#short hair ≠ inherently masculine

[robinwithay]

you guys NEEEEEDDDDD to stop associating long hair crowley with fem crowley and short hair crowley with masc crowley like it's getting weird

[cowboyjen68]

Hi!!

I just wanted to ask some advice from one butch to another.

I recently got my dream job of being a warden on a nature reserve (and i love it!), while interacting with people there I get called a young man very often (i am 18 lol) and it gives me euphoria to know im masculine enough to even pass as a man. I've also had some volunteers ask if I was a man or not (despite my feminine name).

But recently I got called a "lady" outside while out with my mother. It drove me INSANE I cried alot.

Don't get me wrong I do identify as a woman but I hate being seen as a lady.

I've even thought about using he/him pronouns recently and changing my name but i'm too scared to as most people won't understand bc im still a lesbian.

Is this strange?

ps love u and ur blog lots xx

This is an easy answer because I was 18 once and looked enough like a teenage boy that I got "hey sport" and "hey young man" all the time, especially when in my work clothes. I worked for The Mayor's Youth Corp in Iowa City in the summers of my 15th and 16th year. Mom and Dad let me get a work permit AND bought me a used Datsun Pickup so I could drive myself the 20 miles there and back each day.

I was a volunteer with the Corp of Engineers youth from 14 to 16 and Dad knew I was super excited about this job. Mom was not thrilled that I wanted to cut my hair but my "grand mullet" was really hot under the hard hat in the summer heat of Iowa. (in the 1980's boys and girls had the short in front long and permed in back look) We compromised and I cut the sides really short. (photo of my me at 16 in my uniform for reference)

Using "he" would never have occurred to me because "EWWW Boys". This is not to say, however, that I hated being mistaken for a boy, on the contrary, it felt good. When someone thought I was a young man it meant they treated me as such. They didn't talk down to me, I knew they assumed I was capable and willing to get dirty. I knew unconsiously that along with the mistaken identity came many perks. This was nothing I analyzed but little girls see very early on the difference in treatment they recieve from their brothers, male cousins and neighborhood boys. This difference leads us to become negotiators to control our circumstances and not entittled to treatment based on our skills and actual personalies.

When an adult recognized me as a boy, even for a second at first glance, I knew I didn't have to prove myself. They, for an instant, assigned to me words like "strong, capable, demanding etc". No negotations required.

When someone realized I was a girl they literally had a change in their face. They smiled at me, softened their voice. When I was called "young lady" or "Miss" it always seemed to be backed my the worst assumptions (in my mind anyway). Lady is steeped in all kinds of traits I didnt want assigned to me. "quiet, weak, likes to dress pretty"OR "motherly, submissive, meek" Nothing good in my teen brain, that is for sure. Lady felt so OLD, so married to a man and reliant on him for survival, so polyster pants and ugly flats and scratchy blouses with a flower imprint. NONE of these things are inherent to being a woman or even socially forced on us but that is not how things work sometimes. Words that describe people get stereotypes and myths and traits attached to them all the time. Woman and girl are no different.

I can tell you, the best feeling in the world when I was in that job was when my supervisor, who damn well knew I was a young woman, trusted me with all the same tasks as the boys. Who valued my opinions and abilities equally to the young men. He took time to teach me what I didn't know, just like with them and didn't assume I couldn't or didn't want to learn things on the job. He didn't shame ANYONE for not being strong enough or for getting tired or needing a break.

Don't let the assumptions of others force you into another box of conformity. You don't need a boys name or to use any pronouns you don't feel connected to just to please others. In fact, none of that effort will change perceptions of those around you. I can promise that one day being called Lady will just be another word that you can hear and know it does not change your personality or your interests or control the hope you have for your future. What does waste a lot of time and energy is trying to adjust things in your life to fit incorrect or snap assumptions about you as a person. You can never control the thoughts of those around you but what you can do is stop worrying about it and enjoy YOU.

You have a job you love and are sure to thrive in. You are solid in your sexuality and love of women, you are in a unique position to possibly change the perceptions of others when they think of "young women". Your interactions with the public are sure to effect the assumpions of at least some people when they think of young women and their roles in our society.

Congratulations on your new career and I bet you rock that uniform.

[twink-remus-lupin]

❤️💛💕

For marauders era <3

apologies in advance anon i wrote way more than i meant to!!

❤️- which character is the most egregiously mischaracterized by the fandom?

This one is a hard pick between remus and sirius so i’ll just do both.

remus - oh dear lord. I could go on about this forever but I already have so many posts about it so I’ll try to keep this short. now i’m not the most canon-compliant person but the way remus is treated by this fandom drives me up a wall in a way no other character does. he is disabled, shy, quiet, and a follower. fanon has turned him into a borderline abusive asshole/alpha daddy bad-boy and it’s the most insane thing ever. where are we getting this from? oh! I know the answer actually. so many wolfstar fans see a werewolf and long haired guy and decide that remus is the “masc one” in the relationship and sirius is femme. I genuinely think there are some underlying internalized homophobia issues in the way they’re portrayed but i’ll focus more on that when I talk about sirius. for now, i think it’s important to address the inherent ableism in remus’s current popular fandom portrayal. he canonically experiences extreme pain from his lycanthropy- in what world would he feel comfortable using acts of strength in a dominant way? (ie- choking sirius in a sexual way, picking him up, etc.) this also largely ignores the fact that he likely wouldn’t even be able to do a lot of this. he’s weakened from his transformations. as a disabled person myself I will never understand how people can so blatantly ignore the negative aspects of what he goes through so they can have their alpha dom romance. moving away from that for a moment, it’s also just ridiculous to me that he would ever let himself show true anger to anyone he loves. he hates his lycanthropy and anything that would make him seem more “monstrous” is completely off the table. Also just because this pisses me off- let the man bottom! It’s genuinely so rare to see bottom!remus content and i’ll talk about why I think that is in sirius’s part as well. I have a lot more to say but I also don’t know if I phrased any of this well in the first place so i’ll end this part here.

