#people are arguing on whether trans ppl are even real

[wombtowaste]

how can a kid be murdered and ppl are debating their fucking pronouns and saying its "what they get" for being trans. if they were cis (and white) it wouldnt even be a debate it would be national news. i fucking hate it here. nowhere else is better, that trans girl got stabbed to death in the UK a few months ago. canada is like the united states but somehow even more racist. i dont speak another language. i cant detransition (and i dont want to) bc im interesex so im clocky no matter how i present. sucks everywhere

[redditreceipts]

I've been a very staunch supporter of trans ppl for years. I have learned to swallow my discomfort around some of the things said in those circles. When they said it was transphobic for lesbians to not like dick, I bit my tongue. I told myself, "this is just the loud minority" and to be fair I do think that is the minority but still ... as a lesbian I wasn't even able to talk about people who argued that because "it never happens. No one says that. That sounds like a transphobic lie." And I hate the constant assertions that gender is real, innate, and that everyone feels it. I can't describe my own experiences with growing up as a woman without someone telling me that maybe I'm nonbinary ... no thanks I tried that for a while. I respect everyone's gender, or I want to, but apparently doing that also requires me to put that oppressive structure onto myself and act like it's liberating.

The final snapping point for me was a trans woman telling me that I'm privileged for being a cis woman because I've never experienced dysphoria ... except I have. I grew up with intense thoughts about my body and hating my vagina and breasts. It was never that bad but I would often imagine mutilating. I'm in a better place now but I still feel some discomfort over my body sometimes. And when I expressed this to her, she asked me if I was really cis or was still questioning ...

They act like misogyny doesn't exist or something. I just ... I disagree with a lot of radical feminists beliefs or at least I think I do. But for years I have felt like radfems were the only ones even talking about misogyny anymore so idk

Anyway what I wanted to say is that I really like your posts and perspectives and thanks for this blog. I want to learn more and question more and your blog has become a helpful resource to help me start thinking critically about some things

Hey :) thanks for writing to me and sorry for the late answer. 

And yeah, you are totally right. I have also spent such a long time justifying gender ideology because I really wanted it to be right. I’ve excused so much weird behaviour with weird mental gymnastics because I didn’t want to accept that I had been wrong for such a long time. 

The entire “that never happens” thing - and then you show them an occasion where it happened, and they say “well, it doesn’t happen that much”. And yeah, people have suggested me being non-binary as well. I mean, by strict gender definitions I am non-binary because I don’t identify as a woman lmao. Just as the “you’re uncomfortable in your body?? what about fucking cutting it up??!!!!” thing. 

And for disagreeing with feminist beliefs, the thing is that being a feminist is not a package deal. You are not being some sort of heretic if you disagree with certain things, and I know that I am most probably wrong on a lot of stuff myself. If I wasn’t, I would be the first person who is always right in human history. And yes, even in feminist spaces, there is sometimes some sort of imperative to follow every single belief or you are not a “real feminist”. But being a feminist is not an identity, it is an action. It is an action towards yourself, in the workplace, in interaction with other women and men, in your consumption, in your voting, in how you support women in your personal life and how you do political action. So yeah, I would say that it is less important whether you follow every rule of the radical feminist catechism and more important to support women in your life (which includes yourself). At least, that’s my opinion. 

So if you want to learn more, you can look into literally anything Julie Bindel says on Youtube, I really like her perspective. And cool that you’re here! 

[dreamhot]

OH I DIDNT REALISE IT WAS SO RECENT THAT MAKES MORE SENSE for me I've been trans since i was 12 and I only recently got more comfy being [insert gender here] and using she/her pronouns. Which doesn't make me a detransitioner or a woman by any means (i cant even "pass" for a girl atp since I have facial hair)

What I have learned from this is that like. You can be whatever you want all of the time. The scaremongering about transness being this huge life changing thing are mostly lies. I was a he / him trans guy now im a she/he non binary person who looks literally more masc than i did before said realisation. It's fine to try stuff out and figure it out.

If you're really having trouble i recommend just cutting transphobia out of your life completely. Like not even arguing with it, just getting rid of it , blocking discourse about it. It's an absolute poison and it SUCKS. This includes calling it out, news stories critical of transphobia, everything. You're not a bad trans person for not engaging with your own oppression for that - sometimes you need a break from the negativity to feel more confident in yourself.

Also oddly enough having a cis boyfriend made me even more sure I wanted to transition. I won't go super into detail, but I basically ended up getting super super jealous of all his Cis Guy Things and I think that's what really cemented it for me. Especially cis guys who are chill with trans ppl can be literally some of the most validating ppl. I'll never forget when i came out, the boys' section of the soccer team I played for started hyping me up all the time, the guys in my friend group used to invite me out when they all went out together. The media and social media especially overstates the amount of transphobia the world has to offer by a long shot. There's a lot of fun and beauty in being a trans guy that gets talked about online but like. At the end of the day you're just a guy. Most people will see that lol.

Anyway ignore me getting all rambly. Good luck Lee o7

this was really sweet and helpful to read, genuinely, so thank you😭 the bit in the middle about not wanting to engage with the oppression at all... REAL and like. this is why i have a hard time explaining to certain family members that i don't enjoy 'debating' things when it feels like i'm only trying to validate my existence. mum would go on about hoping my therapist was 'challenging' me - ie, testing to see whether or not i'm ? actually nby/trans ig ?? and it's like MAN this shit is exhausting and only makes me more insecure about it, versus, yknow, how validating it feels to have people actively support it. like ... no mum i'm not just looking for yes men - i'm looking for people to understand

anyway blah blah, i'm sure i'll stop stressing about it eventually :') thank you again <33

[chilewithcarnage]

Hii I id as a bi lesbian for several reasons

I used to constantly question whether I was actually bi or whether the attraction I sometimes experienced to men was comphet and I've given up trying to figure out my "true" identity

I feel like I might best be described as bi but with like a 75% preference for women (and like 20% genderqueer ppl and 5% men) so it feels weird to call myself bi if I'm mostly attracted to one gender

There are times when the reason I am not attracted to someone is because they're a man (even though once a blue moon I do feel attracted to men?)

I'm genderfluid and also sometimes attracted to other genderqueer people and adding the bi to the identity feels more inclusive to people that don't strictly id as women, since even though I find the lesbian label valid and comfy doesn't mean that other genderqueers do

When I do experience attraction to men, I don't really experience romantic attraction, but I definitely experience that with women and other genderqueers

Id-ing as a lesbian has been really validating for my gender identity

No real life queer person I have talked to about my identity (including many lesbians and genderqueer people) has given a shit that I call myself a bi lesbian

The only place I have seen negative discourse/people arguing about whether you can be both is Tumblr (and some Twitter screenshots)

It doesn't hurt anyone?? And feels right for me?? So I don't get why people on the Internet care so much. It just feels like a rehash of gold-star gay discourse (which is kinda transphobic tbh)

(and there are also many other reasons people choose to use that label and seeing your asks was literally the first time I've ever seen someone say it is a transphobe thing)

(also trans men and lesbians have been fucking each other since the dawn of time and it doesn't mean that they were invalidating each other's identities)

(also people splitting up lesbian and bi identities is a relatively new thing. Historically lesbian just meant wlw.)

.

[transmisogyny-explained]

this isn't to say that transandrophobia is real or whatever but im so confused whenever ppl say that the truthers say that trans women oppress them, because they actively keep saying that's not the case and no trans people oppress any trans people, that any harm we inflict on each other is lateral. it comes off like no one ever listened to them and makes this side of the argument sound weaker and like we're lying because we can't come up with a good rebuttal. again, i don't think transandrophobia is a thing, but i don't think it helps anyone to lie about what these people are saying.

- TME trans people oppress trans women.

- They don’t have to say the actual words “trans women oppress us” for that to be the clear implication when they talk about “AFAB/sex-based oppression,” “AMAB privilege,” trans women being “transandrophobic,” “lateral aggression,” etc.

- Even if that wasn’t what they were arguing, the point is that they hide behind “transandrophobia” in order to excuse their transmisogyny. It doesn’t matter whether they think trans women oppress them or not; they want to be transmisogynistic without repercussion and use these things as excuses to do so.

- It’s transmisogynistic to say that transfems don’t understand our own oppression and how TME trans people contribute to it. It’s transmisogynistic to say that “we just need to listen to trans men” as if they aren’t constantly speaking over us. It’s transmisogynistic to call us liars just because you don’t know what you’re talking about.

[thedeadflag]

I’m so confused! I know it’s not your responsibility to educate me but in your post bringing awareness to the negative aspects of g!p fanfic you say

“Why do these g!p characters rarely if ever involve experiences reflective of trans/intersex women? Why are they so utterly cis and perisex-washed? Why do nearly all writers have zero idea that tucking is a thing? “

Doesn’t that answer your original question? The reason they don’t reflect those groups of ppl is bc g!p isn’t trying to represent those groups of people or else it WOULD be transphobic to limit them to one specific fetish right? it just refers to a canonically female character with the addition of a penis (I don’t argue the name “g!p” should be changed bc that’s a no brainer why that could be offensive). But the fanfic in general, how could it be harmful? I’ve noticed in my time reading it as a non binary person it’s given me great gender euphoria reading a reader insert where reader has a penis while being a femme representing person just bc that’s a reflection of my personal experience. I don’t see anywhere where g!p fanfic ever references or tries to emulate the experiences of trans or intersex people so how could it be offensive?

