#or trans/cis ppl in general like that feels worse at least personally

[fagrevolt]

Had to look up some trans masc positivity bc I got rly down abt some shit I saw in a different trans masc space about hating men. Seeing that kinda thing from other trans masc ppl is so disheartening, especially as a more binary-feeling guy

[nerves-nebula]

Nigerian living in Nigeria here and I really really don't think you should come over. We are currently in a very very anti trans and anti lgbtq period. If anybody were to find out you were trans you'll be super unsafe. I know this advice is unsolicited and you didn't particularly say you were coming here but as a queer trans person who's unable to transition and is currently stuck in this country, I feel increasingly unsafe and things are getting worse.

If you were to come, you probably would have to make sure you pass as a woman really really well and have backup plans to leave the country quick if you were found out.

I've noticed ppl have started to pay more attention to how I dress and noticing me binding my chest and dressing masculine, no one paid that much attention to that a few years ago but now ppl can't seem to shut the fuck up about it

We have a thriving queer community here, we are small yes but we know how to find each other. The problem is they are no laws to protect us and the average person thinks we are devil worshippers. Ppl who get caught by the police have to bribe their way out of prison and it isn't even the police you have to worry about, it's the ppl around you.

The beard thing can be passed of as genetics if it isn't a full one, we have a lot of women with facial hair, but if you give of any hint that you aren't cis you'll be in trouble.

And it also depends on the area you would be visiting too. Gated communities tend to mind their business and it easier to be a moderately rich queer person than a poor one. The rich can choose where they can go and who they can interact with while poorer queer ppl have to interact with ppl who are more likely to hurt them

If you're sure you can pass as a cis woman then come if you can't and you don't have any support systems that would protect your best interest in the country then I advice you stay in America. Nigerians barely ever protest(at least ppl outside unions) yet average ppl were protesting the legalisation of gay ppl just this year

The climate here is complicated, we have very popular trans and queer influencers that have millions of followers but it isn't that hard to find a video of a transwoman getting beat up. If you're rich with parents that'll turn the other way you're must likely good if not sorry for you 🤷🏿

If you do think you'll be able to manage I don't mind helping in any way I can

thanks for giving me the general vibe, it's definitely something i was wondering about so i genuinely appreciate it. i think i can still pass for a woman (one with a slightly deep voice but tbh it's no that deep. I've still got breasts and everything so at most they'll think I'm like. a masculine looking cis woman, idk)

I dont have like a full BEARD beard i think i'd have to shave what i do have cuz my sister, who has already visited with my dad, says i prolly got too much facial hair to pass it off as genetics.

the issue i'm worried about is my dad telling people i'm trans. i don't even know if he knows that i'm transgender or what, but he knows i'm on testosterone.

I wouldn't come over if I didn't think I was safe. and that's the issue that i'm grappling with cuz I'm not entirely sure what my dad will say/do. i don't think he'll beat me or anything since he hasn't done that with his other, way more volatile and argumentative children. that's like, not a fear i have about him. but i'm not sure if he'll tell the people around us about me or endanger me in some way.

my inclination is to say no, but he and my mom have done equally awful stuff when i thought "surely they wouldn't do that" so I'm not sure. I don't think my dad is rich, but i don't know exactly. he has a lot of connections and has worked in the government and when my oldest sister visited, she said he had armed guards that escorted them everywhere. so that's probably a good sign? but that was a few years ago.

i wouldn't go by my real name or pronouns there, that's for damn sure, but I'm worried I'd forget the little things about me that show I'm trans. for example, my favorite jacket has a trans flag painted on it and my backpack has a pronoun pin. those are easy to side step obviously, just remove the pin and don't bring the jacket- but I'm worried about little things like that slipping through the cracks because i'm not used to hiding them.

[sotorubio]

I know its not the point of the post and is pretty minor but you mentioning Lou using a neutral nickname over the feminine name the teacher says, reminded me of how annoying it was to see how she’s listed in the finale credits. Idk if its a deadname if she’s cis? But it was pretty surprising considering this is supposedly a season about being trans. Even if she’s cis, it still doesn’t sit right that she insisted on using one name and showed distaste for the other (and the gncness of her preference and her character can’t be ignored there) and then its framed just as a nickname? Idk. So many things this season were off.

oh yeah absolutely! i thought so too. like not once was she referred to by her full name by the other characters (at least not that i know of) so it's strange that they still kept that in the credits especially since after hearing lou turn down her "real" name n call herself smth else, isi also introduced themselves as isi (as early as ep 1!) which i thought is pretty significant n speaks volumes abt the importance of lou's name. whether or not it should be considered a deadname i'm not sure since it seems that she's supposed to be read as cis (? maybe. i think so) but cis ppl can be uncomfortable w their given names too & not want to use them or even get them changed so that decision should be respected regardless of gender.

like the whole scene where lou helps isi dress in all the crazy outfits n tries to show them it's okay to be who u are screams "everybody has the right to express themselves however they want" and should be enough to view her name as smth she has chosen for herself bc that's more who she is. her experiences are clearly similar to isi's so her name should get the same treatment.

actually, this is a bit off topic n feel free to stop reading but since we mentioned lou being cis (or not), i wanna bring up my annoyance w this too like... in the first clip she was in i think we all assumed she was also nonbinary? and was going to be a role model for isi or just the sort of person to open that door for isi, a bit like eskild. and yeah she sort of did do that, she was an integral part of isi daring to be themselves more but her gender identity was never brought up at all which is kind of a problem imo regarding the fact that isi's identity was barely explored either.