sirius - oh boy. I’ll try to make this shorter than remus’s section but no guarantees. sirius as a submissive femme twink is genuinely one of the worst things to happen to this fandom. first of all, we are completely ignoring his canon body type while simultaneously infantalizing him. that is a grown man with a BEARD. it’s one thing to have your headcanons, but why is it that I never see femme sirius topping? I’m so convinced it’s a product of some sort of internalized homophobia. ignoring sirius’s canon masculinity for a moment, even if he was hyper femme he could still top. It’s so obvious that people have a very fixed view of what a gay relationship looks like- one masc and one femme. which- by the way- is a homophobic stereotype. sirius can be femme! if that’s your head canon for him, it’s not my thing, but okay. But then why make remus hyper masc? when that’s straight up against his canon personality? Again, this is something i’ve talked about in other posts on my blog and likely will be talking about in the future. Anyways- my main point is there’s no need to completely change his personality just to fit a stereotype. I also way prefer top!sirius / bottom!remus to the reverse, which is what’s more popular right now. (again, fitting right into the femme/masc ship stereotype.) Although I do believe in my heart of hearts that they’re switches that’s the only dynamic i’ll read because their personalities tend to be more accurate in those fics. Sirius can bottom! but holy shit let him be muscular and a little chubby and put some fucking hair on his face. I truly believe everyone is a mix of masc and femme traits, and i’d never fully deny sirius of any form of femininity. but you can dress feminine and still have masc traits or vice versa. Anyways the main takeaway from all of this is that i hate the way wolfstar has become a stereotype of gay relationships.

💛- what is a popular ship you just can’t get behind and why?

okay this is definitely an unpopular opinion but i’ve made myself very clear on my hatred of this ship so hopefully my moots won’t mind!! I can’t stand jegulus. like with a passion. I see jegulus on my insta feed and audibly sigh. To me jegulus is a crackship that should have never gotten popular. first and foremost, i see james as heterosexual and regulus as aroace so immediately that wouldn’t work even if I liked their dynamic. HOWEVER! i truly don’t believe james would ever betray sirius like that. james was more of a brother to sirius than regulus ever was and the idea that james would go fuck him is crazy to me. they probably barely interacted in school, if at all. also jily for life!! idk how people can’t like jily if you want enemies to lovers they’re literally right there.

also not super popular but remadora. that’s a gay man and a lesbian. what are we doing here jkr.

💕- what’s an unpopular ship you like?

remus x kingsley (i can’t remember their ship name) It used to be more popular and i remember reading a few fics in like 2019 but I can’t find it on tumblr really. I like the idea of them meeting and getting together after sirius is imprisoned- i think they have a good dynamic together. Wolfstar is still endgame to me but i think they could have had a cute relationship. Honestly i’ve thought of drawing them together so if that’s something anyone is interested in let me know because i’ll do it. also if anyone has fic recs!

i hope this wasn’t too much i got a bit carried away lol- i have a lot of thoughts on wolfstar’s dynamic so this was kind of cathartic to write out. i’m not looking to debate anyone, these are just my personal opinions so keep any comments kind and thoughtful please. :)

[murfpersonalblog]

Thanks for tagging me @little-desi-historian! ❤️

YES, all of this takes me back to something I wanted to touch a lot more on in my original post when it comes to the historical male image, Percy, Lestat, and Matadors; because it truly does link back to how AMC is playing with dandyism and society's expectations about effeminate men.

Dandyism is a form of resistance culture. As I've said before, Lestat flouts gender norms because HE CAN do whatever he wants & get away with it. His androgyny's on a different level: effeminate or masculine, he's still a vampire, a SUPERnatural creature elevated beyond the bounds of social mores that determine what men & women could or SHOULD act/dress like. MANY people across social media have pointed to Lestat's limp wrists, long blonde "Barbie" hair and ESPECIALLY him dressing in drag in Ep7 as proof that he's the "wife/mother/woman/femme fatale" in Lousta's relationship, and THEN claim its either gender essentialism or homophobic/racist to say Louis is CANONICALLY female-coded one in BOTH the books and show (as AR said so). But no, Lestat in drag was a power move, because he doesn't care what anyone thinks/says/does--he'll just eat them. Mockingly eating the baby in a dress was a deliberate bastardization of motherhood/womanhood. Louis is called every homophobic name in the book by those expecting the black man to just take being insulted, but MARQUIS de Lioncourt DEMANDS being crowned KING of Mardi Gras, Krewe of Raj, & he'll show you exactly what he thinks about your silly homophobic hypocritical human society: You're just "the MEAT," let them eat KING Cake--you're his FOOD. Eff y'all, I'm dressed to KILL you, & laugh doing it.

Lestat's behavior is not only derived from the time period he was born & raised in (the Rococo era of so-called "effeminate" high class dandies--a la Percy Blakeney, etc). Lestat is the embodiment of PRIVILEGE: a powerful rich white male vampire, who leans into being foreign/French White to excuse anything he does that people find strange/off/unnatural/dangerous--all the red flags. 🚩🚩🚩

And red flags brings me directly back to matadors/toreros.