Sorry this is way too long I’m just very confused

I'm going to try and lay this out as politely as I can. It's after 3:30 in the morning here, so this could be a bit disjointed and rambling. More under the cut:

In real life, ~99.999999% of women with penises are trans women. Which puts us in a tricky situation of (A) being the only women with penises around for media involving women with penises to reflect back on, and (B) being in the lovely position of precious few people actually having had meaningful real life exposure to trans women, meaning (C.) all those stigmas and all that misinformation are going to purely affect us and it’s going to be uncritically gobbled up by the masses, since they don’t have any meaningful information to fill in the blanks with instead.

When we peer into the depths of femslash fandoms and see all these folks who aren't trans women writing about women with penises, and using cis women’s bodies as platforms for these penises, it’s the simplest thing.

I mean, some of those folks might actually be struggling and confused about why they’re into it, what the real appeal is, why they get off on it, why they might have some feelings about wanting a penis of their own…

…but from our vantage point, it’s really easy to gauge 99.99% of the time. We can generally see valid, legitimate yearning to have a penis pretty damn easily in a piece of art/writing, and we can also see when people who create this media are just hung up on a boatload of baggage and fetishization.

And 99.9% of the time, the creators are just hung up on a boatload of baggage and fetishization, and see trans women’s bodies as a perfect vehicle to tap into that, generally due to deeply held cissexist views that link us and our bodies and genitals directly to cis men, to maleness. As if penises are rooted in maleness and masculinity (which is absolutely not true).

And I have sympathy for NB folks (certainly TME ones who have reached out to me in the past about this) who might be struggling with that, but just because they’re non-binary, it doesn’t mean they get to appropriate our bodies and reproduce transmisogyny and trans fetishization in their attempts at feeling better. Shit doesn't work like that.

Because again, the only women with penises in this world, essentially, are trans women. Meaning any woman with a penis in media is a trans woman, implicitly or explicitly. Meaning that when people who aren’t us want to write us, intent doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter if it’s just the writer’s fantasy, it’s still going to attach a variety of messages directly onto us.

And more often than not, due to cissexism, those messages are linking us to maleness, to toxic masculinity, etc..

While I do want to believe they're a fairly small minority, a lot of NB folks in fandom spaces like g!p characters in part because they see penises as male and the rest of the body as female and think that duality is interesting and would be comfortable, and is a nice balance of “both worlds” or a nice position “between male and female”, but that’s a wholly cissexist, transmisogynistic view to have, and it’s one that absolutely cannot be supported without directing sexual violence against trans women and invalidating our entire existence. Certainly not all NB folks into g!p like it for that reason, but holy shit a fair bit of them do and it’s weird and wrong and fetishistic.

g!p emerged from the idea that women can't have penises, and drew on the transmisogyny and cissexism of tr*nny porn to structure that frame of desire and the core patterns and trends within these works. It's always been trans women's bodies being used as a vehicle, whether or not the writers of these fics are explicitly aware of it, because the trope itself still holds true to its original patterns and cissexism. It's not the name that's the problem, it's the content; changing the name would be a surface level change that wouldn't affect anything.

g!p objectifies women with penises (trans women). A woman with a penis is more than just a woman with a penis, but the use of the term and trope is literally to (A) remind people that women don't have penises, otherwise the g!p term wouldn't be needed if people actually accepted women with penises as women, and that (B) this is a story centered on a scenario where there's a woman with a penis, with key focus on that genitalia specifically. it's the drawing point, it's the lure, it's what everything is centered on. It is a means for folks to write lesbian sex while also writing about penis in vagina and getting off to it. It's also no surprise that the penises so clearly emulate cis men's penises in these works, that is by design.

As I’ve said many times before, if you’re only writing trans women’s bodies to showcase cis men’s penises, you’re not respecting the womanhood of trans women, and this ultimately has nothing inherent to do with penis-owning women, it has to do with (cis) men and their penises, because trans women are just being used as a vehicle to emulate them. When NB folks do the same thing, and imagining themselves as those g!p characters, they are ultimately embodying cis men, their maleness, and often toxic masculinity, in a way that feels safe and distanced enough for them, a shell that they often code as cisnormative due to their own unprocessed cissexism.

And trans women don’t deserve that.

You seem caught in the idea that if something doesn't directly perfectly reflect trans women, that it can't be linked to us., which ignores the long long history of media being used to misrepresent marginalized peoples and cast us in insulting, dehumanizing lights. You show a lack of understanding of the g!p trope and the long history of its usage across a few other names, even if the content and patterns remained the same. It shows a lack of understanding of tr*nny porn and transmisogynistic stigmas, which the trope draws heavily from.

I think we can all recognize that most 'lesbian' prn that's made does not represent actual lesbians, it's overwhelmingly catered to the male gaze. We can also recognize that this category of porn has led to a lot of harassment towards lesbians from cis men who at the very least want to believe lesbians are just like they are in the porn he watches, that lesbians just need the right man. Lesbians are being used as a vehicle for a fantasy that was created externally to them, and doesn't represent their realities.

It's the same kind of situation here. The way g!p fics play out overwhelmingly doesn't reflect trans women's realities, but they are inherently linked to us regardless, as we're the vehicles for those fantasies, as unrealistic and harmful as they may be.

g!p characters are built in our fetishized image that’s based on a deeply cissexist misunderstanding of us, of the gender binary, and of bodies in general.

I mean, when 99% of cis folks don’t understand how trans women tend to be sexually intimate… when they don’t understand what dysphoria is and how it works and how it can affect us physically and emotionally…when they don’t understand almost any of our lived experiences…then they’re not going to be able to accurately portray us even if they wanted to.

And I’ve read enough g!p fics where authors wrote those as a means of trying to add trans rep, but because they didn’t understand us at all, it wasn’t remotely representative, and it was ultimately fetishistic, even if there was an undercurrent of sympathy and a lack of following certain common g!p patterns there that differentiated it from the norm.

If g!p fics were at all about reducing dysphoria or finding euphoria, then it wouldn’t be explicitly tied up in the performance of very specific sex acts, very specific forms of misogyny and toxic masculinity, very specific forms of sexual violence and exertion of sexual power, etc.

But it is.

So the notion that creating g!p fics helps NB folks? Nope. It CAN certainly prevent/delay those folks from facing a whole boatload of shit they’ve internalized, and coddle them at the expense of trans women.

Because if it was really about bodies and dysphoria/euphoria, there would be a considerable push (allying with out own) to end our fetishization and to represent us in and out of sexual contexts with accuracy, respect, and care. Because they wouldn’t care what sex acts were performed and what smut beats were hit, they’d just want to see someone with a body like their ideal being loved, being sexual, connecting, being authentic, etc. Which very much is not the case in the overwhelming majority of g!p fics. That's what we want, and it's not what g!p writers want, it's nothing they give a shit about.

Like, a ways back I started doing random pulls of g!p fics from various fandoms and assessing them for certain elements to provide some quantitative clarity. I started on The 100 here, and did OuaT here. Never finished the 100 one since the results leveled out and stayed pretty consistent as the sample size grew, so I didn't really see the point in continuing any further after about 140 fics when the data wasn't really changing much at all.

Lastly, media influences people. I've read countless posts and comments from people who use fanfiction as a sex ed guide, in essence. Which is ridiculous, but I also know sex ed curricula often isn't very accurate or extensive in a lot of areas, so people take what they can get. Representation in media can be powerful, and when it overwhelmingly misrepresents people, that's also powerful. Just because fandom is a bit smaller than televised media, it doesn't make that impact any lesser, certainly not for those whose primary media intake is within fandom.

Virtually all trans representation in f/f fanfiction is misrepresentative of us. That has a cost in how people understand us, how people react to us, and how people treat us. Not just online, but in physical spaces, and in intimate settings.

I invite you to read that post you referenced again, or perhaps this longer one which is a response to a trans guy who seemed to feel something similar to you with this trope.

All I can do is lay it out there and try to explain this. It's up to you how you handle this. All I know is whenever there's a big surge in g!p in a fandom, trans women generally leave it en masse, because it's a very clear and consistent message that we're not valued, respected, and that people value getting off on us over finding community with us.

[sanchoyo]

danny phantom episode 4-7 Thoughts: (under a readmore because, these got kinda long!)

-the outfit danny had to buy for dash's party. CLASSIC 2000S i cannot stop laughing. And also showing up to the party and everyone is dressed like the trio is hilarious. and further proof that everyone looks good dressed goth.

-dash has a closet full of cute lil bear plushies?? LOVE that. adorable. also his response to danny trashing his room fighting a ghost was SO valid if somone BROKE MY BED IN HALF ID BE PISSED TOO.

-technus being like 'oh smart, u should be a tutor!' then later being like 'forget tutor, be a teacher!' :) supportive king <3 I also really like his upgraded suit/design. AND SPOCK CAMEO??? HELLO??