bc due to the lack of talk abt lou's gender i assume she's supposed to be cis. and i mean not every form of representation has to be explicitly stated on screen but u'd think that if the person helping a nonbinary person live more freely as themselves is also nonbinary, they should mention that... like the whole point of isi & lou's friendship is that they're very similar their experiences overlap, the gnc clothes, just unusual style in general, using a different name, getting judged/or being afraid of judgment for being themselves. so... it would've made sense for lou to be like btw i'm nonbinary n then it starts clicking for isi like wait so the first person who truly understands this side of me and who i relate to is nonbinary? could this say smth abt me?

but bc her identity was never explained she just comes off as a cis gnc girl (and now to make sure everyone here has reading comprehension: i don't mean that being cis is the default for characters or that they can't be trans unless explicitly stated to be so, but the whole paragraph above was me explaining why in the context of this specific season, it doesn't work to make her identity subtext and it should be explicitly stated if she is anything but cis) which makes the nonbinary "rep" in the season seem even worse somehow.

like don't get me wrong ofc nonbinary ppl can have experiences in common with cis or trans gnc ppl but since isi never even said "i think i'm nonbinary" or anything like that it's a bit... annoying that the person they relate to when it comes to gender/gender expression is apparently a cis gnc person. bc then HOW are young nonbinary ppl watching the season supposed to make the distinction for themselves like i relate to this but am i like lou who just wants to be gnc or am i like isi who's trans/or how are uneducated but open minded cis ppl supposed to grasp the difference between gnc ppl and nonbinary ppl*. like i'll be honest here. if i didn't know abt eren's identity, i probably would've thought that isi is a gnc guy for the majority of the season specifically bc they get the support and strength from a gnc cis person. n i'd assume instead of struggling w gender identity they were struggling w gender norms. like they rly should've either confirmed that lou is nonbinary as well OR confirmed that shes cis and had isi talk w her abt how regardless of their similar experiences they actually feel like they're not cis.

*and one more media literacy check point bc i don't wanna have to explain my point over and over again: not all shows have to hold the audience's hand and walk them through the identities of the characters. sometimes u have lgbt characters that just exist and fight monsters or go on adventures w/o ever having a conversation abt the specifics of their identity & experiences but skam has always been an educational show and aimed at young ppl to represent them. from my understanding this is even more significant for druck since funk (?) is funded by taxes & their whole thing is making educational content. so in this context it actually is important to explore the main character's identity.

i'm sorry this got so long especially since half of this had nothing to do w ur original ask but i've been thinking abt the whole cis lou thing n this seemed like a good time to write abt it w/o having to make a whole post abt it

[dkettchen]

Why hello everyone! Today’s book club!

This time we watched 13th, a documentary about the US prison system and its history. For next time we’ll be watching Astronomy Club (2019), a sketch comedy show with an all-black main cast full of amazing funny people.

Ally book club is a space for allies to learn and share together on their allyship journey. The usual rules apply, don’t be a dick to people, we’re here to support and encourage not to argue and alienate!

Please share in the replies below any thoughts or things you’ve learnt watching 13th!

I’ll go first:

Right, before I talk about anything more serious, I loved the backgrounds they put the interviewees in front of, aesthetically beautiful, dignifying, very good, very poignant, props to whoever was in charge of that, BUT, why did they have to sit that one poor man on that heater, it must’ve been so uncomfortable, interviews tend to take a While even if they’re edited down, I hope they got him a pillow at least.

Now on to actual serious points lol:

I like how it managed to package the BLM issues in a very Political™, Economic™, and hence Rational™ way by going over that part of the history (i.e. focus on political and economic causes rather than/before the emotional (and other) trauma caused by them), to appeal to the kind of people that social justice content usually fails to reach (emotionally illiterate men that is, generally) who appreciate Facts™, Logic™, (perceived) Objectivity™ (there’s no such thing as objectivity but the kinda ppl who talk abt it tend to believe otherwise so alas), and lbr conspiracy theories. This is the same approach that something like Adam Ruins Everything uses, to correct false narratives by laying out the real, just as convoluted and fucked up ones. It’s a very effective strategy!

I feel like 13th also did a better job here in some of the aspects I had criticisms with Disclosure. Disclosure presented itself as very objectively looking at all of the trans representation and lack there-of in Hollywood, but ultimately ended up scewed towards black trans (binary) rep and away from nonbinary rep, which would be fine, it’s fine to talk about any part of the community, and it makes sense to scew it towards your own (here Laverne’s) part of it, BUT ultimately while its good for the trans-binary BlPOC, it still sucks for, and erases the experiences and importance within the community of, nonbinary people (including black nonbinary people!) to only get a honorary mention of “they exist too”. 13th did that too to an extent, with non-black POC, but the difference is, the history of racism in the US is almost entirely based in the racism against black and indigenous people, the history of using criminalisation to further racism is based in anti-black racism, so it makes sense to focus on black people and then give an honorable mention to any other groups that also ended up being collateral damage to this system & its consequences. It focuses on the clearly most-targeted group in this subject, Disclosure didn’t, because it’s not that straight forward with trans stuff. Our history is shaped by the fact that we were all synonymous to the public consciousness, regardless of specific identity or kind of androgyny, there is no one singular group in trans history that we’d differentiate as such today that had it significantly worse than the others, and there’s plenty today that have it similarly bad as each other but in different ways. 