@toscrollperchancetomeme

😂 TYSM! Sam Reid dropped so many juicy deets; I couldn't resist! There's so much depth to the Matador outfit, beyond the gendered aspect of bullfighting that I discussed before. Let's go back to what Sam said about Lestat, and delve deeper into matadors:

The most iconic apparel worn by toreros ("bullfighters") / matador de toros ("killer of bulls") in Spanish bullfighting is the Traje de Luces, the "Suit of Lights." The colors are usually bright & vivid, as part of the showmanship & pizzazz. Darker palettes are less common, as shiny sequins (the luces/lights) became part of the standard fit.

However, Lestat's all-black Matador outfit from what Sam called the "villain sequence" in Ep5 seems to be loosely following the style of a different but very closely related outfit, the Traje Campero "Rural/Countryside Suit" aka Traje Corto ("Short Suit").

(These costumes are typically worn during ceremonial parades and a very specific festival I'll get back to in a moment, cuz it's important.) Unlike the Suit of Light's sequins & silk, the Rural Suit is made of suede, leather, or velvet, in dark muted colors. The pants can be light or dark, striped & patterned, with or without chaps (also found in gentleman's uniforms of military officers and cowboys).

The trajes originated from "the flamboyant costumes of the 18th-century dandies and showmen involved in bullfighting, which later became exclusive to the bullfighting ritual." (Wikipedia)

The ancestor of both trajes (luces/campero) is traditional 17th-19th century Andalusian clothing (Andalusia being the home of Spanish bullfighting), closely associated with a very particular type of masculine dandyism. (The campero/corto is also the costume worn by Andalusian male flamenco dancers.)

"Before the 17th century the profession of bullfighting did not exist as such, and the fighters did not wear luxurious & shiny trajes de luces, but instead normal clothes of the time according to the social class to which the bullfighter belonged. The first bullfighter trajes de toreros appeared in the 17th century, when professional bullfighters from Navarre & Andalusia wore characteristic garments with their gangs to participate in performances and thus differentiate themselves from other bullfighter bands." (translated/truncated from Spanish website)

In the mid-1700s, Francisco Romero revolutionized professional bullfighting by establishing the first matadors who fought on foot, heroically fighting the bull face to face with swords & the muleta (iconic red flag) in a dance-like performance, dressed in a suede/velvet coleto (jacket), a precursor to the traje campero. Romero (from a carpenter family) wanted to show off & stand out from the nobility, and changed the game entirely, through a form of social resistance-turned-innovation.

"At that time, bullfighting on horseback was more important, which was considered a sport and not a show. Bullfighting on foot was not yet widely recognized." (translated from Spanish website)

Bull-killing on horseback was practiced by Spanish noblemen, attended by lower class assistants on foot. Romero was the first to make on-foot matadors the stars of what was increasingly becoming a dandified show/performance/dance. Matador Joaquin "Costillares" Rodríguez introduced even more showmanship, competing against Francisco Romero's grandson Pedro Romero (famously painted by Goya--bottom right).

For his matches, Costillares (middle) dressed in flashy silks, threaded in shiny silver braiding; the precursor to modern traje de luces. Like Francisco Romero (left), Costillares wanted to show off & stand out; and revolutionized the male image of the bullfighter through clothes.

In 18th-19th century Andalusian Spain there were 2 types of dandy: the French-imported upperclass petimetre (effeminate dandy), and the indigenous working class majo (masculine/macho dandy).

Noyes, Dorothy. “La Maja Vestida: Dress as Resistance to Enlightenment in Late-18th-Century Madrid.” The Journal of American Folklore 111, no. 440 (1998): 197–217. https://www.jstor.org/stable/541941

The majo, like many dandies, became the peak of Andalusian fashion, across all social classes; and torero/matador outfits weren't the only ones to take cues from them:

18th-19th century majos "distinguished themselves by their elaborate outfits and sense of style in dress and manners, as well as by their cheeky behavior. The majos outfits were exaggerations of traditional Spanish dress. The style stood in strong contrast to the French styles affected by many of the Spanish elite under the influence of the Enlightenment. Majos were known to pick fights with those they saw as afrancesados ("Frenchified" – fops)." (Wikipedia)

The majos' flamboyant/cheeky/saucy/exaggerated behavior was aggressively masculine; a lower/working class resistance to social mores imposed on them by (foreign) elites, whom they saw as more feminine, and FOUGHT against, to reaffirm their masculinity. These dandies were violent, brazen non-conformists; as beautiful & stylish as they were dangerous. And matadors/toreros knew that the bullfight was the perfect arena to exemplify the spirit of the majos through the dandified performance art/sport of killing bulls--a universal cultural symbol of masculine prowess & strength. Spanish bullfighting used to belong solely to the aristocratic equestrian sphere. Lowly pages/assistants like Francisco Romero (dressed in the precursor to the Rural/Countryside Suit), were the first to buck the system by killing bulls on foot--he likely didn't own a horse. The Romeros were from a carpenter family. Costillares was the son of a butcher. But through bullfighting they gained social status and became icons of masculinity--and dandies.

Lestat--the nouveau riche son of a poor country marquis--insists on being all the beautiful things he is without apology: masculine & effeminate alike. But like I said, it was no coincidence that Carol likened Lestat's Ep5 villain outfit with matadors--he's fighting Louis for dominance in their household, and reaffirming his place at the top of their very gendered social hierarchy, as a warning to BOTH "the housewife" AND "the prodigal daughter" he feels are threatening his authority as their Maker, so he defeats them BOTH.