-the music in this show is super. its so funky. I looked it up and the guy who does it, guy moon (awesome name) also did music for other cartoons like fairly odd parents, barnyard, chalkzone, billy & mandy, AND some actual movies like FIGHT CLUB??? the whiplash I got from reading that)

-sam being rich explains a lot about her, actually.

-I know the moral of the episode was supposed to be 'dont ditch your friends for popular people/spend a lot of money on clothes that arent You to Fit In'. but tbh. it wouldve been easy for danny to have been like 'well, okay, ill come but only if my friends can!' but I get. that hes 14. so. not a lot to say there.

-BOX GHOST IS BACK!!!!! also, danny sitting up and wearing the dress/wig/makeup. umm thats how I dress everyday LMFAO. unironically me. (hate the jokes that boil down to 'haha funney man in dress' tho. but this is a look)

-jazz being protective of her brother once again being like NOOO YOU GUYS BETTER NOT STAKE OUT HIS (actually haunted) LOCKER!! shes aware of how people perceive him and she wants to help :( which is also probably why she told dash to invite him to that party even tho she had no interest in going!! she wants to help him out :(

-gotta say im with tucker on the whole 'should danny use his powers to get back at bullies' debate. 100% yes. let him teach kids to fight back. making dash throw his food at paulina out of the blue? no. but when hes actually about to pick on someone? yeah! for self defense? YEAH! if dash and his friends just threw food at him, I think rather than. idk doing sneaky shit with frogs he couldve just threw it back and not pulled punches if they tried to fight. I kNOOWWW its a kids show so they are like 'if u fight back ur just as bad!! violence bad!!' but. theyre HIS POWERS. WHO CARES.

-like my only gripe is that dash really isnt LEARNING ANYTHING WHEN DANNY GETS BACK AT HIM IN THE MOST PETTY INDIRECT WAYS. whatever they had to add a bully psa episode I guess. I hate it and I hate the way cartoons usually handle it because these methods simply Do Not Work. 'aND YouRE USinG YOur poWErs FOR EVill???!' this is Not Evil. even when poindexter takes dannys body, theyre only being 'nice' bc hes stealing soda for them!! bitches deserve what they get (nothing too brutal bc theyre high schoolers but damn, if they pick on danny he doesnt need to be the 'bigger person' he needs to start biting people)

-SAM TRYING TO SMUGGLE FROGS OUT OF THE BIO LAB?? girl in middle school when we had to dissect frogs we could opt out, also, they came to us already dead and preserved...

-sidney's lingo and the fact hes in black and white is sending me. also, danny is a ghost celebrity apparently for being a halfa?? ok. thats interesting to know

-the DENTIST BEING EXCITED ABOUT THE COTTON CANDY FLOOD IS THE FUNNIEST THING SO FAR.

-I LOOOVE the trope of 'wishes gone wrong'. not crazy about the stereotypical genie, or the use of the dreamcatcher looking design. (also, I KNOW theyre scientists but the way theyre handling a cold...are the fentons ANTIVAX)

-the genie. she. whitewished paulina. JKASDFHKJ. (the ghost literally just being hello kitty???? im dying) 'why do i feel that im special and wonderful? because I AM! <3' paulina ilu self worth queen. felt bad for her also getting possessed by (2) boys later who were arguing INSIDE HER. WTF.

-imagine being the guy trapped in his now flying car. he thought danny and tucker were HALUCINATIONS. imagine being trapped in a flying car with two, what you think are imaginary arguing 14 year olds convinced ur gonna die. i WOULD say this dude is gonna need so much therapy, but he seemed totally fine and excited when they landed (I would be happy too if a chicken was on my head. chickens rule) stoner rights

-sam's bat slippers??? iconic. SO cute.

-I think desiree's backstory is so :( do all ghosts have messed up sad backstories?? poindexter's was sad too...cannot imagine box ghost has any kind of fucked up backstory. but what if. his mom got pushed off cliffs by boxes...........a la cruella... anyway her 'no man may lay a hand on me' iconic. ilu

-I know danny has no concept of how much bras cost but my god dont attack tucker with some girls bra. those are so expensive.

-its really. well its not a GOOD THING he went into the portal and got fucked up, but its good danny was the one to do it rather than sam or tucker. because even tho he was being influenced by desiree and kept getting more malicious and it prob wasnt 100% him...he sucked as a ghost like most the people he 'pranked' were innocent ppl just Chillin and he didnt want to help anyone at all. I think danny is the most responsible out of them but also, hes 14 and shouldnt HAVE to feel obligated to fight every ghost. hes a good kid and wants to, but I also feel like he feels like...responsible for the portal turning on?? because his parents did give it up,, but it was an accident and not his fault (if anything, why was the on switch on the inside. why was it that easy. why was there no safety measures. that seems like smth OSHA needs to hear about). like thats my son. hes a good boy. and hes never done anything wrong in his life, ever. if anyone hurts him im killing everyone in this room and then myself. etc.

-danny's curfew is 10PM????? DUDE. when I was 14...shit I couldn't be out that late, I had to be back at like, 8 at the latest, and my parents had to know exactly where and who I was going with, AND i had to call/text them regularly...is this a case of my parents being overbearing, or the fentons sucking??? the only time i could EVER be out that late was if I was at an overnight sleepover or smth...

-the vultures have lil fezes. why do they have fezes...theyre so fuckin funny 'ask him for directions' 'I KNOW WHERE IM GOING' these ghost vultures are my new grandpas. pick them up, put them in the adopt box.

-'I wonder why those guys were trying to waste dad!' THEYRE GHOSTS. YOUR DAD HUNTS GHOSTS. why is that not a conclusion you'd immediately jump to??

-*jazz voice, clearly disgusted* WISCONSIN???

-mrs fenton with the lab coat and leg warmers and PERM. YESSS STYLISH.

-was going to say 'ew billionaire' @vlad but. super valid he used his powers to assumedly steal and cheat to get that money, thats how all billionaires do it! but ew hes a SIMP. and spending your billions on FOOTBALL STUFF?? you are Not Valid overall. I DO respect the fact you have a castle instead of a mansion. in wisconsin. if youre going to be stupidly rich might as well go all out, torches on the wall and all. I DO like his ghost form's little kitty ears. catman. and his cape! every design can benefit from a cape. and how different his forms look, like danny looks the EXACT SAME IN BOTH FORMS ASIDE FROM COLOR CHANGES. vlad's is like,, I could believe they were different people!! also I love the drama. but dude you are fighting a 14 year old. lame. also he was like, telling danny he wanted his mom and him and like, wanted him to renounce his dad?? WHAT ABOUT JAZZ?? bitch. those r MY kids and they are both important and special. I do agree they need better parents but thats not u sir <3

-I thought vlad's 'little badger' nickname for danny came from the football mascot of the packers, but google says they have NO MASCOT?? so now I'm like?? is it because his hair is sometimes black and sometimes white?? I hate to give him props but thats a PERFECT NICKNAME. theyre also tiny and vicious!

-why did I get so excited that Skulker is back!! its been like. 2-3 eps LMAO. AND THE DAIRY KING. ICONIC I LOVE HIM. hes the nicest guy ever :) more nice ghosts please. danny cannot be fighting alone everytime with no ghost buds like every ghost being hostile sucks :(

-mr. fenton knew vlad was controlling him, but a few episodes ago he had no clue danny was doing the same thing...is it something about how malicious the ghost is?? he just seemed to think his memory had gaps the first time, this time he was INSTANTLY LIKE 'GHOST'. then again in this ep when danny did it again he was just slightly confused but not immediately freaking out like he did with vlad possessing him!!

-'my parents will accept ME NO MATTER WHAT' so. so why haven't you come out to them yet, danny?? if you really think that?? if theres no harm, and you're sure??? if vlad is a real problem, wouldnt that make dealing with him easier, to expose him???? SO WHY HAVENT YOU COME OUT YET?? COULD IT BE,, MAYBE YOU HAVE DOUBTS ABOUT WHETHER YOUR PARENTS ACTUALLY WILL ACCEPT YOU??? 🤔 ... 🏳‍🌈 I get why people say He Is Trans. I totally totally get u danny.

-sorta unrelated, but it just occurred to me in one of these eps they go to casper HIGH not casper middle school??? theyre 14?? dont highschools usually do ages 15-18? (I didnt go to hs so I might be wrong, if I am ignore this...) freshmen are usually 14-15, could just be a case of them not turning 15 yet but they will sometime in the school year (I say they because tucker said he was 14 too)? I know the show has 3 seasons, so by the end of it will they be older? thatd be neat but usually cartoon characters stay the same age...I love shows where you can see the characters age and grow up, though...three seasons seems like a long time to spend on like, 1 year...