Another thing about 13th that kind of took me off-guard but makes sense, is the (historic) focus of black activism on humanisation. As someone who used to be more ignorant than I am today, the thing with ignorance is you don’t actively ignore people, you just don’t think of them if you’re not exposed to them in your own life and the media is controlled by their outgroup who misrepresents them. I grew up in a country where (at least back then, and also for classism connected to immigration reasons) I didn’t have any black people in my life, other than the occasional stranger on a bus or one or two kids in other classes of my year group that I didn’t know, and media rep in the early 2000s wasn’t exactly good for anyone who wasn’t a (more or less) gender conforming, monoamorous, allo, cis, binary, straight, able-bodied, neurotypical, thin, white, natively-english-speaking person (yes that’s the list, try and match all of them I dare ya x’D), so any black rep I got through that wasn’t exactly representing authentic black voices, it was representing black bodies. It’s so useful to be able to hear people talk about their own shit, to have their own voice, both in real life and in media, like- I find this dissonance in my own bias between silent strangers and people whose voices I know. I still experience bias with strangers but not at all (as far as that’s possible I guess) when it comes to friends or creators I’m used to of the same group. And I feel like the former is getting better the more reference of people who look like them I get. Now if I see a stranger of a group that I have a bunch of friends in and I try to imagine what their life might be like, instead of having to wonder, and running into that wall of ignorance, I can think “hey! maybe they’re kinda like (people I know), who I know is a lovely person, going about their life, doin stuff, being great, struggling, being human.” It’s wild that people have been trying to make that happen for so long and somehow we’re still working on seeing each other as literally just also people

[sophygurl]

Okay, time for me to try and remember all the stuff I wanted to make sure and say about my lovely time at WisCon 43 this past weekend. 

Generally, I was just so pleased to once again get to extrovert all over the place in a space filled with amazing people. I got to hang out in my adjoining room full of my pals where we got to touch base with one another between running off to do other things and download our days to one another each evening. I got to enjoy several nice meals with friends I rarely get to see and acquaintances that I admire and respect. I got to have fascinating conversations with combinations of friends, acquaintances, and strangers in the lobby and at parties and in the hot tub. I got to sit on panels with intelligent and creative people with all different perspectives. I got to show off fun outfits and feast my eyes on everyone else’s cool shit and do the smile-and-wave at people I only see once a year even if we never got the chance to actually sit down and talk. I got to meet lots of new people and have adding frenzies on twitter and just generally delight to my heart’s content in awesome smart nerdy people who are also feminists with intersectional leanings - many of whom were also disabled and/or queer in a variety of ways. This is all what I just adore about WisCon so much. And it did not disappoint. 

Being my 10th WisCon, I have stopped being utterly shocked that people might know/remember me. But I’m still a little bit amazed and delighted by it - especially when it comes from folks who I admire a lot and also have not spoken to more than once or twice. I know some people are just better at remembering and recognizing people than I am? But it still never fails to impress me!

I was a little less schedule-y with myself this year than usual. Which is not to say that I didn’t have full written schedules of all the things I wanted to do (planning is my favorite of my OCD symptoms so...). But I was a lot more flexible about doing things like walking in late to a panel because I got excited to sit outside and talk to someone I ran into in the halls beforehand or leaving a panel early if I felt like I wanted to take my time getting to the next thing. I may have still written down all of the things I wanted to be doing in any given time slot and prioritized them in order - BUT I played it by ear at each time and often did a totally different thing. lol

I still did lots of panels! In fact, I find I get to so many panels that I don’t spend as much time just doing hang-out activities as much as I’d like because there is only so much time in a day. I once again never made it to the trans/genderqueer/non-binary space and only went to the disability space the one time for the organized dinner. Ah, maybe next year!

I also still took notes during the panels I went to, but not as copiously as usual, and my handwriting is getting worse all the time so we’ll see how/if my panel write-ups go this year. 

Getting my new walker the day before the con made a huge difference! It’s been two years since my previous walker broke down and I for sure noticed the difference in how much easier it was for me to get around to have one again. 

On the other end of things, I have really gotten used to my hospital bed and having to sort out how to sleep in a regular bed again was an adventure in positioning various cushions and pillows and blankets around and requiring more lidocaine for nerves that got bungled up. But it worked(ish). 

I also broke the toilet in our room. As in, neither plunging nor snaking did the trick and the maintenance guy had to take our toilet apart and cart it off and put a different one in it’s place. The replacement toilet was not currently in use for reasons that soon became obvious - lots of gurgling noises and self-flushing going on. But at least it flushed! 

A few more specific things:

I found a pair of hot pink denim capri’s at the clothing swap that I’m excited to try out! 

I discovered that my habit of suggesting lots of panel descriptions is more of a thing than I realized. Like, I knew I wrote a lot - I just didn’t realize how much more than the other average con-goer that was. I can’t decide if I should be more embarrassed or pleased/proud of this? But either way, it’s not going to stop me and I already have a huge list of ideas to write up for next year, so. 

Only made it to one party, but glad I got to that one. I find I don’t have the physical energy for dance parties anymore and have never been a huge fan of the sit around and make small talk parties, but the Secret Superhero party that Alexandra Erin and co. throw every year is a good one because 1) they give people Stuff To Do which helps cover for all manner of social awkwardness and 2) there’s already built-in a few people I know and can reliably socialize with a little bit so I have less of that tendency to walk in - peek around - see no one I know (or only see ppl I know already talking to other people) - get intimidated - and leave. 

Had planned to go to a lunch meeting for people to yell about The Magicians (of which I have a feeling my opinions would have largely been contradictory), but accidentally wandered off to lunch with other people without realizing I’d done so! Hopefully the 3 people I wandered off with did not feel as though I’d tagged along uninvited, but I certainly enjoyed the chance to get to know them all a little better. 

Once again did not make it to the Vid Party, but DID make it to the Vid Deep Dive panel, which was great. And have watched a bunch of the vids on the list now and am super excited about vids in general again and am hopeful that this will lead me to actually using my YouTube and AO3 accounts to specifically watch and fangirl over vids more. Vids are like magic to me and vidders like wizards - I am so in awe of their talent I cannot. 

Had some really interesting conversations about religion and fandom throughout the con - starting with my panel on the use of religion in SFF TV shows, dovetailing into a fascinating conversation down at the pool, and ending with some thinky thoughts coming out of the Antisemitism at WisCon panel. Possibly more on that later. Also possibly some more panels on the subject for next year?

