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voxofthevoid · 4 years

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Taking It Up The Ass Isn’t Character Growth - A Rant

So, in response to an ask a while back, I said I had a rant brewing on fandom and sex positions, and well, a lot of you wanted to see it, so here you go. You literally asked for it.

Disclaimer: This is going to talk a lot about top/bottom roles in slash fic and fandom attitude towards them and is heavily filtered through the lens of my own tastes and experiences with fandom. I’d also like to be upfront that I am 100% in favor of people writing whatever fictional content they want, and it’s not what fandom does with characters that bothers me but rather how that translates into attitudes towards real, live people. Also, this is the essay version of a slow burn AU because I regurgitate my entire fandom history before getting to the point. Beware.

I discovered fan-fiction around a decade ago, had no clue what the hell it was, got hooked and dived deeper. I started participating in fandom circa 2013, and I was fairly young and also completely inexperienced both sexually and romantically. The fandom in question was Hannibal and my ship of choice was Hannibal/Will. It was/is a very chill fandom in general, but we had our drama. And chief among the contentious topics was—you guessed it—the top/bottom debate. I can’t actually remember any other topic that was discussed and argued for so ardently in that fandom, at least in those days. Even after I drifted away, I came across a few posts on the matter.

Generally, you had two camps—people who supported strict roles and those who were in favor of switching*. And because we’re a society plagued by illogical assumptions, the strict role camp mostly had people who thought Mr. Big Bad Cannibal in the Fancy Suits wouldn’t take it up the ass because he’s older, more experienced, more mentally stable, and of course, more ‘dominant’ in personality. Yes, that sentence is chock full of problematic shit. I am aware. Lots of people were aware and argued strongly against attributing top/bottom roles to personality. I don’t remember anyone arguing as enthusiastically for Top Will, but those voices were also there. But the general idea was that assigning strict top/bottom roles to a male/male couple was casting them in a heterosexual mold and thus, the progressive option was to make them switch. Strict roles also garnered comparisons to “yaoi” and uke/seme stereotypes, which was of course bad and fetishizing and we, the Western media fans, of course had to do better. Stealth racism is fun to untangle.

Anyway, I lapped up the woke juice. Partly because I was a baby queer from Buttfuck Nowhere, Asia, who had zero exposure to LGBT+ communities and what queer folks did with each other. Partly because it was the stance taken by most of my favorite writers so it seemed like a good position to emulate.

Emulate it I did. Most discussions I had about this happened in private with the handful of close friends I had in fandom. Where it really showed was in my writing. I made sure to write switching—maybe not in every fic, but then I alternated between fics. Thing is though, I did have a preference. I liked Top Will. I created and consumed a ton of Top Hannibal, and sometimes it was okay, sometimes it was not, but I couldn’t pinpoint why it made me uncomfortable. Back then, I thought I was a cis questioning/bi girl and once again, the impression I got was that not being MLM, having a preference was automatic fetishization. So I tried my best to justify my preferences, to my friends at least. I think what I said was that fandom was skewed towards Top Hannibal, and I liked the opposite because I’m a contrary fuck. Which I am, to be fair, but this was just me desperately trying to figure shit out without being offensive.

That’s the line I touted all the way until 2018, which was when I fucked off to grad school in A City, finally freed of Buttfuck Nowhere and able to actually date. At this point, I was settled in my sexuality (girls only) and questioning my gender (non-binary or trans guy). I had also tentatively figured out during undergrad that I’m an exclusive top and a Dom. Actual attempts at dating cemented that, yes, those are my preferences, about as flexible as a steel rod. Cue motherfucking epiphany over my fanfic tastes.

And see, over these years, I was engaging intermittently with fandom. I dutifully wrote switch couples. I also continued to have rigid tastes and continued to explain it away as being a contrary fuck—to be fair, until Steve/Bucky, my preference did seem to be the opposite of the larger fandom preference. But correlation, as we know, isn’t causation. Until Steve/Bucky, I continued to write versatile couples because I honestly didn’t have the guts to just say I liked it just one way. I do now but even then, I feel compelled to add that it’s because I want to see my own taste reflected in fic, so I write/read the character I relate to as a top, it's not that deep etc. Would I be as forthright if I didn’t have that reason? Would I have such strict preferences in fic if I didn’t have strict preferences IRL? The latter’s a mystery, but the former isn’t—I wouldn’t be because fandom is still entrenched in the same ideas that got me to this point to begin with.

In every fandom I’ve been in, I’ve seen some version of this debate go around. Sometimes, it’s one party saying “why would you write Character X as a bottom, he’s so Reason A” and a reblog chain that insults the OP and/or extols the virtues of switching. Sometimes, it’s a general-ish message that says they don’t understand why people have strict preferences when we all know real gay couples switch. Sometimes, it’s blanket statements that accuse anyone with preferences of fetishizing. Sometimes, it’s the same reasoning that gets you “Character Y is a top because of Reason B” transposed on versatile couples except this takes the form of “they switch because they’re equals.”

Ya’ll, I’m fucking tired.

I have long since lost count of the number of stories I’ve seen where an exclusive top learning bottom and liking it is character growth. Where a character who prefers to bottom taking a turn on top is empowering.

Isolated, these are fine. But I’ve seen enough of such stories that it’s distinctly discomfiting and a major squick. Sometimes a trigger, if I'm too immersed in the story. I’m not going to try and burn an author at the stake because they pissed me off. I am just going to close that window and quietly handle my shit. People can write whatever they want. But this one theme hits too close to home, as you can see from this 1.6k rant.

My friend (also my ex-girlfriend) and I had an all-out bitching session about this the other day. Both of us are kinky fuckers who have rigid, complementary roles we prefer and we have both had our grueling days of struggling to reconcile our sexual tastes with our ideologies precisely because of how these things are frowned upon in conservative and progressive circles. Seeing that in fandom, of all places, is both insulting and exhausting. Topping and bottoming aren’t personality traits. Neither is D/s. It’s sexual preference and power play. It really does not have to be that deep. I am not exorcising childhood trauma using the bodies of women. My partners, former and current, have not been brainwashed by the patriarchy. We will not become better, more complete individuals once I magically stop being a stone top and my partners embrace the joys of a strap-on.

I have, with my own two eyes, seen someone say that in a really committed relationship, of course the couple will switch.

Bullshit.

It’s transparent bullshit. This does not get attributed to cisgender M/F couples. Even when the automatic assumptions of woman = bottom and man = top get addressed, switching isn't presented as the default. No one’s saying “oh, if you really love your husband, you’ll peg him”. I do know butch/femme sapphic couples get their own share of shit. Because it’s all heteronormativity, right? Can’t have any other reason for top/bottom roles.

You have two extremes with “so who’s the woman” on one end and “it’s woke only if they switch” on the other, and as far as I’m concerned, they’re equally damaging. There shouldn’t be a pressure, however subtle, to conform your taste in fiction to some arbitrary idea of progressiveness. People are going to like whatever they want anyway; all this does is create an atmosphere where those likes can’t always be freely expressed without a lot of mental gymnastics. We’re seeing so many versions of this in the pushback against so-called problematic content, but smaller, subtler versions exist too.

Fictional characters aren’t real. They can be whatever you want them to be. And yes, other people will often want them to be the exact opposite of your ideas, but that’s just how things work. Meanwhile, the people behind these usernames? They’re real. No one should be throwing real people under the bus to ‘protect’ characters that don’t exist. Hannibal Lecter doesn’t care whether he gets fucked or dismembered in Author B’s fanfiction, but the discourse that surrounds the dick up his ass? That does affect flesh and blood people.

I am not claiming that this is the only attitude in fandom. Middlegrounds do exist. Plenty of people abide by fic and let fic and there are folks who pipe up to say not every RL queer couple switches. But it’s often the extremes that reach most people. That was certainly my experience, and I’m not the only one.

I don’t really know how to end this post. It is 100% a rant and one that’s been building up for a while. Bottom line is that people’s sexual behavior varies wildly and whenever you attack sexual tastes in fanfic by saying it’s unrealistic - or worse because let’s be real, that’s a very tame word choice - please remember that there’s likely someone out there who practices it.

* I’m using switch and versatile synonymously in this post. It’s mostly concerned with top/bottom debates. A lot of what I’m saying is also echoed in portrayals of and discussions surrounding D/s dynamics, but I’m not addressing that as much for now.

#fandom #top bottom discourse #wow that's a tag #here it is the rant i promised #because i don't quite trust tumblr i feel compelled to add that this is ofc not some kind of attack on actual people who switch either #you do you man #live your best life #vox has opinions

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ineedhelpdotorg · 4 years

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Another thing I would like to speak about this is my opinion I don’t want to talk over other trans people or the community I’m not speaking for the community as a whole this is just my personal opinion and I would like to state that I respect you and please respect my opinion and the opinions of others. Thank you. Here are some topics brought up that I’ve seen and I want to jsut state and voice my opinion if I offend you in any ways your are free to scroll. I value your opinions your thoughts but please be mindful and respectful of others.

THIS IS HELLA LONG BTW SORRY IN ADVANCE

(But please read the whole thing you don’t have to if you don’t want to)

1. "The vast majority of the individuals who have been examining this are cis, which is an issue first thing"

It truly isn't, there is no issue with this. There's nothing amiss with cishets imparting their insight, since anyone can have an assessment on anything. I see what your saying in some cases the don’t but as you saw on my other post they do in some events and cases the have a freedom to voice there opinions though.

2. I still can't seem to see a 'genderbent' rendition of a male character who needed bosoms and a dfab body. This is the first and most clear motivation behind why 'genderbending' is innately transphobic - it accepts that actual characteristics and sex are something very similar, and that you can't be female without additionally being dfab. (I will say AFAB)

Indeed, more often than not genderbent characters are not given characteristics and such generalizations. In any case, what's the issue with that? There's no issue playing into generalizations. You presently can't seem to see a genderbent adaptation of a male character who needed bosoms and is AFAB. That is narrative, and individual stories can't be acknowledged as obvious proof. Regarding why, the banner appears to introduce their conviction of actuality, when it clearly isn't. There's a lot of male genderbend characters (genderbent to be female) who do need bosoms, yet for what reason would it be advisable for it to significantly matter? Generalizations or not, there ought to be no issue here.

"It expects that actual attributes and sex are something very similar, and that you can't be female without likewise being AFAB." This is indeed another supposition, not a reality. Actual characteristics in sexual orientation are not something very similar, but rather it plays into the reality and generalization that actual attributes in sex jobs/sex generalizations are something very similar, to which they (as a rule) can be. You can be female without likewise being afab, and (expressed by and by) there are numerous characters out there that are trans and were being genderbent (tragically, however we shouldn't actually genderbend trans characters since it eradicates their sexual orientation except if when they're genderbent they're as yet trans, the exact inverse way.) and you could discover numerous trans characters being genderbent or such in games, manga, and media by and large.

3. "This is cissexism, and this is transphobic. The message that 'genderbending' says is that you should have bosoms and a v/gina to be female, and you should have a penis and a level chest to be male. I ought not need to clarify why that message is transphobic."

This isn't cissexism. The genuine meaning of cissexism: "Cis-sex-ism. Noun. Prejudice or discrimination against transgender people.” Stop twisting word’s definitions to fit your appeal and opinion. Stop believing threads such as this when they can’t even use the original definition properly. Genderbending is as simple as twisting someone’s gender so they fit into the stereotype. (a majority of the time, at least.) Biological genitalia are biological genitalia. Gender is defined by your brain, but we obviously cannot show that fact if there was a genderbend, because humans brains quite obviously do not show outside of the skull.

4. “The way 'genderbends' are completed likewise has unmistakably transphobic suggestions by they way it changes out the actual attributes of characters to make them 'the contrary sex' (The notion of there being ‘opposite genders’ is some fresh bullshit that I’ll cover later in this post) For instance, by giving a male character curves and breast’s while 'genderbending' him, the message is evident that this character was cis regardless."

This is being made way deeper than the notion actually is. Switching out physical traits to play into gender roles and gender stereotypes is not bullshit whatsoever. Giving a male character breasts and curves is as simple as what the action actually is. Genderbending, nothing more, nothing less. Nobody is actually reading into how detailed this is besides the original poster. But my issue is, what’s wrong with the message that the character is cis? Is there something wrong with cis people or there being cis characters? Trans people can still fit into these categories, and assuming trans people look different from cis people (whether in fiction or not) is transphobic, not characters fitting into the ‘cis’ category in your opinion. Once again, there is the assumption that the character was cis to begin with (unless the character has been stated on their wiki or in canon to be cis, to which most aren’t usually.

5. "'Genderbending' naturally infers that all characters are cisgender of course, and deletes any chance of these characters being trans. this isn't as plainly transphobic as the main point, yet it is hurtful to trans individuals inside being a fan spaces, as the presumption that all characters are cis until unequivocally expressed in any case pushes us out of media and eliminates whatever portrayal we may attempt to make for ourselves. "

Genderbending doesn't suggest anything, the first banner (and rebloggers) are indeed assuming. This obliges the hurried suspicion false notion, which is a coherent error that shows when a argument I’dbadly made. Genderbending doesn't suggest that all characters are cisgender as a matter, however it infers that the individual who composed this accepts so. There are cis looking trans individuals, and there are so to state, "trans looking" cis individuals. It doesn't eradicate any chance, in light of the fact that there can even now be trans individuals with genderbends, just as the way that there is trans genderbends out there. (despite the fact that it's avoided upon, obviously) It isn't unsafe to anybody at all, considering genderbends are quite often for no particular reason or investigation, there is no supposition that all characters are cis until expressed something else. (also, regardless of whether there is, the thing that's the mischief in that. there's no damage in having cis individuals not be expressed and trans individuals being expressed, on the grounds that cis individuals are the greater part.) It doesn't eliminate any portrayal at all, and I'd prefer to check whether operation really had any sources identifying with that, considering this has no sources at all and explicitly lies on striking allegations and suspicions.

6. "The third issue with 'genderbending' is that it is reliably cis male and cis female, and that is it. I have never seen people 'genderbend' characters by making them nonbinary or intersex. I have never seen a genderbend of a female character which made her a trans male in light of everything. 'Genderbending' proposes that there are only two choices concerning sex: cis male and cis female. There is nothing of the sort as nonbinary individuals inside this philosophy. Intersex individuals are bizarre, best case scenario. Agender individuals are minimal better than a far off fantasy."

