#this applies to all transphobes and people who thinks “cis” is a slur

[velvetvexations]

hello velvet this is going to be a lot abt hate crimes in abstraction (by which i mean, not about an Actual Hate Crime That Happened) but i wanted to warn u in case that was too much for comfort <3

my partner is stealth transmasc, and when you say this i think a lot of people interpret it as "Passes All The Time, Every Time". of course that's not what "stealth" means (it means low/no disclosure... it's flexible bc it's slang, but "stealth" tends to imply intention, it's something you do on purpose for safety reasons). the misconception is irritating most of the time, but i also think its actively dangerous and contributes directly to the erasure of transmasculine oppression. like, i keep seeing people refuting the statement "being stealth is a hostage situation" with "well im stealth and im not scared of being outed" as if it has anything to do with personal sense of fear. youd think that would be obvious.

we live in a blue dot in deeply red state. the difference between our city and where my partner grew up, in the surrounding area, is stark. contrary to popular belief, this doesnt make us safe. he gets threatened with violence walking home alone, he gets called slurs by people that think theyve clocked him as any number of things. you walk fast and dont look behind you when stuff like that happens. none of my friends have been able to answer me when i ask "did they follow you home? do they know where you live?" transfem friends too! it's almost like we're more alike in experiencing transphobia than we are different. who'd've thought.

im thinking abt this bc we travel via greyhound and the last station we left was very very poorly maintained - arent they all? - and in the mens restroom, every door to every stall had a broken lock. my partner joked abt taking a "risky pee" lol, and if it wasnt for where we were, who we are, and the time we are living in, maybe the little icepick of fear wouldnt have gotten stuck in me and i wouldve laughed.

the thing that irritates me abt this discourse is that this type of white knight, tme-in-bio transmasc (or associate) does not at all seem to recognize the danger inherent to being stealth, to looking sort of like a man if the ppl around you are not violent transphobes looking for a fight. they are so consumed by this idea of trans-male privilege that they dont even recognize the danger they are in. often times i think its bc of their own individual privilege. maybe they live in a more trans-friendly region than i do. maybe theyve never met a transphobe, never been called slurs from a speeding car that almost hit you, maybe theyve never been loudly transvestigated in public. i really, sincerely hope they never do. but they take that and apply it to other transmascs far less fortunate and dont even recognize the erasure they are contributing to. bc everyone knows only transfems get hate crimed! who else ever would?

they think that no one has ever clocked them (how? are you a mindreader?), they think that if they look enough like a cis man, "other" cis men wont hurt them, cis women wont be Able to hurt them. they think thats true of every transmasc thats been a year+ on t. it's juvenile. it's icarian. it's misogyny dressed up as solidarity and chivalry. and it's not even fucking true. the vast majority of Any trans person who is trans in Any number of ways is going to face fear and anxiety and the potential for danger in a bathroom.

thank you for sharing anon <3

[matchakuracat]

it's so ironic that elon musk calls queer people sensitive and confused when he's the one getting upset over scientific terms and calling them slurs

[solarpire]

I kind of cant get over how shitty tme and tma are as a concept. Like yeah its possible to have internalized transmisoginy, we all have some to work through. But if you sit and think about it in like. Real life use? In the real world? That does not mean fucking anything.

Like. Are we classifying it as straight forward as who receives transmisoginy? Cool news, that is literally anyone that a transphobic person decides it applies to. I've been called slurs and called a man and called tons of trans misogynistic shit by people who dont know me enough but want to hurt me because I am visibly trans. Even though I am not one I am consistently clocked as a trans woman. It doesnt matter what I am. It just comes down to what the bigot who's trying to hurt me decides they see. This can apply to not only any trans person, but also often cis people.

Or are we basing it on upbringing? If you were born male and transitioned to female you're tma, if you were born female and transitioned to male you're tme? That covers so fucking few bases! What about people who were always percieved as male or forced into a male role growing up even though they were female who ended up transitioning? What if they transition to identifying as a woman? What about the opposite? What about nonbinary people? What about detransitioners? What about intersex people who couldn't "pass" as a gender? What about intersex people who could? We deserve to be remembered because when language like this happens, it leaves a whole lot of people out.

Functionally tme and tma mean nothing. They do nothing. Being transgender is way too broad of a spectrum and all these terms really serve to do is make some of us feel above transmisoginy, some of us feel like we can never stop making up for transmisoginy, some of us feel fully forgotten and uncared for, and drives us apart. Transmisoginy IS a problem, it's a big one and it kills and it's something we all need to work on. But dividing ourselves and kind of announcing the correct way for strangers to be transphobic to you with a fun little acronym is. Really not the right way to deal with that.

