#there are SOME bigoted gay men & SOME bigoted trans people & SOME bigoted enby people

[up-in-flames-writing]

I've never fucking experienced misogyny as bad as when it was directed at me from ciswomen. All you idiots hiding behind your 'but male socialisation!' nonsense babble to explain why you think trans people are soooo misogynistic, droves of misogynists in the fucking trans & gay community, have literally never sat down with a bunch of dolled up teen girls & been the only fucking tomboy in the group.

The call is coming from inside the fucking house, people. You all justifying your homophobia & transphobia ain't cute, it just makes you look like a fucking asshole. Seriously, when will people learn that saying 'most people in X group are bad people. No, I'm not being Xphobic, is just true' still makes you a bigot!

[forgotten-daydreamer]

I love how inclusivity is handled in The Dragon Prince, here's why.

In most shows, as much as it bothers me to admit so, some people are right, inclusivity does feel forced sometimes. But it's not the characters' fault, it's not because of them being part of the lgbtq+ community, or being disabled, or being POC, or being strong women who do not conform to patriarchal standards.

It's not that.

It's that the show they are part of is a straight, white, abled parade - and notice, most of said shows won't even pass the Bechdel test.

So yes, in a show written by and aimed to straight, white, abled people, even I, a gay, non-binary, chronically ill person feel weird seeing charcters that are there just for the sake of inclusivity, albeit 'inorganic'.

In a show with the premise of "straight, white, abled men are the indiscussed MCs", seeing that one side-character that stands out and is often ridiculed and/or reduced to a single trait of their 'personality', such as 'the gay one', 'the asian one', 'the disabled one' (etc) is upsetting and feels uncomfortable as hell.

But TDP is different.

They immediately introduced powerful women, people of color, characters that are openly part of the lgbtq+ community, disabled characters etc. And not one of them per 'category', no. For the lgbtq+ community we have Amaya, Janai, Runaan, Ethari, Terry, Kazi. For the disabled community, we have Amaya again, Villads, and even a disabled wolf Ava. For the POC community, we have literally half of the cast, starting from King Harrow, then Ezran, every sunfire elf, Terry as well, etc. Same goes for women, who take up on roles that are rarely considered 'for women', like Opeli being the main member of the High Council, Amaya being the General, Rayla being the main Dragon Guard, Claudia being one of the main antagonists, etc.

Both main and side-characters are part of the communities, everything is so much more organic, enjoyable, thrilling.

We do not come in 'minor quantity'.

We are everywhere, among others, living our lives, doing our best, existing, thriving, proud. It's not just one or two of us among thousands. Surprise, 'categories' can mix! Just like I, a real human being, can be gay, enby as well as chronically ill, we can have characters like that as well! Amaya being lesbian and disabled, Terry being black and trans, Janai being black and lesbian, etc. And, another surprise, 'categories' don't define us. We don't 'shove it' in anyone's face like they say we do, we're just being us and cishets are upset because we don't conform to their sick standards.

Inclusivity is organic in TDP because nobody in that universe questions anyone else's color, gender, orientation, etc. And it's organic because we didn't have to wait half a season to see a black character, or a disabled character, or a gay character.

The key to inclusivity is to realise that we aren't just 'bonuses'. Fill shows and comics with lgbtq+, POC, disabled, and female characters. Not just one every 15, 20 characters. Everywhere.

We are everywhere! We are proud! We deserve to be seen! We deserve to be depicted as the normal people we are, without diminishing our traits but without making them our whole personality either. Treat us like human beings, be considerate like you should be with everyone on the planet of course, but treat us like humans.

Antagonising people who are 'different' (in the mind of straight, white, abled people) will not suppress us. We will keep insisting until you hear us. It's literally one of the main messages, one of the main teachings of TDP and it's so damn important.

Every single person on Earth should watch it. Every single kid should be introduced to TDP at an early age. Every old bigot should watch it, as well. Everybody. Even if it's considered a y7 (y10 for s4 and s5 apparently) show, everyone, no matter their age, should give it a try and watch it thoroughly.

Lots of love to the creators and everyone, literelly everyone involved in the production of one the best, most entertaining, most exciting, most formative shows ever. Please, keep it up! And thank you so much!

[the-poetking]

THE-POETKING INTRO PAGE

Who am I?

I'm known as zenith_godly on JAI and have written several tumblr writing blogs, wattpad fanfics and a few original novels. I used to run some conversation prompt blogs (parker-fics) but I'm restarting here.

I'm an AuDHD, trans, gay, 18 year old man who loves writing, film and all things creative. I especially love world building and character creation which is how I got into bot making on JAI. You can call me Z, King, PK or some other version. Most new websites or medias I join will be under the-poetking now.

What do I do?

I make bots on JAI but I want to expand. I'm hoping to start doing commissioned writing (I will write poems for you or fanfics of scenarios you've been craving but haven't been able to find. Depends on the fandom). In the future, this could be a patreon for online books or character creation. What I'm hoping to do is start having people pay for specific bots and again- taking suggestions on stuff you guys want to see!

What does the future look like?

Hopefully, a successful online writing career! My goal is to create a strong fanbase and I may even expand to other social medias. Hopefully a novel or two and some short films as well. At this point, I'm unsure but it's looking good! (getting a ko-fi set up really soon!!!!)

How can you support me?

Right now, following me, sending me submissions on here, leaving reviews on JAI and just being supportive right now. Again; everything means so much to me.

Rules:

No incest, r@pe, pedo, abusive relationship, etc., bots. This isn't saying I don't do dead dove, but I personally do not want to romanticize this. If it includes this, it's probably a character's traumatic past.

Don't be really mean to me pls ill cry.

I love angsty shit. My stuff MIGHT include dead dove/trauma of some kind. I will tag it and put trigger warnings but don't get upset with me.

No bigotry will be tolerated. I want this to be a safe space for POC, LGBTQIA+, disabled, women, men, enbies... everyone. Well, like mainly everyone.

DNI: radqueer supporters (transracial, transage, transid, etc), radfems (TERFS), bigots, gatekeepers, toxic people and just that stuff. This isn't to say you can't enjoy my stuff but personally, I do find this stuff offensive

[transenbyconfessions]

Irl I find myself more at ease with some transphobes than with my queer acquaintances. I know what to expect of bigots, I can fight and bite them and defend others and myself. Flat out hostility is easy to deal with for me. But other queer people often make me feel like a fraud - like Im a cis het man intruding among them even if I'm a trans man and bi. It's a broad rejection and demonization of men and masculinity - even from the gay men - which assumes I'd obviously agree since Im queer and "I know how men are like" and... how do I even say "yeah don't say that stuff, that's not good feminism and due to my own personal traumas as a trans man hearing that men should all be replaced/force feminized, that it would be better if the world was all enbies and women, fucks me up a bit"?