Lots of panel topics and conversations this year ended up being about the combination of two subjects very close to my heart: 1) hope and/or redemption, and 2) community. Again, possibly more later and certainly some intriguing panel ideas for the coming year. 

I did buy two books this year! Budget does not always allow for book buying, but I did good on the food budget, so I allowed myself two during the sign-out. They were both from people I like to presume to call friends, which is always a nice plus - to buy directly from someone you want to support financially as well as personally. I got First Dates, Last Calls by Alexandra Erin which I’m excited to read and The Apocalypse coloring and activity book by Theo Nicole Lorenz which I’m excited to color!

I had wanted to get Laurie Mark’s final book in the Elemental Logic series Air Logic, along with the 3rd book (since a friend is planning to gift me the first 2 in the series), because Air Logic has just come out and the author and/or publisher were going to be at-con but by the time I got the Dealer’s room they were not there and by the time I left the sign-out they had not gotten there so it was not meant to be. But I still plan to get those books because I ADORE the series so far and am excited about the 4th. (I actually asked my library to purchase the book and am on the first on the holds list to get it once it’s in, so at least I’ll be able to read it soon if not actually own a copy)

As evidenced by my post the other day, I was thinking a lot about conversations being held about making sure more diverse voices are being heard during panels. I don’t have a lot of advice re: making sure more folks from more marginalized groups show up. But I find I did have a lot to say about making sure the panels folks are on end up being inclusive of many voices whether or not those ppl show up to be on the programming itself. And - I suspect - doing the latter well enough will help to foster more of the former as people will feel safer to come and share their perspectives as well as not feel like they have to always BE The Diversity Voice on every panel they choose to attend/be on. But I am a cis white chick, and I feel like it was mostly trans and poc folks these conversations were about, so I am eager to hear what other people have to say about all of this as and if they’re willing to share. 

I tend not to make it to GoH speeches or the Tiptree Auction because I have trouble with sitting still in a large room crowded with people type events. But as expected, even reading the text of Charlie Jane Anders’ speech made me weep with hope and joy and I hope G. Willow Wilson shares hers at some point so that I might also weep at hers. Those GoH speeches are always so inspiring and thrilling. I love this community. I am so grateful I became a part of it. I hope we can just always always keep growing and doing better to and for one another. 

Panels that I may or may not end up writing up a little about in the days to come: 

(the tail end of) Capitalism is Fueled by Anxiety

Favorite Queer Depictions in Fiction

Polyamory and Alternative Relationships

(the first half-ish of) New Pop Culture for Old Farts

Learning to Hear the Dog Whistle

Mental Illness in SFF

Vid Discussion Deep Dive

Antisemitism at WisCon

(parts of) The 116th Congress

Plus the five panels I was on, which will be less notes and more impressions: Killing Eve, Use of Religion in SFF TV, How to Write a Panel, Found Family, and Speculative Fiction on TV [also the spontaneous The Umbrella Academy panel which was small and informal but still really cool!]

[freedom-of-fanfic]

I'm curious for your thoughts on this subject. I dislike the way antis use the term "yaoi" and "fujoshi" since I feel like these terms were created to mean specific things (in Japanese culture) and antis often apply it without considering differences between slash and yaoi. Also, I dislike the way they use yaoi to pretty much mean fetishizing mlm/content, and fujoshi as fetishizing women since both terms are from Japan and I feel weird seeing these terms associated with fetishizing.

I also am really bothered by the way English fandom has adopted genre words from Japan to mean ‘the worst version of [x]/fans of [x]’. it feels like a form of looking down anything coming from Japan/Japanese culture and treating Japanese culture as the source of these ‘worst versions’.

(a lot of what follows is from light research I’ve done over the years and personal experience. It’s my opinion and experiences rather than a closely researched and heavily sourced essay.)

I think the reason for this weird English-speaking take is two-fold:

Americans/western culture interprets the Japanese subgenre ‘yaoi’ and its Japanese creators & fans through the lens of American/western culture and finds them wanting

the reinterpretation of the concept of ‘yaoi’ and ‘fujoshi’ in American/western culture and the unfortunate associations created as a result

Without going into historical depth, any western - particularly American - interaction with Japanese culture is an unequal one. Besides the ignominious end of WWII, the American army was the means of forcing Japan to reopen their borders in the 1850′s. And frankly: western culture has been obsessed with Japanese culture (and other East Asian cultures) for literal centuries. and we’ve been taking their cool shit and appropriating and bastardizing it for just as long.[$] 

the way that the words ‘yaoi’ and ‘fujoshi’ are being treated now is, in my opinion, an extension of this.

(this post was heavily updated on August 2-3rd, 2018, to add a lot more about the word ‘fujoshi’: it originally focused more on ‘yaoi’. huge thanks to blogs like @rottenboysclub​, @oh-suketora​, and @satans-tiddies​ for all the information they’ve put out on tumblr about these words.[%] )

American understanding of yaoi in Japan & its Japanese fans

Americans don’t understand yaoi or fujoshi in their original Japanese context, but we belittle and denigrate it as if we do.

BL (Boy’s Love) and its subgenre ‘yaoi’ seem to have a similar relationship to Japanese fans as ‘slashfic’ and mlm fiction does to American fans. But that doesn’t mean we understand yaoi/BL in the context of Japanese culture or that we interact with yaoi/BL the same way Japanese fans do.  Same for the word ‘fujoshi’ - a term that seems to have been coined in a derogatory context but was ‘reclaimed’ by the very female-aligned fans that it was meant to denigrate. (but more on ‘fujoshi’ later.)

In Japan, the word ‘yaoi’ is more equivalent to a Japanese acronym for the English ‘pwp’ (plot? what plot?) than a word referring to mlm. Like ‘pwp’ in its original usage, ‘yaoi’ indicates a fanwork or small-time/one-shot original work (doujinshi) that has little to no plot and/or focuses almost exclusively on the sex part of a fictional ship, though ‘yaoi’ is specifically applied to mlm-focused ‘plotless’ fanworks*.