[angeltrapz]

oosdkk dude im sorry ur mood dropped too.. i hope u feel better soon <3 but like i wld love 2 hear more abt ur thoughts on Art in general bc Boy Is He Interesting, and also a lil more abt Daniel coming out as nonbinary to his dad (whether he knows Eric is trans or not at that moment skjdfhdskf)! + if ur feelin it just more abt Mallick in general ESP cuz we agree that Brit doesn't make it thru V

djhfjdks thank u sm <3

okay Art first. I genuinely wonder abt him so much, something in specific I think abt is that aside frm Amanda (+ Eric, obviously, but talkin abt disciples) Art is one of the only trap victims EVER 2 be tested twice and it’s like... what’s that abt? Why? as u’ve said b4 it rly depends on how you personally view his character: whether he’s a disciple or not. fr me, both options are equally plausible, n honestly I don’t rly confine myself to either; it sorta depends on what I’m feeling/writing. if we’re talking abt art being a disciple, then the Spinecutter not going off (one of my BIGGEST questions) makes total sense, as Hoffman’s side of the trap was never set up to work either, + Jigsaw disciples have a history (aside from Lawrence) of appearing as victims in other tests/traps. if he were not just another pawn and was in fact a disciple himself, then the Spinecutter was never meant to go off - it was there just to make Eric think it COULD go off/make it look convincing to outsiders. which brings me to ANOTHER question: what does Art know abt Eric? does he know anything? what does he think of Eric?

(lil side note: if Art is a disciple, then I kinda wonder if it’s a lil bit of a Hoffman + Lawrence situation where Hoffman didn’t know abt Art either? just bc he looks so shocked when he sees Art’s face fully fr the first time... that could’ve just been acting on Hoffman’s part but IDK. food fr thought)

personally, I feel like Art probably does know a lil bit abt Eric - at the very least, he’d know tht Eric had been previously tested + failed by John’s rules, but then I feel that he wld also know Eric didn’t rly have a chance in his second test. that is why Art trying so fucking hard to keep Eric alive is interesting 2 me: what is his motivation 2 do that? like he’s been told Eric’s basically just there to get Rigg to participate, he doesn’t have any personal obligation or anything like that. sure, the aim is to keep Eric alive + see if Rigg can pass his “test,” but nobody said anything about grabbing a man you barely know around his ankles to keep him frm hanging himself w a noose made of chains. nobody said anything abt speaking to him so softly, not even raising your voice beyond saying “hey,” and asking him do you understand? when you tell him to keep still and prevent him frm killing his counterpart (which, if Art is a disciple, he knows it won’t, but he still speaks to Eric so softly, so compassionately, doesn’t he?)

nobody said anything abt grabbing him around the waist and steadying him again after being punched by said man. but Art does that. he stabilizes Eric’s feet on the ice as best he can and he keeps his hips straight and he basically says “look, we’re all stuck here, you need to keep it together ‘til that clock counts down if you want us to live, but I’m giving you a choice,” and he presses the gun w the single bullet into Eric’s hands and tells him it’s up to him. nobody said Art had to care but he does, I think, and it’s just like. he really didn’t have to keep Eric alive over the course of Rigg’s test. he didn’t. but he did and I just,, where does it come from? why does he care? this is even going beyond the fact that we’ve talked abt them being together after their test in a scenario where they both survive - I just think that Art at his core is a very stubborn but very compassionate person, whether he wants 2 be or not. like he HAS to know that kind of involvement cld prove to be extremely detrimental but he cares. I feel like that says a lot abt him (even if he does call Eric an asshole a couple times while doing it,,).

plus I also just. I think his reason for being tested (as it seems to be in most cases) is extremely flimsy. he was doing his job. he’s a LAWYER. often times it has nothing 2 do w personal feelings; they’re there to do their job and sometimes, unfortunately, that is defending possibly reprehensible people (in cases like Rex’s & Ivan’s). + John was already upset w him regarding their argument abt the urban renewal group so like it just feels So Very Petty, y’know?? even in the scenario where he IS a disciple, testing him twice seems entirely like John having a personal vendetta against him. Amanda is the only other person to be tested twice aside from Eric, so like. what. is that abt Mr. Kramer.

like I’ve said b4 in dms one could argue that Art is grey morally, bc we never rly see anything of him outside of flashbacks + acting as a test controller in IV, esp given that he... rly doesn’t seem too bothered abt it all? which is fair. but I also feel like the concern he shows towards Eric is smth to be considered as well.

-

+ YESS NONBINARY DANIEL I know I’ve mentioned it b4 but for reference, I read Daniel as masc nonbinary (he/they)! so I feel like Daniel wld b pretty comfortable w his identity, he’s never rly had a reason not to be (it’s rly anyone’s guess here tho bc we never see Eric + Daniel + Kate... as a family unit, for obvious reasons), so I feel like he’s vry chill abt it? and in the scenario where Eric survives n is dating Adam, I feel like Daniel wld talk 2 him abt it first (Adam is an adult they quickly come to trust + he’s vocal abt being trans himself so there’s that added layer of understanding - other than his mom maybe Adam might b the first person they come out 2). they’re just kinda like “so I wanna tell my dad I’m nonbinary but like I’ve literally never thought abt coming out what do I do” and Adam’s just like. Aha. bc he knows Eric is Also Trans so like, he doesn’t tell Daniel that bc it’s not his info to share, but he’s definitely like “oh it’ll totally be fine. trust me you have no reason to worry” so Daniel’s just like Okay. I Got This

+ I know I mentioned this in dms but Daniel wld absolutely wear those floral ripped hem skirts over jeans, so I feel like on one of his visits to his dad’s, he just. wears that combined w a completely random niche graphic tee he bought when shopping w Adam (I adore this hc n I am Holding Onto It) n is just like. not super open abt it bc he doesn’t know what to expect? he just kinda waits fr Eric to comment on it but when he doesn’t, Daniel gets nervous n is like “do I look okay?” and Eric’s rly chill abt it, like “yeah! it looks vry cool, vry alternative.” n like Daniel is relieved, of course, but also he’s just like God Pls Say Something so he just comes out w it like “okay this is not working. I’m nonbinary.”

and he’s COMPLETELY SHOCKED when Eric is just like “oh why didn’t u say so? do u have a different name u wanna go by? is Daniel still okay?” bc he wasn’t sure how much Eric knew, so he’s just like “uh no Daniel is still good, he/they pronouns though” and Eric’s just like alright cool but internally Daniel’s just like ??????

n THAT is when Eric asks him 2 come sit out on th front steps w him n is just like. “I don’t think I ever told u this but I’m trans. I transitioned during training in my early 20s” n Daniel is nodding while internally he’s like Adam I’m gonna throttle u. he worked himself up fr NOTHING. he just kinda laughs abt it and Eric is like “are u good?” ‘cause he’s a lil worried but then Daniel just smiles and is like “yeah I’m fine! just realizing I had nothing 2 be worried abt” and it’s a rly good moment fr them. they sit out there together talking abt their experiences for quite a while n at some point Adam steps outside 2 find them deep in conversation + he just smiles n goes back inside bc he cares abt them both so much and seeing them talk like that makes him so 💞💞 (Eric is SO PROUD u can see it on his face)

-

ohhh gosh Mallick,,, I spend a lot of time thinking abt him actually. he’s just one of those characters I feel vry connected to (me 🤝 Mallick: Ambiguous Disorder 💕) n one I got surprisingly attached to? hello (he IS one of my f/os)

I feel like Mallick is a very lonely person at his core. the way he sort of clings to Brit (w out the whole like. adrenaline of being in very very real danger w ppl trying to kill u SEVERAL TIMES) somewhat confirms this fr me. this is someone who has no reason to look out fr him, no reason to keep protecting him when their fellow captives hit him over th head w a club or attempt to push him into a bathtub to ELECTROCUTE him, but she keeps doing it and he’s just. in awe of it a little bit? ‘cause she could just let Charles knock him tf out or let Luba push him in but she fights for him, some1 she has no obligation to n met fr the first time literally when they woke up.

the moment they share b4 they stick their arms into the saws to activate the 10 Pints of Sacrifice is so very vulnerable and maybe even a little tender. yes he calls her a monster, yes she calls him one back, neither of them deny it. it’s an admission and an acceptance. they’re monsters, sure, fine, okay. but they are monsters and they are in this together. Brit tells Mallick it’s okay when he says he can’t do this alone. she says okay, okay, it’s okay, we’ll go together. and they help each other secure their tourniquets and they stick their hands in together bc it’s the two of them, literally hand in hand, fighting for their lives n for each other n they’re in so so much pain but they are doing it TOGETHER. I lose it thinking abt it!!! they even have a head bonk moment!!! I very much feel like it has some cinematic parallels to Adam & Lawrence’s moment in SAW 2004!!!!