Carol Cutshall initially designed Lestat's matador pants as pajamas--loungewear. (Lestat's CASUAL & comfortable in his ability to KILL--matador means "Killer" in Spanish--and remember what I said about Louis & Claudia being put on the same parallel level in Ep5, when Claudia's attacked by "Killer" aka Bruce.) Sam said Carol made several versions of the pants; and yup, they're foreshadowed in Ep5 when Lestat first starts arguing about Louis' depression, then they pop up again in Ep7 during the Murder Plot--two instances @dwreader brilliantly linked Lestat (& Stanley Kowalski) wearing wifebeaters. (Listen, Carol, I just wanna talk.... 😅🔫)

And here's my last points about Lestat's matador outfit. First there's the irony of Lestat (who grew up poor in rural France) wearing the something very similar to the matador/torero's Rural Suit, traje campero (aka Short Suit (traje corto)). But what's more interesting is that that type of Short/Rural Suit is usually only worn during special festivals called the Tienta ("trials"), not the regular corrida ("bullfights").

These Tienta are trials for young and immature bulls to be tested in the ring, to see if they're fit for breeding/fighting. 🤯 FLEDGLINGS. And who's Lestat's young bull? "Built-like-a-bird" Claudia. Who's the immature bull? The "biggest rat eater of them all," the under-developed "botched" vampire Louis. During these trials, veteran matadors can show off their skills; and novice bullfighters are shown the ropes and prove themselves. Like I said: the matador wins again.

God, even the way Lestat dragged Louis' bloody body out of the courtyard by the jaw/neck resembles the way the defeated bull--bled out & stabbed in the neck--is dragged by the neck out of the ring.

And remember what I said about Lestat and FOOD. Cuz what happens to the bulls after the matadors kill them? They're sent to the slaughterhouse to be butchered for FOOD. People EAT the bulls.

So yeah, my whole point in this post and my first one is not to sleep on guys like Lestat, Percy--or even other famous dandies like Valmont from Dangerous Liasions/Cruel Intentions (mentioned by both @little-desi-historian and @dwreader)--just because they're effeminate--especially when they're emulating mannerisms from a time period where the model of what made a fashionable gentlemen/good breeding/elite society did NOT match modern expectations about gender. People are getting distracted by Lestat's yaasified manner, not what the show itself is signalling through the relationships he has with others.

This show is deliberately painting Lestat as a villain through Louis' & Claudia's perspectives, as they were the ones who suffered under his Reign of Terror. The symbolism behind the matador-inspired costume used in Ep5 reflected gendered social hierarchies embedded within bullfighting culture (in Spain, women only started being allowed to fight in the 19th-20th centuries). Dressed in clothes resembling that of a matador, Lestat beating & defeating Louis mirrored the defeat of the emasculated bull, and the reification of the victor's masculine prowess at the top of the foodchain.

[natequarter]

even disregarding the long and varied history of long hair as a symbol of masculinity outside of europe, it's almost funny that some idiots are so entrenched in the gender binary that they refuse to even contemplate the idea that long hair could denote masculinity, when long hair on men has cycled in and out of fashion for centuries within europe. granted, short hair has been the fashion for men for more than a century now, and long hair has pretty much always been the fashion for women, but there are plenty of historical examples of men with hair longer than a buzzcut - shoulder-length hair went in and out of fashion for the plantagenets with regularity - and in the seventeenth and eighteen centuries in particular, luscious curls were all the rage!

like, come on. long hair does not a feminine man make. what makes long hair masculine or feminine is not somehow an inherent attribute of the hair; what makes it normal on men or women is not somehow an inherent attribute of the wearer. hairstyles and fashions differ across time and across the globe. this is normal, not an aberration.

also, it looks cool. in fact, it's one of charles i's primary virtues - he didn't have much going for him beyond his sexy, sexy style. you want to rob him of his cavalier cunt serve? his stewart slay? his epic civil war w? you bastard. you demon. you fucking monster. that's all he has to his name. you would take that from him? a man who already has so little left? shame on you.

where was i? ah, yes: the point is that hairstyles are cultural, not an undeniable biological reality, and that variation exists within european societies as well as without. you'd have to be pretty fucking narrow-minded to miss that - which, of course, people who think of long hair as quintessentially female generally are. the end.

[isabellascarlett1]

Long hair can be masculine.

Short hair can be feminine.

Dresses can be masculine.

Suits can be feminine.

She/her pronouns can be masculine.

He/him pronouns can be feminine.

None of these things are inherently gendered one way or the other.

[trans-all-at-once-tournament]

Propaganda:

Sans:

- If you draw them with pink slippers they're the trans flag colors

- Just look at how they dress. Trans guy with body dysphoria? Trans woman leaning into masculinity to hide but too exhausted to do anything more then shorts and a jacket? A nonbinary person either way?

- Undertale is a very queer game so everyone is very gender

Zim:

- The creator literally said that the only Irken gender is asshole

- Aliens without human genders are inherently trans if they take on one (or more)

- Going through the ugly short hair phase every trans boy went through at some point (their schoolboy disguise)

- Some of their other disguises are feminine presenting so they don't really care about Earthen gender roles

- I have seen SO many trans (sometimes nonbinary) lesbian Zim headcanons

[daenerysstormreborn]

Also something that drives me fucking wild is seeing people refer to Dany and Arya’s roles as patriarchal or wish-fulfillment for men. Just yesterday I saw the phrase “patriarchal power fantasy” used. I need everyone to sit down and think about what “patriarchy” means.

For the purpose of this post, and any other post I make, please know that when I say “masculine” I am referring to stereotypes associated with the male sex and when I say “feminine” I am referring to stereotypes associated with the female sex. Masculine =/= male and feminine =/= female.