[crimsonsharked]

you dont have to answer this ask but i'm just curious about it

but dont you write alessio as trans and without surgery? so whats wrong with the other person making their character trans? idk all the details or extents of everything but i'm just a little confused

like yeah if they're being transphobic then thats a fuckin problem and again idk the details so i'm sorry if i'm missing important things

but i just dont see how its weird if you write alessio as trans and without surgery and everything too but please correct me if i'm wrong or anything

regardless its stupid how people are sending you drama and i'm sorry you're being harassed with it

really the best thing to do is just block and black list and let them be weird and obsessed somewhere else

you're doing an amazing job with your blog and art and writing so dont let some idiots ruin your time here

anyways i just didnt know like how its weird that someone else writes a character as trans without surgery and you do the same but i'm probably missing things so i apologize if so

dont let me or anyone else annoy you with stupid drama and i hope you have a great day and please keep giving us more alessio and ambrosi!!

Addendum: I misread the first part: I don't care if people write trans characters, my specific issue with the aforementioned user is how they went about it as a fellow non-cis individual.

I don't have any issue with writing trans people without surgery or getting pregnant, the only reason I said it was oddly transphobic was because of how often and in the context a transmasc character is getting pregnant.

(warning for a looong rant)

I do not care if you sexualize trans bodies, I am transmasc myself, it's cathartic to me. However if your main sexual focus of the character is that he is trans and CAN get pregnant, that might be an issue.

It's not good, it's like focusing on a transfem person having a dick constantly and her being able to use that dick.

Again, I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with sexualizing trans bodies, nothing wrong with trans people getting pregnant or the ability to become pregnant, trans people can and do get pregnant. It's completely how you as a person talk about it and how you present it. If again you are constantly bringing up pregnancy for literally anyone in a sexual context, it's a fetish, and then you tack it onto a trans-masc person? that's a fetish.

This is a fetish: There was no reason to write this post like this. If it was worded differently I might have felt a different way but it's not

"My muse is transmasc and identifies as male. Uses He/Him and The/Them pronouns. They have not had top or bottom surgery. They can become pregnant."

If it was worded like that (not exactly) i'd feel differently.

I am all for exploring transness in a sexual space, but there's a hardline between kink, sexual, and an outright fetish. This applies to anyone EVEN if you are trans yourself. Like I'm black I can be racist to black people, if I call another black person a slur with intent to harm, I'm being racist. If a transperson says and does things that are harmful to the trans community they are being transphobic or at least hurtful.

"I'm not cis" isn't a good defense anymore, yes, you're not cis, so you should know better. My biggest issue with St0ls wasn't even THAT specifically, it's the constant dredging up of drama, after making several apologies REPEATEDLY, then doubling down on past actions and still bringing up people who want nothing to do with them. AKA ME. 2 weeks isn't enough to change. Change takes a long time, months, and years. This is coming from someone who was objectively a TERRIBLE friend and person to be around. I wouldn't have even brought up the entire fetish thing if I had never been brought it up. I'd have kept my thoughts to myself, when I say leave my black ass alone, I mean it.

Also, I do want to clarify I explore transness from the lens of a Black Trans person! So I write all my characters from that specific lens of growing up AFAB and being treated AS a man, and never a woman. So I tend to write Alessio being a transman but wanting to explore his feminity and sexual side of that!

[blackbellaswan1]

hello blackbellaswan, whitealicecullen here, and im genuinely no longer a hater but a girl supporting girls fr (i reflected on my past actions and i realised my fear of men seeped into my love/respect of trans women and caused me to unfairly equate the two, even though trans women are the exact same as cis women- i have emotionally matured and done research, this is a sincere apology). and you dont even look like bojack horseman, you look like anok yai (her eye shape/brows/ forhead esp). sorry about that time when i called you a slur, that was really bad. i'll leave you alone now. youre pretty. you dont have to respond dw and we can js block each other if you like.

and as for sorryforbleedingonyourshirt, i unfairly conflated sexual interest with gender identity in a way that was frankly homophobic towards trans lesbians- swept into the moral panic about trans women that has *no* factual or impirical basis, and i will apologise to her seperately. (she may have blocked me, in which case please tell her that my distinction between cis women and trans women that enjoy otaku culture and are attracted to women was completely untrue and unempathetic to peoples cultures and sexualities, and that i think her and her interests are perfectly fine and normal, and that my mindset was "well ive already dug myself into this hole, i cant crawl out of it, might as well js go all the way through" at the time of sending those anons, i did not even believe what *i* was saying, and i am deeply and sincerely sorry for my upsetting and untrue words, and that i am working to become *actually* inclusive of trans women this time)

i realised that i had been influenced by terfs in the feminist community and that i was not doing a good or even adequate job of barring myself against their poisionous and insidious ideology- neither of you have to forgive my horrible and transphobic words, i just hope that i no longer make you feel unsafe and that you know that i will not put other beautiful and kind trans women what i put you through. <3

(and also you were right about rape by deception not applying to trans people, because trans people are who they say they are, and that talking point was a right wing dogwhistle meant to encourage violence and trans genocide- a trans person not disclosing that they are trans is for their own safety and not for the "deception" of others)

TLDR: you were based and i was cringe

feemoid redemption arc??

well you seemed like you’ve grown and changed as a person i, monqiana blackbellaswan accepts your apology

[charmanderxerneas]

God i just got reminded of this while looking something up so here’s a hot take:

You are evil if you don’t support everyone under the lgbt umbrella. And I’m talking about: You are evil if you’re an exclusionist.

