "they're already in love but just haven't said it" or "what could ever happen other than they become ever closer and eventually kiss" (as witnessed by these questions) to "they realized they were in love during the campaign" to "Imogen is in love with Laudna but Laudna isn't aware" to "god remember how they used to talk, I'd give anything for it" to "I guess a QPR is okay" (which is itself bizarre, like, the issues I see in their relationship are still just as much issues in a nonsexual partnership as a sexual one; honestly, it's not a healthy friendship though it is an interesting one and the problem's I have are not going to be fixed by kissing.) Like, it's not the normal evolution of feelings one might have about a ship as the show goes on and more information is revealed, or rather, it's a ship that's becoming less and less confident as time goes on which is the opposite of how canon ships tend to go. (Which, I need to stress, does not discount that it could not be canon; it's just that I think it would require a pretty profound shakeup and conflict to do so). The signs and signals are becoming more and more tenuous and the shippers keep lowering and lowering the bar.

Since I've already brought up past campaigns and ships, let's do it again for the sake of illustration; this feels like how people who shipped Caleb and Jester went from ENDGAME to "Caleb is pushing away Jester to protect her" to "I think Laura is biting her lip when she's looking at Liam! This is a SIGN" even in episodes where Jester was like, actively making out with Fjord, to, and I am not making this up, posting pictures of the CR shop showing Laura in Caleb merch as evidence. Or how the bulk of Vex/Keyleth shipping in TLOVM rested on a scene in the trailer where Keyleth was staring dreamily and drunkenly into space while Vex was across the table only for the show to reveal Keyleth was staring at Vax. Like, all shipping does require a certain degree of cherrypicking, but there is a point where you are focused only on subtext and never text, and while that was how one had to interact with queer stories in the past, it's ridiculous to be doing it on a show where Marisha has openly RP-ed Beau eating Yasha out. Like, if they wanted to show two women being romantically involved, they will. (There's been a lot of Xena comparisons thrown around, and like...not that Xena isn't an important part of the history of depicting F/F relationships in media, but it is also a syndicated show from the 90s and couldn't show an explicitly lesbian relationship, and Critical Role very much can and has.)

I do think there are a subset of people who don't realize how unhealthy this is. Like...this is a whole psychological thing that I am unequipped to unpack, but I do think there are people for whatever reasons genuinely do believe that love means never having to say you're sorry. I am hoping this is because of youth and inexperience, because being able to communicate and advocate for yourself is a crucial part of relationships, as is the ability to express and resolve conflict. As you've noticed, the people who ship this have all said "well, obviously, Imogen won't betray Laudna" - but we don't know that. Honestly I think it could go either way. But they have to make that assumption to keep shipping it, because if Imogen might betray Laudna, then that does mean that there would have been more meaning and value in Laudna speaking up and that conversation was deeply flawed.

I also think some of this comes from unconditional love being an unreasonable expectation foisted upon us all at large. There are always conditions, or rather, you might always in some way love someone, but there are conditions under which you'd leave or boundaries you will draw. You can love someone who (for example) is dealing with an addiction but still refuse to let them drive while intoxicated or steal your stuff to pay for drugs. You can love someone who cheats on you but still want to end that relationship. I mean, while fear, self-doubt, and resources/logistics are all factors in people leaving abusive relationships, it's also true that a lot of people have some affection for the good times and that is a factor as well. Love is not a simple on/off switch. You can feel multiple things at once - honestly, that's what Ashton basically says this past episode, that they both love and hate the party! I think Imogen and Laudna do genuinely love each other, though I don't interpret it as romantic; I just also think that there's a lot of stuff they don't like about each other but are unable to express, and which will only become more and more of a threat to a potential romantic (or queerplatonic) relationship if left to fester unresolve. And, to be honest, I suspect real-world homophobia and fandom purity issues are part of why people are so unwilling to discuss why Imogen and Laudna's relationship is unhealthy; because it means admitting that queer relationships can have most of the same problems as straight ones, and possibly admitting that you still find an unhealthy relationship interesting and want to see it played out.