Submitted May 22, 2023

[chipped-chimera]

I have to say as someone who is now completely out and 120% concrete about being a Lesbian, coming into it all after being on 'the outside' as a Bisexual has put some things about the wlw community in a really, really frustrating light.

Like I absolutely understand the importance of having a shared wlw space, inclusive of our trans sisters and bisexuals and enbies. They are healthy spaces to have! But as someone who now IDs as just Lesbian, it's frustrating how hard it is to find any kind of community with my exclusively shared, cisfemale experience - and I solidly believe TERFs fucking RUINED that.

If you attempt to curate a cis-lesbian only (HOLD THE FLAMETHROWERS UNTIL I FUCKING FINISH) space, you're accused of being a bigot. Simply because you wanted to be able to network with those who have a shared experience easier. But you don't see this happening on other spaces. You don't see Lesbians complaining why they aren't allowed into the exclusively Bisexual's space. I can't speak for gay men, but I get the sense this isn't commonplace either. Also notably you don't have people coming for t4t or trans exclusive spaces for wanting to have a community where it's easy for them to connect with each other and those who deeply understand their experience. I have only seen this, exclusively, in the Lesbian space. I'm seeing this happening with the erosion of even the contemporary DEFINITION of the word Lesbian being fractured into micro-identities that demand admission, at the cost of Lesbian being our exclusive label. What do we have after that? Homosexual woman? Is that what I have to say now?

And I STILL blame TERFs. Why? Because now it is almost physically impossible to curate a ciswomen only, Lesbian exclusive space WITHOUT attracting that cesspit of humanity to your group. They go on and on about those they don't feel fit their restrictive definition of 'woman' invading our spaces - YOU DID THIS. YOU BROUGHT THIS ON US. YOU HAVE MADE IT, COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE NOW TO HAVE ANY KIND OF CIS-LESBIAN ONLY SPACE BECAUSE YOU POISONED THE WATER.

I love my bisexuals, my women-aligned enbies, my transwomen. I really, really fucking do. But it is so beyond frustrating to feel like your sexuality is the only one subject to this bullshit. That I can't go to a forum and try to read about shared experiences - to easily get help and perspectives about my experiences, about what I'm going through. They either have to be open to all or you become the bigot. You become the target. Because TERFs turned the idea of having boundaries, genital attraction preferences, gender attraction preferences, any KIND of exclusive preferences in your attraction, any reasonable boundaries into hallmarkers of bigotry.

You poisoned the fucking water, an I hate you for it. TERFs can go rot in hell.

[alarajrogers]

People keep confusing "transmisogyny" with "TMA/TME" and I feel like it's deliberate.

Transmisogyny is a great word. Like misogynoir, which describes the specific experiences of Black women, transmisogyny describes the specific experiences of trans women.

However, TMA/TME is defining people by which oppression they do not suffer from. We don't go around calling white women misogynoir-exempt. This is because defining people by which oppression they don't suffer is disgusting and pure Oppression Olympics, since it strongly implies that this oppression is Teh Most Important Ever, otherwise why would you have to note that some people are exempt from it?

Should TME be generally considered a useful word, then you have to consider: what are trans women exempt from, then? And then you end up with transandrophobia-exempt, which I think the people screaming that transandrophobia isn't even a thing would probably object to.

Of course, transandrophobia is a thing. There's really no other way to describe the phenomenon of "can't get pregnancy care/an abortion because the person who is pregnant is a man". Cis women get pregnancy care, or they don't but not because they're cis women; if they're denied it, it's for another reason. Trans women don't need pregnancy care, so this isn't a general trans experience. It happens only to trans men, and masc-presenting butches and enbies.

Which is where the second part of why TME is a bad word comes in. A gay man may be shot or beaten for being in drag, as can a cross-dressing cis man. The experience "is thought to be a man dressing as a woman and receives violence as a result" is transmisogyny. But if a cross-dressing cis man can be brutally attacked because someone thinks they are a trans woman, how is he transmisogyny exempt? There are occasions when a bigot who knows someone is trans doesn't know which kind of trans, and attacks a trans man in a way that normally trans women are attacked. That's actually transmisogyny. Butch cis women and trans men can be attacked in women's bathrooms for being "men" in "women's bathrooms", which is traditionally transmisogyny. So a lot of people that would normally be defined as TME actually aren't? And therefore the term is useless?

I feel like defining an oppressed group of people by what they're not oppressed by is... actually pretty fucking offensive! When I talk about how I'm treated for being a woman or autistic or an autistic woman, I don't need to hear someone talking about how black women have it worse than me because I'm white and therefore I don't have the right to talk. Certainly I don't have the right to complain that black women are talking about their experiences and not centering me, but I do actually have a right to talk about my experiences sometimes.

Trans men and trans women and enbies and intersex people all have a lot of experiences in common that go to the whole "not being the gender people think they should be" thing, and they all also have their specific issues. Trying to argue that someone is "exempt" from one specific oppression would only not be fantastically offensive if you were going to list all the things everyone was exempt from. Trans women who are perisex are exorsexism-exempt! Enbyphobia exempt! Does this sound like a useful way to describe, well, anything?

do you know why people say trans women and trans men cant both be targets of misogyny? I was told that saying trans men are oppressed by misogyny was bigoted because it implies trans women aren't

imo it mostly comes from a binaristic and cis-centric understanding of gender.

"Oppositional sexism" (coined by Julia Serano) is a handy term here: the idea is that men and women are inherently rigid and mutually exclusive categories of people. Anything one category is, the other cannot be, and vice versa.

Here, oppositional sexism holds that if women are harmed by misogyny, then men benefit from it; women can never benefit from it, and men can never be harmed by it.

A lot of transphobia is rooted in the ways in which trans people fundamentally defy oppositional sexism, and thus endanger the gender binary. Men are supposed to be big, and women are supposed to be small; but trans men assert that men can be small, and trans women assert that women can be big (to use one overly-simplistic example).

A lot of trans people and trans allies still adhere to oppositional sexism, but claim to do it in a "trans-friendly" way: sex can be changed, but gender is instead rigid and mutually exclusive. Or- perhaps more commonly- gender can be expressed in any way, but the ways in which gender is experienced are instead rigid and mutually exclusive.

Which is how we arrive at this insistence that trans people fall into one binary gender experience, even if they don't actually identify as a particular "binary" gender. "Trans women are women" might mean trans women can look and act any way at all, but it also means they experience womanhood in the same way that all other women do, and that experience is rigid and mutually exclusive of "man" experiences.

It's also why so many people are so eager to create new "inclusive" ways of sorting trans people into the same gender binary using increasingly contrived language: People insist on knowing the gender someone was assigned at birth so they can categorize them as AFAB or AMAB, and thus conclude what gender experience they have: man or woman. People insist on categorizing nonbinary people as either transmasc or transfem so they can conclude what gender experience they have: man or woman. People insist on categorizing trans people as either TMA or TME so they can conclude what gender experience they have: man or woman.