If you hate aro/ace people, if you hate he/him lesbians, if you think that pan or bi people are wrong or assume bi people are transphobic, if you hate funky trans people who have weird identities or neoprouns, if you hate people who have reclaimed slurs and call themselves queer or fag or tranny or dyke, if you think queer people who openly engage in kink are gross, if you dislike gender non conforming people, literally just anything: You are a fucking evil fed, and a nasty horrible person.

All you’re doing is creating division in a community. You are actively helping every conservative who wants us dead. They’re going to see that you’re big enough of an idiot to believe that people in your own community are expressing themselves “wrong”, and use that as justification to be like “yeah those queer people are wrong and gross and they should have no rights or deserve to die.” and if they can find a way to come after the “weird” disliked queers, they arent going to stop there. They’re going to come after you too, you moron. Because they think we’re all disgusting.

There’s no right way to be queer. Even if you don’t understand the identity at all, that doesn’t give you any right to dictate how someone else feels about themselves and their body and their sexuality. It’s not “homophobic” or “transphobic” for someone to identify in a way that is different from the preconceived notions you have about queer people. its not fucking lesbophobic for someone to identify as a bi lesbian, they are clearly just trying to find labels they feel fit them and if it doesnt match what you think a lesbian is: so fucking what! They aren’t fucking harming anyone. We are all the same in the sense that we deviate from what cishet people consider “normal”. (Though this can also apply to cishet people who just dont conform to what people think of as cis or het, for example I’ve seen some cis people use differing pronouns even if they identify as cis: pronouns don’t necessarily equate to gender, and they can do what they want! They arent taking anything away from queer people, in fact theyre only helping to normalize when people want to use different pronouns)

Radfems/Terfs are also evil, do not fucking touch this post. Same goes for pedos (i refuse to call you maps or proshippers, you’re just a pedophile and that does not make you queer.)

[aspecpplarebeautiful]

What is the aro/ace exclusionist movement? What do they believe and who are they? You mentioned that terfs often use it as a stepping stone to get people to believe transphobic rhetoric, can you elaborate on that? I’ve never seen anything about this, so I’d like to be more informed about it.

What is the aro/ace exclusionist movement?

The ace/aro exclusionist movement was something that began sometime around 2015, a wave of people claiming to be part of the discourse suddenly started overtaking ace/aro spaces and tags, especially here on Tumblr. The discourse being whether or not aces and aro (though usually aces as they often forgot aros existed) should be in lgbtqia+ spaces.

Most of their arguments weren't new, a lot of what they were saying are things I've been seeing around for years. What was new was the name 'discourse' and I think also calling themselves 'exclusionist' and just the force of it. What used to be a very rare isolated comment was suddenly flooding ace/aro spaces.

What do they believe and who are they?

Instead of giving a breakdown I'm going to post the LGBTA Wiki page on this which shares a lot of their arguments and tactics they used. But basically they seemed to believe aces/aros weren't valid identities or if they were they weren't LGBTQIA+ identities.

They seemed to be a mix of people. From radfems, especially TERFS (but also a lot of SWERF rhetoric seemed to make its way into their posts), and a lot of young people who didn't know much about the community and its history seemed to be the largest groups.

You mentioned that terfs often use it as a stepping stone to get people to believe transphobic rhetoric, can you elaborate on that?

Yeah, so two parts to this. Number one is that ace/aro exclusionist rhetoric and TERF rhetoric is extremely similar to the point some arguments are almost 1 for 1.

Some examples I've seen personally:

'I just don't want cishets in lgbt spaces' vs 'i just don't want men in women's spaces'. Cishet is a common dogwhistle for ace/aro people the same way 'men' is a common dog whistle for transwomen.

'There is no A, it's just LGBT' vs 'It's 'It's LGB not LGBT.' Just like TERFs want to drop the T, and will even pretend there was never a T, or it's just a fringe movement adding it on, despite it being there for years. Ace/aro exclusionists act like the full acronym is LGBT and it's always been that way when it a. hasn't been that for years, and b. wasn't always those four letters.