[kunaigirl]

Local butch/gnc lesbian here! I don't know why there's this weird fucking inside-war-whatever going on between lesbians and the other sexualities in our community, so I'll just set the record straight! Gay men??? SUPER COOL!!! Asexuals??? HELLA AWESOME!!! Bisexuals??? BEAUTIFUL!!! Pansexuals??? BADASS!!! Omnisexuals??? HECKIN' NICE!!! Trans women??? STUNNING!!!! Trans men??? HELL YEAH BRO!!! Non-binary folk??? TOTALLY RAD!!! Queer people??? SUPER INSPIRING!!! Intersex people??? FANTASTIC!!! And you know what else? Fuck it! Straight allies??? THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT AND YOU ROCK!!!

I don't know WHAT the hell has been going on with the chronically online LGBT+phobic discourse within and around our own community, but it's absolute BS!!! We're a beautiful and diverse community, and we should be lifting each other up and supporting each other! We're a family here, dang it! I'm so sick and tired of terfs, radfems, and other exclusionary lesbians acting like they speak for all of us.

So, to the other sexual orientations and other gender identities out there, I promise you that they DO NOT speak on our behalf. We Lesbians see you, and we love you just the same!!!

[multigenderswag]

people are only trans/nonbinary allies when it suits THEIR identity and it sickens me.

it’s so widespread I can’t even do anything about it except seethe in silence because I don’t want to get hunted down and embarrassed again.

if people could look outside of what accepting trans/nb people would mean for THEIR sexuality for one fucking second i guarantee you there would be less discourse in this dumpster fire of community

yes, this is about man lesbians/woman gays.

I saw someone call a demiboy lesbian “straight” and then have the audacity to say “nonbinary lesbians are valid!1!”. PICK A FUCKING SIDE.

hi yes last anon i forgot my last point so-called “trans allies” also like to ignore the idea of male and female not being mutually exclusive. I pray they get their asses handed to them one day by some fellow multigender folk because at this point direct confrontation is the only that that’ll get them to see the cold light of day and stop being part of the problem. they don’t like to accept us because they can’t handle the thought of being attracted to the opposite gender, even if it’s in the most slim way- so much so that they can’t see that *we’re not forcing them to DATE us, we’re asking them to ACCEPT and INCLUDE us.* if there’s someone in a community they don’t want to date it’s fine until that person happens to be genderqueer/trans/enby. and that’s very telling about how accepting they really are.

Trans liberation, and honestly any kind of activism for any marginalized group, would not be possible if people only ever stood up for their own identity. We need to support each other in order to have any strength.

Some people really will only expand their view of sexuality and gender until they find something that fits, and then stop there, and don't bother learning about or advocating for anyone else. And that's not how activism works! If aroallo people like me never made any effort to understand and accept and stand up for asexual folks, the aspec community as a whole wouldn't get very far. And like you said, if trans/nonbinary people only cared about their own gender identity, and never made an effort to learn about and stand up for the variety of trans/nonbinary identities that exist in the community, the trans community wouldn't get very far!

It's disgusting to insist that someone's sexuality is something they say it isn't. Did that demiboy identify as straight? If the answer to that is no, don't call them straight. It's very simple, really.

Did they not hear the contradiction? Do they listen to themselves speak? At this point, I'm convinced some of the "lesbian means NON MEN loving NON MEN" crowd includes nonbinary lesbians because they see nonbinary people as women. Nonbinary can mean woman with short hair or woman who uses they/them pronouns or maybe even woman who got top surgery, but god forbid nonbinary lesbians call themselves men or go on T or get bottom surgery or be someone who was assigned male at birth and doesn't want to medically transition. Basically, they only support nonbinary people if they can conveniently view them as "basically a woman."

There's no way to be a trans ally if you view "male" and "female" as mutually exclusive or as polar opposites. That shit is Gender Binary 101, and deconstructing it should be one of the first steps of being a trans ally. It shouldn't be something that other trans and nonbinary people believe so commonly. Not only does this mindset exclude multigender people who are both men and women, but it hurts binary trans people who are connected to or feel like they used to be their assigned gender.

"We can't accept men who identify as lesbians, because then they will invade lesbian spaces and force lesbians to date them." Does this sound like TERF talking about lesbian trans women, or a so-called trans ally talking about multigender lesbians? Trick question, it sounds like both, because they're practically indistinguishable from each other. So many trans allies, even trans/nonbinary people themselves, will make the exact same arguments as TERFs and not see a single thing wrong with it, and it's awful.

You're not helping the trans community if you only accept identities that are convenient for you.