Prior to anything: Agender doesn't exist. Non binary isn't actually viewed as a gender what I am saying is Non-binary is not technically considered a gender Non-binary (also spelled nonbinary) or genderqueer is a spectrum of gender identities that are not exclusively masculine or feminine‍—‌identities that are outside the gender binary and there is no “opposite” to genderbend a non-binary person there is no "inverse" to genderbend a non-paired individual. In the event that somebody endeavored to "genderbend" a non-binary individual to a male or female, individuals would get vexed regardless of what they wanted. There is indeed, nothing amiss with male and female genderbends. YOU (conversing with operation and the individuals who concur) continue expecting that they're cis, which is more transphobic than what you guarantee is transphobic. You can't "genderbend" a non-binary nor intersex character, or it would be designated "transphobic" or "eradicating their personality" to which it's definitely not. You could ensure that something contrary to non-parallel is intersex (since individuals who are intersex are hermaphrodites, brought into the world with both genetalia logically) however that would likewise recieve more disdain. It doesn't infer anything, and without fail, you expect that a character is cis. For all you know, they could be stealth trans, or openly trans but you never looked at their wiki; or they could not have their gender specified on the wiki or in canon. Agender does exist what I am saying is the gender your trying to portray or the norms when you look it up Some people's gender changes over time. People whose gender is not male or female use many different terms to describe themselves, with non-binary being one of the most common. Other terms include genderqueer, agender, bigender, and more this is. That is what I am saying in that area that people don’t identify as any gender as he/she or some are fluid. yes you could do “opposite” to genderbend a non-binary person. But if someone attempted to “genderbend” a non-binary person to a male or female, people would get upset despite it being what they wanted. But that would be transphobic and defeating the purpose of there identity as a whole. Sorry some of my Japanese was switched out and there are some words do not exist in English I apologize if anyone got offended. Yes you can genderbending a cis male/female to a non-binary individual but that wouldn’t be called genderbending would it?

7. “‘Genderbending’ ignores that it is impossible to make a character ‘the opposite gender’, because there is no such thing as an ‘opposite gender’. Gender is a spectrum, not a binary, but you wouldn’t know that from the way fandom spaces treat it.”

Gender is binary, however binary doesn't mean two. Gender is chosen in the brain. It IS difficult to make a character that is non-binary or intersex the contrary sex on the grounds that there is no opposite gender of non-binarynor intersex, at any rate in the event that you would prefer not to be called transphobic or more. You can make a cis individual a non-binary person but that wouldn’t be called genderbending?? The frigidity of genderbending is when a character's gender is changed. Usually in fanfictions or fanart. The name should be changed since it is heavily confusing since genderbending also means in other definitions gender bending is sometimes a form of social activism undertaken to destroy rigid gender roles and defy sex-role stereotypes, notably in cases where the gender-nonconforming person finds these roles oppressive.

8. “Of course, there are some reasons for ‘genderbending’ cis male characters into cis females that will always get brought up in discussions on the politics of ‘genderbending.’ The most frequent is that cis girls, who only see themselves as one-dimensional characters in media, want to have characters like them who are just as multifaceted and developed as the male characters that we are given, so they make their male faves female to give themselves the representation they desire. This is a decent reason for ‘genderbending’, but it does not excuse the fact that the way in which ‘genderbending’ is done is inherently transphobic, and it gives fans yet another excuse to ignore female characters in favor of focusing on their male faves.” This whole spot I shouldn’t even have to explain. This is once again being read into way too much, there is no ‘politics’ of genderbending. There is just genderbending, plain and simple. Cis girls can want to see stuff in genderbending, as can cis guys when they genderbend a female character male to see how they’d react and such. Genderbending has no politics, besides that it’s “transphobic” to some.

9. “Another reason for ‘genderbending’ that I’ve heard is ‘it’s for the sake of character exploration - like, what if this character had been born as male/female instead?’ This excuse is cissexist and transphobic from first blush. The idea behind it is that someone ‘born as female’, aka with breasts/vagina will automatically be a cis female, allowing fans to explore what that character’s life would have been like if they were female. Why not explore the possibility of a character being designated female at birth, but still identifying as male? Why do you need a character to be cis for you to find their personality and life interesting to explore? Why do you automatically reject the notion of your fave being trans? If you want to explore what it would have been like for your male fave to have struggled with sexism, consider them being a trans woman, or a closeted afab trans person.”

Yes, character exploration. It’s not cissexist nor transphobic. Whether the character was genderbent cis or trans, it’s not about their genetalia to ‘explore’ the character, but that’s just what you thought it was. Character exploration in this case as in “How will people treat them differently due to possible sexist/misogynist laws and/or character behavior that’s normally in males inside a female, or vice versa? How would people and the law treat this female character who’s shy, if she was a male? How would people and the law treat this male character who’s obnoxious and loud and determined, if he was a female?” Not “How different will this character’s life be because they have a penis or v/g?” You reducing character exploration down to genitalia is blatantly transphobic more so than you think, as well as just downright rude.

10. ‘Genderbending’ does harm trans people. It perpetuates dangerous cissexist notions and the idea of a gender binary being a valid construct, erases nonbinary and intersex people, and others trans people. These are what we call microaggressions - they are not as dangerous as outright harassment and assault, but they enforce and support a system and ideology in which we are other, and we are worthy of hate and violence because we do not fit in.

Genderbending does not harm all trans people inherently i am talking to a group of people which is moderately huge but I am not speaking for all of the community whatsoever, considering trans people also like to genderbend characters. It plays into stereotypes and you thinking gender is a spectrum is more harmful that getting upset that someone thinking “How would people treat this character if he/she was the opposite gender?”. It does not erase non-binary nor intersex people, because you could throw them in if you really wanted to, but you’d also be the person who would call that act transphobic or ‘erasing their identity’. This is not a microaggression whatsoever, but rather a personal grudge based on assumptions you think are true, and treating your opinion as fact. That is all.

I don’t see or think why genderbending as a whole is transphobic the name should be changed though but genderbending as a whole is not bad sure they’re are issues but It is not transphobic.

#obey me shall we date #obey me #fuck gender norms

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arcanalogue · 4 years

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The Book of Symbols: Beard

I’ve been meaning to give myself something to do in the morning that involves reading and writing, but isn’t journaling. Something meditative that isn’t meditation. Something to stand in for the gargantuan influx of media that I wake up and try to absorb each morning, which is such a terrible way to start the day. And also something that adds value to my practice, but which doesn’t “feel like work” or require me to be firing on all cylinders while I scrape myself together.

Also, perhaps most importantly, something that doesn’t need to happen every day in order to be worthwhile. Because that’s a major commitment, babes. And I’m not there!

But I do have this cinder-block-sized tome by Taschen called THE BOOK OF SYMBOLS: Reflections on Archetypal Images, which has been haunting me for years because it’s never been put to proper use. And what use might that be? It’s not explicitly clear, which is part of the book’s allure.

The editors have gathered hundreds of entries based on visual archetypes. These have been grouped into categories: CREATION AND COSMOS, PLANT WORLD, ANIMAL WORLD, HUMAN WORLD, and SPIRIT WORLD. The publisher has provided a ribbon bookmark for each of these, as well as a notched “thumb index” cut into the side of the book for quick reference. And then each of these categories is further reduced into several smaller ones. But there’s no table of contents — just a standard index, which is a lovely way to wander, or to hunt for something specific, but it’s not the same as just a numbered list of archetypes in the order presented, the absence of which has foiled me on several occasions.

But this doesn’t seem to be stopping Gisele... so what’s my excuse??

This book has been guilting me for quite a while, but I still hadn’t figured out how to use it. In addition to being an exquisite object, and seems incredibly valuable to the practice of divination, as a reference to help one recognize and interpret various symbolic elements, and I’ve wanted to create a method for dipping into it that would be akin to divination itself. However, it’s hard to flip to a “random” entry in an 800-page book. So, I’ve decided to use a random number generator to pick an entry for me, to read that entry, and then write down a handful of notes to help it stick in my brain. This could take up ten minutes or an hour, whatever I have time for. And the only way to test it out is to test it out, which I did this morning!

I dunno if I’ll end up post all of my adventures in random symbolist musings, but I’m happy to show the one that I kicked off with.

BEARD (pg. 368)

Firstly, this was a more amusing beginning than expected, simply because “beard” is just a funny word to me, no matter the context. I always giggle at the part in Björk’s otherwise quite reverent “Cocoon” when she sings: “To inhale a beard / loaded with courage.” I guess most consider beards to be a perfectly normal thing to have on one’s face, but I’ve always found them rather preposterous to look at.

The book points out all the obvious associations with masculinity, which of course overlaps with ideas related to wisdom and sovereign power, even down to Egyptian rulers (including queens) who wore false beards or were portrayed with beards. But one part in the text that struck me referred to the way a beard naturally frames and emphasizes the mouth, and thus became associated with language, making it a symbolic feature of teachers, philosophers, and those “who work with the mind by means of words.”

This makes me wonder if there’s any overlap, symbolically, with lipstick; we’ve all read about the sexual connotations of presenting “flushed” or otherwise brightly colored lips, but additionally, by accenting or exaggerating the mouth, it’s also another way of assuming a mantle of adulthood and authority, encouraging others to pay attention when one speaks.

The book does highlight a beard’s potential for deception and concealment, but I was disappointed to find that they didn’t include the queer vernacular, in which a “beard” describes a woman who agrees to marriage or a relationship with a closeted gay man, as a way of disguising his homosexuality.

The article also neglects to highlight the uncomfortable fact that facial hair can be a universal trait among the sexes, depending on genetic or hormonal influences. It has become symbolically important for women to remove their facial hair as a condition of their womanhood (though many have ultimately declined to do so, and even incorporate it into their interpretation of femininity). This remains a common source of gender dysphoria in cisgender women.

Beards are considered a secondary sex characteristic, and as such, the inability of more naturally smooth-skinned people to grow a full beard is often presented as an indictment against their masculinity — one of those areas in which racism has colluded with sexism.

I’ve never had any interest in growing a beard and find it extremely itchy and uncomfortable past a certain point, not to mention that it significantly triggers my trichotillomania — I start attacking the various weird hairs and double-follicles (known as pili multigemini) until there are bald patches. And it should be noted that it can be very difficult to brandish both facial hair and lipstick effectively, because even when freshly shaved (which I rarely am) there’s a sudden change in texture of the skin around the mouth. Usually I’d rather have the gloss than the grizzle.

But as the gender binary breaks down further and bearded drag looks have become their own venerable tradition, we see much greater support for the idea that one can present both, uncovering additional symbolic layers in the apparent contradiction.

Anyhow, that’s it for now. More thrilling adventures in technologically-aided archetypal exploration coming soon!

#the book of symbols #archetypes #divination #taschen

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strangerthanfiction · 5 years

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and it's wrong, wrong, wrong (but we'll do it anyway 'cos we love a bit of trouble)

𝖖 𝖚 𝖔 𝖙 𝖊 𝖘

“i don’t want to be just a nothing, a sick blank, withdrawal into myself forever. i just want something, beside the emptiness i’ve carried around in me all my life.” –– allen ginsburg

“a man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it into the river but then he’s still left with the river. a man takes his sadness and throws it away but then he’s still left with his hands.” –– richard siken

"i was not a lovable child, and i'd grown into a deeply unlovable adult. draw a picture of my soul, and it'd be a scribble with fangs.” –– gillian flynn

“you will always be fond of me. i represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.” –– oscar wilde

“power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.” –– george orwell

𝖇 𝖆 𝖘 𝖎 𝖈

NAME: Rabastan Edric Lestrange NICKNAMES: “Rab” by most, “Bash” by those who know him best, “Eddy” by his grandparents AGE: Twenty-six BIRTHDAY: April 13th, 1954 GENDER: Male, cisgender PRONOUNS: He/him/his

𝖋 𝖆 𝖒 𝖎 𝖑 𝖞

MOTHER: Sabine Lestrange (nee Avery) (52) FATHER: Gaspard Lestrange (48) SIBLINGS: Rodolphus Lestrange, Bellatrix Lestrange (sister-in-law), Narcissa Lestrange (sister-in-law), Lucius Malfoy (brother-in-law), Andromeda Tonks (sister-in-law)

𝖕 𝖍 𝖞 𝖘 𝖎 𝖈 𝖆 𝖑 𝖆𝖙𝖙𝖗𝖎𝖇𝖚𝖙𝖊𝖘

FACE CLAIM: Penn Badgley BUILD: Fit, muscular, and clearly works at maintaining it. Wishes he was taller always. HAIR: Longer than it should be, according to his mother, growing out of the buzz cut he got in November, thick and wavy. He’s also sporting stubble that’s quickly turning into a beard. HAIR COLOR: Dark brown, almost black EYE COLOR: Hazel on a normal day, amber on a sunny day, murky brown on a cloudy day SKIN COLOR: Pale, thin and translucent, like parchment. Anyone can see when he’s hungover or had a shitty night of sleep because his eyes look hollow and the skin underneath it looks almost purple. DOMINANT HAND: Right ANOMALIES:

TATTOOS: The Dark Mark on the inside of his right arm, a sketch of the sculpture of Laocoon and His Sons sketched out from the top of his left rib cage to his hip, the first lines of the Iliad on his collar bone, stretching from his left shoulder to his right shoulder, a stick and poke of a muggle ghost on the inside of his ankle, and, perhaps his favorite of them all, the word “TERROR” on the inside of his bottom lip. He charmed it so that, any time he flips his bottom lip out at the world to show the tattoo, the letters pop out in a magical version of a jump scare.

SCARS: His elbows and knees are shredded up from years of Quidditch and not following proper rules when it comes to healing potions. He’s got the slightest scar in his left eyebrow from falling off his broom when he was nine. Plus, he’s got the scrapes and scars of a fighter, a soldier, and he wears his ragged skin with the brashness and boldness of someone unafraid of battle.