'Allo is a slur' vs 'cis is a slur.' Sometimes they don't say it's a slur but will say it's disrespectful to their identity to be referred to that way.

'The LGBT community is a community about attraction and gender identity, not about if you like sex or not' vs 'The LGB community is about attraction, not about gender'.

And we have documented posts of TERFS using the ace/aro exclusionist movement to try and recruit people by pointing out how similar the rhetoric is: Here's one that was going around for a while.

But the very basics of if they can get you believing these things about one group of people, it takes very little work to convince people the same logic can apply to trans people. I'm also not sure if we know the real origins of the movement, but TERFs have definitely been a part of it since the beginning. And while a lot of ace/aro exclusionists claim to be anti-TERF, it's very rare to find a TERF who isn't also an ace/aro exclusionist.

The ace/aro exclusionist movement has definitely died down a lot here on Tumblr, they were very aggressive for a long time. The wider LGBTQ+ community has also in general caught up to them and gotten better and countering their tactics, but it was basically everywhere in 2015 and 2016. And I remember things like being on ace/aro themed discord servers and they'd join and troll, or they'd harass ace/aro blogs (including this one, though I have a block and don't interact policy). It was definitely a really difficult time for the community. They are still around, there's some tags you can find them in sometimes, though I think they're more active on sites like Twitter and TikTok where they can get away with it more. The best way to avoid them is definitely hang out in more moderated spaces.

So hopefully that gives you a bit of a rundown and covers most of the basics. If you have more questions though or want anything elaborated on, let me know.

All the best, Anon!

[velvetvexations]

<3

We should all be so lucky to live in places like that, genuinely. I'm really happy you have that and I hope one day soon we can all join together and live freely.

It's not fair, and you're not scary. <3 I'm sorry, anon. As someone who would also be perceived as a threat because I'm not traditionally feminine enough, I'm with you.

A big part of the issue is that if you tell them this they just go "well they can misgender themselves and present as a scared woman if they ever want to sic the transphobic dogs on trans women." Trans men have male privilege but also cis female privilege. I think we should start saying all trans men also have white privilege and are members of the 1%, too. The ultimate nexus of oppression.

Nah, communism is fine in and of itself. Tankies tend to be the loudest of people who actively engage in communist discourse, though, so a lot of people don't use the term to describe their beliefs, even if it might be accurate, because of the association. I know that if I see "communist" or "Marxist" or something like that in the URL it's probably a tankie, just because they're so eager to scream about it at every opportunity and push themselves as being communists. But you can be a communist or a Marxist without being a tankie.

Are you sure they were trying to be kind, and weren't about to call Tumblr to tell them they missed one and need to send a squad over to take you to the island where banned transfems are exiled?

I'm still really mad about that.

"splash damage"

Although, saying that, I had believed shemale was a slur referring specifically to trans women, but now that I think about it I'm not really sure if it's also applied to others intentionally.

[princecrows]

while i agree with most of this post, i think its fatal flaw, as is most peoples fatal flaw with understanding representation of queerness in op, is that they apply a western-spefifically-very-gen-z way of understanding it, which is not the rules one piece itself is playing on.

for example, saying yamato is "trans coded" because of the language used to describe yamato in the manga (mainly as a currently a woman, wanting to transition into a man) is flawed, because one piece subscribes to the idea of queerness as action rather than inherent. Yamato IS trans, is a trans character because he wants to be a man and is currently a woman.

It's the understanding of being trans as that action, rather than Yamato being a man born in a different body. (this is literally apparent in the vivre cards every transphobe likes to point out as "proof yamato isnt trans")

more inclusive language is used for people who have transitioned (not always medically) in one piece because i think oda understands queerness as an action, rather than inherent to yamato. this is the definition of being trans, as it has been for most of our lives, as a woman who will become a man, hence transitioning.

and i think oda knows yamato is trans and fully intends him to be, as in the bath scene yamato takes the chance to go with the men than with the women and that is an act of transness. (under this established understanding of queerness)

there's another blindspot, which is that you claim sanji doesn't have internalized transphobia. sanji is referred to as an okama (which is a slur mainly used for transfems and gay men, which is a identity overlap many cultures have.) and since in one piece okama is used to refer to a large group of trans people mainly/also referred to him, as well, and we all probably agree sanji has internalized homophobia, internalized transphobia is apart of his character?