Patriarchy does not refer to masculinity. It does not mean that masculine people are in power (I wouldn’t go as far as to call Dany or Arya masculine, but bear with me). Patriarchy refers to systems where MEN are the sex caste in power. Men. Not masculine people. Under a patriarchal system, women are oppressed regardless of whether or not they conform to femininity, although the less a woman conforms, the more she is punished for it. Dany and Arya’s arcs are inherently ANTI patriarchal on the simple basis that they are female and they defy what is expected of women in Westeros. They can never represent male power fantasies because they are not men. Referring to their arcs as male power fantasies is telling on yourself. You are revealing that your view of women and what we want and fantasize about is narrow. Why would you assume that only men would desire to travel across the sea and learn the ways of a secret society of assassins? Why would you assume that only men would want to wield the power of dragons and amass loyal supporters?

You are part of the problem by assuming that the desire for power is a male trait. Yes, we stereotypically associate that with men. That stereotype, and what we consider masculine and feminine as a whole, almost exclusively exist to uphold the patriarchy. Women are expected to be peaceful pacifists, complacent, quiet, because that keeps us under the boot of the male caste. Consider why so many “strong” female characters are less feminine. Is it because people feel the need to make them more like men in order to be “strong?” I say no. At least, not most of the time. If this is what you think, you’ve got the order mixed up. Skirts, dresses, and heels are impractical for fighting and limit movement a lot. Thus, it wouldn’t make sense for a competent female fighter to be wearing them. These things have been forced upon women BECAUSE they are impractical. A woman who keeps her hair short and wears no makeup and wears pants and no heels is not trying to emulate men. She is shedding femininity because femininity is impractical and time consuming. Consider WHY so many traits associated with power, leadership, and combat are considered masculine. It’s the enforcement of the patriarchy. Female characters who chase down these things and embody these qualities and do not conform to femininity are not basically men. They are women who are rejecting the system. This is antithetical to the patriarchy and to male power fantasies.

In summary: a female character who has an arc typically associated with male characters can never be a male power fantasy BECAUSE she is female.

Obligatory note that women who do conform are not lesser and their stories are not less important—they just do not challenge the patriarchy.

[natsmagi]

i know i draw naru with differing hair lengths and in skirts/dresses, but it's simply because i like it and think it's cute; i still draw her in pants but sometimes skirts and with short hair and long hair. i think she would experiment with styles for the fun of it. i don't read many of the stories so i might be misinformed, but i genuinely love naru and find comfort in her character and how she expresses herself. i don't see her just as a trans girl, as a trans person i know what it's like to be reduced to my gender identity/assigned gender. she's just a character i love to draw and dress up. sorry i might just be trying to justify myself as i have drawn her in pink, long hair, and dresses before qq

AWHH NO THATS TOTALLY FINE!! we were kind of speaking on the subject using blanket terms, but there are exceptions to everything. if you wish to explore your own femininity through arashi you are more than welcome to do so! please do not feel dismayed!

my main gripe was when people start acting like happyele is ignoring arashi and her gender identity because shes not portrayed super stereotypically feminine. what i love about enstars is the nuance that comes with every character and their relationship with gender. its fine to project and indulge, it just makes me upset as a nonbinary person when trans people and characters are constantly forced into boxes. i think it would be LOVELY for arashi to experiment more with her wardrobe, especially as she enjoys both masculine and feminine clothing. so its not like her wearing girly stuff would inherently be OOC or anything like that. its all about the context surrounding it! so please, make all the little outfits your heart desires!

please do not take my little ranting as me saying youre not allowed to draw arashi in skirts or dresses or with her hair grown out, you are more than welcome to explore all of these aspects! especially if you yourself are trans and it makes you euphoric! again, my issue lies not with people drawing her in cute clothes or with longer hair, but with people feeling like thats what she Needs to look like if that makes sense? and i get upset when other androgynous characters get to have their fun little feminine outfit only for people to complain that it shouldve been arashi wearing it instead, ignoring the significance of that outfit to the character wearing it.

either way, my post was made in a heat of the moment, and we have been discussing it in a rather generalized tone, but i hope this clears it up a little bit. if youre doing something for yourself there is nothing wrong with being as indulgent as you want! i literally draw femstars after all, so know it was never my intention to come across that way. i love using these characters as my little dress up dolls too! and know theres no need to apologize for having fun ❤ especially as my complaints were not directed at u.... and i again apologize if it came across that way. i never want to demotivate anyone from drawing what they love, so please do not stop just because i got a little mad over takes i saw....... sending u all the love 💕💕

[customboytoyz]

Heloooooo! :3

I’m totally 100% a totally cis girl… who might be genderfluid but definitely NOT transmasc in the slightest. Ever. *cough*

So, anyway…

I love forcemasc / boy hypno / autoandrophilia. I love the sxxual stuff, but want more SFW stuff.

Most importantly, I don’t feel “masc” at all; I’m not ‘manly’, I’m not into sports, I’m not into fighting like a guy, I’m not into stuff I see as ‘manly’. I see masculinity on these posts as mainly either ‘bad boy’ stuff or ‘horny puppy’ stuff (neither of which I’m opposed to, I just wish there was more flavors of these tags).

I want ‘good polite pastor’s daughter to good polite prodigal son’, not ‘…to stoner horny bad boy’.