+ as u mentioned, we both share the thought that Brit likely died since she wasn’t present at Bobby’s meetings, and. I want to touch on how fucking despondent and lost Mallick looks when we see him again in 3D. lights on but no one’s home. I feel like for Mallick, losing Brit was losing the first chance at a real connection he’s had in god knows how long - and for him, that’s just very shattering. he’s been thru hell, he’s watched three people die right in front of him, he sawed his ARM IN HALF, n the person he went through all of that with didn’t make it. but he did. and I feel like for Mallick that’s just like... he doesn’t understand it. but he feels even lonelier than he ever has b4 because the One Person who was there w him thru it all, the one person who could ever possibly understand what happened that night, is gone.

the Mallick we see in V would NEVER sit down n willingly listen to Bobby Dagen’s bullshit abt loving yr scars n taking pride in the fact u survived. he wld hate that man with a passion n I am very much sure of this. the fact that he’s sitting in that chair looking numb and glassy-eyed and silent? Mallick is trying to find some1 to connect to, find a place where maybe he belongs. trying to fill that hole that losing Brit made. why else wld he be sitting there, listening to someone he would ordinarily tell to shove his self-love bullshit up his ass? he’s lost. he’s just trying to keep his head above water and find a way to shore even though everything in him is fighting not to. he’s adrift without her.

+ ALTERNATIVELY, bc the reality of that is just. crushing n maybe not where I needed 2 go, in the scenario where Brit survived + just doesn’t want to put up w Bobby’s bullshit, I imagine them to actually move in together after a lil bit of time getting 2 know each other better w out the pressure of “oh god we’re gonna die.” she kinda helps him build up a sense of self-worth bc GOD it’s practically non-existent n thinking abt possible reasons why makes me sad. she’s definitely just like “no, you do deserve to be cared for and you deserve help when you need it, you deserve good things n to be happy.” she just kinds shuts it down while still making sure to talk 2 him abt WHY he feels that way (she’s not dismissing, but she’s trying to nip it in th bud) n Mallick is just like. huh. bc no one’s really done that fr him before. but it rly does end up helping in the long run, even if it is a very slow pace toward actually getting 2 a place where he recognizes his own worth + realizes he deserves all the things he wants Brit 2 have too. they’re there for each other thru thick n thin and if they made it thru their game, they can make it thru anything.

[monsterfuxxxxer]

When I was young, trans ppl fled the bi community because it was super transphobic. To be fair, all communities were transphobic. Look up lesbian separatists and other anti trans groups of the late 90s, early 2000s. Panphobes are right when they say pan was created to mean cis and trans ppl, but they're wrong about the reason. We created pan to mean cis and trans, to prevent the transphobia from spreading. So that you literally cannot be pan and transphobic at the same time. We have some fetish pans, and some pans who think trans ppl are different genders from cis, which is really bad. But the pan community has always been trans allies.

This response ended up being LONG wow

While I see that you have good intentions, it’s important to point out that no one is immune to transphobia based on identities alone.

I see that you are aware that it’s a problem when pan people draw a line between transmen transwomen and men and women, but you also said that pan was created to include cis and trans people. I want to expand on this because the line of logic here is what people are having a problem with:

I would disagree with “panphobes are right when they say pan was created to include cis and trans people” because bisexuality already did that. We can’t go saying that pansexuality was created to include trans people because that’s the transphobic problem that pan critiquers are pointing out.

The thing that by very very simple definition alone that differentiates pan and bi are the roots of the words, as I explained in the response post. Bisexuality has always included men, women, nb and any genderqueer people. That being said, it makes sense for young people to not know this when looking at definition alone and without knowledge of the bi communities intricacies, to create the pan label to include all genders.

HEAR ME: BI PEOPLE ALWAYS INCLUDED ALL GENDERS, BUT ITS VALID TO HAVE CREATED PAN TO DO THE SAME THING AND ITS VALID TO ID AS EITHER.

To hear more on that, skip to the “I want to draw a line between actual lgbt+ ideas and terf mentality” section

I have a couple things to say before that though:

The mentality that you can id as pan and that means you’re not transphobic is the big issue here. The pan community has to stop spreading this mentality because it isn’t true. Pan people absolutely can be transphobic, as can anyone in any community.

Pan people are being targeted rn because of saying things like “because I’m attracted to men women AND trans people, I am immune to transphobia.” We have to stop letting people believe that transmen and transwomen should be classified differently than men and women, and that being attracted to trans people makes you immune to transphobia.

This exact mentality is why pansexuality is being attacked rn.

We’re wasting time arguing over whether bi or pan is the one true valid identityTM when the truth is theyre both great. The difference between them is either small or nonexistent but matters to some people and that’s fine! They can coexist! It’s wonderful and beautiful! They’re FUNCTIONALLY synonyms but as I said, it’s preference!

What we should be spending time on is spreading info to help people avoid falling into terf mentality.

I want to draw a line between actual lgbt+ ideas and terf mentality.

The bisexual people you knew that excluded trans people? Probably affected by terf mentality.

They were young and unless they came from an lgbt+ positive family, had an education system that taught them about trans identity, or were magically never affected by problematic mainstream ideas, terf mentality probably bled into their ideas.

Pan people that say being attracted to transmen and transwomen makes them different from bi people? Terf mentality.

At some point in everyone’s lives, we were led to believe that transmen and transwomen are different from men and women. We were led to believe that bisexuality mean an attraction to two genders, and that those two genders were the binary of men and women. At some point, we were all led to believe these things and through community support, NOT faceless tumblr attack posts, unlearned them and grew as people.

I believe that it was somewhere in this miscommunication in which pansexuality was created to include genderqueer people that don’t fall into the men/women label. it is mostly young people identifying as pan and it is mostly young people that only have the words they hear and their interpretation of them to give meaning to. Even if they stumble upon the real bi mentality that bi includes all genders, it’s still valid to id with the pan label, or to change and feel more comfortable with the bi label, or the omnisexual label or literally anything it doesn’t matter and it’s harmless and we should support them.

So to the people spreading pan hate: if your goal is to divide the community, keep it up. If your goal is to stop transphobia, there is a more effective less harmful way to do that which also saves you from dividing the lgbt+ community

Spread information about how bisexuality includes all genders too, and the matter of preference between identifying as bi or pan is just preference.

Doing this will stop people in the pan community from getting the idea that “bisexual means two genders” to begin with.

And keep spreading information about transmen and transwomen, what it means to be trans, transphobic people and blogs to avoid, and how to avoid transphobia all together. Share resources that educate people about bisexuality, pansexuality, and the trans identity.

Alright that was probably much longer of an answer than you wanted but if you read all that, thanks!

[dkettchen]

Today we’re having our first Ally Book Club! This fortnight we watched Disclosure (2020), the new documentary about trans representation in Hollywood starring Laverne Cox, among many others.

I’ll ask you all to focus primarily on the black trans representation discussed (and other links between how trans/gender diverse people as well as black people were othered since the dawn of cinema f.e.) rather than the trans aspects primarily, as we are focused on black lives matter and anti-racism at the moment. (And also cause I’m trans and nonbinary and I had a lot of feelings abt that whole aspect of it and this is not the place to discuss that (this is for allyship only and I will not be an educator about my own stuff today), I already made a post about that if any fellow nonbinaries would like to go vent about it over there lol) However if you are cis and would also like to share some trans stuff you learnt, you are welcome to ;)

This post is a space to share what you learnt from the media we watch, stuff it’s made you think about, and any progress you feel you’ve made in your own personal allyship journey following it. 

It is meant to be a positive space for allies to support each other in their learning, so trolling, harassment, hate/discriminatory behaviour (related to our subject’s group(s) or otherwise) or shaming will not be tolerated. (Read: I am not afraid to ban anyone from my blog who doesn’t follow these rules)  This doesn’t mean you can’t discuss the demons and biases you’re fighting with on this journey, it merely means ‘don’t be a dick about it.’ I know it’s the internet, but there’s other ppl with feelings and deserving of empathy behind those screennames and this is an exercise in empathy to begin with, so be a decent human being, please. (This also goes for the defenders of the innocent out there, there’s two sides to any argument gotten out of hand.) We’re here to encourage and learn, not to argue and alienate.

I’ll go first! 

The thing with documentaries (and video essays (I would know lol)) is they love to present themselves as factual and unbiased, when, really, anything is biased always. And in a society where they’re usually made by the people with privilege/the majority, it’s always the same status quo POV and we stop questionning it at some point, until a documentary made by disadvantaged/minority voices comes along and scews it in a new direction that we’re not used to.

Because I was paying Extra Attention to the black representation, and because I work in several London trans spaces, I noticed the disparity between numbers of black trans folks I saw on screen vs the ones I know irl (not as many as there were in this doc), and like- my numbers might be scewed by my own experience too, ya know, I prolly know less trans POC than a trans POC would, just like I prolly know more nonbinaries than a trans binary would (also idk what differences in ethnicity groups’ percentages there are between the US & UK population in the first place). But because the documentary presented itself as talking about representation in media at large, I was expecting a similar lack of black voices that I know happens irl in a lot of the world and that I know happens in media, and like- they talked about the lack of representation, but at the same time, they made sure to HAVE representation in their actual film.

I already think way too much about representation in media in general, but basically there’s a few different schools of thought on how you can approach it in any given media: 

-you can represent reality by representing the percentages of different groups among the population, so f.e. in this case you would try and match the percentage of POC and binaries/nonbinaries in the real life trans community to represent it (the BFI’s current diversity goals follow this principle f.e.). In practice though, this tends to lend itself to tokenism and ultimately minorities still end up with less or lesser-quality rep than the majorities, because we are minorities.