(which results in him presenting in drag during the 2 year period, a literal bit of the story where all the strawhats were finding themselves. as well as other shit yk its fucking sanji and im trying to keep this brief)

and applying the label of "cis" onto him when in manga he is literally apart of the transsexual brigade seems ignorant, and inherently westernized. I'm not saying he's not cis, (because the language used for him is not definitive, and that within our label focused understanding of queerness is not validated.) I'm saying it's functionally useless to label him as cis and not genderqueer at least, because thats the western equivalent of the language used by oda.

not acknowledging that and applying a westernized, "new" understanding of queerness onto these characters is. expecting them to view queerness as something inherent rather than discovered, and expecting a character whom a main theme for him is gender presentation and how he doesn't fit into man or woman perfectly (which is literally explored on transsexual island) to use definitive labels is not helpful, definitely not helpful to trans people who want to get into one piece and need to understand where the commentary on queerness within op is coming from. oda overwhelmingly, for the majority of op has provided us wonderful rep. i think we should respect the language and understanding and cultural context of these characters.

Could you also upload that trans one piece timeline? It’s pretty neat!

sure !

if you ever wanted to get into one piece as a trans person, especially if it's for specific characters you've seen, heres a timeline of trans representation and how it's handled lol (as vague and spoiler free as possible)

[simptasia]

Hello! Im so sorry to bother but i just got back into Lost again and charlie has given me brainrot especially Trans Charlie and i was wondering if you had any specific hc or things like that? I really love Hurleys and Charlies friendship and i always feel when he finds out he's not only super supportive but also super chill

oh gosh! you're not a bother at all!

i do have specific trans charlie HCs and i never get to talk about this so thank you!

tw: references to trans/homo/biphobia both external and internal. and trans subject matters like transition, dysphoria, surgeries etc

there are many many words under here. so many :)

charlie realised he's trans when he was 5, that is to say, he realised he's a boy pretty much as soon as the concept of Boy could take root in his mind. picture 5 year old charlie walking into the kitchen and loudly announcing "i'm NOT a girl, i'm a BOY" to his parents and liam

the reaction is mostly amusement. liam laughs because he's 7. but yeah i do think his family assumed this was like, a tomboy phase that charlie would grow out of with time. but were still very cool with it. simon notes "i have two boys now ^_^", and megan offers to cut charlie's hair, which he happily accepts, he hated looking like a girl

over time it's clearly not a phase but the notion of charlie = boy, son, brother becomes second nature to the pace family. liam gets in the habit of calling charlie "baby brother" so he doesn't accidently call him his sister and that nickname sticks forever

so basically charlie's family is not transphobic. like i imagine the worse you'd get from these three is ignorant/well meaning comments. (and yes, simon was more bothered by charlie being a musician than him being trans. bless your strange heart, papa pace)

any bigotry charlie suffered in life, both from being trans and bi, was mainly from school and people he met outside of home (like, nasty groupies for example). i imagine he received slurs that typically apply to sapphic people. because his schoolmates assumed he was a butch lesbian. i can see charlie wishing they'd call him the right nasty words

charlie has a vicious combination of confidence and insecurity so theres bursts of "yeah i'm a bloke, i'm bi, what of it" and other times deep internal shame. and he's catholic too so that adds to the uh oh soup. i mention him being bi because i feel that adds to his guilt, like this notion of "even if i'd stayed a girl, i'd still be doing something wrong. i'd still be wrong"

and i think this shame and insecurity ties into his promiscuity, because he has this desperate need to be desired and validated. people wanting him, taking pleasure from him, gives charlie a sense of self worth. same with his need to be useful and have attention, etc, basically all that fucked up charlie jazz (...or punk rock, as it were)

ahem, heh, didn't mean to go down that road but writing meta about charlie is such an easy well for me to fall into. it's a rich tapestry

in regards to hurley. 2004 was a different time (gosh that feels weird to say) but i don't think its out of character to imagine hurley is cool with it. he doesn't fully, like, get it but he's like "that's great, dude" and that reaction is always a relief to get. hurley is the cis straight friend we all deserve. i think there are lost characters who would be weirded out by this or needed it explained to them but hurley is [thumbs up]

okay now an assortment of trans charlie headcanons/notes

teenaged charlie had the whole slouching in baggy shirts thing going on (making him look rather grunge). as soon as it was legal for him to get top surgery, he had it, he hated those things. so he had it done at 18, so by the time of LOST, twas 10 years ago and thus i imagine his scars are almost totally faded. you'd have to get real close and if you did you'd notice they're a tad janky because like, charlie was a poor street busker from manchester, he had to go for a really cheap option but hey it got the job done

he did try wearing a binder (i say binder, it was bandages) but he stopped because it was fucking up his ability to sing. it suits charlie that he'd put his musical ability over his physical well being. so most of the time that he had tits he made do with sports bras

side note: age 12 to 16 charlie was in The Worst Mood Ever. teen charlie makes adult charlie seem composed and rational. just a hormonal mess of anger, rebellion, poor posture, dysphoria, sexual discovery, messy greasy red streaked hair, FUCK THE SYSTEM THE WORLD ISN'T FAIR I HATE EVERYONE. with periods as a cherry on top. i just wanted to put the image of teen charlie in your head. i'm just being condescending for funsies, cuz pouty grumpy charlie is cute, but he really did have a lot to be upset about. teen years were rough for charlie, is what i'm saying, his main sources of joy being music, [redacted] and the few friends he had (liam and the other two members of driveshaft). oh and sweet food