(*it’s worth noting that - as mentioned in the wiki link above - the word ‘yaoi’ does not, on its own, have a meaning attached to BL. it has more to do with who adopted the acronym for common use: specifically, BL doujin writers.)

‘yaoi’ has fallen out of use in Japanese fan circles. ‘BL’ - ‘boy’s love’ - is the word which is more of an umbrella term for mlm in the way ‘slash’ is in English-speaking fandom, covering everything from explicit sex to soft pre-romance hand-holding. however, ‘yaoi’ was the word that became known as the Japanese-equivalent mlm fan genre to ‘slash’ in English-speaking circles, which had the unfortunate effect of leading English-speaking animanga fans to compare only the most tropey, explicit mlm content from Japanese fandom against all varieties of mlm ‘slash’ content from English-speaking fandom.

This was comparing apples to oranges; a more equivalent Western fandom comparison to Japanese ‘yaoi’ would probably be silly oneshot crackfic and kinkmeme fics. But the misapprehension was already in place and only got worse as some of the tropes of the explicit versions of yaoi genre doujinshi became increasingly known - the ‘seme’ (’top’) and ‘uke’ (’bottom’) and their supposedly male/female-like roles, the ‘rapey’ tendency to show the uke as crying and reluctant under an aggressive seme, etc.

These kinds of tropes don’t sit well with a modern American audience. And Japanese bl fans have had their own conversations about whether bl/yaoi is harmful to or supportive of Japanese gay culture (and long before Western / English-speaking fandom circles were having them, at least in a widespread way.)

But Americans are ill-equipped to judge the situation from the sidelines. To provide a few examples of things we generally don’t have cultural context on to truly understand yaoi (BL, tbh) and its Japanese fans:

LGBTQ+ culture in Japan

the Japanese flavor of gender essentialism

social and societal pressures on Japanese people, particularly women (trans, cis, and intersex) & nb ppl who identify as femme-aligned

what it means to be ‘feminine’ in Japan

strongly gendered roles in the bedroom (sex in Japan)

Without knowing all this, how can we understand why yaoi (or BL) is constructed the way it is? how can we understand what draws people to it, or how it sits with Japanese LGBTQ people?

But because many yaoi tropes don’t sit well with Americans in the context of our own culture and increasing openness to LGBT+/queer people, and because we’ve given yaoi a false equivalence with a western genre of fiction that has a much wider range of subject and form, we’re apt to look down on yaoi as ‘bad mlm’ and on its ‘fujoshi’ fans as genuinely ‘rotten women’.

The international reinterpretation of ‘yaoi’ & international yaoi fans

the other way the word ‘yaoi’ is used by many people in fandom-centric tumblr - anti and non-anti alike - is in reference to how Americans/Western fans ‘initially’ interacted with Japanese-sourced mlm (’initially’ being when yaoi became well-known enough for a noticeable interaction to appear in American/western geek subculture).

Manga and anime had a popularity boom in the US around 2003/2004 thanks to improving internet speeds and the 24-hour cartoon channel Cartoon Network looking for fresh animated content to air. Media companies caught on and a glut of manga and anime were officially licensed, translated, and sold overseas.

As the popularity of Japanese media grew, the word ‘yaoi’ became more popular and widely used in fandom circles, usually as a substitute for ‘slash’ or ‘gay’ (fictional mlm) when the source material for the fannish subject was Japanese in origin. I think this hit its peak around 2006-2007; at that time many teenage and young adult anime fans (primarily female/femme) who enjoyed slashfic/mlm fic called themselves ‘yaoi fans’. 

Why was ‘yaoi’ so popular in America/western culture? and why did its fans get such an awful reputation over time?

as for popularity, here’s a few aspects: 

Just another word for ‘slash’ - it wasn’t so much that yaoi as a publishing genre was popular as that there were a lot anime fans in fandom using the word ‘yaoi’ for their mlm fan content instead of the word ‘slash’. (and it still is used this way in some circles.)

male-attracted teen’s first fanservice - because of the size of the boom and the comparative diffidence of American marketers to young (male-attracted) people, a young anime fan’s first published media experience with the sexual ‘female gaze’ directed towards men was more likely to be sourced in Japanese BL content.

American gaze on Japanese male companionship - manga geared towards young men / perceived men in Japan (such as Shonen Jump titles) features a lot of male companionship and tight bonds of friendship. So does American media, but American male culture rarely allows men to touch one another in friendly ways (any gentle touch from a cis man is treated as expressing sexual interest).  Japanese male friendship culture lacks this physical distance. Guess how it was interpreted, and guess what kind of effect it had on American anime/manga fandom.

relatedly, this LGBT/queer read on Japanese-sourced masc-centric content, plus the willingness of works aimed towards femme audiences to present all-but-canon mlm relationships, probably functioned as a poor man’s substitute for the lack of LGBT representation in American media in some cases.

and some reasons for the terrible reputation ‘yaoi fans’ garnered:

American ‘yaoi fans’ in the mid-2000′s were mostly teenage girls/femme-aligned young people, and it is an American pastime to shit on teenage girls for being teenagers and girls at the same time.