-alternatively you can represent reality by the clusters that happen irl. People of a given minority group tend to flock together so if you have one of them it’s highly likely that there’ll be more of the same group in their immediate social circle, so representing a bunch of them together makes sense and accurately represents reality. 

The issue my brain ran into here was that I was expecting the former and it ended up being the latter. Representing the way trans people are portrayed in Hollywood would’ve implied the population overview approach, but Laverne (as one of the producers) and the bunch, instead of kind of- rehashing the depressing statistical reality of how little rep trans people of colour get, they focused on their own experience as trans people of colour, and how they experience representation, whether it’s black rep or otherwise. They left out a lot of white trans rep that is around, because it’s not much different from the examples they used (you can have an argument about also leaving out a lot of what little nonbinary and other genderqueer rep we have in the process, and the unexplored stereotypes associated with that rather than trans binaries, as well as the generational thing where The Youth today prolly would pick different examples of media that impacted them, but still). It is very interesting and refreshing to see a format that is usually very white-cishet-normatively scewed instead being scewed toward the experience of a middle-aged black trans woman. (wow I didn’t know she was in her 40s, I thought she was like a good 10 years younger, good on you Laverne (@cis ppl: yes, even me, who literally works with trans ppl can’t fucking tell what age anyone is, it’s like a 20 year gap of a guess usually x’D))

Please write your own thoughts & stuff you learnt from the doc in the replies! (note: you don’t all have to write half an essay like this lol)  Be nice to one another, my banning hammer and I will check in on the responses later :P

Last post <<<>>> Next post

The next piece of media we’ll watch is the first season (or as many episodes you can manage, but we’ll suppose the whole first season so spoiler alert! :)) of Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, a fun cartoon show with an all-POC (and mostly black) main cast (characters as well as their voice actors)!

[spywitch]

ngl kinda amazes me that like ppl will cancel so many things if its even vaguely problematic like how a new lesbian flag needed to be created bc the old creator was shitty and then the new one was almost cancelled too just because of dumbass false accusations of the creator being ace exclusionist... yet like the extremely transphobic and biphobic origins of pansexuality hardly bothers anyone...

I don’t understand how the fact that its not really a necessary label but has needed to be completely redefined a million times because the original definitions were really shitty doesn’t make anyone go “ehhhhh maybe I don’t really wanna associate with the short yet gross history of this label.” Like how does none of that matter to people more than “VALIDATE VALIDATE VALIDATE!”

And its not like other new sexualities haven’t been “cancelled” before because they were useless and problematic, like we all shot down sapiosexual and shit like gynesexual, but since pansexual was allowed to become so popular and even pushed as the more “woke” sexuality for so long that when it comes to that label its suddenly not okay to ever criticize someone’s sexuality label bc thats somehow “telling them they don’t exist” or some shit lmafo.

Like people have finally acknowledged much of the biphobic and transphobic history of the label but have pretty much just been like “FINE that was wrong but now I’m gonna conveniently tweak the definition a bit because I just really still like letting everyone know I’m ~different~ from other bisexuals and you can’t take that away from me” and expect everyone to just... forget/get over the way pansexual culture originally tried to bulldoze over bisexuals lmafo.

Like NOW people are like “Neither bisexuality nor pansexuality is more woke!” but we’re just supposed to like Ignore that for the longest time pansexuality was argued by many to be more inclusive and open. Thats pretty much what pansexuality was originally by definition, an attempt to “fix” a perceived flaw or binary way of thinking with bisexuality that people had already been deconstructing within the bisexual community for decades... it all started because “bi means two” and bisexuality wasn’t good enough but now if they just say “Okay sorry they’re Both Valid uwu” that biphobic origin doesn’t matter?

And then all this pansexual discourse is just seen as an attempt to just revise what is the most Woke definition and that bisexuals are just trying to compete in a wokeness competition like “Actually WE are the bestest sexuality” and its literally not about that. Nobody thinks someone who happens to use the pansexual label is problematic and more transphobic... its about trying to undo the biphobia and transphobia that pansexual culture has introduced to the mainstream under the guise of progressivism but it hurts everyone’s feelings to be critical of a sexuality and as a result ppl refuse to think anything deeper than “everyone is valid.”

Its just been like “okay now pansexuality doesn’t mean attracted to men women and trans ppl now it means attracted to all genders whereas bisexuality means only 2 genders... okay wait sorry thats wrong too our bad now it means attracted regardless of gender but bisexuality does include gender as a factor in attraction... okay bisexual history has always included people attracted regardless of gender too well um dkdjfks too bad I still like the label.” Like why would anyone... still be so attached to a label that has no real consistant meaning... I don’t see why thats So important to anyone. And why is the distinction between whether someone’s bisexuality is or is not impacted by gender so crucial to express with a whole label separating themselves from other bisexuals? Like the amount that gender affects attraction to bisexuals is almost more like a spectrum, some bisexuals feel very different about certain genders some feel nothing different and everything in between, some bisexuals like men 99% of the time and women 1% or 75% and 25% or 50-50 or blah blah but like those individual preferences are not so important that you need to divide up the whole damn bisexual community lmafo. I just don’t understand why people want to die on the pansexual hill.

[uglyfruit]

I don’t get it, they’re bad for doxxing and harassing trans people but I don’t understand why transwomen and transmen can’t have different spaces for themselves? If gender and sex aren’t the same thing, these people will never be the opposite sex. But it seems like gender is based off of stereotypes and boxes to fit men and women into like masculinity and femininity. I think what they believe in makes sense, but it’s not okay to harass people.

Ok I’m cis so I’ll try to answer this as best I can but I encourage u to look up stuff about this written by trans women who understand it better. If anyone wants to add anything (or correct me on anything) else pls do.

Why should trans people be forced to have different spaces from cis ppl? trans men Are men and trans women Are women. Why would enforcing a segregation like this be beneficial or even make sense? Are you aware of how much suffering that would (and does) cause?

Gender and sex aren’t the same thing, but it’s transGender. Even if someone hasn’t medically transitioned, they are the gender they identify as and that’s what’s relevant. And if someone fully medically transitions, I would argue that they have changed their sex.

Is gender just based on stereotypes? I don’t know. Gender Roles are. But yeah, that’s one of the question that i think ultimately ppl are disagreeing with - is gender intrinsic? I don’t know the answer but I know that there are groups of ppl on either side of that debate, one of which is based on compassion and one of which is based on hostility. For me, tangible, practical support for trans people is so much more important than hypothetical theory and ideology about what gender is, which often priotizes that ideology over kindness.

Even if you’re not engaging in doxxing and harassing, holding these beliefs (that trans women shouldn’t be allowed in the same spaces as cis women, that they are perpetuating stereotypes) is bad!! and also ur wrong :)

I want u to ask yourself whether u think it’s more important to side with a group who you may understand ideologically but who do real harm or a group who is just trying to survive and be themselves despite being extremely marginalized.

Are your beliefs decreasing the amount of human suffering in the world? are they supporting those who need support? Just because something makes sense, is it morally right?

[jewpacabruhs]

so, checking the tag this morning, im heavily seeing cis people going "like it or not, people pretending to be trans is a real issue & im glad matt&trey called it out" ... and that's not a discussion for cis people, plain and simple. that's an inter-community trans issue. and this little rant isn't an opinion piece, this is generalized, but some personal bias, as a dysphoric transmasc enby; i'll admit i'm not fond of transmed culture, i think it's dangerous and unnecessarily cruel gatekeeping. but trans people are allowed to have their opinions. transmed trans people are valid, whether i and many others think they're toxic or not. maybe i'm old-fashioned, where being remotely queer made u lgbt; there wasn't all these qualifications. but trans people are allowed to discuss the issue of "who is trans", even if it's sometimes done in what can be considered a harmful way; but cis people, and especially cishets, certainly do not have a say in who's "trans enough" or who's "actually trans".

maybe i'm naive, but i haven't actually seen anyone try to fake their gender, especially in athletics. i'm sure it's happened, but i see it treated like a pressing issue, especially by cis commentators, and it's like... not that prevalent. and there doesn't need to be a solution or even an opinion on something that's not even an issue. because, to me, it feeds into this rhetoric i see exclusively from legitimate transphobes; that trans women are monsters or predators, and if anyone "chooses" to identify as trans, they're a freak and/or a creep, no in between. used to be "men are gonna say they're women so they can be with my daughter in the bathroom!" now it's "men are gonna say they're women so they can beat women in sports!" idk about yall, but i think a lot of actual cis men have a bit of a deep-seated complex, and would rather die than be conceived as lgbt. admittedly the people who might actually pull a stunt like this, predators or attention-seeking asshats, wouldn't care about that sort of thing, but again, i haven't seen it be a legitimate issue.

ive also, again, never seen trans people comment on this "issue". it's exclusively debated by cis people - which already says a lot. if "the trans debate" is only a debate among cis people, and trans people are excluded in a discussion about their own welfare, that's inherently transphobic. and the lense it's discussed through - it's one that alienates and villifies trans people, especially trans women. trans women literally go through hell, they're treated worst by society; arguing whether they have a right to exist is not something they need, or something that should even be a question. this is a topic that shoulda been left in the 60s lmao. the predatory trans women trope is an excessively harmful one that gets them killed. so cis ppl (trey included here) should fucking keep away from that discussion. trans ppl typically try to mind their own damn business and live their lives; cis people can do the same. i dont have an opinion on the content within the episode itself - i just wish trey wouldn't have made it.