but i digress

he has not had bottom surgery. if you asked him why he'd joke "what and give up multiple orgasms?" but the real reason is that charlie has very powerful drive to become a father one day and part of that desire includes with his own. body. so he's kept all the parts needed for that Just In Case. and yes, doing that would majorly trigger his dysphoria but people aren't always rational, charlie least of all. he's a barrel of conflicting emotions. he has good days and bad days in regards to his lower anatomy

charlie takes T patches. i chose these for practical reasons because he's on an island for 3 months. he wears them under his arm and claire assumes they're nicotine patches until she knows charlie is trans. he's wearing each patch for 3 days or more days instead of 1 day like he's supposed to, in order to make 'em last. charlie is clearly an already moody person, but man the concept that charlie is having hormonal issues too really adds to it

and thats something that i really love about my trans charlie headcanon is that i can think of so many canon things that make it make sense. like, the baby brother thing but also

physically: charlie is short, looks rather different to his brother (rounder face) and is hippier than the average cis man. and also charlie has a tendency to puff out his chest (going the opposite of his terrible slouch days cuz now he's titless babey). these are just aspects of dom that happen to work out well for this

story wise: in the show we only see charlie as a child and a grown adult, as such making it easy to fill in first puberty pre transition teenaged charlie off screen. he's possibly 18 in that desmond flashback so cutting it a tad close but i imagine he's had hormonal arrangements for himself since he was 16. and hormones really are fucking magic. also artistic licence, because at the end of the day i am still talking about somebody played a (presumably) cis guy actor

personality: well, besides the aforementioned hormonal mood swings. okay, the stuff i'm gonna say about charlie is not how i see all trans men. i just think being trans ties into certain aspects of charlie's manner. i mentioned before his desperate need for validation, to be useful, to be loved. charlie is really overcompensate-y, he's trying too hard All The Time, one could see that as him like overperforming masculinity. look, charlie has issues, and its clear as day he really really wants to slot himself into the role of husband, father, provider, protector. not inherently a bad thing and certainly not inherently a trans man thing buuut i think it fits. ties into the idea that most of his life charlie has felt the need to constantly prove himself, and that includes things like: a good musician, a good catholic, somebody who can take care of people he loves, being even worthy of love and. being a Real Man. all wrapped up in one confusing mess of a psyche

nah, i got more, still going. furthermore, i don't think charlie being trans is the only reason he's insecure (a rich tapestry) but what if one of many reasons charlie has his nasty jealousy issues with claire is that he thinks so little of himself that he's deeply afraid claire will leave him for a "Real Man". toxic masculinity hurts us all bro. and its not even like charlie is some kind of hypermasculine dudebro or anything like that (he wears nail polish and eyeliner for one thing. he's punk rock) but some odd harmful attitudes come out in subtler ways

to be clear i don't think charlie doubts he is a man but the human mind can be a total fucktruck and i'll say it again: charlie is insecure

anyways. charlie doesn't have a deadname, he was born charlie and he will die charlie. and another neat thing is that theres nothing in the show to suggest that charlie is a variation on charles. he is simply charlie. his middle name "hieronymus" was added by him though, obviously

he had a dildo/strap on packed with him but it was lost to sea during the crash. rip charlie's cock [plays off key flute version of my heart will go on]

he's not out to the wider public. basically in my version of ~canon~ the only people who know are his family, claire and uhh, well, the dozens upon dozens of people he's slept with (charlie's desire to keep this secret vs charlie's rampant desperate lust: the latter always wins). you would think rumours would spread and you're right! but charlie also spreads rumours, sneaky boy. yeah, i heard that the bass player of driveshaft has a big thick cock. a friend of a friend told me, trust me

basically trashy cringe inducing english tabloids have had some things to say about our dear charlie. which only serves to make the concept seem more unbelievable and silly to people. which, as backhanded as that sounds, works for charlie!

i realised i hadn't mentioned this yet: claire is very cool with this. charlie had never been so nervous to come out to somebody in all his life, because he loves claire so much, but once she understood what charlie was telling her (different time, claire didn't know that trans men existed), she rolled with situation. claire's a sweet girl, she's grown up uninformed about queer stuff (and she's bi but thought she was straight until kate) so i imagine her saying some not quite right things but she doesn't have a bigoted bone in her tiny body

and claire never betrays charlie's trust and keeps his secret forever (yeah at least 50 groupies know charlie's trans but thats not the point. it's the principle of the thing)

so yeah. there's defo more, if i like got into more specific scenarios, but thats the gist of what comes to mind and it was still quite a lot, so! thank you for your time