I want someone to force it into me because I refuse to accept it. I want someone to force it into me because I’m too scared. I want someone to force my brain into thinking becoming a boy isn’t inherently bad or “sinful”. I want someone to act like I, a straight A student, am the dumbest fuck out there cause I can’t see the boy in me. I want someone to coo at me and whisper in my ear and cuddle me, telling me I’m ok it’s ok, I’ll be a good boy soon and that the good girl inside of me did nothing wrong, she is free to be happy now, free to be herself now, they’re just helping me find the equally good boy inside of me, as they slather me in t gel while I’m restrained so I can’t do anything about it. Cut my hair to fluffy short and dye it pink because when I was little I said I loved the color pink “the way a boy likes pink”. To remind me that a trans man, or any man, can be sweet feminine or neutral, not just perverted masculine all the time. Or even just dye it brown so I can look like the guy in my mind I picture when I wonder if I would want to present masc. Call me short because, yeah, I’m ‘tall for a girl’, but I’m short for a guy. Remind me how good hugs will finally feel once I don’t have so much weight on my chest, how I can finally breathe again. I don’t have to buy pricy 47H bras if I don’t have “tits” anymore. (kinda a lot of mood swings between praise and comfort and degradation, oops)

My brain still refuses to believe I could possibly be transmasc, even occasionally, and I don’t know why. Despite all of this running through my mind on occasion. Like the one post that says “Yeah, you keep saying you’re a cis girl, but a girls doesn’t cry ‘herself’ to sleep because ‘she’s’ not a boy.”

Anyway, thanks for listening to my rambling! :3

~ kittanon 🐾

40/100

[transtalesofdoom]

The Egg Years and being Cis-Adjacent

I originally made this blog to talk about my new and exciting trans experience, so let's go do that. Long post, obviously and I just figured out how to do the Keep Reading thing

I didn't have any inherent dysphoria growing up, I was just a bit of a not-like-other-girls tomboy. Jeans were comfier than dresses, boobs and bras were sooo inconvenient, make up just meant more effort. Books and video games were more fun than going out to party. I wasn't good at dancing anyway. And don't even get me started on shaving your legs.

It became obvious to me that I wasn't strictly cis pretty much as soon as I learned that gender wasn't binary. It was common sense, really. If gender is a spectrum, very few people would actually find themselves on the very end of either side. So most people were just close enough to either end of the spectrum to consider themselves cis. Including myself.

As my understanding of gender grew, it became more and more ridiculous to assume anyone was 100% cis. There's always some criterion you don't fully meet. Of course, people could still use and identify with the label of cis, clearly there was some sort of leeway. But calling myself cis started to feel wrong. It felt like I was ignoring the very nature of gender as a vast spectrum by picking a label rooted in the binary. I was cis, but in a queer way. I started calling myself cis-adjacent when talking to other queer people.

I never had a "problem" with my assigned gender at birth, outside of the patriarchy and sexism and periods, but those weren't trans reasons to resent being a woman. Being a woman suited me well enough. I wouldn't have cared if I wasn't, if I woke up one day without boobs, I'd just go on and fit into shirts much more easily. I considered "gender-apathetic" as a label, but ultimately it felt like too much hassle for something I was indifferent about.

Really, that was what it came down to. I was close enough to being cis, I didn't have any internal problems with calling myself a woman or living as one. Sure, there probably was something more accurate for me out there, but I knew about the struggles trans people faced. A good friend of mine had come out as trans and started his transition. I was happy for him, but I also got to see the difficulties it brought to update paperwork and book appointments and constantly emailing professors about your new name and pronouns. Not to mention the whole coming out to family thing. Or transphobia. There wasn't enough suffering in me to submit myself to this much effort and misery. Or force everyone in my life to learn a new set of pronouns and name for me, irrevocably changing every single relationship I had in the process. I didn't even want to be a man anyway. Just look a little more like one.

And I could easily present pretty masculine without transitioning. I only wore pants anyway. And hoodies were super comfy. I cut my hair short more than once. I considered buying a binder, just to see what that would do for me, but every time I tried looking into it, I just got overwhelmed and, like I said, there wasn't enough suffering to justify spending 50 bucks and at least one extensive research session on it. Ironically enough, during my last year as cis-adjacent, I finally reconnected with a part of my femininity and wore dresses to special occasions again.

However, a new problem had found my body: The unstoppable passage of time. I wasn't a perky teenager anymore. My body gained weight, my boobs succumbed to gravity, and I had very little in common with what was considered a beautiful woman. Even a beautiful butch woman didn't look like me. No one beautiful looked like me, really. I told myself that I had a lot of internalized misogyny and fatphobia to unlearn. That the reason I started disliking my reflection was social conditioning. I was right about that, of course. But there was more to it that I, in my self-righteous blaming of society, didn't acknowledge.

Until the last full moon night of 2023, when my mirror reflected a ghost back at me.

[mamawasatesttube]

I have a hot take that you may not care about but you are the person who's superman media takes I trust the most and I GOTTA talk to somebody about it so

anyways. Lois Lane. from My Adventures With Superman. the one that everybody calls a tomboy? is not a tomboy. not in the slightest

like?? she wears makeup! and earrings!! and the things she wears are still fairly feminine!!! "oh but she wears pants" pants aren't inherently masculine!!! this isn't the 1800's!!!! and also the pants she wears are very form-fitting and high-waisted which are traditionally feminine cuts of pants!!!! "oh but she's feisty" LOIS LANE HAS ALWAYS BEEN FEISTY AUGH WHAT. FEISTY AND FEMINIE AREN'T INHERENTLY OPPOSITES. THAT'S LIKE THE WHOLE POINT OF HER CHARACTER.

anyways. I haven't seen this show. I'm sure you don't give a single shit about it. I just keep seeing this take and then looking at this Lois and going. No. That's Not A Tomboy I'm so sorry. short hair + brown skin + feisty personality does not. make her a tomboy. she is still Very Feminine words have meaning sometimes. please

SLDKFJDLSK i didnt know this was discourse but no youre right. i did watch maws and i thought it was overall pretty cute, like i have my nitpicks but it was a fun show to watch with my friends yknow?

but yeah maws lois isn't particularly tomboyish/not feminine, she just has short hair? jksdhf you're right about this i just genuinely did not know this was a thing people are saying. help. im so sorry

[athena5898]

I probably shouldn't do this with the nature of my blog at this point, but I want to take a moment and rant a bit about gender shit.