SCENT: Tobacco, crisp linen, and, if he’s getting all dolled up, he puts just the tiniest dab of amortentia at his throat, because, well, “then I always smell good.” ACCENT: RP because his mother wouldn’t have her children sounding like scoundrels. But his Northern accent slips out every now and again when he’s particularly hammered. ALLERGIES: Bees. DISORDERS: Rapidly developing alcoholism. Slowly developing PTSD. FASHION: Punk but make it pureblood. Lots of silver rings with huge gemstones inset or crests carved into the metal. Amazing shoes always – be it chunky black combat boots, beautiful leather loafers, or the occasional (slightly) healed Chelsea boot. Skinny jeans and slouchy hoodies on his days alone in Manchester. Pressed shirts rolled up to the elbows and perfectly fitted trousers on his days at Lestrange Manor. His favorite robes are black velvet, with a gold clasp across the chest in the shape of a skull. And, of course, his clubbing outfits. Leather, mesh, crop tops (yes, Rab wears crop tops, and no, none of you will ever see it because he’s CAREFUL heh), muscle tanks, and the odd denim shorterall (with nothing underneath) moment. NERVOUS TICS: He used to bite his fingernails as a kid, but the nannies spanked that out of him. His oral fixation has been replaced with cigarettes – any slight bit of tension, and he’s lighting up. QUIRKS: He doesn’t know how to sit normally in a chair because he’s gay.

𝖑 𝖎 𝖋 𝖊 𝖘 𝖙 𝖞 𝖑 𝖊

RESIDES: Lestrange Manor 75% of the time. His own flat in Manchester 25% of the time. BORN: In France, while his parents were on holiday. He wasn’t supposed to be due for another three weeks, but his mother’s water broke while she was on the beach, and Rabastan was born five hours later. RAISED: In Yorkshire, with every other summer abroad (France most years, but sometimes Italy or Spain, and one very special year, Norway), until he went to Hogwarts. PETS: Gunther, a black Great Dane, who lives at Lestrange Manor, and technically is both his and Rodolphus’ – their mother got the dog for them as a means to help them bond, but really, Gunther is Rabastan’s and only gets attention from Rodolphus when their mother is around, so as not to offend her. And, in Rabastan’s eyes, but probably not in the eyes of other, more progressive individuals, Iphigenia, the Lestrange family house elf.

CAREER: Spending the Lestrange fortune. Being a Death Eater. EXPERIENCE: He’s been doing it his whole life. Nine years. Since his final year at Hogwarts. EMPLOYER: Voldemort.

POLITICAL AFFILIATION: The Death Eaters / Pureblood values. BELIEFS: Purebloods created this world, and now it’s their time to defend it. The Dark Lord is the only one capable of leading them to victory, and the purpose of men like Rabastan is to give him the aid he needs, no matter the personal cost. MISDEMEANORS: Truancy, defacing Hogwarts property, breaking curfew, bullying, tardiness, breaking dress code, and infinite more. He was never quiet about his rebellions, always laughing in the face of authority. And, now that he’s no longer at school, there’s nothing he can’t buy himself out of. FELONIES: Well. He’s killed more than a few people and gotten away with it, so. You do the math from there. DRUGS: Rabastan likes muggle drugs a little too much. Cocaine, particularly. He’s also been known to dabble in expensive, experimental potions from an alchemist the Lestranges have been using to cure their every ail and malady since Rabastan was a boy. SMOKES: Religiously. He started because every young boy wants to be just like their father at one point or another, and then he just never stopped. ALCOHOL: Rabastan’s rarely without a drink in his hand. It’s a glass of brandy as soon as he comes home, flask of whisky constantly at his hip, a Bloody Mary and some pepper up potion to eliminate his hangover first thing when he wakes up. It’s not a problem, he can stop at any point, or so he says. He learned how to be a functional alcoholic from all of the men he observed around him at a young age, and he’s found a very specific line – enough to feel gently numb, to feel invincible, but not so much that he’s incapacitated. And more and more, in recent months, especially since the disappearance of his brother, has he crossed that line. He’ll go through spurts of detoxing, of getting painfully sober for a few days, and then, he’ll be so overwhelmed by the world around him, by how loud it is, by how unforgiving, by how painful it can be, and then he’s right back where he was, with a bottle in one hand and a bump on the back of the other. DIET: Rabastan eats extremely well. Mostly vegetarian, except for fish, lots of legumes and greens, lots of fiber, etc. He knows how much crap he puts into his body, and while he doesn’t particularly care about the fact that he’s shortening his life, he does care about what it does to his physique. And, of course, the trade off is never going to be equal, but he does try to eat as cleanly as he can.

LANGUAGES: English, French, German, and self-taught Latin

PHOBIAS: If you asked him, he’d say he has none. And that’s mostly true. But there isn’t a day that goes by where he doesn’t think about getting outed to his family and then being banished by the Lestranges for his deviant behavior, and there isn’t a day that goes by where the very thought is enough to turn his blood to ice. HOBBIES: Drinking, fighting, fucking. When he’s not indulging his vices, he’s actually quite a scholar – he’s read through every book in his father’s study twice, and he taught himself Latin when he was thirteen. He also loves flying and still takes to a broomstick when he needs to clear his head. He’s also surprisingly adept at tending to plants (he effortlessly got O’s in Herbology his whole time at Hogwarts), and he’s got a lovely, melodic voice. TRAITS: { + }: Quick-thinking, fierce, loyal, playful { - }: Reckless, vulgar, lazy, submissive

𝖋 𝖆 𝖛 𝖔 𝖗 𝖎 𝖙 𝖊 𝖘

LOCATION: Spiny Serpent, specifically the secret fight club in the basement. It’s his favorite place in the world, the one place where he actually feels alive and free. He’ll heal all of his visible injuries with magic, but sometimes, he’ll leave a bruised rib or a tweaked knee because the pain of it reminds him that he’s alive, he’s present, he’s real. SPORTS TEAM: Wimbourne Wasps (and United ever since he started living in Manchester, but he’d rather be caught dead than admit to following the muggle Premiere league) GAME: Quidditch and he’s trying to start his own Swivenhodge league MUSIC: Much to his mother’s distaste, he’s an avid Hobgoblins fan, and his father begrudgingly took both his boys to meet Stubby when they were fifteen and eighteen respectively. Rab would never admit to listening to Celestina Warbeck, but after he’s had a few, he’s been known to do his own rendition of, “A Cauldron Full of Hot Strong Love” MOVIES: Too muggle. Absolutely not. (But he’d fucking love ALIEN if he knew it existed) FOOD: Venison, so rare it’s still bloody BEVERAGE: Double whisky on the rocks COLOR: Gold

𝖒 𝖆 𝖌 𝖎 𝖈

ALUMNI HOUSE: Slytherin WAND (length, flexibility, wood, & core): 13 inches, Holly, Dragon Heart String, Brittle AMORTENTIA: Pine trees, cigar smoke, candied ginger, and the unmistakable musk of all the men he’s ever fucked (oops) PATRONUS: A Deerhound BOGGART: A blue ticket. Even though he’s no expert in muggle history, he spends enough time in queer muggle spaces to know what they are, and the first time he found out about that, the first time someone told him about dishonorable discharge because of something so seemingly trivial, it made his blood turn to ice. He couldn’t shake the image, the idea of it, and to this day, he avoids boggarts at all costs because he knows it’ll give away his secret.

𝖈 𝖍 𝖆 𝖗 𝖆 𝖈 𝖙 𝖊 𝖗

MORAL ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Neutral MBTI: ENFP MBTI ROLE: The Campaigner ENNEAGRAM: Type 6 ENNEAGRAM ROLE: The Loyalist / the Skeptic TEMPERAMENT: Sanguine WESTERN ZODIAC: Aries CHINESE ZODIAC: Horse PRIMAL SIGN: Hammerhead Shark TAROT CARD: The Devil TV TROPES: Beard of Sorrow, Millionaire Playboy, Black Shirt, Draco in Leather Pants, Lovable Rogue, Punch-clock Villain SONGS:

1. balaclava by the arctic monkeys 2. bury a friend by billie eilish 3. to be so lonely by harry styles 4. make up your mind by florence & the machine 5. winter of our youth by bastille 6. broken crown by mumford & sons 7. i’m still standing by elton john 8. people by the 1975 9. ball and a biscuit by the white stripes 10. let’s have a kiki by scissor sisters (am i joking? idk)

IDEOLOGIES:

Adores birthdays and refuses to let people get away with not celebrating them. He loves any excuse to drink and party, and he knows he gives a mean toast, so people might as well fucking celebrate so he can put his skills on display. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Despite the contradictory nature of this, he doesn’t hate all members of the Order / all blood traitors on principle. He understands that they’re just trying to defend their place in the universe, and frankly, he respects the survival instincts he’s seeing play out. Of course, he knows his side is going to win – that’s inevitable. But it’s still admirable to see them all go down with such a valiant fight.

Hates cats. Period, full stop.

Refuses to go to St. Mungo’s, or any hospital for that matter. His uncle on his maternal side went there for a minor illness and came out in a box. Rabastan was seven, and his tiny brain came to the conclusion that the hospital was what did in his uncle, not his illness. And now, Rab knows how illogical it is, but he’d rather pay the family healer to come take a look at him than go to the doctor.

Would rather stand on public transportation than sit next to a stranger because he loves his own personal space just a little too much

As much as he does spend his family’s money a little too freely, no one can ever accuse Rab of hoarding his wealth. He always buys a round for everyone in the bar, picks up the check without being asked, buys things for his friends that they want but don’t need, lets people crash at Lestrange Manor whenever they need to. He’s not miserly in the slightest, not like Rodolphus.

Never makes a crucial decision without consulting a seer first. His mother taught him the habit.

Always flips one cigarette in the pack when he buys a new one.

No matter what time he wakes up, breakfast food has to be the first food he eats.

#dulcetask #*prompts #*biography #[ ch: i'm jack's smirking revenge ]#me: [busts back onto the dash with too many thoughts about my fuckin egg]#*aesthetic

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hipsofsteel · 5 years

Note

Can we hear more about Jan?

Of course, anon! I’d be glad to yell a lot of information about the man who lists yelling as one of his hobbies.

And, without further ado, an introduction and character summary below.

Jan Kees Jones, personification of New York State

All art credited to @zapphi, 2017, 2018, 2019

Physical Description

Jan Kees is 5′11, with semi-styled sandy blonde hair, and blue-green eyes. He is of a medium build, and decently fit. He has been referred to as a shorter version of his father, Lars. Neither can deny relationship to the other. He identifies as Dutch-American. His birth year was 1614, and he celebrates his birthday on July 26th.

Jan Kee’s face claim is model Andrej Halasa, his voice claim is Gregg Taylor of Decoder Ring Theatre fame, and as of this moment, he has no singing voice claim.

Personality

Money makes the world go around, the world go around… (Me, starting this section).

Jan is a loud, somewhat egotistical bastard, whose got just enough of a hidden golden heart to be worth knowing, somehow. He’s really good with kids, passionate, and driven to do whatever he decides to do. His passion and drive can play against him at times when he comes off as stubborn and resistant to outside ideas, and aides in many negative perceptions of him. He can also be very indifferent at times to various situations, unless he has a direct stake in it, and pride is a very definite and major downfall he has.

At the same time, he believes strongly in family. While he probably fights with his two brothers more than anyone else, he’ll be right at their side the moment anyone else goes after them. And as for his family back in Europe, he considers himself still very close to his father, and visits him often. He’s also a little bit of a prankster, and he and Seth (@zapphi’s Massachusetts) have gotten into multiple prank wars.

Sexuality and Gender

Jan Kees is queer and cisgender. He has tried ascribing other names to his sexuality over the years, but it has been very fluid at times, so he prefers the overall term of queer. The closest he’s come to using any other name for his sexual orientation was bisexual, but he remained somewhat uncomfortable with the term before switching back to queer.

Jan can additionally be very open with his sexuality at times, and has historically been quite the womanizer and been willing to sleep with about anyone who lets him. When other states joke about the “Promiscusquad”, they count Jan Kees in as a founding member. However, if you’re in a serious relationship with him, he’s a one-person man.

Religion

Jan was raised as a Dutch protestant, and while he remains culturally Christian, indetifies as an agnostic or atheist nowadays. He is very aware of other cultures and religious practices, and tries to be very respectful of them, and has spent a lot of time studying Judaism in particular, as both his brothers are Jewish.

Employment

Jan has two fields in which he’s incredibly passionate and focused in, law and finance. Following World War Two, he has predominantly focused in law, although he continues to invest his money. He used to mainly making a living in finance, but after the Great Depression, felt that law was a more stable career.

Pets

Jan has three pets, all gifts from Lars to celebrate another century of age. In order, he recieved:

Niagara

A Friesian mare Jan recieved on his 100th birthday, Niagara was a very practical gift. He was a growing colony, and although he was now a British colony, Lars felt he needed his own transportation and Arthur was failing to provide him it. Jan and Niagara were pretty inseperable until the age of the automobile. Nowadays, Niagara lives on Jan’s property in upstate New York and enjoys her well-deserved retirement.

Hamilton

A blue and white British Shorthair was given to Jan as his 200th birthday present, and named in honor of Alexander Hamilton. Jan is definitely more of a cat person than a dog person, and Hamilton can about get away with murder. He sleeps on Jan’s chest (which is bad when he weighs as much as he does), loves all of Jan’s “enemies” more than he loves Jan, and loves the smell of mint gum which Jan is sometimes forcefed so he won’t smoke.

Hamilton, you traitor, stop adoring Massachusetts.

When life gives you mint gum, Hamilton glues himself to your face.

Rembrandt

Rembrandt exists pretty much solely because of this picture of Jan’s faceclaim. Rembrandt was a gift for Jan’s 300th birthday, and Rembrandt the hedgehog is living the ideal life in Jan’s apartment. He crawls around on the floor as a walking pincushion, Hamilton is terrified of him and Jan’s terrified of stepping on him, he gets taken out for fun photoshoots by literally anyone who’s ever housesat for Jan so they can spam Jan with pics. His life is amazing.

After reiceiving Rembrandt, Jan has made it clear he has as many pets as he wants, so he didn’t recieve another pet for his 400th birthday in 2014.

Relationships with other States

We’ll start with family.

New Jersey

Elijah, only ten years younger than Jan, has never been someone whose content to be in the shadows OR bossed around by his older brother. Fiercely independent from the start, he resisted assimilation into a Dutch way of life, clinging to his native roots and converting to Judaism very early on. Half the time, they’re at the other’s throats over the smallest things. The other half of the time, they’re about the only person watching each other’s back. They’re a formidable team when cooperating, and Elijah admits he’d miss arguing with him if something happened to the asshole, but don’t you dare tell Jan that!