10 years on, those teenage girls are young adults in their 20′s looking back on their younger selves with embarrassed disgust. That is: the word ‘yaoi’ started to garner its sour taste in the 2010′s because that’s when most of the teenagers of the 2000′s outgrew that particular flavor of immaturity.

a lack of LGBT/queer culture awareness and education in America. Yaoi or slash fanworks may have been Baby’s First Gay Content. It also might have been the entire extent of their knowledge about non-straight anything because America had by no means the same level of LGBT/queer visibility that it does now and certainly didn’t (doesn’t) educate about it. people said and did some awful stuff out of sheer ignorance and lack of thought.

fandom got better about it because resources improved and visibility increased, which was itself in some measure because of the popularity of mlm fiction in fandom circles leading to people doing more research and queer fans educating those who knew less. BL wasn’t necessarily intended as queer rep, but it did act as a gateway to queer culture for people who discovered things about themselves through BL.

socially inappropriate behavior of many, many kinds - including those who refused to separate fiction and reality and treated real mlm like live fanservice (‘omg real life yaoi!’). But as an icon of ‘yaoi fan in the 2000′s cringe culture’, perhaps nothing is so prominent and well-known as the ‘yaoi paddle’.

why is the yaoi paddle so illustrative and iconic? Well - the paddles were sold at anime conventions as a silly novelty item. Anime convention attendees tended (and still tend) to skew young, particularly compared to other nerdy social gatherings.  And as you would expect of a bunch of (a) overexcited young people (b) relatively lacking in supervision and (c ) surrounded by things liable to raise their excitement levels even more, they did a lot of foolish things when handed wooden oars that were easy to swing around and hit people with.

At about the same time that anime fandom was truly exploding in size and the yaoi paddle craze was hitting its peak, the internet was juuust about bandwidth friendly enough to allow people to take videos and upload them to this awesome new site ‘youtube’.

I’d say ‘you can imagine what kinds of videos people uploaded’ but you don’t have to imagine. you can see for yourself. The human interest news articles practically wrote themselves. And while yaoi paddles were quickly banned from conventions and their popularity dropped almost as fast, it was an impression to linger. particularly, IMO, combined with other invasive social behaviors that were somewhat more tolerated at anime conventions back then: ‘glomping’, ‘free hugs!’ signs, awkwardly following relative strangers around conventions as nominal ‘friends’, cosplayers publicly ‘making out’ as ‘fanservice’, etc.*

so this is the image of the ‘yaoi fan’ today - a young, white American cis girl at an anime convention in 2007, lacking self-restraint, social grace, and the ability to distinguish fiction from reality. and though this image has little to do with the original Japanese concept, we use the Japanese word to conjure it.

*these behaviors weren’t limited to young female / perceived female ‘yaoi fans’ by any means, but partially because of yaoi paddles, ‘cringe culture’ and ‘yaoi fangirls’ were inexorably linked to one another.

International (mis)use of ‘Fujoshi’: a Brief History

In contrast with ‘yaoi’, the word ‘fujoshi’ has a comparatively short history in American culture. It had a brief rise to popularity in the early- to mid- 2010′s, but for the past year or two it has been heavily invoked by the (so to speak) ‘fandom police’ as an invective against (perceived) women who ship fictional mlm and/or create explicit fictional mlm fanworks.

‘fujoshi’ (  腐女子 ) is a compound word composed of the kanji/hanzi for ‘rotten’/’fermented’ (腐) and ‘woman’ (女子 ) and is a homonym with an old Japanese word for ‘respectable woman’ (婦女子 ).  It was coined on 2ch (a Japanese text board popular with men) to insult (perceived) female fans who ‘queered’ media content written for & centered around men: re-imagining (canon straight) male characters as queer/gay/bi, shipping them with one another, and discussing/creating explicit, sexual work around those ships. (sound familiar?)

In its original insulting context, a ‘fujoshi’ was woman who was no longer a desirable marriage partner because of her interest in BL. She had ruined herself by marinating in sexual fantasies - and not even normal sexual fantasies about having sex with a man herself. Instead, she had fantasies about men having sex with men! Not only had a fujoshi woman lost her cute naivete and innocence: she’d also turned into a sexual deviant. She was fermented, overripe, disgusting, undesirable.

I don’t know how long this meaning had any clout, because Japanese BL fans - BL fans from all over Asia, in fact - embraced the ‘fujoshi’ label. to me, the implication of the ‘fujoshi’ reclamation reads like a giant, queer ‘fuck you’ to the kind of dudebros who hated them: ‘you find me undesirable because i like gay/queer content? That’s hilarious, because I never wanted you in the first place.’ 

And to this day (mid-2018), 'fu’/ 腐, ’fujo’/ 腐女, and its varieties (腐男子, 腐人, etc) have positive connotations in kanji/hanzi-using fandom circles.

The word ‘fujoshi’ reached English-speaking Western fandom eventually (I want to say in the late 2000′s/early 2010′s). It came to us already reclaimed and was picked up as a positive self-label. In those earlier days, Western fandom called themselves ‘fujoshi’ in a way much more similar to how Eastern fandom still uses it: 

It’s not my job to please you.

I’m allowed to enjoy taboo things like queer fanworks, headcanoning canon straight male characters as gay, and sexually explicit content.

If you think that makes me gross, then fine: i’m gross. your opinion doesn’t hurt me. in fact, I embrace it.

(now go away and let me ship.)

this connotation of ‘fujoshi’ enjoyed a brief period of popularity. There was a fandom ‘sweet spot’ for slash in 2011-2012: shifts in public opinion meant shipping gay ships wasn’t utterly taboo anymore and AO3 was a safe space for sharing slashfic. ‘Fujoshi’ came to semi-replace ‘yaoi fan’ in the English lexicon, at this time, becoming synonymous with ‘ships gay ships in animanga fandoms’, with the added bonus of partially shedding the connotation of loving old yaoi doujin tropes in one’s slashfic.