The idea that trans men experience misogyny only implies that trans women don't if you believe that man and woman are rigid, mutually-exclusive categories.

[vampish-glamour]

i try to avoid anyone who had she/they or he/they or other gender or lgbtqwerty shit on their bios. at first, i thought i was being petty and silly but i thought better about it and really? these people are probably the same who love to talk about how "men have boobs too!!!" and things of the sort and as a trans guy i don't really want to talk to someone who for sure won't see me as a man lol. with how much they try to act as if trans people are different and/or better than cis people i don't want to talk to someone who i'm sure will treat my gender as a cute little accessory. at least when i talk to a full blown transphobe i can just ignore them. but i find it hilarious that a huge part of the LGBT community thinks like this, so even if i'm tired of transphobia and seek a more accepting place i come to the LGBT community and find people saying that pronouns =/= gender, how pan people are attracted to "men, women AND trans people!", people ground enbies with trans people and i still find transphobia, but 🌟woke🌟

sorry, this was a pretty long rant, but ive been seeing so many posts on how gatekeeping is evil and exclus are such meanies, but seeing the shit that comes from inside of the LGBT community, really, we need MORE gatekeeping. i wish people would stop seeing gatekeeping as being inherently mean or disrespectful but i guess some people care more about how "valid" they are then actually making a safe space for lgbt folk

It’s all good!! 💖

I completely agree, I think you worded this well.

It’s funny that I feel the same way about bigots, like it feels like regular homophobes are almost better than woke homophobes. Because at least I know what to expect with the regular homophobe and can just ignore them, and most of western society ignores them as well. But the woke homophobes sort of just weave homophobia into their wokeness, and claim to be my “ally” while saying the most anti-gay shit they can think of.

Same goes with the mainstream trans activists… they don’t seem to realize that the shit they say is often both sexist and transphobic. And idk why any trans person would want to team up with them, because at the end of the day they do not have the interests of trans people at heart.

I’m just so done with the lgbt “community” at this point… it’s run by the Q+ and it’s not a good place for LGBT people anymore unless you’re completely on board with the wokeness.

Gatekeeping is really all we can do, and it should’ve been done long before now. If it had, we wouldn’t have to deal with the Q+ making a mess for us to clean up. And IMO, that’s exactly why so many of them are against gatekeeping, because they know that they’re the ones who we want to keep out. They know they aren’t supposed to be here, and that the only way they can stay in the club is if they demonize those who they trample on.

[the-trans-otter33]

So I havent been on in a while. My account is as dry as a raisin but I thought I could try to make a comeback with some thoughts I just want to talk about.

Trigger and Content Warnings:

Slurs, bigotry, hatred, violence/the threat of violence, death mention, swearing, mentions of sex/sexual items,

For those of you who dont know, Im a transgender man. Assigned female at birth (AFAB) and am currently 16. I knew i was trans since I was 13 and started socially transitioning a few months after I came out.

I came out at high school when I was 13 and have been openly out and queer ever since I was a sohpmore. I'm a junior now, and I've had a bit of experience with my community, both lgbtq+ and my high school community.

My high school community is red, conservative. I live in the western side of North Dakota, what can you expect?

There are bigots and haters ans anti-trans and anti-lgbtq+ everywhere I walk on tbe daily. Yet despite this I am one of the only lgbtq+ students that remains openly out, despite the fear of where I live.

There's always been transphobia and homophobia around me, I get misgendered on the daily by students and even teachers. Words are thrown without care, like Gay as an insult, or Faggot, or Queer. Other students are called gay any time they dont outwardly talk about other people with different genitals than them. At this point Im apathetic to it when I encounter these situations, because it is so unfortunately common.

Nothing ever makes this right of course, and as much as I would love to be outward against these bigots, its several hundred, even a thousand hormonal immature mostly white religious people versus me and I've got to pick and choose my battles.

Maybe you think that makes me a part of the problem, but quite frankly me and my family cant afford it if I get hurt or even get killed due to ridiculously high hospital debt and the funeral costs even.

Keep in mind, these people I'm around do not even care about saying the n word no matter their skin color. Plenty of skinny white boys have said the n word here, and POC say it carelessly in front of Staff, which is against the rules (uninforced mostly)

Being in such an environment in religious North Dakota has its advantages and disadvantages. The bigotry and hate and traditionalists/traditionalism is a disadvantage but being out here means that major viral issues such as the super straights take a lot longer to get here, if it even gets here at all. Which is also a con, seeing as progressive and liberal items/objects dont reach here that fast either. The biggest recent progressive thing we've had was Black Lives Matter, and even then most of my city bears the Blue Lives Matter flag across their car windows.

Fuck, people still bear Trump2020 and MAGA and throw full hatred towards President Biden (Not that Biden is perfect and has done no wrong). Yeah, it's pretty bad.

But the Super Straights haven't gotten here yet. Im thankful for this, being a trans man with quite possibly zero chance at finding a romantic or sexual relationship with anybody in my city. And i fear that the super straight occurrence, if it comes here, will make everything a lot worse and may make people even more openly transphobic but calling themselves superstraight

Super Straight and the super-whatever movement is toxic and terrible and filled with nothing but hatred and bigotry. As a trans man it hurts me to the core and hurts for my fellow trans men and women across the world. Using trans as an umbrella term too, my nonbinary, genderfliud, genderqueer, etc (Im not that educated in the gender neutral terms and terms that arent cis, trans, and enby so forgive me, I want to be supportive to all) humans across the world as well.

Im just hoping that it doesn't breach the walls of my city and high school and that the super Straight assholes will just die (quiet down, not literal death) out once they realize that everyone wont care about that shitty ridiculous term.

All these people want is attention, and to feel special like all of us LGBTQIA+ humans are, because most of us are unique, caring, and kind people. But the bigots can't handle that we are human and are people too and that their oppressive angry ways aren't working anymore.

That's all, and thank you for reading.