Delaware

No art for Aaron, so imagine Elijah, but approximately one inch shorter.

Aaron always felt a bit like the third wheel of the family, and he isn’t entirely wrong (Jan and Elijah can be rather self-centered at times). At the same time, Aaron serves as a peacekeeper between the two and he and Elijah bond over their shared faith.

Yet, some doubts about his place in the family were destroyed when Aaron came out of the closet as trans. Jan Kees and Elijah immediately stopped using Aaron’s deadname, Miriam, and bookended his seat for several meetings, ready to throw down with anyone who challenged Aaron. Jan Kees has even helped financially with some of Aaron’s surgeries and made sure his brother has all the expensive male fashion that he will probably never wear because “I never wore this sort of stuff before, Jan, why would I start now?”

Okay, family section over onto other states

Massachusetts

He’s only around eight inches taller than Seth, but this is what Seth thinks their height difference is. And honestly, Jan gloats over it, so he does too.

Seth Adams Jones and Jan Kees’ relationship with him is one of the most complicated things in Jan’s life. He can’t decide if he loves or hates the guy.

I’d like to thank Talia and also Talia for my life. -Jess

Jan Kees came into the original thirteen colonies in a lot of turmoil, and Seth didn’t help. Jan Kees had lost his only parental figure at the time, couldn’t speak much English, was a Dutch Protestant rather than a Puritan, and had Jewish younger siblings.

Needless to say, when one of the first memories you have of someone is getting into a fistfight with them for stealing your brother’s Magen David, you have gotten off on the wrong foot.

They eventually figured out some sort of antagonistic truce, and half-cooperated long enough to see themselves through the French-Indian War, and during the lead-up to the Revolution, Jan had a horrible realization, that he had a lot of feelings towards Seth. So in classic Protestant fashion, aka conceal, don’t feel, don’t let them know, he pretended those feelings didn’t exist. He went through the revolution as a spy for George Washington wishing that he was literally anywhere else doing anything else like maybe fighting with his crush by his side but also no I don’t have a crush on him God I’m a mess, help me.

Also, kinda awkward when your crush mistakes you for an actual redcoat and shoots you at one point when you’re trying to bring in your spy reports.

Jan’s crush remained pretty steady until after the Civil War, when it slowly began to fade over the next fifty years (in canon, Jan ends up dating @bottot‘s Florida, Marco). However, in many AUs, it just keeps simmering in this idiot forever until eventually, somehow, it slips out.

They continue to have a semi-antagonistic friendship, because really to Jan, is it worth knowing someone if they aren’t at least a bit of a fucking bastard? (He says, crawling out of the Boston Harbor for the sixteenth time this year after Seth threw him in.)

And, when times are tough, they can set aside the bullshit and be there for each other. Because you’re my oldest frenemy, damn it, I need you to help get me through this.

Michigan

Ever end up as the primary mentor of a kid who thankfully ends up nothing like you? That’s Jan Kees and Fatima in a nutshell. Fatima had been around for a while as a very small and sometimes struggling personification, but when the Erie Canal opened, so did a whole new world of settlement from the northeastern states, and trade, with New York being the center of it.

Jan served as a primary contact between Fatima and the world for a while, and even bought her her first translation of the Quran when she admitted to being curious about Islam. But in some ways, most importantly to her, he introduced her to Elijah. She and New Jersey somehow hit it off, even with totally opposite personalities, and now she’s practically his sister-in-law, so at least she tolerates his bullshit really well.

Florida

This just in: The moment Elijah realizes Jan Kees liked Marco, he had Jan’s type in men pegged to a T.

Marco is a bitter old salt whose approach to life is “Fuck it, if it doesn’t kill me, it’ll be something I can tell stories about later”. Full of salt, short, and ready to argue with anyone who will let him, he and Jan have interactions eeirly similar to some of Jan and Seth’s interactions.

But Marco also has a way of bringing out the kid in Jan again, making him do ridiculous things and actually having him enjoy it. Finally having their first proper meeting right after the Civil War, they were pretty wary of each other at first, but over time, a begrudging respect formed, followed by begruding affection.

They might not admit it, but they’d literally cross a war zone for each other.

At the same time, they have some things in their relationship that are a little explosive and tense. Marco is jealous of several other states who had short-term relationships with Jan since he used to be very promicious, and can hover a little too much in Jan’s space at times because of that. Meanwhile, Jan can be overprotective and stifle Marco with good intentions and concerns. But they’ll eventually set aside the argument, talk it out, and then go to bed together that night, with Hamilton and Pink treating them as their own private heating pads installed on the mattress.

In the end, they’ll never get used to the other’s weather, but they’ll never stop enduring the heat/cold to see each other either. They’ve both waited long enough to have something good like this, and they’re both too stubborn to let go.

Other States-Brief Thoughts

Vermont- Jackass. Rarely calls Ethan by name, since he fought so damn hard to be Vermont.

Rest of the NE besides Vermont and Massachusetts- Eh, assholes, but I’ll live.

Pennslyvania- Is this actually food or are you poisoning me?

Virginia- Oh, fuck off, you got the capital, but I’ve got the banks.

California- Stealing your money, power, glory, and fame since 1849.

Oregon- Feral tree child.

Washington State- Attractive. Slept with her a few times after WW2. Got threatened by Roberto for it. In retrospect, California was probably right but still. Ouch.

Kansas- Yeah, the appropriate way to get over your crush on Massachusetts probably isn’t to sleep with the girl he considers his daughter. Funnily enough, she ends up dating Washington State later, so that happened.

RANDOM FACTS

-In the Statetalia Canon I’ve created, Jan Kees is the Original Yankee because England misheard his name as Yankee. He referred to Jan as this until Jan knew enough English to correct him.

-He ran away to Canada in 1940 and joined the Canadian Army in response to the invasion of the Netherlands and continued US inaction. Alfred didn’t know until Matthew sent him a telegram that basically said “Yeah, I have custody of New York until the war’s over, bye!”

-Sports team rivalries are his life. I, Jess, know nothing about sports.

-Speaks Dutch, Iriquios, Yiddish, Spanish, Italian, Quebecios French, Mandarin, and English.

-Major insomniac, has no really well established circadian rhythm.

-A really good cook, actually! Too bad he prefers to order take-out.

#Anonymous #aph new york #hws new york #oc jan #ask hipsofsteel #you ask for ze boy and i deliver (eventually) ze boy

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the-queer-look · 5 years

Text

Bee Yourself

When viewed from outside, the LGBTQIA+ community, is portrayed as a single, homogenous culture, with a few socially accepted experiences which cisgendered, heterosexual society expects use to conform to. In reality, the LGBTQIA+ community is an umbrella term for a multitude of distinct cultures, united by shared commonalities. This narrow view of what it means to be a part of our community can be extremely damaging to those looking to find themselves.

The Queer Look seeks to explore the identities and experiences of people within the LGBTQIA+ community. To show the many facets that make up a person, and the ways in which we express our identities physically.

The Queer Look aims to show that just because someone does not follow a traditionally accepted path to their identity, and does not conform to all stereotypes associated with that identity, that their experience is not less valid. A gay man who comes out in his forties is no less gay. A Lesbian who has had several boyfriends is no less a lesbian. A trans woman who does not want to wear dresses is no less a woman. And a trans man who refuses top surgery is no less a man.

We are here. We are queer. And we are as unique and distinct as the colours on our flags.

p.s. True to form, I was so excited about the first interview/photoshoot that I forgot to set up the recording equipment. Luckily, Bee took the time to answer a questionnaire that I sent after the fact, hoping to recapture the questions and answers received on the day.

Preferred Name: Bee

Age: 21

Location: Lewisham

Occupation/field of study etc: Receptionist, Arts - History/Gender Studies

Sexual Orientation: Bisexual

Gender: Non Binary

How would you dress yourself on an average day?

On the day-to-day I pretty much have a uniform! You will always find me in high waisted jeans, a white graphic tee and maroon Doc Martens. Some days I wear a binder but some days I don’t, depending on my dysphoria and level of laziness… I also always have colourful socks on because even if you can’t see them in my Docs I still love them.

At what point did you realise that you were Bisexual?

I think I properly realised when I was at college in university. I was sitting at the dining table with a friend and we were going through my tinder which had all genders selected (although tinder was still pretty binary then…) and we were both commenting on how hot we thought everyone was. Another friend came and joined us and asked what we were doing, to which we of course answered: “oh we’re just looking at hot girls on tinder”. I asked her what she thought of the girl we were currently looking at and she said “oh no I’m not into women” I ended up asking her again because I couldn’t quite wrap my head around what she meant… and in response she said “I’m not really attracted to her because I’m straight.” I think at that point I was like, oh…. I thought everyone was just attracted to everyone??? Which in retrospect I can only eyeroll a bit at my poor baby self… because it really did take me way to long to put it all together… So even though that was the exact moment, I think that was more like the moment I discovered the label applied to me rather than the moment I realised.

At what point did you realise that you were Non-Binary?

I think it was probably a similar experience to discovering I was bisexual. I realised over a year ago now when I was in USYD Queer Revue in 2018. Being around a community of trans people was something I’d never had before and listening to everyone talk about gender and how they felt made me realise that I had a lot of the same feelings… I bought a binder during the show and trying it on I just felt so like myself? I still sometimes feel insecure that I don’t have the classic narrative of knowing I was non-binary since I was a child, because it’s the narrative a lot of mainstream media likes to use for transness. But I think I needed the time to be experiment with femininity before I finally was able to put a name to how uncomfortable I’d been with it for most of my life. I think realising I was non-binary was a lot of putting pieces together rather than a moment of instant clarity. But I’m glad it took me awhile to experiment and figure out what identity fit me.

Have you noticed a distinct change in the way you present yourself from before these realisations to after? How has this changed since?

Definitely!!! I guess the first thing is that I stopped wearing things that make me uncomfortable! When I first came out I tried so hard to fit into the “traditional” narrative of being non-binary, which for afab non-binary people boils down to “if you’re not masc you’re not non-binary”. I wore my binder constantly, I lovvvved button ups and I wore a lot of low-waisted pants and baggy jumpers. After awhile I realised that it didn’t make me as happy as I thought it would, because even though I wasn’t being forced to perform femininity, I was still performing my gender. Now I think what I wear lies somewhere in the middle of what I used to wear before and after coming out. Before I came out I definitely tried as hard as I could to be the “perfect woman”. Lots of femme cut tops, dresses, skirts, heels (which god I hate wearing… just like so much…) and make-up. I still have a few of the clothing pieces I wore back then, but almost all of my wardrobe is completely different. I still wear elements now of what I used to wear – I have always been a jeans and graphic t-shirt person - but I now style them in very different ways.

I’ve also started to reclaim some of the things I vehemently rejected when I was in my masc phase. When I first came out I vowed I would never wear make-up again. But now I’ve come to love wearing make-up as a form of expression when I’m going out or to a party. I still feel pretty dysphoric wearing it day to day, but wearing colourful and bold make-up is something I’ve come to love again. I’ll also very occasionally wear a dress if I feel like it, but I tend to just wear the things that make me comfortable. Now basically all I wear is high-waisted jeans, they don’t give me a very masculine silhouette but when I see myself in photos or in the mirror I look like myself. I joke a lot that I wear a lot of dad fashion, and I think that’s maybe what I’ve become most comfortable in, knowing that people are probably still going to read me as a woman no matter what I wear (thank you heteronormativity…) so I may as well wear what makes me happy and for me that’s feeling like a fancy ass dad.

Do you believe that there is any weight to stereotypes about the way people dress based on their sexuality/gender? e.g. bi people tuck in their shirts, lesbians wear flannel etc. Do you believe that there are inherent differences in the way that lgbt+ people present themselves that make them more visible to other members of the community?

Oh god as someone who adheres to all the stereotypes (eep) this is a hard question! But yes, I think so. I think it really depends on the generation and identity. But I think a lot of people do wear things to make ourselves visible to each other. Whether that’s subtle things like adhering to stereotypes or more overt things like wearing activist or identity shirts.

But a lot of it just comes from LGBT+ culture. There’s an obvious style, way of talking, relating, and expression that LGBT+ people have developed historically and that almost all of us continue to participate in. I think a lot of it comes from musicians, particularly drag or music videos, historical figures like Bowie but now from lots of different singers like Janelle Monáe, Troye Sivan, Kim Petras, King Princess etc etc. I think stereotypes have developed because our culture is so prevalent, and most LGBT+ people adopt stereotypes unconsciously because we surround ourselves with people who express themselves in certain ways and are inspired by them. So, while sometimes we actively try to become visible to each other, I think it’s more that we’re all just hopelessly and lovingly enthralled in our own culture.

Do you feel that a lack of lgbt+ representation in media contributes to a more narrow, shared understanding of lgbt+ fashion, when compared to cis/het counterparts?

Oh god yes. Yes yes yes. Coming out as non-binary I think a lack of representation was so much of what contributed to me struggling with my identity. Before I came out I knew only ONE famous non-binary person… Ash Hardell I’m looking at you. While knowing about Ash was really helpful to me and representation of any form of expression is so important, the overwhelming narrative for afab non-binary people is that if you’re not masc presenting you’re not non-binary. For awhile that meant I tried so so hard to validate my identity by presenting as masculine as I possibly could. I cut my hair, I wore a binder every damn day, I wore joggers and button-ups, I wore hoodies constantly (because apparently to me that was the height of masculinity??). But after doing that for awhile, I realised I was just as unhappy eradicating every ounce of femininity from myself as I was when it was all I expressed. I think going through that process of experimentation was really important for me to realise that instead of trying to fit into what cis/het culture expected non-binary people to look like, I needed to just be myself first and wear what I love and want to wear and know myself that being non-binary is still part of who I am. And a HUGE part of that process was also finding femme presenting non-binary people, especially afab femme enbies. For me it helped enormously in accepting my body and realising that I didn’t have to hate it as violently as I was because it didn’t fit into the definition it was supposed to. Finding people like Dorian Electra (omg please do yourself a favour and look them up they are the epitomy of my gender), Alok Vaid-Menon, Tillett Wright, Sasha Velour etc etc made me realise that there are more ways to be non-binary than just one. Which is what is so damaging about having less representation – it only validates one path, so either you have to bush-bash yourself a new one (which is insanely tiring, emotionally exhaustive and scary) or you have to squeeze yourself into the one path that is provided for you to claim validity. Honestly, I could go on and on about representation but yes it’s so goddamn important. So Mark Zuckerberg and inc. if you’re reading this like I know you are FIX IT YOU HAVE SO MUCH MONEY PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD FIX IT.