But in the last few years - starting in around 2014/2015, I want to say - there was a shift in the attitude towards shipping mlm here on tumblr. 

mlm fans who are seen as women - whether they are or not - are increasingly told that shipping fictional slash ships or creating fictional content about men in love with/having sex with men is terrible. mlm shippers/fanwork creators who aren’t mlm themselves - especially perceived-female mlm shippers/fanwork creators - are apparent no different from the ‘yaoi fangirl’ stereotype above: the 2007 cis white socially awkward fangirl, holding a yaoi paddle and screaming with excitement about real life yaoi!!! whenever two real gay men kiss.

the word ‘fujoshi’ - still tied to the English-speaking concept of ‘yaoi’ by both words being Japanese in origin and related to mlm fan content - was about to get unreclaimed with a vengeance … by American/Western fans with hardly a drop of knowledge about Japanese culture, fandom, or language.

And it’s been every bit as ugly as you can imagine.

‘yaoi’ and ‘fujoshi’ on tumblr today (mid-2018)

fandom on tumblr, deeply into policing everyone’s fannish interests in the name of social awareness, invokes ‘yaoi’ in a two-fold way:

‘yaoi’ as a doujinshi subgenre in Japan: featuring fictional mlm in sexual situations for titillation written by Japanese women (& femme-identifying nb people) for Japanese women (& femme-identifying nb people), and the distasteful feelings American/western culture bears towards its tropes as being unacceptably unrealistic and ‘backwards’ by modern progressive American standards.

‘yaoi’ as ‘cringe culture’: an imperialistic American/western read on Japanese media content + exposure to Japanese BL, blending unfavorably with a lack of education on real LGBT/queer culture, a lack of alternative LGBT/queer media representation, and teenagers being teenagers

Tumblr fandom police, feeling that ‘fujoshi’ was equally bad as ‘yaoi’ by dint of being adopted as a label by animanga slashfic fans & as another Japanese word relating to mlm shipping, proceeded to co-opt, redefine, and ‘un-claim’ the word ‘fujoshi’:

‘fujoshi’, but literally. having gotten wind of the literal meaning of the word ‘fujoshi’, but completely lacking the context under which the word was created, invoked, and reclaimed, fandom policers designated their own negative meaning for ‘rotten girl’. ‘fujoshi’ means ‘straight girl that’s rotten because she fetishizes gay men!’ fandom policers say - even though that has literally nothing to do with ‘fujoshi’ in its proper context.

telling East Asian fujoshi they can’t call themselves fujoshi. having decided the word ‘fujoshi’ is tied to being homophobic (by ‘fetishizing’ gay romance), and that its derogatory of women because they rely on their own re-take on the literal, negative meaning, American fandom policers start attacking East Asian fans that proudly call themselves fujoshi. (I wish I was joking.)

In summary, English-speaking fans are using their own twisted, ill-informed, and imperialistic treatment and understanding of Japanese concepts to turn those words into pejoratives for use in petty ship wars.

(And when you put it like that it kind of starts to look a little … well … racist.)

[%] This post was never intended as an exhaustive resource - as noted at the beginning of the post, it was based on my absorbed knowledge from being in animanga fandom as an American for many years - but thanks to the blogs I listed, who have a much more thorough knowledge of kanji / hanzi-using fan spaces such as Japan/China/Taiwan, Korea (in part), etc, I learned a lot about the current usage of ‘yaoi’ (or lack thereof) in Japan & how fujoshi was adopted as a popular label over the last 9 months.

If you’re ever looking for more information on these topics, I would especially point you to @rottenboysclub, as their blog is focused on educating English-speaking fandom on Japanese queer/LGBT+ and fandom terminology.

[$] regarding western tendency to appropriate Japanese culture - Japan is eager to export the unique aspects of their culture. but how many times have you seen an English article with titles like ‘10 Reasons Why Japan is So Weird’ or ‘25 Weird Things About Japan that will make you say ‘buy why?’’ (the literacy rate in Japan being nearly 100% is #3 on this list). and okay - Japanese culture is remarkably different from American culture. But this ‘Japan is so weird’ talk is often accompanied by a tone of mild superiority.

consider how we treat Japanese cultural products such as movies. The recent Death Note debacle is only the latest in a long string of this kind of nonsense (though thank goodness it’s getting the reputation it deserves.) Remember The Ring? American remake of Ringu. And of course there’s dozens of other examples of Americans buying or taking things from its original Japanese context and trying to make it ‘better’ for a mainstream American audience, even though the American audience liked the original Japanese product just fine. (Dragonball Z comes to mind.)

(On the flip side you have ‘weaboos/weebs’, the contemporary word for ‘Japanophiles’, putting Japanese culture on a pedestal, which is not any better, and disgust with ‘weebs’ tends to be extended to the aspects of Japanese culture they worship.)

[aroacemisha]

If you claim to be an ally to trans people, you have to support ALL trans people.

That includes supporting both binary AND non-binary trans people, and it includes supporting trans poc, religious trans ppl, mentally ill trans ppl, neurodivergent trans ppl, disabled trans ppl, etc. And it also includes supporting trans people of all shapes and sizes, not just the conventionally attractive ones or the ones that fit your idea of what a trans/nb person should look like.

This is not to say that you can't criticize trans people if you support them. Critizing a trans person's actions is, obviously, valid. But also if a trans person does something you don't like, that does NOT give you an excuse to misgender or deadname them.

Are there terrible people in the trans community? Yeah. J*ssica Y*niv comes to mind right away. But as terrible as people like her are, it does not give you the right or excuse to misgender them. At least because their actions are terrible regardless of whether they're trans or cis, and regardless of what gender they identify as.

The idea that "pronouns have to be earned" is a transphobic one, because it's only ever applied to trans people, to whom pronouns matter way more than to a cis person, which makes it feel worse when it's used against them. This idea is just cis people trying to find an excuse to misgender trans people.

Another reason why that idea is terrible is that being constantly misgendered and/or deadnamed can and most likely WILL negatively affect a trans person's mental health. Trans people who are respected and referred to by their chosen name and pronouns are happier than trans people who get constantly misgendered. The latter are far more likely to be suicidal.

TL;DR: LOVE AND RESPECT TRANS PEOPLE.