[greed-the-dorkalicious]

aces/aros are not oppressed and are not lgbt. the lgbt community has been historically oppressed for centuries and the threat towards the lives of lesbians, gay men, bisexual ppl, and trans/nb/gnc people is very real in MANY countries worldwide. you will always be free to Not marry, to Not have sex, to Not date. you simply aren’t represented as much because aces/aros are a small minority. that’s it.

1. Nowhere in my post did I even say anything about whether or not aspecs are LGBT. And like, yeah, I am in inclusionist, but that wasn’t even remotely the topic at hand..? The fuck is with you gatekeepers, anyway? There was literally no purpose to telling me this. This is literally like if I said my burger was undercooked and you decided to start yelling at me about how burgers aren’t sandwiches. The fuck are you on??

2. I’m fucking bisexual you piece of shit. Don’t you DARE come and talk to me about LGBT oppression. You think I don’t fucking know? Shut your bitch ass up. You really think it’s ok to go up to a fucking bisexual women and be all “How dare you talk about oppression, you’re not really oppressed, not like gays and bisexuals”? Kiss my bi ass. I’m tired of having my identity erased. Do I need to spell it out for you? Here you go: I am BISEXUAL, B-I-S-E-X-U-A-L, I AM SEXUALLY INTERESTED IN MULTIPLE GENDERS, I’M PART OF THE LGBT COMMUNITY, I EXPERIENCE BIPHOBIA AND HOMOPHOBIA. And I’m NOT your fucking token to use to silence others. 

I don’t want to EVER hear anyone fucking utter the word “bisexual” in the context of telling someone else “you’re not oppressed because-” No. Shut the fuck up, you bowl of horse shit. I am bisexual, and I am oppressed! And you know what? Other people are oppressed too! I want to help others. The fact that I am oppressed only gives me more reason to want to stand up and look out for others, and support those who need it. I don’t know where you lost your humanity, but like hell am I going to let you try to use my suffering as a tool for you to spew your hurtful rhetoric.

3. The fact that I basically said “My friends don’t care about me because I’m aromantic and are very clearly, blatantly, and deliberately trying to ignore this fact about me, and ignoring my requests to show that they support me” and your immediate response was to come and tell me that I’m not oppressed... Uhhhh, kinda says a lot about how much people do dislike us, tbh. I’m like, “Hey, this thing happened to me and I’m sad about it” and you’re like “No shut up, that never happened, fuck you.” Like? Hello??? What? The more you scream at me that nobody hates aspecs, the more it becomes clear that you do, because if you had nothing against us you wouldn’t be telling us to shut up.

In conclusion, you’re a piece of shit, I’m bi, and your arguments are thinner than dollar store toilet paper. Anyone who tries to argue with me further will be blocked.

[feraldavestrider]

Honestly when you started saying you need dysphoria to be trans I was this close to hitting the unfollow button but I agree with you. sometimes people say "I don't have dysphoria I'm just happier as this gender" and like ??? maybe you should consider how happy you actually were before whatever transitioning you did. Sometimes I feel kinda empty and don't wanna do things. I'm not sad and I can deal with it indefinitely but guess what, that's still depression. Not all dysphoria is obvious.

yeah!! ill be honest i was mostly frustrated and i just woke up when i wrote that stuff so i wont b surprised if i lost some followers who didnt get what i meant/thought i was truscum/transmed,,,, or if ppl just dont agree which is life. but im glad u got what i meant!

**edit i made before i posted this i say “you” a lot in this and i mean like a general audience you mostly pointed towards like. op and those that agree ok note over**

i by NO means am trying to police ppls identifies or suggest that all experiences w dysphoria are the same. or that u should ever need to share details on those experiences! you dont owe anyone anything.

my main issue is that “tucute”/mogai tumblr propagates this idea that you can just be trans without feeling any discomfit w ur agab, and the associated name, pronouns, ur physical form (ie some various forms of dysphoria). because then what are we boiling being trans down to???? saying youre trans/nonbinary just bc you may dress in a gnc/non conventional manner or because u act/talk/have certain hobbies that are gendered in a way that doesnt fit ur assigned gender???? if you genuinely feel NO issue with ur agab at ALL then chief... u probably arent trans!! and thats ok! a lot of ppl i know have ided as trans at some point in their life and actually realised they were experiencing something else, like body dysmorphia or internalised lesbophobia. 

like u said, dysphoria can sometimes just be... not bery apparent. it can be silent, but its still there. im very skeptical of the idea of ppl habinf gender “euphoria” without the dysphoria n using that to explain their transness but mostly bc i just beliebe those ppl r dysphoric without realising it, probably bc of mogai/tucute tumblr culture! i.e. i didnt realise how bad i actually experienced name dysphoria until AFTER i changed my name basicaly everywhere except legally and w my family. bc i was like huh! im so euphoric at being called gabe, but i didnt think i felt thay dysphoric at my birth name! but NOW when i get deadnamed, it like. HURTS most of the time. dysphoria can change like that w ur life experiences, and euphoria doesnt exist without the dysphoria, evem if u arent aware of the dysphoria in rhe first place! like u said anon, how okay could u be w ur agab/birth name/assigned pronouns/etc if being called different ones make u so happy. its just dysphoria!!!

! u just have been indoctrinated by this tucute v truscum war where both sides treat dysphoria as an all encompassing tragic, epic life long suffering. truscum act thay way in order to gatekeep who is/isnt trans, and mogais decided thay RATHER than go, “no dumbass dysphoria can be literally just. hih i feel Wrong abt my agab” even if thats a vague and complicated feeling, they went: ok then we dont need dysphoria fuck u! which i INDERSYAND but its just not right or helpful!

 often dysphoria can change w experiences and comes and goes, and sometimes parts of it are so hodden u wont realise it was there until years later in ur life! and thats ok. you dont have to experience every symptom of dysphoria at 100% tragedy pain mode to be a valid Real Transgender. all you need to be trans is... to be trans. which means dysphoria! bc being trans is being uneasy/unhappy w ur assigned gender bc u arent that! and guess what the definition of dysphoria is... being uneasy and unhappy! so being trans is just having gender dysphoria!

on that note, i think that ppl who DONT actually feel uneasy or unhappy w their birth gender but do want to experiment or explore different modes of expression w names/pronouns/dress style should! but just note tjay like... ur probably just gender non comforming, not transgender

i guess being nonbinary is a little more complex but id argue my point still stands. you are uncomfortable w ur birth gender. thats dysphoria. maybe ur dysphoria seems “”””weird”””” bc ur nb dusphoria but its not. its still dysphoria!  if ur afab and u still want to have long hair... thay dossnt mean u dont have dysphoria. if ur agab and you still want to have armpit and leg hair... thay doesnt mean u dont have dysphoria. whether ur nb or binary trans! bc. you WILL have some form of social/personal dysphoria that is what makes u go HM ASSIGNED GENDER BAD! 

ok im done for now im abt to sleep and then get on an 11 hour plane journey so dont expect anything gr8 from me now or anytime near in the future sorry for my big rants but i just feel like tumblr is so black n white on this issue when both aides are! stupid (obviously transmeds/truscum r worse but still!!! mogai tend to get me heated in a New Fun way). 

sorry 4 word vomiting anon bit thanks 4 ur ask i wasnt sure if anyone would get where i was coming from n im glad u agree!!! thank u fr for sending tjis in. habe a good noght/day/whatever 

[jude-harley]

How come you don't understand satire? When Redkatherine drew her OC as a witch boiling trans ppl, her spellbook was a biology textbook. Grow up. You want to be a victim so bad.

actually, i do understand satire. the thing about satire is that, for it to work, you have to be punching upwards, i.e., making fun of someone who is better off than you, not worse off than you, and because she didn’t specify that the people in the pot were trans women, who she views as the patriarchy, you can’t argue that she was punching upwards.

secondly, for satire to work, it was to clearly be satire. in the post about the witch boiling people alive, it’s really not clear that it’s satire. no part of it indicates to me that it’s satire. it’s just her boiling trans people alive using a biology textbook. and one of the hands isn’t even wearing a real flag, so it’s kind of sad that redkatherinee couldn’t even be bothered to look up “gender flag” and just slapped some colors on and called it a day. 

which leads me nicely into my third point: it’s not satire, it’s hyperbole of her viewpoints. satire is meant to be ironic; it’s an exaggeration of someone ELSE’S viewpoints to point out the flaws in them. a fantastic example of satire is the work “a modest proposal,” in which johnathan swift satirically suggests that the irish could solve all their problems if they just ate their own babies. after all, the english thought that the irish needed a can-do spirit and to stop having so many damn babies! swift thought this was stupid, and did not agree with the english, so he made a work in which he took their beliefs and stretched them to the logical extreme to mock how heartless and cruel the english were to the poor irishmen. 

so, lets look at the picture in question.