[what-even-is-thiss]

transmisandry is just as real as transmisogyny and it's a goddamn travesty that it's talked about SO LITTLE that I don't even see the term transmisandry applied. it's IMPORTANT and you deserve to have your own trans masc language for it. it's transmisandry and it is REAL and it is TERRIBLE and it HURTS you and you do not have to hide that it is rooted in hatred of trans men to make cis and trans women feel more comfortable that shit is absurd

anon bc i do not enjoy being perceived sorry but also have a lovely day

I sometimes get asks like this and I hesitate to publish them. Especially if they’re angry sounding because I’m afraid of what people will say if I talk about transmisandry. But today I got to thinking. Why am I so scared of the term transmisandry? Why am I afraid for people to think that I think that it exists?

I think it’s because good old fashioned misandry is one of those things that only exists at a personal level and not a systemic one but so many bad or ignorant people pretend that it exists at a systemic level that the word itself has been poisoned. So even though transmisandry does exist at a systemic level in my opinion, you can’t use that word.

Also the general conversation about trans people in the mainstream if it exists at all I feel like is mostly dominated by binary trans women. I’m by no means saying there should be less coverage of that group. It’s super important to talk about trans women’s issues. It’s just that if you point out that most cis people outside of very progressive circles don’t even know that trans men let alone non binary people exist, there’s this fear that you’re gonna get yelled at for trying to talk over trans women even if you’re not saying it in a context where we’re talking about transfeminine issues.

I feel like a lot of people who aren’t transmasculine assume that we have some sort of weird privilege and should just keep our mouths shut but like, we face discrimination on a daily basis. We just do, and just because you personally can’t see it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.

Transmisogyny is a huge issue in our society but I also feel like there are people who exist who use talking about transmisogyny as a device to push tme trans people out of the conversation. We should definitely make space for conversations about transmisogyny. We should talk about it a lot more, actually. But we also can’t use those conversations as an excuse to ignore other issues. And I don’t think this is unique to trans issues. A lot of people will decide that we’re focusing on this group now and we’ll get to you later. We’ll put off thinking about you, if we ever do that. They feel like that other group also looking to talk about their issues is taking air time away from their issues, which just isn’t true. We can chew gum and walk at the same time.

But still I feel like if I straight-up agree with anon I’m gonna get backlash for it. But I dunno. Maybe all those moms that’ve quickly pulled their children away from me since I started transitioning are just afraid of short hair or something. Maybe all the barriers in place that make it complicated for me to get reproductive healthcare are just a part of my imagination. Maybe the people who cut me off after I came out did it because I’m annoying. Maybe I get harassment and suicide bait and death threats full of slurs from r*dfems and other transphobes where they tell me it’s because I’m claiming to be a trans man that they’re doing this are actually because they don’t like my fandoms. We’ll never know.

[omegawolverine]

👀 mcc discourse? /gen

okay mcc discourse time everyone strap in

the three things i see people being pissed about most often are the lack of lgbt+ people in the event, the specific lgbt+ creators playing and, of course, technoblade being involved. so, let's break down why all three of these things are fucking dumb.

1) "there isnt enough lgbt+ creators".

this would be a fair argument that i could get behind...if not for the way mcc is set up for this specific event—and by that i mean it is a youtube sponsored event. the ccs involved need to have platforms on youtube to be able to participate to begin with, as it is a charity event. mcc doesn't have a lot of lgbt+ streamers involved this time around because a lot of those streamers straight up could not stream this event and scott literally said this himself.

on top of that, this isnt a "get invited and you can play!" event, it is a "you need to apply to be involved" event, meaning, if people dont meet the deadline, or they dont apply at fucking all, they cant play. that's not on fucking scott or anyone organizing mcc, that is on the ccs (if they even wanna be involved, i could not blame them for avoiding mcc after last times mess) who didnt apply in time/at all.

2) "there isnt enough diversity in the lgbt+ streamers" aka "im erasing people's identities and, again, disregarding the literal qualifications for this mcc which include having a youtube platform"

i keep seeing people bring up how every lgbt+ person in mcc is white and able bodied and neurotypical etc etc (which is an inaccurate statement anyways) as reasons why they "arent good enough" or they're bringing up how there "isnt any of [x] sexuality/gender involved" as if that's the organizers faults and i uh. i hate to break it to yall but, again, this is an apply to get in event. if these ccs that were "more diverse" (bc why the fuck are we referring to these ccs playing in fucking minecraft championship as some weird ass diversity characters instead of real life people who are more than their race, disability, etc.) met the requirements and were lgbt+ but just didnt apply, while a lot of other white, cis, neurotypical, able bodied, whatever the fuck else, did? yeah. nobody can change that. scott didnt just pick and chose who gets to play, there are literal rules for this event and also applications that are involved like?? hello????? and obviously i would love to see some more lgbt+ creators from different backgrounds with different identities in the cast, that would be awesome, but that is ultimately not up to the organizers. they cant force people to play. they cant skip people in the waiting lists. they can't have people who cant stream be involved in this mcc as their first event, both because it would be sad for them not to stream their first mcc and because it is a literal charity event.