I am genderfluid. I will never completely pass. I am technically a trans masc cause while I identify as both a man and a woman and both and neither at various times, all the time. I have a vagina, I have tits and i'm moving towards a more masculine build until I don't want to, and I have no idea when that will stop.

Yall…we have got to change how we talk about gender. Our struggles and our issues.

You need to actually talk to trans masculine people and stop fucking assuming what they go through. Please i'm fucking begging you. How the hell are you queer and just talking over us and around us and never including us?

I see so many weird assumptions about gender and oppression in regards to being a masculine woman and it never includes intersectionality.

I just heard a transwomen in a video say "If you are a woman it's almost seen as admirable if you act like a man and are seen as a man"

I'm going to talk about how fucking bad and wrong that is. How honestly gross it is to assume something like that.

Like, I get it, it comes from trauma and I don't hate the person for saying it, just…wish they didn't. It comes from this idea that "well me being AMAB and being a woman is seen as a bad thing, therefor the opposite must be good and celebrated"

it is not seen as good

It is not celebrated.

People get confused about what it means to be a masculine child and Girl Boss TM. Honestly, to explain how Girl Boss TM is actually just another form of subservient feminity wrapped up in an aesthetic of power and influence would be its own novel of a post, so I won't get into it here.

First. There are white women that are just at fault for upholding the patriarchy as men. Period. End of story. The idea that women are inherently victims and weak and can never do anything (including oppression) is patriarchy shit.

it was not men who held me down to force makeup on me. That was teenage girls. (This was after they chased me down)

it was not men I locked myself in a bathroom to get away from cause they were threatening to do my hair when I explicitly said I didn't want to. That was a woman.

I was not seen as desirable. I was not praised. I was not a woman or a man. I was a thing. A creature. A child at best. Because it's okay to be a tomboy as long as you grow out of it.

I am still seen this way even in the queer community.

I was bullied and picked on constantly. Going to school felt like going into battle every day.

Also, the "being seen as one of the guys" thing is a myth. They don't actually see you as a man or a guy. You're this weird third thing at times and a woman when you have an opinion that goes against the group. You are still a "woman" but just not a fuckable one. They don't take your opinions seriously and they'll slap that woman card on you real fast if you raise a fuss about bad behavior.

I'd love to say I was strong throughout but there was a period where I caved a little. I shaved my arm hair cause I got made fun of by this one kid on the bus in front of everyone. (Btw I have dark coarse hair and a little stubble facial hair even as a teen) I wore "girl" clothing a little bit. Women cut shirts, jeans etc. I always felt gross and wrong. People would tell me I looked cute but I felt terrible. I got depressed. I never could get my hair short enough cause some asshole would go "oh it's so nice long" "You don't want to cut it too short! you'll look like a boy!"

I just, I don't know where this privilege is that I'm supposed to have? I have fought every step of the way to be who I am now. I have had to grow and accept me outside of praise or love of anyone else and just rely on self…well not love but acceptance. Like I am privileged but it certainly isn't because i'm trans. (I'm white, I have a house cause I was able to get government assistance cause of said whiteness etc)

Even as I've come out as trans, I get overlooked a lot compared to others. There is this air that like, idk Like i'm not really trans or something?

Why is it okay for transwomen to talk about what I've been through? Why is this seen as okay? If I tried to talk about transwomen experiences I would rightfully be called out for that shit. Why is this okay? It…hurts a lot honestly.

Like…why is it okay to treat other trans people this way? I'd never dreamed to say "Oh being a man is better than being a woman" or "Feminity is always celebrated" even though yeah that last bit kinda feels that way sometimes, but I know that's not true and it's just the pain talking.

I'm just kinda tired of this oppression Olympic crap. As trans people shouldn't it be understood that intersectionality exists and while transition might be easy for some people, by the large it's a hell of an experience and it takes a lot of bravery to go down that path?

Cause like i'm making this post to share my experience cause apparently some of us need to yell more about these things. But like being trans is fucking hard. I'm sorry but without the analysis of intersectionality on a personal scale this whole "this group is more oppressed than the other" is fucking shit and honestly psyop level in it's stupidity.

Trans people are abused. Trans people are being targeted. Terf logic is fucking shit and upholds the patriarchy (also it's a cult) Patriarchy is centered around white colonist ideology.

GNC is not respected and is subjected to abuse

These things are true. and about as broad of a brush we can paint and still not get a full picture.

just…idk can we just stop diminishing trans oppression???