 if a trans person were to make that same exact picture, but instead caption it, “this is how terfs think of themselves lol,” THAT would be satire. not very good satire, but it would be satire. if redkatherineee were to make an image of, i dunno, trans people handcuffing lesbians to trans women so they’d have sex, that would be satire. again, poor satire, but satire nonetheless, and you would be able to say that it’s satire. 

for example, i’m hoping to god this was meant to be saitre:

http://redkatherinee.tumblr.com/post/168147248964/thank-you-pronounrespecter-3

because it does technically meet the qualifications of satire! redkatherinee believes she’s punching up, and, to her credit, she makes the trans woman white and the woman who i’m guessing is supposed to be the cis lesbian black, giving at least a granule of substance to the notion of the trans woman being the oppressor. she’s also exaggerating the opponent’s points instead of her own, which is what you’re supposed to do in satire. but this one still falls into the trap i mentioned before: it’s not clear whether or not it’s satire. hell, i’m still not entirely sure if it’s meant to be satire or not.

what redkatherinee made with the post you mentioned was not satire. it’s not punching up, it’s not clear that it’s meant to be satire, and it’s exaggerating her own points instead of the points of her opponents. i’m aware that it’s meant to be a joke about how trans rights activists think TERFs are evil witches who want to boil trans people alive, but if you are a terf, making a post where you depict a terf boiling trans people alive is not even REMOTELY close to satire. even if you didn’t mean it, you’re just further proving the point of your opponents! 

finally, i want to discuss another one of redkatherinee’s “satire” pieces, which, in my eyes, solidifies her art as morally repugnant.

this post. 

http://redkatherinee.tumblr.com/post/165547471624/my-new-character-mary-radfem-police-is-always

god, so many things are wrong with this. 

i’ll start simple. again, she’s not punching up. the way she’s framed this, the trans woman isn’t the person in power, it’s the radfem police officer. she’s in a position of authority not only as a police officer, but in the way the art itself is framed. 

again, it’s not fucking clear that it’s satire! i’m not even sure WHAT she’s supposed to be satirizing. i’ll get into more detail about this later, but for now, let’s move on. 

just like with the witch post, redkatherinee isn’t exaggerating things she disagrees with (i think. again, getting into that later.) she appears to be exaggerating her own points in an attempt to pull off the whole “lol this is what the gendershits think we want!!!” thing i talked about earlier, which will always be unsuccessful, but is downright disasterous when you don’t even make it clear that it’s supposed to be satire.

onto the biggest issue with this. god, i really didn’t think i had to say this, but satire has to be hyperbolic to work. i thought we had covered that at the bit about eating babies! this is not hyperbolic in the slightest.

the LGBT community has a long history of substance abuse due to the fact that historically, the only places they could meet up were bars. even today, a large portion of LGBT spots to meet up in person are bars. the LGBT community has a long history of illegal substance abuse due to the fact that a.) the mafia was entangled with gay bars, b.) when being gay is illegal, you can’t effectively keep illegal drugs out of gay meetups since the meetup itself is illegal, and c.) because, in short, LGBT people are more likely to get the shit end of the stick, which in turn makes people more likely to seek drugs out of desperation. so, already, the drug metaphor is really insensitive.

“wait, but she’s just talking about the transes!!!!!111!!!1!”

not really. she might have meant it that way, but that’s not how it comes off. for starters, the drug thing affects the WHOLE LGBT community, not just the T. also, drag queens were also a huge part of the community historically, and thus subject to the same substance abuse issues. drag queens are usually men in dresses, and redkatherinee thinks trans women are just men in dresses. here’s the thing, though. redkatherinee never makes the disclaimer that “oh, drag queens are fine, just don’t try and call yourself a woman :))))).” this image makes no such subtle distinctions. it’s merely the distorted projections of redkatherinee’s views, a man in a dress we’re meant to gawk at and laugh in disgust at. the bulging eyes, the disheveled, dyed hair with horribly glaring roots, the protruding forehead, the faux breasts which clash against the skin, the angled nose and jutted chin dotted with a five o’clock shadow, the fat, lolling, tongue, uncanilly wide smile, the dripping sweat. we aren’t supposed to sympathize with this person. we aren’t supposed to look at them and laugh at how the gendershits think they’re oppressed and overreacting. i daresay we aren’t even supposed to feel pity. we’re supposed to feel disgust. and by trying to evoke that disgust at trans women, at “men in dresses”, redkatherinee alienates drag queens, who were and still are a cornerstone of the LGBT community, and yes, still fall under that category of “more vunderable to substance abuse” which makes this piece oh-so-insensitive, and the drug imagery not hyperbolic enough to fall into the realm of satire. 

so, we’ve established that the drug aspect of this piece cannot be considered satire, whether you view trans women as women or just men in dresses, since both trans women and drag queens, as part of the LGBT community, are at higher risk for drug abuse.

like i said earlier, substance abuse is an issue for all of the lgbt community, so by trying to use drug abuse as a metaphor like this, redkatherinee really just shooting herself in the foot.

“but it’s just the transes!!!!!!!!!!1!!1!!!1!!1″ you cry again, ignoring everything i’ve said about how she’s alienating drag queens who are also a part of the LGBT community. okay then. 

let’s take a closer look at the drugs out caricatured trans woman has stuffed into her bra. 

the drugs in her bra are, from left to right, the pansexual flag, the lesbian flag, the agender flag, and what appears to be the bottom half of the gay flag. 

so, pansexuals, lesbians, and gays. i’m sure even terfs can agree those are all part of the LGBT community. guess what that means! they have to fight off substance abuse too! so, hooray! redkatherinee, a lesbian, has actually shot herself in the foot now!

and, redkatherinee, what did you say your stand on drugs was again?

ah, yes, thank you. redkatherinee has now implied that being pansexual, agender, gay, or a lesbian, is bad. 

“but….. it’s satire… stop……. being so offended………….” you sputter out.

okay, but, on top of everything else i said about how redkatherinee has utterly failed at satire, she depicts the trans flag as a drug too. what message is that supposed to send? like, seriously? what the fuck is she trying to say here? that being trans is bad, like a drug? but she also depicts sexualities as drugs! there’s a lesbian drug! is redkatherinee saying being a lesbian is bad? is she saying drugs turn people gay? is she saying that the LGBT community is but a way for people to cope with the cruel bitterness of the world and that ultimately, the community will self destruct in a chaotic downward spiral and can only avoid its fate by submitting to the hand of radical feminism?

since you clearly don’t know what it is, i’ll give you a helpful tip; that right there was satire. redkatherinee is a lesbian, of course she doesn’t think lesbians are bad. but in a bid to hurt trans women as much as possible, that’s the point that she’s made. 

but oh, redkatherinee couldn’t make her art insensitive enough. no, no, she had to go above and be-fucking-yond. her radfem character arresting her trans caricature is a police officer. 

since being gay was illegal in the US until the 1960s, the relationship between the LGBT community and the police is strained, to say the least.

 so between that and the substance abuse problem, depicting a police officer arresting a trans person for drug usage is, um, how do you say, bad.

hold on. the drug…….. is a metaphor…………… for being trans……………………….. the police officer is radical feminism…………………. holy shit guys it’s so deep

for real though. this is the point where, even if you don’t think trans women are real women, redkatherinee goes from bad, to downright monsterous. 

in the recent past, being trans was, technically, illegal. now, none of these laws said, “transes are to be arrested on the spot!” but “wearing dress of the opposite sex” was illegal. even worse, many of these laws were much more agressive towards “biological males,” as redkatherinee would put it, and these crossdressing laws continued well into the 80′s. hell, the “immoral dress code law” of Oakland, California was only amended in 2010. 

so this? this isn’t satire at all. it isn’t hyperbole at all. there’s no exaggeration here. you can’t claim satire when depicting something that actually happened. and i hope you don’t forget that the trans woman being arrested is also holding gay, lesbian, and pansexual drugs. and you know. “homosexual activites” were also illegal. if you changed the cop to a human, took out the winky face, and removed reference to radical feminism, this would be nigh indistinguishable from propaganda against “degenerate activity.”

look at this piece of anti-gay propaganda. here, drugs are a metaphor for being gay, just like redkatherinees metaphor between drugs and being trans, and, of course, her metaphor between drugs and being gay. remember, that’s not me being hyperbolic! redkatherinee literally drew the trans, lesbian and gay flags as drugs! this fucking regan-era shitstain is more subtle that her work! and this took me two minutes on google search to find!

oh, my friend, but if you thought that was all, you are very, very, wrong. 

see, this is only in the united states. i covered it since that’s a large portion of tumblr’s userbase, and where i’m from. but redkatherinee isn’t from the united states. no, she’s from russia.

you know, where it’s actually, literally illegal to be gay. and actually, literally illegal to be trans. and you can be actually, literally, arrested for those things.

in conclusion. i understand satire. redkatherinee either doesn’t, or is so gung ho to shit on trans women that she forgoes it until she needs a defense to look like a decent human being, and in the process, fucks over the entire LGBT community. if you think redkatherinee’s work is “satire”, then i think i’ll be performing some “brain surgery” on you with a rock.