(Pls dont mind any typos, I never catch them all)

[angel-archivist]

cracking the code abt the lgbt characters for straight ppl and lgbt characters for lgbt ppl its like. the amount of struggle they sprinkle in. like if its "oh to be different and suffer 😔😔™" thats dEFINITELY for straight people. but if its "oh my god im none binary pogchamp i have truama but its not related to my identity anyway look at all the bis and pans and epic trans omg ✨ el ge bee tee queueueu commuhnity" that is for us 😔💖 yum pogchamp homies of the gays

Its about the tokenization or the queer stories being told my cishet women, im oh my god im so happy this cishet man/cishet women is going to talk to ME about Queer trauma and provide a shitty representation of what its like to be queer in 2018. Like oh my god, his families ALL accepting except his dad kind of makes homophobic jokes sometimes ://// 

Versus Queer people writing stories based on their own struggles being trans, gay whatever and actually SHOWS the nuances in relationships and yes some people get accepted by their families and that's amazing!!! thats the trouble with havign your super cool queer story only focus on White gay men you dont get different PERSPECTIVES you dont SHOW how complex it is to be queer and make the cishet allys feeling ‘comfy’ with the queer community their like: wow enough activism for today *ignores queer people of color, disabled queer folks, ND queer folks, and trans people in general*

when QUEER people write from THEIR suffering then its a stonger story they KNOW how complex and frusterating and dangerous it can be to be queer even know is ‘2o2o woWOWWOOowoo  homophobes still EXIsT HAHah??” yes bart homophobes still FUCKING exist you just SAYING its 2020 doesnt get rid of the bigots 

And back to the tokenization: 

Cishet ppl writing queer characters into media: wow look how quirky they are OR look how just like us they are look how well they blend into cishet society look there is only ONE queer character and maybe some bicurious characters haha 

Queer people writing queer characters: and theres a lesbian and some enbies and bisexuals and pansexuals and there all fuckign badass and amazing and their trauma isnt just from being queer and isnt the focus of the story but is still IN THE STORY 

sorry this is LONG i get pissed when i think about cishet queer media 

[acesian]

What is the point of being an exclusionist? I mean besides being a bigot to aces but what do they gain from kicking aces out??? The community is never going to be free of oppressors (white&poc, abled ppl&disabled ppl, cis ppl&trans&enbys, men&women&enbys). And non aces would only share spaces with aces that they shared identities with or that anyone can be in. And if aces use resources is because they need them. I just don't get "good exclusionists". What do they hope to achieve??? Cause ihni.

I think there’s a couple reasons.

To be honest, I think a few exclusionists haven’t actually had genuine interactions with aces. Like, they’ve only interacted with the few old homophobes who aren’t representative of our community (and some trolls of their own creation) and other exclusionists. (I think this is why so many of them don’t understand what asexuality is. I also think there’s a lot of misinformation being spread in general, but….) And if your only experience with a group is of them being bigoted, you’re not going to want them around you. This spawns the belief that aces and aros are inherently homophobic/transphobic. (Sidenote: contributing to this is the erasure of inclusionists’ identities, as I’ve literally seen gay trans aces be called just “homophobic aces”.) However, they should realize that being bigoted isn’t part of an identity, it’s someone’s shitty opinions.

In addition, I assume there is some disconnect between how exclusionists perceive inclusionists and our views. (Obviously, this goes the other way as well, but I can’t speak on our misperceptions of exclusionists.) I don’t think that they all know that aces and aros would only be included in our own community spaces and general spaces. I also don’t think they understand that when we say bigoted people are not welcome in the community, regardless of their identities, we are including bigoted aces and aros. So there’s a fear that these homophobic aces and aros are here to stay in the community, and won’t be kicked out.

I have also seen a lot of exclusionists say that they support aces and aros forming their own community (which sometimes isn’t true). For example, the one good exclusionist I know simply thinks the communities are better off separate. I could see this being treated as similar to the lgbtq+ community being allied with the poc community, but I don’t agree with this because 1) unlike race, asexuality and aromanticism are orientations, which fit in with other marginalized orientations, 2) lgbtq+ people often don’t treat people of color with the same respect and support that they do for other lgbtq+ people, so I don’t trust them to treat aces and aros with respect and support, and 3) so many exclusionists say “aces are valid just not lgbt” yet also criticize non-discourse things like our definition, our positivity/solidarity, etc, that it seems to me that the only way to make them stop is to include aces and aros and give them the protection of the community. (this also ties into the second point)

I also think that some exclusionists don’t have the same view of the lgbtq+ community as some of us. For me, the lgbtq+ community is of course a place to be free from homophobia, transphobia, biphobia, lesbophobia, etc, but it’s also a place to celebrate one’s identity, find friends, and learn from each other. There are multiple goals for the community, which isn’t even a monolith, since the communities vary widely across the world. As such, aces and aros can and do have things in common with other lgbtq+ groups that isn’t acknowledged.

Lastly, of course, there is the unfortunate group of people who just want to be bullies, and aces are considered an appropriate target. That’s when you get the suicide baiting, hacking, bigoted moodboards/“jokes”, block evading, etc. These people are bad, and nothing you do will convince them to be good.

[tumblunni]

Also yeah while im on the subject

I really hate fantasy settings where magic is limited by biological sex. Because usually its used to enforce some sort of stupid gender stereotype that the writer believes is "biologically innate" rather than predjudice, by making up a world where it actually is biologically innate. Or its like "oh but women cant do those jobs" but again, a made up excuse for it to be LITERALLY TRUE. And usually they either dont even touch on the subject of trans and gay people (since it often conflates heterosexuality with gender...) or else it actually does bring it up and just creates a cavalcade of even more everything-ism...

Like i mean i love the game Jade Coccoon and considering it came out in the early 2000s i can understand it being more sexist, and its supossed to be a dark game anyway and a lot of the societal structures in Syrus Village are meant to be wrong and evil even if the characters act like its the way the world should be. The villain of the game is basically the toxic atmosphere of your shitty town and their paranoia of things they don't understand. Tho that means the player kinda has no motivation to finish it cos the main conflict is also saving those same villagers from dying and theyre all fucks. Anyway i'm going offtopic! What i mena is that i dont think it was a particularly sexist example of the inexplicable gender segregated magic trope. But just cos its a fave game of mine im gonna pick it to talk about anyway. Hope i dont sound too negative on it, cos seriously i love it loads!

Ok so to use Jade Cocoon as an example, here its a thing that only men can be cocoon masters and only women can be nagi. Tho it also gets a bit complicated because nagi is also an ethnicity as well? Its kinda like being romani, they're a race of displaced people who travel the world giving their magical services to other countries while searching for their lost homeland, which you end up finding at the end of the game. So yeah its extra weird cos male children of the nagi race are born with no powers whatsoever and cant even become cocoon masters, yet they get the ruling position in this homeland place? Like thats a better metaphor for how christian societies work, honestly!

Anyway im going offtopic again!

Basically, cocoon master = adventurer dude who catches monsters, nagi = magician who purifies those monsters so you can use them in battle. So when you catch stuff it becomes an inventory item rather than being able to use it on your team right away. And also nagi women can fuse monsters together to make super badass new ones and basically the gameplay system works really well to make you believe your wife is absolutely necessary to your quest and you would die without her, even if she cant fight. And honestly its actually kinda romantic! I just wish it wasnt presented as this weird sacred heterosexuality arranged marriage nonsense where all women are physically unable to go to a dungeon and all men are physically unable to not fight every day. Or at least thats how the powers work and if you try and step out of that role you fuckin die. Like it would be romantic to have a couple of a battle partner and a supporter magician if they actually chose it, yknow?