When you are in an exclusively lgbt+ setting, do you feel pressured to “play up” your queerness? If so, does this heightened queer exterior feel more true to yourself?

Yes, I think there are still definitely elements of performance to being in a queer space. Sometimes they can be negative, which generally come from the part of me that is still insecure about my identity and worried about how valid I am. I think a lot of queer spaces still hold at their core a performance of queerness that can be a bit exhausting? As cliché as it is, watching Hannah Gadsby’s Nannettereally helped me understand that. Because part of being queer is finding ways to survive, and so much of queer culture revolves around making jokes about our experiences that sometimes are so limiting in how they allow us to exist. We are all just so starved of space to talk about queerness, that when we can I think we all tend to fall into the trap of performing our identities as much as humanly possible. I’m really curious about how other queer people feel about it, but I think for me there is definitely an element of performance that I still struggle with a little. However, I am still so indebted and so in love with queer spaces and queer people. I always feel so at ease being around people who share a way of thinking. And I mean hey, I’m queer, performing is in my blood.

Find all images from the interviews on facebook: facebook.com/thequeerlook

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theramblingonesie · 6 years

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Facing Our Making, Part 3: Makeup and Gender

Welcome to Part 3 of my makeup blog series! This week we’re going to poke at gender and makeup. But before I begin, let’s review parts 1 & 2, and check in about where we’re at:

1. Beauty standards are impossibly harsh and cause a lot of unnecessary pain.

2. Let womxn decide what they want to do with their own damn bodies and stay out of it. Unless they hire you for a consultation.

3. Wearing makeup is awesome

4. Not wearing makeup is awesome

5. Your gender presentation and basically any presentation of your body and behavior do not determine who you are and aren’t attracted to sexually. And no one is the (*^*^%^$#%$#&*&^&%% authority to determine that for you. If they try, remember that they’re judging and labeling you in relation to their own internal gender/sexuality struggles. More on this in today’s blog below.

6. How toxic masculinity ruins the day in relationship to makeup or not makeup needs to die, and YES womxn also support and host this behavior (internalized misogyny). Just because a person has a vagina or presents as femme does not mean they are exempt.

7. Womxn who wear makeup are not whores unless they are, in fact, professional whores. Professional whores keep the world turning, and bless em for it. The problem isn’t sex work. It’s violence against sex workers. Consider your complicity.

8. Womxn are reclaiming the hell out of the word “Slut”, so don’t get caught being a dumb idiot who uses the outdated, violent, misogynist definition. 1000 years vagina dentata upon your entire household.

9. If you want sexual attention because you enjoy sex, then FUCK YEAH GIT IT!!!

10. “Pretty girls are dumb” is a myth that our society desperately seeks to nurture and maintain. This is rooted in dominance, power, control, and whorephobia. Stop it.

11. “Ugly girls are smart” makes no damn sense. Okay, yes I can see the backwards logic, but also if you listen to flat-earthers long enough you could even be like, “ok, I see where you’re coming from with that”.

It is not lost on me that certain beauty trends and habits can trigger and enable body image problems, ranging in severity. After attending a panel discussion that featured a speaker from Media Girls Boston, I learned that girls as young as 9 are learning that they essentially need to brand themselves through social media so that they can merely exist. Saying this is a problem is an understatement.

I support makeup and rituals of adornment. I support a lot of things that, if used improperly with dangerous motivations, can result in severe consequences.

Understand that there’s a lot of nuance in subjects like this, and utilize your critical thinking brain when exploring such topics. Continue your personal research if you’re curious about any subcategory in this series that I have not addressed.

If issues of beauty standards and pressure are uncomfortable or triggering for you, or if you or a loved one believe they may be suffering from a body-image related disorder, please know you are not alone, and there are people out there who are ready and available to support you through this. Links and hotline numbers are available in the resource section at the end of this blog. -------------------------------------------------------------

“If we are all members of one body, then in that one body there is neither male nor female; or rather there is both: it is an androgynous or hermaphroditic body, containing both sexes [...] The division of the one man into two sexes is part of [our] fall.” --Norman O. Brown, in Love’s Body, 1966

Okay! Let’s talk about this super important element of the art and ritual of beauty:

Gender!

To Marie Kondo this: This subject does not bring me joy, and I do not want to write about it, but I feel that I have a responsibility to not play floor-is-lava about it. It does not even bring me the type of righteous rage that fuels me to furiously complete a post. It fills me with doubt, insecurity, self loathing, trust issues, and a desire to disappear.

I need to say this because I know I am not alone in my feelings and experience. But I will keep it very brief because I’d like to move on.

I have experienced a lifetime of pain from the bullshit pressure the heteropatriarchy puts on female bodies. I never anticipated the heartache I would experience as a result of being judged and denied by fellow queers.

I am too butch, too unfeminine to be accepted as the right kind of woman in heteropatriarchal society. I make men question their sexuality, and I am the one made to suffer for it. I am too feminine for queers to believe and accept me when I tell them I’m genderfluid (which I have been, quietly and privately, my entire life). I am not feminine enough to be femme.

Too much woman. Not enough woman. Not woman. Not human. Once again, my body and my soul are everyone else’s to judge, determine, and own. Not mine.

And no one wants to listen when we say the world hates women.

I highly suggest looking up the toxic concept of femme invisibility in queer communities. You can start by reading this great article by Bust:

https://www.bustle.com/articles/166081-what-does-femme-mean-the-difference-between-being-femme-being-feminine.

For the record, I still use she/her pronouns. I stand by my allegiance to the fullness and diversity of womxnhood in a deeply ferocious way. My reasoning for that is both very simple and very complicated. So I guess that just makes it very complicated. Ask me how.

Mood.

Anyway, makeup.

About a month ago, I had wrapped a film shoot with some friends who flew up from Mexico. It was an incredible weekend that filled me up with so much bliss. On the drive back to Boston, I was chatting with my beloved friends and fellow Scarlet Tongue artists, Creature and Cass, about how much I enjoy the company of Mexican men. A large part of that is because it is refreshing to be around men who so easily embrace and express feminine qualities of articulating their emotions, accessing their emotions, gentleness and nurturing. Creature presented the important argument that such qualities don’t need to be classified as feminine or masculine; they’re simply personality and behavioral traits that anybody can have.

Such a point is absolutely crucial in untangling the oppressive nature of the gender binary.

Exercise:

The following traits have been classically designated as “masculine” or “feminine” behavior, but I’ve jumbled them together in the list below. Which traits do you believe belong to whom?

Reserved Warm Sensitive Utilitarian Deferential Apprehensive Reactive Emotionally Stable Serious Lively Socially bold Shy Rule-conscious Expedient Private Perfectionism Anxiety Group-oriented Self-reliant Tolerates disorder Vigilance Extraversion Traditional Grounded Agreeableness Neuroticism Excitement-seeking Attraction to aesthetics

Answer:

Hahahahah, I’m not going to give you the answer. It doesn’t matter.

Yes, hormones do impact some behavior. And YES, how we’re socially conditioned impacts which traits are more dominant. But the point is, there is an imaginary line between the two categories. The saddest reality is that, even though any human is capable of any of these traits on the list, society has determined that consequence and punishment must befall anyone who strays from their category. An enforced gender binary is dangerous.

Enter makeup.

Makeup has served infinite purposes throughout the course of history. It’s an incredible vehicle for expression, as well as radical social and political rebellion. Makeup has shaped entire movements of art, social justice, philosophy, and construction/deconstruction of body politics.

Your lipstick is more than patriarchal pigment in a tube. It is a tool for revolution.

Most people assume that makeup is only for clowns and cisgender women, and anyone else who uses it is simply a deviant who has “stolen” it.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Nononononononono

This probably won’t come as a shock to most of you, but yes-- Christianity also temporarily ruined makeup. Once upon a time, it was quite normal for men to wear makeup. Then the Jesus toe-suckers made up a whole bunch of arbitrary rules about what we currently observe masculinity and femininity to be, and here we are in this stinky pile of crap rules.

I highly recommend reading this article to learn a tiny bit more of the history of men and makeup:

https://www.byrdie.com/history-makeup-gender

Who wears makeup and how people wear makeup has shifted so much throughout history, and the struggles we experience around this today have only been relevant for a hundred years or so. One of the most common forms of rebellion we hear of is when women reject traditional femininity. Whether “burning our bras”, shaving our heads, or growing out our armpit hair, this is not an uncommon experience for a lot of women. The scandal!! The pet has escaped her cage!! So many women I know have experienced an anti-femininity phase at least once in their lives. Sometimes this “phase” transitions into a permanent rejection of gender norms, but it really varies from person to person. Often it’s set off by an overwhelming awareness of how much women are defined by superficial characteristics, traditionally determined and enforced by men. So we attempt to take ourselves out of the system by wearing neutral and aggressive clothing, switching up which parts of our bodies are hairy and which aren’t, and avoiding anything “girlie”. Revisiting my conversation with Aepril, my high-glam friend who inspired this blog and was mentioned in Part 1, she made a good point about honoring such an experience: “I went through a miserable phase in my feminist youth where I thought I was being uber feminist by not shaving or wearing makeup or wearing heels, etc, because to do so was giving into the patriarchy. I was miserable of course. It took my drag queen friends to wake me up to that, as I realized that they were willing to give up family, social status...their safety and even their lives for the privilege of expressing themselves in a glamorous, feminine way. While I had that privilege because I was born in a female body. I might be criticised by both men and women, but I wouldn’t be beaten in the street for transgressing gender roles. I realized how much it meant to me through seeing how much it meant to them. Why should I give that up either? Why should anyone have to?” In Aepril’s situation, she found that her place of authenticity was through femininity. In a world that is so divided between the shoulds and should-nots of who we’re supposed to be, I find it important to squeeze ourselves through and experience all sides so we can settle on what’s true for us. Then it’s no longer conformity; it’s an outlet.

In the 20th and 21st centuries, the use of makeup norms has been subverted to amplify voices that demand human rights and fair treatment. Its application has been largely linked to LGBTQ+ visibility and gay rights movements. The anti-Vietnam movement in the late 60s and 70s utilized makeup to display over-feminization and homosexuality as a way to avoid being drafted. The glam rock movement gave us icons like David Bowie, exposing and exploding restrictive gender norms through outrageous clothing and makeup, utilizing pop culture to spread ideas and acceptance of androgyny. “Female impersonation” has origins dating back to the 19th century in Europe, and the art of Drag Queens & Kings is alive and well today, celebrating, mocking, questioning, and expanding gender in clubs and theaters, in film, and right in our homes through TV favorites like Ru Paul’s Drag Race.

For our trans-sisters, the decision to wear makeup could have life or death consequences. As a transwoman friend of mine disclosed a few months back, when she’s walking down the street and hears a man call after her, her immediate thoughts turn to, “will I experience violence because I’m a woman? Or will I experience violence because he thinks I’m a faggot?” There is a lot of discussion in the trans community about the privilege of “passing”, and I believe these conversations have further supported the struggles womxn generally face-- does wearing makeup make you more or less of a woman? As writer Lux Alptraum points out, “the idea that external appearance is what makes someone a “real” woman is the very thing that many trans women have committed themselves to fighting. To the extent that makeup is an essential part of any trans woman’s gender identity or notion of her womanhood, it’s largely because that’s the message the rest of the world aggressively forces upon her.” Read the rest of this article at https://www.racked.com/2017/3/23/14937266/trans-women-makeup

Makeup is incredibly powerful. It can be used for protest, and it can be used for comfort. It’s daily wear, and it’s political. It’s an expression of freedom, and a bold face confronting restriction. It’s transformative, giving people the opportunity to live in the bodies and images that feel right and true for them. Makeup is art, an embracing of life and physicality, a way to show up, be counted, and be present. It’s an act of defiance, and an act of love.

I recently read that Facebook now has 56 gender identities one can choose from. Facebook blows, but wow that’s actually really awesome! Within that list, some of the more frequently used terms include:

Agender/Neutrois Androgyne/Androgynous Bigender Cis/Cisgender Female to Male/FTM Gender Fluid Gender Nonconforming/Variant Gender Questioning Genderqueer Intersex Male to Female/MTF Neither Non-binary Other Pangender Trans/Transgender Transsexual Two-spirit (Important: this is Native American. Don’t pull a Jason Mraz. Don’t appropriate)

Out of this list, the following folks are allowed to wear makeup:

All of them Everyone Anyone Everybody The General Public The Whole World Human Beings Aliens Animals but only if they’re actually humans in animal costumes

If you’re interested in following makeup artists on IG who are trans or gender non-conforming, here is a great starter list (partially sourced from wearyourvoicemag.com):

@ brownbeautystandards @ vlad_theunicorn @ jade_poncee @ makeupby_bran @ rosalynnemontoya @ miles_jai @ completedestruction

Again, there are infinite reasons why people of any gender do and don’t wear makeup, and I’m not going to be an authority on the matter. But I hope some of this information helps you on your journey to understand yourself better, and hold space of greater allyship and tolerance for others.

Below are some links and phone numbers if you feel you need greater support for the topics being discussed in this blog series. Being beautiful is cool, and so is being safe. You deserve to be here, and you matter.

Enjoy your week, and we’ll see you back here next week for Part 4: Performance Artists and Makeup!

National Eating Disorders 24 hr Hotline: 1-800-931-2237

https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/body-image-0

TransLifeline Hotline: 877-565-8860

https://www.translifeline.org/

LGBT National Hotline: 1-888-843-4564

https://www.glbthotline.org/

National Suicide Prevention 24hr Hotline: 1-800-273-8255

http://sexworkersproject.org/resources/

#makeup #nomakeup #gender #intersectional feminism #revolution #queer #drag #androgony #expressyourself

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rpbetter · 3 years

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As a female I get tired of seeing psa post about /It's important to treat female muses with respect/ or /Female muses deserve better treatment!!/ it's this constant thing I get slapped in the face by mutuals who reblogs that once in a blue moon, but ignore male muses or treat them like shit. I'm sorry to come off as sexist, I wish people would look out for male muses too and those who are gay since they get the short end of the stick and not appreciated. Don't get me wrong it's important to respect all muses regardless of their gender, but these post are coming off as quite feminist and Tumblr is known for being a man hater. I feel really bad for saying all of this.. I'm sorry for this rant, RPbetter. I just need to let it off my chest.