[opinated-user]

From what I remember (and I could be wrong) Lily was arguing the idea that a woman having her hair short being seen as a “masculine” trait is wrong, and the reason why she was arguing this is because people were suggesting one of her female characters (can’t remember the name, someone with either pink hair or red hair) should have short hair due to her buffy build. Again, I could be wrong, but I would say that I unfortunately agree with Lily on that opinion. This is coming an ex-Lily stan who used to recheck her tumblr daily so. 🤷🏼‍♀️

mmm... well, i'm a certified stalker that was there when that whole issue went down and that is very far removed when my own memory. all i remember was LO having multiple rants about how letting female characters cut their hair was wrong, misogynistic, a bad choice and a boring design. i do remember too she talking about how one character of hers was assumed masculine because they're buff. this character that she never talked about, do anything with, and essentially nobody remembered, except this one piece of art that Lizzy made years ago, was actually super femme and also buff and you could tell because she had long hair! nevermind LO never actually showed anyone saying that character had to be anything at all. because nobody cared about that character anyway. to LO, all feminity ever is tied to having long hair and literally no other traits at all.

which followed other rants about how LO was never going to have any character, female or male, cutting their hair and they were all going to have long hair. with one ask, she even tried to pass people criticizing her from her awful wording (again, specifically saying that short hair female characters were inherently non interesting and boring) as people "wanting a Native trans woman to lose her hair", which was its own brand of wild take. don't get me wrong. i do believe that LO holds awful views about butch women, but that does not mean that she does any justice for femmes either. many of the characters she herself calls femme from her own creation are some of the most boring, uninteresting, generic OC i have seen. speaking of OC, remember when she tried to claim that the rey on her sith resurgence fanfic was butch and trying to pat herself on the back because it was oh so progressive, to have a butch character with long hair? the character that 1, it's not hers in the first place so it's not like she created anything and 2, she didn't write for because that was being roleplayed by MO. also the character that LO herself characterized as 1. don't remembering to shower unless her wife told her to, 2. being essentially a rug over which her wife can walk over all she wants, 3. intentionally wear a cologne that smell "like you have been working on ships all day" (so... sweat and oil) because it's a fetish for her wife and 4. has no friend, connection or life of any kind outside of her wife. she made the only butch character she has ever written in her life into a musky, stinky, disgusting pathetic shell of a person.

[lesbiansforboromir]

I have a complex conversational relationship with my reaction to the way women look in media. As with most human attitudes, it's this mix of what I consider justifiable issues driven by societally narrow ways of depicting women, mixed in with reactionary knee jerk flinch-reactions that I have to seeing character designs that I percieve as 'forcing me to be feminine'. This last isn't at all rational, female characters that are masculine in some respects but feminine in others are not inherently against female masculinity. Someone drawing a character I percieve as a butch lesbian as thinner, daintier, softer and shier than I think of them is not an inherrently bad thing on it's own. But it feels horrible, it triggers a lot of anger and defensive contempt in me that the artist would not deserve directed their way. Most particularly because my perceptions of masculinity cannot always be trusted, smaller facial features are not necessarily feminine, my love of big, square and bold face shapes could draw me into racial stereotypes etc

AND YET... it is still definitely a not-insignificant trend for big and unfeminine female characters to be made smaller and more 'conventionally feminine' by fanartists, interpreters and subsequent media. It is also a trend for masculine-like women in franchises to be 'feminised' using some character trait. Cassandra and Aveline from Dragon Age come immediately to mind, being both the only women in all the games I can think of who could be called masculine, whilst also made straight and painted with this strange romantic naivete, coming off more as 'they failed at femininity' rather than their masculinity being a part of their identity that they express by choice. Honest to god it makes those games so hard to enjoy, media in general! Cus it is also true that, whilst there is nothing wrong with 'badass woman who has short hair and has some muscle definition but still wears makeup and has a boyfriend', it is still the only portrayal of female masculinity any media seems willing to explore these days. Which in turn makes it feel like the only expression of masculinity I am allowed, and that creates this sensation of caging that makes me want to lash out.

It's gotten to the point where I have an instinctual desire to ignore characters that are 'normal bodied' and 'normal gendered' if that makes sense. Not in the way that there is a normal body or gender, but in the way that, in the cultures I am exposed too, there is a very specific body shape and gender expression that is considered the 'strict norm' for women and everytime I see it it leaves me feeling hollow and resentful. And this gender isn't actually even really 'feminine' per se, female characters that are 'too feminine' are roundly hated too, there's like a null gender that female characters have to express in order to be tolerated by the stereotyped 'male viewer'. But this reaction of mine is still made up of both real issues and unjustified flinch reactions and it's hard to parse them in any way other than recognising what's happening and dealing with it internally or with friends who understand.

Like a lot of reactions that have origins in living in a society that is hostile to me, but is being in the moment triggered by just encountering something banal; 'this female character makes me angry just for existing' has gotta remain an inside thought.

[bthump]

How does Guts and Griffith demonstrate queer coding?

The difficulty for me in applying the term queer coding to Berserk, rather than eg homoeroticism or gay subtext, is that to discuss coding thoroughly requires more cultural context than I have, since coding is inherently reliant on cultural context to be understood. But I can offer a few ideas.

So, I've seen a case made that Black Swordsman era Guts evokes a certain 80s-era Japanese gay male aesthetic (short spiky hair, I think the outfit a bit, and some body language) but I don't know nearly enough about that particular cultural niche to make that case myself. I also don't have a link handy to where I've seen this discussed with comparison pics (I think a tumblr post back in the day, but even that I'm iffy on lol), sorry about that.

Arguably Griffith's androgyny counts as coding here. I don't think bishounen in general are queer coded, since, as far as I'm aware, they're generally intended to be seen as handsome and largely masculine, but Griffith being canonically so pretty people aren't always sure he's a man is separate from that, and certainly contributes to the homoeroticism. Add in some of Miura's comments about how androgynous characters should have both male and female love interests, and BL's longstanding history of androgynous pretty boys, and it's probably enough to call it queer coding.

Again, I'm differentiating coding from homoeroticism in general or gay/romantic subtext - this is about how Guts and Griffith individually, regardless of their relationship or how the narrative frames them and the events of their lives, evoke gay vibes through their surface depiction.

If you want the homoeroticism/romance subtext I have essays and essays worth of examples. But yeah, when it comes to coding I just don't have the necessary context to have more than a few vague thoughts.

Thanks for the ask!