And whats annoying is that they actually do bring up the subject of people defying gender roles and canonically state that you not omly die but bring a curse upon everyone and are hated forever. They dont mention trans or gay people, instead the excuse is that a man loved his wife so much that he tried to learn nagi magic to lift the burden from her. Cos oh yeaj women get 'punished' by god for doing this magic?? Cursed tattoos all over their body the more they use it, and everyone hates them and eventually they turn into a fairy and forget they were ever human. And in the japanese version you can actually fight other nagi women who met this fate, theyre just another monster that you can fight and capture. They were censored in english cos they looked like really racist stereotypes of black women! Ugh! So yeah anyway nice straight husband is punished by the magic straightness enforcing rules of the universe for loving his straight wife too much. So what is the even point? If a man tries to use nagi magic it creates the "black cocoon" of cursed doomness and blah. Literal punishment for not conforming to gender. Damned if you do, damned if you don't!

Anyway this setting always made me wonder about all the stuff it just glosses over with this implication that every one of these relationships worked out fine. Like even before we rub lgbtq topics all over a retro videogame, there's a lot of logical holes! Like seriously how many of these arranged marriages ended up loveless or abusive? How many women just didnt want to stay confined to one room forever and not even have anyone look at them because their magic markings are shameful yet its also shameful not to want to do it?? How many men were terrified of going out on this advebture fighting literal demigods sent by heaven to punish humans? How many of them just had no ability to fight and died immediately because of shitty traditions, while perfectly qualified women had to sit there and watch it happen? What if there werent enough straight men and women of the same age and people were forced into gross pedophilic shit or other horror scenarios just cos there has to be this one magical straight couple or the village dies? Whenever theres this stupid gender magic its ALWAYS portrayed as idyllic and never failing ever, unless *gasp* people dont follow the gendrules...

And then SERIOUSLY do no queer people exist in this universe?? Man i'd be so interested in their stories! I actually had an oc idea of a self insert version of me as a travelling merchant. Because maybe what if nonbinary people could do both sides of the magic at once and thus adventure alone without being tied to a village's straight marriage system? So i'd just go around purifying monsters and then be a place you could buy new and rare mons from other villages without having to catch them. Maybe an easier way to get the super rare drop fusion materials for tiger pattern and stuff? And like seriously itd be good to have a character to talk to who agrees that your village is made of assholes. I cant say its bad writing cos it was clearly intentional, but they shoulda at least put a bit more incentive to keep playing even if you didnt care about these people. Also it would help plug the plothole of how a village even survives if it doesnt have the required people to form this magical straight marriage. Have some mysterious enby avengers who travel all across the world and save everyone regardless of country! All we ask is you buy some of our lovely souveniers! Maybe a pet patalchu for your family? Seripusly why dont they ever show anyone using the purified monsters for anything other than fighting the unpurified ones? You'd think they'd be really useful in repairing the village and guarding the walls and like..regular industrial jobs. Help the place actually advance and not have to live day to day on scraps,bickering amoungst themselves as the monsters grow ever closer to breaking through. Hell, you could even have them help spin the cocoons for other monsters! If this magic only depends on having a dick or not, then cant we just dress up some animals in the magic straight marriage outfits? XD

And like aaaa man im getting so emotional just imagining a trans woman who's constabtly told she will literally bring about the apocolypse if she tries to fill the female role in this ritual. And then one day she tries to spin the magic silk and she thinks she's committing the ultimate sin and they were all right. But the magic responds to her touch, and she makes a spell more beautiful than any other woman in the village! It would probably be harder for a trans man cos the magic doesnt have so much of an immediate proof like that. Just going out and winning a fight with a monster can be called "dumb luck", and knowing these assholes they'd probably keep calling it dumb luck even after the thousandth time you save their life!

And man, i wonder how gay relationships would work in such an annoyingly strict system of enforced heterosexuality? Would it be like the magic isnt REALLY gender locked at all, and it can just be any couple with either partner taking either role? Or would it be that it is one magic per gender but the bigoted villagers were wrong about it being impossible to do things without both? Like maybe when you're going into battle alone as a single cocoon master you cant fight without catching other monsters. But when two cocoon masters love each other their magic is amplified and they become able to like.. I dunno.. Imbue each other with elemental strength so they can fight the monsters hand to hand? Cos really the elemental system is the only reason you cant do a no monsters run of the game as it is. Maybe since they cant purify monsters but they can still catch them, they equip the monsters as sort of a power rangers transformation? Or socket them like materia on their weapons? Or just if the world was less segregated into tiny sexist racist villages they could simply buy the purification coccoons from another local nagi, and villages without a coccoon master could buy the services of travelling ones. Oh, and maybe two nagi lesbians could be even more badass! Cos if they can only purify and not fight, maybe their double purification is so strong that they can just straight up walk into the forest and monsters don't attack them. They dont even need to do the full spell, they can calm a beastie's rage just by holding out their hand and patting it on the head. So they coukd be infinately more effective and not have to just tenporarily clear single travelling routes of a few monsters, but actually work towards slowly purifying the entire forest and creating a peaceful land again. Tho i mean the game did have a unique atmosphere with the whole 'no hope of ever beating them' aspect. It was unique to see a society formed around the idea of never going into forests or you Die. But magical lesbians and their family of a million pet dragons is honestly better!

And uhhhh ive gone all offtopic now and i camt stop thinking about how much i love magical lesbians with a million pet dragons

The End

[rametarin]

It’s because of the pathologization of sexuality and gender identity in “advocacy” and “awareness.” It’s a complex and dirty little secret, because it’s not flattering to LGBT, or the exponentially bigger pool of cis women that call themselves supporters advocating as their allies, and it has overlap with fetishization of gay men and obsession over the sexualities of males in general. I say males because the loudest and most consistent and most frequent of these allies and supporters have been cis women, not because there’s some inherent and exclusive female monopoly on this particular assholic trend, but statistically, yeah, this sort of asshole tends to be cis female. The loudest, most numerous and most consistent and frequent.

Bog standard cis females and later the ones that become enbies latch onto this romantic view of a trans man as this ideal to “uwu pwotect and nurture” because standing up for an underdog gives them something to feel good/superior about doing. And at first it can seem like, yeah, you’ve found someone that respects and understands you and has your continued existance and thriving in mind. That sees you and accepts you for what you are.

But that’s not.. really the case. The reality is most of them are kind of like those fratboys that go, “LESBIAN? COOL!” and spend the rest of their college career asking the lesbian how lesbian sex works, who they’ve slept with, who they’d want to sleep with, if they’ve ever been curious about being penetrated or experimenting with their sexuality for some reason hint hint obvious red flag is obvious.