It's all good, Anon! I did tell y'all you could do exactly this!

I know, as in, I can actually feel the hackles of the RPC rising preemptively, this is going to rub people the very, very wrong way...so, I'm asking you to at least try to put that on hold and consider some things about this as a different view from what you've experienced before you get angry with Anon or myself.

Because I think the issue with this, and all PSA's that are especially full of delineation like these are, is that it isn't going to be everyone's experience in the RPC.

We tend to feel like the RPC is our little corner, or for some of you, vast empire. Sometimes, an overlap of both - our little area we have cultivated with our mutuals, our preferred resource blogs, all the blogs that branch off from us and the larger RPC specific fandom community we're a part of. I mean, I know my fandom is huge, my highly cultivated homestead within it is tiny.

I also interact with people from equally huge RPC fandoms. So, between the two, I see some major differences. The differences in some of the minuscule RPC corners I have people in can be even more extreme.

Example?

I have a mutual who is open to crossovers and spends time in three bigger fandoms with their muse. The muse is highly desirable in the fandom they come from, had no issue adapting and being desirable in the second big one, but in the third, it was quite different. Same approach that worked out wonderfully everywhere else did not work in this third fandom because the muse...is female in a male and gay ship predominant fandom. So, while this mutual never experienced trouble getting/keeping interaction and respectful treatment of their muse/themselves everywhere else, they suddenly got slapped with it there. It's often a problem of specific fandoms and their material.

Another example?

Myself.

My main muse is everything that the more hateful PSA's of this sort say is the desirable muse that unfairly gets all the attention and respect: extremely well-known main character, conventionally attractive, male, white, young, and the way he presents in canon, you can play with HCs about him being not being cishet pretty easily. Highly shippable muse that can be made even more so without messing with canon much, if at all.

So, you'd think that I would never have any trouble getting interactions, ships that I want, plots I want, and good treatment of my muse (I mean by other muns, other muns not being total assholes about my muse, what happens between muses, when it isn't directly due to the mun's attitude, is different), right? I don't.

Don't get me wrong, I have the interactions I want, they're perfect. I have the writing partners I always wanted, the best ships, stunning plots, but that's entirely because I am OC and crossover friendly. I'm open to accepting writing partners based purely on the writing. My own fandom does not like my muse, outside of one specific version anyway, the canon ship is not supported, the popular fanon ship is likely to get you a callout in the RPC.

In my fandom, the female muses do get more respect and attention for the most part. It's one of those fandoms pretty into...well, fandom as an act of activism. That's not to say, before anyone loses it on me, that creating or picking up a female muse is doing it for woke points. Just that there is a rather open prerogative in my fandom to create/choose muses based on the idea of "representation" and "fixing canon." If you have one that is like mine, you're automatically assumed to be a lot of really shitty things. Getting called a school shooter, love that for me.

The whole "respect female muses or die" take isn't necessary there, it's the take. Doesn't stop it from coming around weekly, though, so I do feel you on this, Anon.

Furthermore, I'd personally prefer it if we'd all consider getting back to the take of just respecting muse choices and writing, period. People are always going to have preferences, in one place it might align with your own, in another it doesn't. That's perfectly alright and does not mean anything horrible about those people unless they're actively being horrible with it!

Preferring female muses doesn't mean you're a radfem, preferring (or just having even one) a f/m ship does not mean this or that you're homophobic either, nor does it make a bi/pan muse suddenly heterosexual and "bad representation/you're just saying they're bi and that's gross." Just means those are the ships that developed.

Preferring male muses doesn't mean you're "part of the problem" or "taking the easy way," and having or preferring a queer ship does not mean you're a "nasty fujoshi." It also doesn't invalidate what someone has established about their muse's sexuality, a bi/pan muse isn't Gay Now because their primary ship is m/m.

And that's to say nothing of how weird, and often at least mildly offensive, all of this is to both muns and muses that are not on the gender binary. You should probably consider that before you keep implying to a mun that the muse they've established as not cis is exactly that.

Or, that writing a female muse might be impossible for some muns for more reasons than just preference, a thing that is valid enough on its own. A decent number of muns in the RPC are also not cis, this may be the only safe place for them to drop being gendered as they were assigned at birth, it might even trigger dysphoria for them to write a female muse. I know that I am incredibly uncomfortable writing female muses. It's a little ridiculous to keep dropping the implication to outright demand that everyone needs to do their part in filling the female muse quota in the RPC or they're misogynists and/or phobes.

My experience, and I am not alone in it, has been getting plenty of shit for having male muses only, always assumed to be cisgender and often heterosexual. Plenty of shit for not writing the canon as cishet, too...and plenty more for my main ships being with female characters because they're the ones that worked out and stuck around.

No one is lying when they say that there are places where their male muses and queer ships are not looked on positively.

The thing is, I also witness female muses being treated like shit, yes!

And I will say, that treatment is so much worse if the muse is also an OC, has a canon f/m ship they'd like to write or just to write a ship with a canon if they're an OC, or they're certain types of female muses. Because the demands do not stop at being female. You also have to write a Strong Female Character to be of interest, and she had better be available to shipping and smut while not presenting as too sexually open. It's become an impossible obstacle course.

I see it on the dash, I see absolutely valid complaints, and the majority of my friends write female muses. I'm very aware of the problems they've faced, bias against them does exist!

Example of this?

Writing partners who have both male and female muses experiencing, repeatedly, their male muses being picked over the female muses, and their emotionally softer or less sexually available female muses being chosen dead last. The writing is great, these muses are well-done and interesting, easy to interact with, but they'll get told on the blogs for the male muses that they're only interested in them, the other mun having missed that this is the same mun behind both muses.

And it always comes down to wanting to ship m/m. Even when the muse is established as being heterosexual, they'll just keep trying to push it into happening with their male muse. If your male muse is heterosexual, that is like a violent act against the whole RPC.

So, that's also absolutely not a lie either, it does happen, it is a problem. It's valid to be upset about this!

In my opinion and experience, these are both significant problems predicated upon the same, overall issues:

not respecting choices and preferences equally

performative activism in fictional communities

requiring personal information as justification in order to respect choices/preferences as valid and not problematic

not being interested in writing for its own sake and characters for their own sake, but rather, what they say about oneself/in validation and display of one's ideals and/or personhood

not understanding that just because a character is x, y, or z does not, actually, make them interesting or a good character, let alone to everyone

So, I really think the answer here isn't saying that there is a single problem with muse gender across the board, everywhere and without variables, and demanding that people "respect," a thing that actually translates into "you must accept all of x as writing partners no matter your interest in them or viability, as writing partners" all of any one type of muse. I think that's just weirdly pressuring and remaining at a distance from the incredibly simple answer of accepting that people have preferences that do not always benefit you, that you might even find offensive, but that's a right they have.

It's okay if you're not interested in the conventionally attractive, canon male muse, even if someone has HC'ed him as queer. It's okay if you're not interested in the Strong Woman female OC, even if someone has given her other labels of significance. It's okay if you're not interested in someone's well-developed, well-written female OC or canon, someone's male OC or canon, or someone's proudly genderless creature. (Again, don't come at me folks, I literally call myself that, it's a joke based on the way people who do not ascribe to the gender binary can be treated/viewed by others who do, thanks!)

Your likes and dislikes are okay! Even if they're "not inclusive," yes. So long as you're not being a fucking bigot, you're alright. It isn't anyone's job here to be correct the ills of reality in their fiction, let's just all start focusing less on the fine details and more on respecting each other regardless of whether individual preferences benefit us or not.

Forcing people to interact based on guilting or shaming them is the opposite of the answer. Always. And just because it is one extreme in your RPC area does not mean it's like this in everyone else's. I'm genuinely sorry that anyone has experienced negative things based on such ridiculous factors, but please, be sure you're not turning around and doing the same shit to someone else.

Going to repeat:

Forcing people to interact based on guilting or shaming them is the opposite of the answer. Always.

#answered #anonymous #vent ask #female muses #rp problems #rp advice

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junker-town · 4 years

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‘We just made history’: The story of hockey’s first ever Team Trans

How a group of 17 trans athletes came together last November to make history.

On a Friday in a little Cambridge, Massachusetts, ice arena, as a gaggle of middle schoolers lingered after a game and two men’s league teams were taking the ice, 17 hockey players were huddled in a corner, getting ready to make history.

Jessica Platt’s excitement shone in her eyes as her teammates on Team Trans, perhaps the first-ever all trans hockey team to play a game together, dug through a stack of blue and pink uniforms to find their own. Platt, a 30-year-old former CWHL player, said she had stopped playing hockey in her early 20s because she was uncomfortable with the overly masculine attitudes of the male players who surrounded her.

“I pretty much had to be careful how I presented myself,” she said. “I got really good at putting on the facade of who I thought I needed to be, and I tried to stick to that as closely as I could when I was in that area. I was a little bit more myself around my friends, but definitely not in the hockey scene.”

Platt traveled from Toronto to play with Team Trans, which was taking part in the 2019 Friendship Series tournament hosted last November by Boston Pride Hockey, New England’s largest LGBT hockey association (not to be confused with the Boston Pride of the NWHL). About five years ago, she finally felt comfortable enough with her transition to enter a women’s locker room and return to hockey. Though she had never met many of her new teammates, they bonded quickly around the familiar fear and anxiety they had felt to play a game they loved.

“Knowing that you’re the only one and no one else has the exact same experiences as you, makes it a little bit harder to, I guess, connect with them,” Platt said. “It’s a little lonely being the only [trans] person.”

That loneliness is why the team met in Boston. Transgender adults make up an estimated 0.6 percent of the general population. There are just 1.6 million trans people in the United States, according to the Williams Institute at UCLA. In Canada, as many as 1 in 200 adults (roughly 0.5 percent) are trans, according to the Trans Pulse Project. In any given town in North America, there likely isn’t enough athletes to form an entirely trans team.

Hockey was my life I also used it as a way to try and be more masculine, where if I was good enough, like being trans would go away.”

A dozen players had to travel from outside Boston to fill the roster, from as far away as San Francisco, Chicago and Ottawa. The draw of playing on an all-trans team even attracted two professional players, with former NWHL defenseman Harrison Browne joining Platt. Each were the first openly trans players in their respective leagues.

Brynn Toohey, a 30-year-old speedy winger and transgender woman from southern New Hampshire, often makes the trek south to play for Boston Pride Hockey, but that weekend she suited up for Team Trans, too.

Toohey’s BPH teammates love to point out that she drives a bright red Porsche. Contrary to her flashy game and bold eye makeup, she is disarmingly reserved and soft-spoken. Growing up in New Hampshire provided Toohey plenty of opportunity for ice time.

“Hockey was my life,” Toohey said. “I also used it as a way to try and be more masculine, where if I was good enough, like being trans would go away.”

She played junior hockey until college, and bounced around several club teams before dropping out of the game entirely in her early 20s. Life got in the way of her passion the way it does for many young people. But Toohey also struggled with gender dysphoria, the clinical term for the distress caused by a disconnect between a person’s assigned sex and their internal sense of their own gender.

Toohey said that she fell on hard times after college, intermittently struggling with depression and substance abuse before beginning her transition early last year.

“I had to get sober,” Toohey said. “And really once I was like, ‘All right, I’m trans,’ I was like, ‘Well, now there’s a future for me.’ Everything opened up.”

Around that time, she heard about Boston Pride Hockey. “I normally don’t do any LGBT anything,” she said, but she felt the sport pulling her back and decided to give the league a try. She attended a skate around and found a welcoming environment where she could play without being judged by her identity.

“If you told me six months ago, before I started transitioning or anything, I’d be playing on an all-trans hockey team, I would be like, ‘Yeah, right,’” Toohey said. “‘That doesn’t exist. There’s not enough trans people that want to play hockey like me.’”

Like Toohey, no one on Team Trans had ever played hockey with more than a handful of other trans players, if any. Typically, trans athletes have to seek out welcoming but predominantly cisgender teams if they want to compete.

Chris Harrington

Harrison Browne, left, and Jessica Platt, right.

Browne, a 26-year-old former two-time NWHL champion, said he experienced dysphoria triggers throughout his women’s hockey experience, like hearing his deadname, the term used for the birth name of a trans person who now goes by a different name, over the PA whenever he scored. Or when someone would yell something like “Let’s go, ladies” to the team when he was on the ice.

“When somebody hasn’t gone through what you go through, they can sympathize, they can empathize as much as a person can and my teammates did a really, really good job of making me feel as included as they could,” Browne said. “But when somebody doesn’t understand your way of life or doesn’t understand your mindset, it’s difficult. And this room here, this dressing room that [Team Trans] are all in, it definitely was an environment that I had never seen.”

Shane Diamond, a defenseman from Maine, skated with a men’s beer league team for several weeks to prep for the Friendship Series. It was his first time skating with a team of men as a “passing” trans man — meaning, a trans person whose outward appearance doesn’t immediately out them as trans — and the experience was unsettling.

“I walked into the space and it was one of the most homophobic, transphobic locker rooms I’ve ever been in, and that’s including growing up [playing] with the boys,” Diamond said. Stories like his were common among Team Trans players. And while some players tried, or are trying, to play through their transitions, others, like Toohey, were only drawn back to sports once their bodies were more in line with their inner sense of their own gender.

When somebody doesn’t understand your way of life or doesn’t understand your mindset, it’s difficult. ... This dressing room that [Team Trans] are all in, it definitely was an environment that I had never seen.”

Rather than risk exposing themselves to teams and spaces that don’t understand their identities, many trans athletes simply quit sports. Fortunately, more and more athletic associations and cisgender people have begun educating themselves on how to better treat and support trans people.

Unlike most of the players on Team Trans, William Frahm-Gilles, a 35-year-old trans man and defenseman, took up the game as an adult when he lived in Madison, Wisconsin, about nine years ago. “I always wanted to play hockey, but I just never had the opportunity growing up,” Frahm-Gilles said. He was enrolled in an intense veterinary educational program, and wanted a hobby to help him work out his aggression within an accepting community.