And more general advice, rather than waiting for people to earn your respect, respect them unless they prove to be unworthy of it. Whether they're cis or trans/nb.

[britshits]

do you think cis muns can play trans/nb chars? i know this opinion varies but i remember coming across a post that said cis muns shouldn't and now i see a lot of that happening

boy, oh boy… this question …………………….. is like 110% up for debate ?? hell, im not 100% on where i personally stand bc there are legit SO MANY FACTORS ??? pls don’t read this thinking it’s gospel bc it’s truly not and ik this gon turn into some long ass semi-rant, so scroll for a tl;dr, but … [ cracks knuckles ] let’s gO !

i’ll be 100% real n say that i am always, always going to be uber picky when i come across cis muns playing trans/nb muses. i instinctively raise my hackles and put everything they do under the microscope, mainly bc they ( obviously ) don’t have first-hand experience of the pressures / prejudices / issues / feelings etc. that are exclusive to our community, so they have a tendency to fall into all the harmful tropes when it comes to trans characters—and, without that innate understanding of our struggles, they don’t see how these things can be damaging. there’s also the whole issue of the media perpetuating this bs, so really, while research can do wonders, it’s never gonna be a catch-all solution.

that’s not to say i don’t think that cis people can write solid, unproblematic trans characters. i have most definitely met people who are cis who’ve played wonderful trans and/or non binary charries, whom i adored and would educate themselves and readily listen to any tips that i or other trans people gave them. i actually haven’t met a cis person who has played a non binary muse in a way i have an issue with so far. ik that there’s a general issue in the rpc with people changing their charrie from cis to nb to fill a ratio, which is a Mess and a Half, and ofc the assumption that the character’s assigned sex at birth matches that of the face claim. but, other than that nasty business, the majority of cis ppl playing nb charries are #tight and willing to learn, at least as far as i’ve experienced.

when it comes to binary trans muses tho … lmfa o ….. where do i even begin ?? like idk what it is about cis ppl but a lot of them are just absolutely OBSESSED with what’s goin on in a trans person’s pants ?? i mentioned this in another ask, but bruh… if i had a pound for every time some1 has fuckcin offhandedly brought up / alluded to my charrie’s downstairs configuration when we’re plotting, i’d have enough money to buy this blue hellsite and shut it tf down like i goddamn want to, but anyway !! the reason i bring this up is bc i see so many ppl who have this approach with their own characters—i.e. fetishising them. i mean if ur trans, u do u man, sexualising ur charrie is ur prerogative ?? but fuc k n cis ppl doing this…………………….. mmm hooo my go dd … do u realise how disgusting and nasty this shit is ??????? i mean trans ppl have enough shit w/ ppl sexualising us irl ( esp. trans women !! they literally have it so fuckn rough w/ tht i cant even begin 2 describe ) so like, leave it out of rp thx ???

but nope !!! y’all can’t do that !!!!!!!! (((((((((: tbh in the rpc, most of the bs seems to affect trans male muses, as far as i’ve seen. i think it’s partly bc trans female muses are so few and far between, which is an issue in and of itself, but also bc a lot of the rpc is so fuckin guilty of the nasty obsession with m/m ships. it’s usually cishet girls who pull this shit and they pull it w/ all males tbh, like they legit use gay guys as a fuckn object like “OMG !!!! GAYSZ !!! SO CUT E I LOVE THEM !!! COME SHIP W/ ME I LOVE GAY BOYZ !!! :’)” lmfaooo miss me w/ this shit !!! u wanna chat about lesbians being fetishised by cishet men and yet u only give a fuck about mlm when they’re being a cutesy lil otps or banging it out so u can flick ur bean hmm ?? i see u. but yeah, it’s not exclusively cishet girls who do this shit… like, cis ppl in general are pretty shit at playing trans males, specifically. like you’re lucky to find a single starter that isn’t tagged as “indie smut rp” or “indie gay rp” or if their threads aren’t laced with sexualised scenarios or worse… the dreaded C-Word. like bruh if ur not a trans male u literally have no business using that word regarding ur muse. ever.

tbh 99% of the time they don’t even realise just how gross they’re being, bc, as i mentioned before, they don’t have any concept of what it’s like to be trans and how gross and intrusive ppl can be towards us. they think that it’s just the same as writing any character and that they can sexualise them if they want to, without realising that .. it’s very different when you’re outside that community. you’re not exploring an aspect of your identity, so much as reducing someone else’s to a very, very small sector of theirs and then using it for entertainment.

tl;dr: it’s literally a clusterfuck of nope tbh and, on a personal lvl, i’m almost at the point of thinking it would be better if cis ppl don’t play trans charries, bc the bad far outweighs the good in terms of how harmful it can be. that said, i do not think that telling cis ppl not to play trans characters is the right thing to do, bc of the following:

the people who do the disgusting things i’ve mentioned above or anything else that’s nasty don’t listen to us anyway, so it’s not gonna solve that problem.

it reinforces the “write what you know” mantra, which i think we can all agree is so old n outdated in 2k17.

sometimes writing characters is how people manage to learn new things about themselves. i’ve actually met people who, through their character research, have realised that they identify as non binary or trans. having an outlet for feelings they may be having really helps some ppl along.

lastly, and what i personally believe to be the crux of this issue, is that by trying to police something like this you are essentially forcing disclosure of ooc gender. not everyone is comfortable or ready to say they are trans or they may not be sure about their gender identity at all, so forcing them to make it known for the sake of playing a character is not okay. and, ofc, we have the obvious addition that ppl lie, so you’re relying on good faith to carry it out.

so yeah, that’s my v. long-winded two cents on the matter. i have a feeling i’ve missed some details, but it’s 3am and i need to be up by like 9:30 so that’s all for now !! feel free to drop me another question if i’ve fuckt anything up or u would like clarification on anything !