Only replace this direct and almost, “canine companion being sneaky” levels of obviousness with absolute obsession with the female position’s idea of what masculinity is, from their perspective. Just, this romantic concept, this construct they have of what being male is and what it means- to them, as women, and projecting this biased interpretation and how it relates to them onto their gay little bean friends.

Just replace totally obvious fratboy dudebro “COOL. You ever taken a DICK?” transparent fantasy projection onto others for their gender/sexuality, with obsessively writing same-sex coffee shop AUs with real existing people where the only difference is this, “wholesome, romantic relationship” of people they even think might look “cute” as a gay man.

It’s not quite fantasizing about fucking someone and it’s not always inherently sexual in the conventional sense, so for over 30 years we’ve had to deal with these bints acting like THEY had the moral highground for doing the exact same bigoted bullshit as the dudebros that, “totally love lesbians, they in fact want their girlfriend to try it!” they just pretend their fantasy that reduces someone to a concept and class to project further their ideas about what they are and what they mean are morally superior, because nobody necessarily has to have meaningless, enjoyable, mechanical sex. Just benign, boring schmultzy interactions that only Western Fujo fucking care about.

And before these types even knew what transmascs were, they were ‘hagging’ around gay boys and adopting them like purse dogs, just to make themselves feel important by mamabearing over them when the opportunity presented itself. The bizarre, insecure and violently homophobic irrational repulsion was every bit as real as the bizarre, violently homophilic and irrational attraction to being gay. Treating men attracted to men like they were ants in a farm to watch go off, have relationship drama, get gay married and live in a big gay house and raise gay kids and live out whatever important relationship drama they wanted to see their trophy gay friends or imaginary characters live out.

What drove their support and conscientiousness was not really support for the condition and people with it, but a perverse voyeuristic obsession, with the very concept of what they percieved as, “feminine masculinity.” And, some of them really, really loved the idea that gender was just a hat you could slip on, wear and become the person that the hat was made for. And, “Masculine femininity.” It wasn’t understanding or empathy for the people suffering with dysphoria, it was a bizarre fascination and idealism that you could be a boy or girl just by virtue of declaring to be so. And the drama of the decision. I can’t state enough, identity as a catalyst for agitation of others and attention and the consequences for being on the wrong side of history is like a narcotic for some of these people.

So these types of people’s Lisa Frank binders were strewn with smutty art of feminine men and transwomen touching their chests like breasts and using hyper feminine body language for vulnerability, mixed in in the dirtier, deeper end with shameful commentary talking about their chests as breasts and self-lubricating assholes that they imagined in their romantic projection of female-sexuality-onto-gay-men as functioning sexually like vaginas.

And they sincerely thought they were helping because they were allies, they’re supporters, they’re on the right side of history. They accept gay men and trans people.

And few to no one actually sat them down and said stop it because dealing with the many layers of denial to unfuck that mentality is like trying to put a slippery silk suit on a greased up pig. Or thread mucus through a needle. Or try to make someone with dementia and too much pride understand not only are they wrong but they need to stop. They’ll get amnesia after the conversation is done and you sincerely won’t be able to tell if they just forgot or are stubbornly refusing to comprehend how to act right and are insisting on themselves to the universe.

They didn’t, because they needed people to argue and challenge and frustrate and agitate on their behalf, and whom better than the most obsessive and antagonistic and privileged group in the western world to carry their flags and argue their causes, even IF what they saw and what they thought was not EXACTLY what the people actually were?

They fetishize the transgendered, the idea of being both genders, the idea of not having a gender, and the very idea that as a species humans have more than two functional biological sexes because the romantic fantasy that cishetero binarism is just an oppressive patriarchal cultural thing enforced from on high and a lie deboonkable by, “the science” gives them that socio-political drama high. And their ideas about all those things begin and end at how the concepts of these things make them feel.

It’s the same population of people that were finally called out, defined and labeled, “Western Fujoshi,” that became the face of this. The phenomenon is otherwise hard to find and define and prove exists, but thanks to the advent of gay smut, literature and art communities, you can now not only get a population head count, but learn, “awful lot of women in here...” And patterns emerge.

This is important, because advocacy and support for someone on the right pretenses matters. There’s a succinct difference between supporting the existence of, say, a non-Muslim or non-Christian in a region where the locals of the religious sect want their community to be exclusively of their religion, and their existence in the face of that hegemony and majority, versus, “YEAH! I support you not being Christian in a majority-Christian space! SATAN is awesome!”

One is the correct observation that one should be able to choose their religious affiliation, even to not have one at all, and the other only supports the dissenter because they’re in favor of.. something else.. and the dissenter represents something else to them than what the dissenter is actually fighting for.

The people I find getting mad about those transgendered people wanting to pass as the opposite sex and gender, are those that advocate for “freeing gender from gender.” Accept beards are feminine, accept 109 pound, deliberately shaped and presented waifs with long hair and wearing pink dresses covered in Venus symbols and showing lots of cleavage as men. These ones do not respect the idea that gender is a plato’s shadow of sex, and without the sex and its physical characteristics, its empirical, factual materialization and manifestation, the associated characteristics by gender have absolutely no meaning beyond arbitrary class characteristics.

So.. The pattern that do this shit tends to be Western Fujoshi that dip some of their pathologized fetishization into Queer Studies in college and then decide because they imagine themselves getting fucked as a gay man to be hot, they want to manifest being a gay dude into reality. As they’re encouraged to see gender as hats you wear and are reinforced in their romantic fictions, to do. So. Fujoshi and later, Enbies, mewling about how, “you shouldn’t conform to societal standards of gender! Be PROUD of your boy BREASTS! Be proud of your girl PENIS!

And then you get outsiders identifying as the group and then making progress and future hell for everybody involved. Even worse because they aren’t like the real, valid ones and now have equal claim to the identity and title and movement and demands for how to be interacted with and respected by law.

Hey why is it that the “passing/wanting to pass is transphobic! don’t try to transition and just accept your body as it is!” stuff is only told to transmascs but never transfems

and it’s made worse by everyone insisting on always using feminine terms like “tits” and “pussy” for us and our bodies instead of masc or neutral terms like “chest” or “dick” (and at most bottom growth is never just called a dick, it’s ALWAYS “T-dick”)

[true-egalitarian]

Hey Closeted LGBT+ folk!