Frahm-Gilles became involved with the Madison Gay Hockey Association at a key point in his gender transition. “It was just this really bizarre flip from every other aspect of my life, where everyone assumed I was a really butch lesbian instead of assuming I was a straight woman,” he said. “But they were so encouraging about it that it was just like a really weird space to have to kind of come out in a totally different way. I’m actually super into dudes, not a butch lesbian.”

Frahm-Gilles was the first openly trans player in the MGHA, and he had to endure the league’s growing pains as it learned to accommodate him and his identity. In an effort to signal that the league was welcoming towards trans players, league officials and other players often went out of their way to tell new and potential trans players about Frahm-Gilles, even if he had never met them. That often put him in awkward positions, off the ice.

“A new player would join who was trans-identified and come up to me and start chatting transition talk,” Frahm-Gilles said. “That happened a number of times and there was just a lot of [league officials] not quite understanding how to actually be sensitive with that information about players.”

Life gradually became easier for Frahm-Gilles when other trans players started playing in the league. One of those players was K8 Walton, a 39-year-old nonbinary person who plays defense and joined Frahm-Gilles and Team Trans in Cambridge. Walton saw how the other trans players were being treated at the MGHA and set out to change the league to be more understanding.

“The driving thing was we needed to come in from the very get-go and teach people,” Walton said. The league needed to “make sure that everybody understands basic trans etiquette, like that you don’t out people or say, ‘Oh, you’re trans. Let me introduce you to my other friend who’s trans.’ And that you’re sharing a locker room with people who may have all sorts of feelings about their bodies, and that’s [whether they’re] cisgender or transgender.”

The MGHA has evolved in Frahm-Gilles’ time there. He has been happy to see more people like him on the teams he plays with and against. “I’m glad I fell so much in love with the sport,” he said, “because I don’t think I would have touched playing after the first couple of seasons.”

The night before the first game of the Friendship Series, Team Trans held its first and only practice. At one point, Platt deftly lifted the puck off the stick of an opposing player, weaved effortlessly through the defense and passed across the crease to a waiting teammate. An audible gasp followed by oohs and aahs sprang from the dozen-strong crowd.

Greg Sargent, president of Boston Pride Hockey, was among those watching. He would be suiting up and playing against Team Trans the following night. “She’s going to be tough to contain tomorrow,” he said. I leaned in and asked how his team would try to stop a line with Platt, Toohey and Browne, who wasn’t on the ice because his flight was coming in the following morning. “We won’t,” Sargent said. “But we still want to win.”

Like MGHA, BPH has recently gone out of its way to open up to trans players. BPH formed in 1989 as a space for gay hockey players to compete. Thirty years on, BPH is up to 45 members.

“Our number one goal is just to provide a great place to play hockey that you don’t worry about what the other person is thinking,” Sargent said. “When I grew up, it’s kind of like I was checking everybody out in the locker room but [was] never comfortable, never felt safe to say anything. It was the complete opposite. And so when I found BPH ... it was just amazing.”

Sargent’s experience in creating welcoming environments led him to help set up Team Trans. The organization regularly holds series with other gay hockey associations. After a tournament with the New York City Gay Hockey Association, Sargent spotted an opposing player who was nervously off to the side from the others.

“In Boston, we have a thing where if we notice anybody new not talking with anyone, our board is keyed into that and so we all take turns,” Sargent said. “We go and talk to them and make them feel welcome, introduce them to everybody.”

Sargent introduced himself to the player, and learned that the person was trans. After some discussion, the player told Sargent that there is a Facebook group full of trans hockey players, and that it was hoping to set up a game with an all-trans roster. The player, who ultimately couldn’t make it for the weekend series in Boston, explained to Sargent that while the NYCGHA was a safe place to play, it wasn’t specifically a trans locker room, so some trans athletes felt some lingering discomfort within the team.

Kyle Outlaw

Sargent wanted to help. “I said, ‘Let’s do this.’ So I told our board that and a lot of our older members were like, ‘That’s our story from 1989. We’re doing this, let’s make this happen.’”

The weekend didn’t quite go off without a hitch. Team Trans goaltender Alex Lefebvre said at one point after the first game, several of the team’s trans men had to wait in line to use the one stall in the men’s bathroom, which had run out of toilet paper. “Some of us were like, ‘I kind of just want to use the women’s room, but half of us have full beards.’” The incident was a stark reminder that many public spaces still aren’t designed with trans people in mind.

But Sargent took the event seriously, working with trans players from all over the continent to put together the team, and even ordering personalized Team Trans jerseys and socks with the players’ numbers on them, as well as commemorative pucks. The sweaters featured a pink and blue design with a diagonal split between the colors, inspired by the pink, white and blue trans pride flag. Several team members teared up when they first saw the design.

The atmosphere inside the Team Trans locker room before Game 1 was almost joyous. Players smiled without a hint of nerves. Hockey sticks lined the front wall, each taped in trans pride or rainbow colors. There was banter, of course. The team captain, who didn’t wish to be named, read out the lines, and mistakenly said one player’s name twice.

“I know there’s a bunch of trans guys in here, but you listed two Jacks and there’s only one Jack,” quipped one of the players, poking fun at the fact that “Jack” is a common name among trans masculine people.

Later, someone pointed out they needed a team chant, and Diamond immediately yelled out “T4T!” in reference to trans community lingo for when two trans people are dating each other. A unison of giggles followed; it was agreed.

Browne said after the game that he forgot to wear an undershirt and had been worried how his nipples would feel directly under his shoulder pads after top surgery. Several teammates understood his anxiety and offered personal experience to reassure him. To Browne, moments like that brought home what many on Team Trans had felt they’d been missing throughout their athletic careers.

“We’ve only been together for two days and I felt like there was a cohesive feel in there,” Browne said. “There was a comfort level that I’ve never really felt [before].”

Despite their fast bonding, Team Trans was up against a stiff challenge from a team that has been playing together for years. BPH put away two scrappy goals over the first two periods, and took a 2-0 lead into the third.

But Team Trans hadn’t yet put Platt, Toohey and Browne on the ice together. They wanted to spread their talent across multiple lines as best they could. After the second intermission, Team Trans held nothing back.

“When we score … we’re going to celebrate,” Toohey said in the team huddle. Her confidence felt brazen. They were still in a cisgender-dominated world where trans people have long had to be content with scraps of validation.

Team Trans won the faceoff to start the period, and Platt carried the puck over the blue line. She dished off to Browne, who quickly scanned the ice and spotted Toohey blazing down the slot, just to the left of the net. His pass found Toohey’s stick, and Toohey’s one-timer found the back of the net. The Team Trans bench and small crowd in attendance erupted together.

As she skated past the BPH bench, Toohey dropped to one knee and mimicked shooting a bow-and-arrow. “It was a great celebration between all three of us,” Toohey said. “Obviously I’d been playing for BPH so I had to give it to them with an arrow shot, and it was just great. It felt so good for us to get on the board and into the game.”

The first all-trans goal in history, in hockey history. That is wild. I think I’m just processing it as I’m saying it.”

It was an unforgettable moment for Browne. “The look on her face when it went in, it was like ... It was really, really, really special to see that,” he said. When asked what it meant to assist perhaps the first all-trans goal in hockey history, Browne raised his eyebrows. “The first all-trans goal in history, in hockey history. That is wild. I think I’m just processing it as I’m saying it.”

Riding the momentum of Toohey’s goal, Team Trans score another a few minutes later and tied the game, 2-2. The teams traded goals again, but BPH notched the eventual game winner with roughly two minutes left and took Game 1, 4-3. Both teams shook hands, and Team Trans turned to the 50 or so people in the stands, many of them trans people and family, and tapped their sticks on the ice, chanting, “thank you.” As they stepped off the ice, Diamond remarked, “We just made history.”

Lefebvre played well in net despite the losing effort. His family traveled from Albany, New York, to watch him, and he stayed on the ice after the final whistle to take pictures and chat about the game. At one point, a player from a team that was taking the ice next approached and told him he played an amazing game between the pipes.

“That was cool,” Lefebvre said later. “I have no idea if those guys had any idea what the game was or not. I was kind of thinking of that, I was like, ‘Does he know? And he’s coming to say that because of that? Or just appreciating good hockey?’”

That night, Team Trans and BPH met up for a long night of drinking before gathering for Game 2 the next day. The score wasn’t nearly as close, with BPH winning handily. When the final whistle sounded, Team Trans once again thanked the fans, and many of the players lingered in the small space between the rink and locker room, not wanting the experience to end.

Throughout the weekend, players discussed continuing Team Trans into the future. There’s a tentative plan to enter Team Trans into several LGBTQ hockey tournaments around North America, and encourage trans players anywhere to join — a sort of rotating roster on a barnstorming team. Each player interviewed said they couldn’t wait to skate in the blue, pink and white again.

They were supposed to get another chance soon. Team Trans had arranged for a second Friendship Series, this time traveling to Wisconsin to face off with MGHA in April, but were forced to postpone the event due to the coronavirus pandemic. But the feelings from the first Friendship Series endure.

“Hockey isn’t my everyday thing anymore, but I still love it,” Browne said. “These past two games have definitely ignited that love and camaraderie ... This was bigger than hockey for me and it was more than just a game. I was able to meet people that played my sport that were like me.”

Platt hopes that continuing Team Trans will help trans hockey players maintain their connection with the game as they work through their gender identities. She recalled what a team like this would have meant to her when she was growing up. “Maybe,” Platt said, “if something like [Team Trans] existed, I wouldn’t have quit.”

Chris Harrington

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silvokrent · 7 years

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This isn’t nearly as in-depth as I’d like it to be, but here’s my reaction to firearms legislation, mass shootings, who or what’s “to blame,” and what we should be doing about it.

At this point, honestly, I don’t care what your political stance is, whether or not you think gun legislation will or won’t stop “criminals” (whatever the fuck that actually means) from still getting access to firearms illegally. At this point, all that I care about is that we do something instead of debating every single hypothetical pro and con to any degree of restrictive firearms access. Yes, gun violence is a multifaceted issue, and the motives behind each individual instance of a shooting are going to vary. So if we’re not going to talk about making it more difficult for anyone to buy firearms, let’s talk about the sociopolitical motivations behind mass shootings, and what sort of solutions we as a society are willing to commit to.

The shooter was [insert minority here] that was motivated by [vague generalization of an aspect of their culture]. Okay. So if the attack was done by a perpetrator who had biased, bigoted beliefs that they inherited from their family/immediate cultural influence at home, then maybe we should implement more effective and comprehensive policies in schools that enforce ideological acceptance. Say, for example, that the shooter held misogynistic, antisemitic, anti-black, and anti-LGBT+ beliefs. Here’s a potential solution: legally mandate that schools — colleges, universities, and K-12 private, public, and charter schools — teach their students that women, Jews, non-white Americans, and LGBT+ people have the same human rights as anyone else, and that verbally/mentally/emotionally/physically abusing them in any social environment/setting (work, school, the gym, the bus stop, etc.) is unequivocally wrong. Start teaching children as young as pre-K that these toxic beliefs are not acceptable, no matter what that child’s parents are teaching them at home. Undermine hatred that the child is inheriting from their family. Teach children earlier about privilege and the centuries’ worth of oppression that marginalized groups have experienced and continue to experience, and teach them how to be allies to marginalized groups, like non-neurotypical individuals, or people that are physically disabled. Teach students comprehensive, scientifically-accurate sex ed, that illustrates the differences between biological sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity, and that these differences do not get to be treated as “abnormal” or “subhuman” just because they’re not as prevalent or as widely-represented as heteronormativity or cisgendered folks. We should also take the time to educate people that just because you meet a person of a certain demographic with a hateful belief, doesn’t mean they represent their entire group. If rampant Islamophobia has taught us anything, it’s that society likes to create “the great other” to have as a relevant foil for our own values, and as a readily-identifiable enemy, while ignoring the hypocrisies and flaws we deny are a part of our own cultures.

But teaching children/students to accept people of other walks of life goes against my personal beliefs! If the government meddles too much in education, they could easily co-opt learning in the future to push certain agendas. Besides, you don’t have the right to indoctrinate my children with your radical liberal ideas! I wasn’t aware that teaching children to not be dickheads to other people was a radical liberal notion, but fine. Have it your way. And yes, I agree, too much government intervention can have its own problems, in a sense of who’s watching the watchman and making sure they don’t overstep certain boundaries. But having no standardized code that teaches students to accept people from other cultural/religious/ethnic/genetic backgrounds isn’t a solution, either. And frankly, there should be no reason why anyone would argue against teaching our kids that diversity is worthy of acceptance and celebration, not shunning and discrimination. If you’re not willing to enact a solution to fix the motivation behind mass shootings, then we need to make it harder for people with radicalized hateful beliefs to acquire firearms. Either present another plausible solution to reduce mass shootings, or pick one of the aforementioned solutions.

The shooter was a [insert person with a mental illness]. Sane people don’t commit terrorist acts! Ah, yes. The old “let’s scapegoat people with mental illnesses as the perpetrators as these attacks, rather than as the overwhelming victims, in order to avoid talking about gun control.” Very well. If we’re going to continue assigning sole culpability to individuals with anxiety, depression, PTSD, bipolar disorder, and other psychopathologies, then that means we need to make medical treatment easier to acquire and less stigmatized. If you have a diagnosed mental illness, then you should be able to access free — or at the very least, cheap and affordable — healthcare to treat your condition long-term, through medication, one-on-one patient-psychologist/psychiatrist therapy, and accommodations in the workplace, school, and so on. People with mental illness should have greater access to resources that protect them from housing and workplace discrimination. We must, as a collective society, learn to not ridicule or make disparaging jokes at their expense, often to the effect of exacerbating their mental illness. We need to learn to not sneer at coping mechanisms, or ridicule someone that has a service animal for emotional and otherwise support. Because if mentally ill people are responsible for these attacks, then that means we should be treating their psychopathologies in order to prevent mass shootings, right?

But I don’t want my tax dollars to go toward the mentally ill! I shouldn’t have to pay to fix their problems. Skirting around the fact that people with mental illnesses didn’t ask to have those “problems” in the first place, what you’re saying is that “here’s a potential solution that could save human lives, but I’m not willing to spend money on it.” If allocating our government tax dollars means that people suffering from mental illnesses get help, and people aren’t as likely to die in mass shootings, then isn’t that worth the expenditure? Either present another plausible solution to reduce mass shootings, or pick one of the aforementioned solutions.

Look. Lax gun laws are not the sole culprit behind mass shootings. The United States is a petri dish of centuries’ worth of culture clash, and the subsequent internalized hatred that comes with over-representation of privileged demographics, and erasure of marginalized people that’ve been stigmatized by the media. The problem is a combination of factors: compassion fatigue, apathy, complacency, a status quo that solely benefits certain groups at others’ expense, and an unwillingness to examine or relinquish our own biases because we don’t want to change. Radicalized violence and terrorism are multifaceted issues, influenced by factors I haven’t even touched on, because it’s late, I’m tired, and frankly I’m not the best person qualified to educate others on a complex topic I’ve only just begun to unravel myself. But I do know that we need to find a solution. We needed a solution yesterday. We needed a solution months ago. We needed a solution decades ago. Every time we are bombarded by senseless bloodshed and death, we go through the ritual of “sending our thoughts and prayers,” and then patting ourselves on the back and congratulating ourselves for doing what we think counts as the bare minimum.

It’s not enough. It’s never been enough.

Whenever someone tries to foster a discussion on gun violence and the underlying issues, the loudest voices in the room (typically our elected politicians) default to the cliché red herrings of “mental illness” and “[person of a certain minority group] committed the act, therefore [their demographic] as a whole is to blame.” And while there have been instances in the past of shootings being linked to specific groups, these generalizations are correlation, not causation. Clearly, pinning blame to any one group — a tactic we’ve been using for years — hasn’t fixed the issue, so we need to come up with a different answer. Revising our education and healthcare systems have the potential to fix so many issues in our country, but arguments are always made for why “it can’t be done.”

“Can’t” means “won’t.” Meaning that people have the capacity to try, but aren’t willing to.

Which brings us back to firearms. Because until we, as a country, are willing to sit down and find a solution for hate crimes and mental illness (the alleged culprits), then we need to make it harder for people to buy military-grade firearms and go on killing sprees at schools, nightclubs, and concerts. Our “right” to buy and stockpile thirty fucking assault rifles without a comprehensive system to account for the whereabouts of those weapons, and the identity of the wielder does not supersede a person’s right to not be shot and killed.

People are dying nearly every other day in our country at a rate not seen in other nations. At the very least, we should at least be willing to ask other countries for help, and try implementing their tactics just to find out whether or not they’d be a viable option for our country. Not wanting people dead as a result of gun violence isn’t a fucking political opinion. It’s not even a contentious ethical debate. It’s doing the right fucking thing. And if you don’t like any of the proposed solutions, then instead of telling me why mine are inherently wrong, offer up one of your own.

#second amendment #firearms legislation #mass shootings #nra #gun control #politics #mental health #mental illness #my posts #i speak

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shyember-blog · 8 years

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My Realization Story

Okay, before I get too far ahead of myself, I should probably note a few things.

1. For 33 years, I identified as a cisgender, heterosexual male. 2. I didn’t come out until my dysphoria overwhelmed me entirely.

All of these stories of my past are so rosy and gorgeous when viewed through the lens of my current self, now almost ten months into hormonal transition, having fully accepted and embraced my gender identity. Thing is, at the time, I had no idea why I felt the way I did.

I did not have the guidepoint of “You’re a girl, Harry” playing in my head like so many seemed to.

I felt like a guy who’d been cursed with extreme femininity, destined to end up in a prison or insane asylum for sexual deviants.

As it turned out, I’m just trans. ^_^

We join this story in about 2008 or so. I’m deeply dissatisfied with my body, and stress- and anxiety-eating have seen my weight balloon.

I became increasingly disconnected from my body as it aged and masculinized. At the time, I couldn’t grasp that the ever-present girl in my head was in any way related to my growing distaste with my body. I deeply disliked who I was slowly turning into, and it was eating me alive. I shut down emotionally, tried my best to ignore what I saw in the mirror, and took to joylessly masturbating into the toilet bowl every morning to rid myself of a sex drive that I no longer wanted.

I remained in this state for years, slowly watching my long hair recede and thin, while coarse, black body hair began growing everywhere else on my body. I switched my underwear to men’s bikini briefs in an effort to minimize the movement of my genitalia, which were becoming more irksome to me with every passing month.

I tried losing weight to become more comfortable with my body. I was successful, losing some 80 pounds (nearly a third of my body weight) but it didn’t help my anxiety. Then, seeing the joy that men seemed to almost universally express when they added strength training to their weight loss journeys, joined them. I started a progressive lifting routine, and again, found success with it. It was great for a little while, but as I started to bulk up, I found that my dissatisfaction with my body only grew. I wanted to be lithe and slinky, not barrel-chested and brutish. I eventually became overwhelmed with disgust and stopped, no more mental energy left to go through the horrific rituals of weight training.

Time dragged on and 2015 rolled around. I’d become involved in the cosplay scene following local and national-level cosplayers and marveling at their impressive costume work. This was a community I felt like I could get behind, as gender-bends of popular characters were common, and it wasn’t uncommon for a male cosplayer to transform himself entirely (breast forms, hip pads, etc.) for a female character cosplay. Some were extremely impressive, truely blurring the line between genders. That year, I decided to go to my first (local) Comic-Con as Katniss Everdeen, a character that I felt (and still feel) a deep connection to and love dearly (along with Jennifer Lawrence's portrayals in the film series). I chose her most-androgynous outfit from early in the first movie (pants, riding boots and her father’s jacket) and Katie braided what was left of my shoulder-length hair into a beautiful swept braid falling across my right shoulder.

I wasn’t sure what to expect from my cosplay, but in the end, I decided that it was the experience more than anything else that I really wanted. I finished off a prop quiver and bow and spent two entire days as Katniss. The cosplay was a complete hit. I felt like a million bucks; I felt at home. The fog of depression lifted from me for two glorious days... until I looked at the pictures of my cosplay. The whole time, I'd been the girl in my head, and seeing the pictures of a sad, fat man in a Katniss costume caused a severe reaction in my mind.

I hadn’t liked looking at pictures of myself before, but this was the first time my mind had actively rejected a picture of me. "This isn't you," my brain said, "That's someone else playing Katniss."

It took me by such surprise that I kind of shut down again for a few months, until something else happened in the wider world: Caitlyn Jenner made her dramatic reveal on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine. Many people had many reactions to her reveal, but mine was one of respect and awe. "Wait, we can do this now? This is okay? We can be the girls we are in our heads? And it’s called being transgender?"

In an instant, my world view was turned upside down. The strongest voices in my mind against transition had been silenced: the voices of “gender is immutable and fixed” and “even if you could, you’d never escape your inherent male physique.” Say what you want about her, but to come from a background - Olympic-level sports - that was so hyper-masculine, so impossibly male... and to transition so completely that you could pose on the cover of Vanity Fair in your 60s and pretty much slay it... that was impressive. Her coming out pushed me to start exploring my gender issues once again.

Buoyed by this imagined societal acceptance, I explored the only way that I knew how to at the time: videogames. I had always played RPGs as female characters, but when I logged in now there was a new sense of authenticity behind my actions. I chose armor and costumes that I liked, and that I thought I’d wear. I chose party roles that I enjoyed, rather than that I thought would be expected of me as a ‘male’ player. “Support is for girls,” I’d hear. “Yep,” I’d reply to myself, and smile.

A lot of people talk about videogames as escapism or as a crutch for underdeveloped social skills. For me, I used them as a gateway into my preferred reality. Me, as the girl I’d always wished I’d been. I became more social, more outgoing, and had more fun in my virtual lives than I’d ever had in the real world. I could be myself without judgement, at least, so long as I didn’t push it too far. I never joined voice chat, I never dated other players within the game worlds, I never engaged with other people beyond the surface, because I was still afraid of them finding out that I was just a guy with a girl in my head.

I would become annoyed when new armor sets came out for only male characters, or when promotional pictures would feature male players and characters. The hook was set: I was starting to embrace my identity. I started logging an enormous amount of playtime. I was putting four or five hours a night into these games and loving every minute of it. I had elaborate plans to build a high-end gaming rig and be one of the first adopters for virtual reality, in the hopes that it would get me closer to being the girl.

It was during one of these marathon sessions that it happened. My character was in a capital city, selling off some of her recently-looted wares, when I was suddenly overcome by a mental image of a girl in a gorgeous black ball gown. The girl was me. Have you ever had one of those dreams where you know exactly who you’re talking to or looking at, but you can’t see their face? That was the sensation here. She was me. She was tall, with long, dark hair. She was wearing a black velvet ball gown and held a black-and-silver clutch in her left hand. To this day, I can recall the image with crystalline clarity. The thing that took my breath away, however, was the feeling that accompanied her: correctness. Me as a girl felt intensely right; more right than getting married, even than having sex.

Mere moments after she -- I -- appeared in my vision, memories flooded into my mind: my announcement in fourth grade of wanting to be a lesbian when I grew up, my mom scolding me for swinging my hips while I walked, the ever-present girl in my head, my disappointment every time I was reminded by the mirror that I don’t have swinging hips… These moments and a thousand more crystalized suddenly in my mind like I’d just pulled back a curtain and turned on a spotlight.

I was so shocked by the image, the feeling and the sudden rush of memories, that I dropped my keyboard out of my lap and actually said to the empty room: “Oh my god, I think I’m trans!”

#my story #realization #transisbeautiful

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the-queer-look · 5 years

Text

Motor Bi-Cycling

Not everyone who identifies as LGBTQIA+ is heavily engaged in our community. Many of us quietly get along with our lives without engaging to a great extent in what we know as queer culture. Not being particularly engaged in the community doesn’t make anyone less a part of it though, our community is a vast mosaic of different peoples and cultures. And everyone can determine their own level of engagement.

- K

Name: Rachel

Age: 27

Occupation: Mental Health Policy Consultant

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Bisexual

Location: Waterloo

Although I am a cisgendered woman, I don’t fit entirely into gendered stereotypes, because no one does, and the idea that we have to is ludicrous. For example, although I’m cisgendered, I ride a motorcycle, which is seen to be very masculine. I chose the motorbike that I have because the service that I got at that particular shop was the best. When I first went shopping for a motorcycle, I took my friend John with me, and whenever I would ask a question about the bike that I wanted, they would answer the question to John, rather than to me, and everywhere we went, the male customer service reps would treat me like I was a complete idiot. Going in to by equipment for my bike now, I’m assumed to be either gay, or an idiot. If you’re gay, the staff members have no interest in talking to you. But if you’re an idiot, they can at least sell you something, which I have absolutely taken advantage of from time to time by walking in and pretending not to know how to change my oil filter, so they change it for me for free because I act dumb and cute. I can change my own damn oil filter, but after having dealt with the level of sexism in the motorcycle community for years, I’m going to take advantage of it to get out of there as quickly as possible.

I can safely say that the level of sexism that I’ve received in the motorcycle community is greater than I’ve encountered anywhere else. When I bought the jacket that I wear on my bike now, I had to put up with the attendant telling me for ten minutes how great the jacket was, because when girls wear it he gets to stare down their cleavage, but when you want a girls motorbike jacket, it’s either that, or in pink, and I’m kind of stuck to my soft goth aesthetic. And you’d think it’d just be the one or two bad apples, but it was every place I went to, except the shop that I bought my bike at. They actually spoke to me, about my bike, without sexualising me, or making me feel different and unwelcome, it was really nice.

The first time that I kissed a girl, I was thirteen... We went to church together. It was in church, it was very cute, but neither of us were particularly religious, though her family was. My family wasn’t, but all of my friends went to that church, so I did too. I dont think I took it, or what I felt too seriously, I remember hearing all my life “it’s just a phase” because that’s all it ever is right? So I didn’t take it seriously until I was eighteen or nineteen and actually started sleeping with women and went “oh… maybe women are pretty great, because this is alright”. So I came out to my parents twice. Once when I was thirteen, after kissing that girl in church, and then again when I was about twenty six, just sitting them down to say “Hey guys, that phase? It’s entered a new phase called having a girlfriend… This is Kate” *laughs*

I definitely didn’t come to terms with my bisexuality when I was thirteen, I genuinely thought that my parents were right, and it was just a phase, just a thing I was doing to get the attention of men. I don’t think it ever made me question my gender, or pressured to present and dress myself differently. However once I started to move towards more queer spaces, and having a lot more queer friends, that’s when I started to feel that I didn’t fit in. I think I’ve hit this point where I feel too queer to be around my straight friends, too straight to be around my queer friends, and although my wardrobe is almost entirely black, that’s not enough to make me feel like I fit in with my goth friends.

What was interesting was that I started coming to terms with my bisexuality at about the time that I started going to fashion school, which I haven’t continued with because oh boy. I felt like I couldn’t wear all black all the time at fashion school because… well it was fashion school? So I was trying to wear colours all the time, and… lets just say that it didn’t stick. I’d gotten into this habit of wearing all black when I was a teenager to try to stop myself standing out so much. The loud colours that I wore trying to fit in at fashion school made me too uncomfortable, and I fell back on my blacks again. I realise now that wearing black all the time doesn’t make me blend in, because I wear it literally all the time. You’ll see me wear all black every day for a month and not think about it, until one day I wear white and you’ll go “oh fuck that’s a colour! Wait! You only ever wear black!” But even though it isn’t a help with not standing out, it just… feels more natural after all this time.

I feel that there’s a reason for more well known, generic fashion stereotypes for queer people. And I feel that they are useful for people who are learning to dress for their newly aware queer selves, and it gives them a good basis to work from. But I don’t think that those stereotypes are solid enough that I, as a member of the Queer community, can look at people and in an instant tell what they identify as. But as far as the stereotype that lesbians own cats- Everyone owns cats! they’re wonderful! Shut up!

I think that both representation of LGBT people, and the definition of queer fashion, is broadening, which is really good, as it allows people who are still coming to terms with their queerness, but dont necessarily fall into those older stereotypes of queer presentation to find themselves, and present themselves in a way that is more authentically them. It isn’t as broad as I’d like it to be, but it is definitely on the way.

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