Yes, YOU! You are VALID as heck, all right? •Ones who aren't comfortable coming out as LGBT+ •Ones who have bigoted families •Ones who feel they'll be treated as an illness •Ones who are surrounded with acceptance but still aren't out •Ones who are comfortable with coming out but want to on their own terms This positivity includes: •Gay/Lesbian/Monosexuals •Bi/pan/polysexuals •Ace/Aro/Demisexuals (be it caused by sex repulsion or just because!) •Polyamorous people •Trans men and trans women •Demiboy/girls •Bi/pan/Polygender •Cultural specific genders (e.g. Native Americans can be Two-Spirit) •Enbies/Neutrois/Agender •Genderfluid/Genderflux •Split attraction (e.g. Panromantic demisexual) •Disabled closeted LGBT+ •And anyone in between/I haven't been able to mention! I know it's a difficult time for you right now, and I hope one day you'll be able to live freely without judgement! Just because you're closeted doesn't mean you shouldn't be allowed to celebrate pride. You're an amazing being and so strong and I hope you have a safe pride month. Here are some closeted people in history (TW: A few of the men died of AIDs during the crisis. I just want you to be mentally prepared should you find more history on them): •Liberace •Freddy Mercury •Joel Crothers •Anderson Cooper (forced out) •Amandla Stenberg (meant to be kept on Tumblr; news sites caught wind and fans changed their wiki page pronouns) •Cary Grant •Montgomery Cliff •Djuan Trent (Came out after she was top 10 in a national beauty pageant) I'm sorry if I can't find as much, but please feel free to add more people if you'd like! Please no T/e/rfs, a/ph-obes; and this is excluding M-A//Ps

[bitter-bitchbites]

"Aphobes use terf tactics" "Aphobes use anti sjw tactics" nah man I'm gonna tell you what it really is. Aphobes use abuse tactics. (Watch aphobes act like victims are always the victim and can't ever do abusive things as they as "this is bs cause I'm an abusive victim". Like I'M AN ABUSIVE VICTIM TOO and if you never accept that some of the things you do can be abusive then you'll end up hurting a lot of people on accident. Death threats, gaslighting, guilt trips etc etc are all abuse tactics.)

((please don’t call me “man”. “dude” works just fine instead. i hate being called specifically masculine names/terms))

(im gonna take this by understanding you made some typos and meant “im an abuse victim” and not “abusive victim” and whatsnot over there and there ?)

ok, fair, but consider this : terf and anti sjw rhetorics are both inherently abusive, and follow what you just rightfully said, at least in terfs’ case, since these pieces of rotten shit think they can’t do no bad because they’re women, or lesbians,

AND

there are many and specific forms of abuse. specific tactics. and the tactics and arguments of a-antagonistic* exclusionists are the same of terfs’. which isn’t that surprising, given that, just like you said, terfs’ abuse is a not so imaginative of abuse. but to just call it all abuse is vague and counterproductive imo ? like, i’ll say that exclusionists use the same rhetorics because they do. intersexists, trans-/bi-/pan-/enby-/a-q-antagonistics, they all use the same rewritten copypasted bs. 

their abuse needs to be specifically named, and compared, so that the ppl targeted can see it’s not objective, it’s not new, it’s not actually them being a problem, it’s not objective, legitimate exclusionism, but that it’s been the same old song that specifically target Us Who Do Not Give A Good Image Of The Gay Community Because We’re Confusing And We Look Like Cishets Apparently.

funny thing, that way of thinking exclusionists have is actually cisheteronormative.

funnier thing, back when it was just GL, lesbians, cis lesbians were excluded from the group because cis gay men are misogynistic. and have been. for wow. a while. counts back to ancient greece, in europe. (pls dont answer with a #NotAllGayCisMen pls)

i guess they forgot. or maybe not. maybe they just enjoy getting the turn in being sadistic little shits :)

more funnier thing, we know there are nasties among us too. but we can’t fucking catch them all, as much as i want to pound in the aces that say it’s ok they fetishize gay men cuz they’re women and they don’t feel sexually attracted anyways. we know many of us are bigoted. but excluding us won’t stop that. it’s not the right solutions and those bigots will invade spaces either ways because they don’t care about anybody but themselves. exclusionism is not something they care about.

so yeah, because being precise helps seeing the roots of specific abusive rhetorics, we need to do just that.

calling it just abuse and sticking to it won’t help, and you’re not teaching me anything in telling me trans-antagonists and misogynists. are abusive, duh

i also don’t remember comparing a-antagonists and a-exclusionists to anti-sjw, that would have been completely irrelevant. if i did that was stupid. i probably did a stupid, then.

*(imma just start using this, instead of aphobic/a/es, for entirely subjective reasons; my tags wont change for clarity’s sake tho)

[sweetiepie1990]

(part 1)hi there! im a different anon than the other but i have a couple questions if u dont mind my asking? the first is that I've started seeing people use latinx more than latin@, and im wondering if there's a specific reason u use the latter? just curious. also,, as someone who's been questioning my gender lately but who has struggled to find a way to discuss this w my family, i was wondering if u had any advice, or would share some of ur experience? i come from a mexican-american family....

I’m assuming there’s a part two but I haven’t gotten it yet. But sit down, take a load off. Some asshole wouldn’t stop trolling me earlier. Which means I’m fired up and ready to talk.

They both mean the same thing. Literally the only difference is preference. But I prefer the arroba (the @ symbol) because it can look like a lot of different variations of o and a at once (so it covers a lot of diff gender identities). Honestly, it’s nothing too new. I remember around 2012 around here, a lot of people where using the term Latin (pronounced like the first two syllables of latino). People are constantly constructing and reconstructing words to make new and better meanings.

Fuck anyone who tells you that Latino is gender neutral and the “correct grammar”. It implies the default is male/masculine. That’s like writing white as the default skin tone–it’s bigoted, narrow minded, and utter bullshit. Plus, if most Spanish words to describe emerging technology are basically borrowed from English, saying LatinX or Latin@ will not destroy the language.

See? I’m worked up. Sorry.

Talking with your family is rough, I get it. It’s terrifying no matter how accepting they may be of other trans people. First? I learned early on that my mom constantly misgenders everyone. She doesn’t even mean to but English is her second language and her default is third person singular in Spanish (which in a way is gender neutral because it’s “he/she/it/they”). She calls my cis sister he more often than she and she still hasn’t completely gotten used to using they/them pronouns for me.

Sometimes it feels like I’m making excuses for her? But I also see her struggling to stop herself and think about pronouns. It’s not a lot, but it’s a start. (I had to explain to her the other day that a trans man can totally be gay. It’s a process…Honestly, I didn’t know being enby was a thing until my best friend came out to me. I didn’t get it for the longest time, but I kept quiet and was supportive for them and I’m really glad I did. It’s tough being trans when there’s little to no representation out there.) That being said, you’re under no obligation to put in that emotional labor, especially if you’re still figuring out who you are.

When I came out as bi, my mom asked if I was sure. We basically had a conversation where she tried to nicely talk me out of it. It hurt like a fucking bitch. We didn’t talk about it again until after everything that happened with my ex. She believed me after that. And I think ever since then, if I tell her something about myself she does her best to listen and try to understand. Which isn’t ideal how we got here but I’m glad she’s like this now.

(I know a few other Latin@s whose parents came around eventually because they were clueless their kids came out. It seems to be a trait that Latin@ countries don’t talk about queer identities nearly as much as they should)

Ummm, tips? Start by talking a little more generally, and throw in a bit about racism if that’s a discussion they’re more responsive to. For me, gender in US culture is weird. They’re not as physically affectionate, cis women are really limited by body types, cis men by their height. How fucking Eurocentric the beauty industry here, I think, makes it really hard to be a POC and to be cis.

In general, if you frame it as “I want to feel more [gender assigned at birth]” I find that Latin@ parents are more responsive to that. They open up more about their experiences and (hopefully) you can engage them in some really meaningful discussions. Maybe you can turn their viewpoints totally upside down.

I’m a big advocate for “getting your family on a similar page before you open up to them”. But I also know how isolating that can feel. I’d say figure out who can be in your corner and work your way up to coming out to who you can trust.

Hope this helps

[fuckyeahasexual]

(aphobia cw, violence cw, suicidal ideation/suicide baiting cw, abuse cw)

About the ‘don’t tell anyone you’re ace, it’s tmi’. I’m aroace. I went through almost every single queer identity before finding it  because, like most aroaces, ‘i’m equally attracted to all genders’ coupled with 'i don’t know asexuality is a thing’ led me to believe i might be bi, pan, poly. bi ace, aro bi, lesbian? ace lesbian? just ace? etc etc etc. in fact, for a while i was biflux, but i have identified as aroace for the last 3 years. Anyway, i think these people know that cis straight people absolutely single you out if you don’t show attraction the opposite binary gender- say, if you’re a girl, and you never speak about finding guys attractive, men you’re crushing on, men you’re dating, men you’re interested in dating, male celebrity crushes, your sex life with men, your imagined sex life with men, your past with men, your exes etc etc etc then you will be singled out as queer. these are literal everyday questions that people face every single day. in every day conversations people will say 'wow look at that guy, what do you think?’ 'do you have a boyfriend?’ 'ugh my ex just texted me, exes are the worst. what’s up with your love life?’ eeeetc. ace people don’t show attraction to the opposite binary gender, and like lesbian and gay people, it’s fucking hard to lie about it. this is forgoing even romantic identities. after not showing adequate attraction to the opposite binary gender, straight people will see us as gay/lesbian (because ace/aro aren’t labels more people are familiar with, and most people who don’t show attraction the opposite binary gender ARE gay/lesbian) and wait for us to show attraction the SAME binary gender. when that doesn’t come, they’re like…well, they’re either a closeted lesbian, or just some weird type of queer that i don’t understand/don’t have a name for. i mean, clearly they’re not attracted to men?

For me, id'ing as every queer id but aro/ace, has led me to become accepted by peers, THANKFULLY. when i stopped mentioning i was attracted to people of any gender, realized i wasn’t, that i had been pretending for the vast majority of my life, people, OF COURSE, asked what the deal was. had i 'gone full lesbian’ (i know, straight people are a trip, as if you can choose your orientation/s, and what does 'full’ even mean, smh), that i could tell them, etc etc. when i confided in them i wasn’t interested in anyone- boys, girls, enbys- the violence i faced was indescribable. these people, these people who had been supportive of me, suddenly had it in their heads that i was…horrible, because i couldn’t feel something so human. and they were violent. because of my orientation. i’m not going to go into details of my abuse. people who are trying to make sure i’m excluded from safe communities that could have saved my life at the time don’t get to hear about that, especially since they were the reason i didn’t seek help from them. i was left alone, and i’m lucky i’m here

listen, aro/ace people face discrimination from cis straight people (i’m mentioning cis straight because straight trans people do not benefit from straight privilege but ofc cis aroaces are not discriminated against under cisnormativity, but heteronormativity) for both not showing attraction the opposite binary gender, and for feeling attraction to no gender. the only way to go about the threat of facing violence, stigma, discrimination etc, is literally by LYING. CONSTANTLY LYING. Lying that, again, if you’re a girl, you DO find men attractive, consistently agreeing with your straight girl friends when they mention it, inventing stories, inventing dates, inventing boyfriends, inventing sex stories, flirting, being on alert all the time lest you say something that 'gives you away’, always feeling like a fucking outsider but having to lie through your teeth to avoid violence.

people saying 'don’t come out as ace but to partners’ are perpetuating fucking violence. you want us to keep lying, pretending to be straight in order to not discriminated against, verbally/physically abused, etc? fuck off with that?

also, not all aces have partners. romantic partners are not the be all and end of all of people’s lives. aros generally don’t have romantic partners. you can’t tell someone 'lie about who you are so you’re not abused, only tell your romantic/sexual partner because they’re the only ones that are allowed to know you in your entirety’. Society doesn’t 'assume you’re straight until you get a partner of the same gender’, it assumes you’re straight until you don’t show exclusive attraction to people of the opposite gender, until you don’t show yourself to be straight (yes this can include getting a partner of the opposite gender). There’s no way an aro/ace, regardless of romantic id, can go about this world without being targeted as queer/not straight by straight people, unless they are making an active, every day effort to lie about their feelings. This is the same with literally every other queer/non straight orientation, which is why bi people don’t have straight privilege even in an 'opposite’ gender elationship.

also, to the people complaining that it’s a 'legitimate concern’ and it’s 'trash to say otherwise’ or w/e fucking else, which sparked me being so livid ('aces saying we don’t have a right to say this are 'insert insult’- not only are they, i’m willing to bet, not ace, and therefore don’t have a fucking say, but even if they WERE, they wouldn’t have a fucking say more than a lesbian could tell another lesbian 'hey don’t come out to anyone but your gf it’s tmi and this is a legit concern lol. instead lie about being straight so you’re safe from bigots, even if it kills you inside’. It’s wrong and bigoted. and staying silent can’t protect aros/aces more no more than staying silent can protect gay/lesbian/bi/pan/poly/omni/fluid etc people.

thanks for listening, i hope this was educational to the bigoted people, and if they’re reading this- i’m a survivor and this is very raw, i’ve been gaslighted to hell and back by 'exclusionists’ on this website who found my posts talking about my ace experiences, who sent me death threats, who literally suicide baited me for talking about my experiences- i hope this reaches you so you see how wrong you are the damage you’re doing, but if it does and you’re compelled to ANSWER or even COMMENT on it, don���t. don’t fucking touch it. have a modicum of respect, because that could send me spiralling in a very ugly way- and i’m saying this publicly because i’m sure if i didn’t say it’s very, very precarious for my mental heatlh, i’d get ugly comments on it, but hopefully being publicly asked NOT TO send me down a path i almost didn’t come back from deters potential abusers