and, to make things worse, a lot of people are saying there "isnt any trans people this mcc" which is just. a blatant lie. eret isnt cis and sqiashey is genderfluid, yall just dont like eret so you decide to refer to her as a "cis man" constantly, which is transphobic, and yall also dont know sqiashey so instead of doing research, you started running ur mouths and then didn't apologize when you got called on it.

like. even if eret was truly problematic, which i dont believe they are as they have apologized for every little mistake theyve made and dealt with the backlash from entitled little privileged teenagers online all while not complaining even the slightest bit, that still doesnt give you a right to misgender them and erase their identity as a non cis person entirely because you're mad over a fucking minecraft event like??? how fucking privileged you must be that this is what gets you heated. not any actual homophobia or transphobia, but apparently "lgbt+ people in minecraft not being diverse enough". choke.

3) "technoblade is a lesphobe, why is he in mcc"

tw on this section: i discuss my expierences with homophobia as an afab nblw briefly and reclaim the d slur (if you wanna read this section and avoid the homophobia discussion and/or d slur, skip from "as someone who is nblw" to "techno making a shitty joke").

all of techno's lesphobic comments are from 5+ years ago and were, at worst, jokes in poor taste. as someone who is nblw, i have had men follow me and my friend around and call us dykes for holding hands in a museum, i have had my family members harrass me for my sexuality and casually talk about how im gross and wrong for liking girls and i have been punished by literal teachers for showing "too much pda" with my past girlfriends despite the fact that ive never even kissed someone on campus before, just held hands and hugged. techno making some shitty jokes when he was a teenager years ago, while also having a plethora of examples of him being an lgbt+ ally, which does include lesbians, should not be treated the same way as literal bigots calling queer people slurs. and if you think it should be, you have had it fucking lucky.

yes, it is valid to be upset over these jokes, they're fucking weird and he shouldnt have made them, but to treat it with the exact same seriousness as a grown ass adult showing blatant homophobia in current times? no. fuck no.

extra notes bc there's some minor discourse points i left out: no, dream team shouldnt get to be involved in this event over other cishet ccs involved just because they have bigger platforms because this quite literally isnt about them, it's about lgbt+ people and they just didnt happen to get in. shut the fuck up. stop mentioning ant and velvet as people who shouldve been involved, they're quite literally together rn doing little daytrips and shit and they most likely dont wanna spend their time together playing fucking minecraft. also, stop saying techno should be replaced with ranboo (or anyone for that matter), it breaks ranboo's fucking boundaries and him donating 100k to the trevor project doesnt suddenly mean he gets to skip the mcc waiting list.

in conclusion: twitter stop whining over pride mcc, your privilege is showing.

(tagging @tauntwenthome bc you said you wanted to hear as well <3)

[tamlins-stories-and-poems]

I have a few theories as to why this happened, which may help some people deconstruct why they feel the way they do about the community.

1) many younger queers (or lgbtq+ by label preference) have never met a queer adult. Partly by being closeted or their parents not admitting to knowing any, or so on.

2) a sense of control:

While I have been lucky, my agemates and juniors have what seems like a more controlling parent generation on average. We arent latchkey kids (or at least, less of us are), and our parents are able to check in with us (and check our location) through our cellphones at any time. Up until fifteen years ago that was practically pure fantasy, but now it means that sneaking around is getting even harder. Being queer is something only oneself can control. Which leads me to point 3

3) entitlement to community

Everyone is entitled to community, and one of the responsibilities of being in a community is maintaining a healthy community life! However, humans are wild and varied and often have different ideas to what that means, especially online. Lashing out and policing language is a very easy way to feel like you’re setting healthy boundaries and good examples, even (or perhaps especially) when you’re hurting someone else. See point 2 about wanting to feel in control.

4) fear of the unknown

Look. We’re human. We’re almost always going to be afraid or grossed out by new and confusing things. One of the skills I’m proudest of is the ability to reflect on whether a knee-jerk reaction to something is reasonable or if it’s just something I don’t understand. Usually I can manage to catch myself at the latter before expressing revulsion to someone who would be hurt by it. A random kid (or 20 something) finding someone new who breaks their established world view probably doesn’t have that same skill. Combined with 2&3 this leads to things like “queer is a slur” and “you can’t call yourself that” about any number of time honored terms.

5) we’ve been taught that making an honest mistake is something we can’t recover from and should be punished for.

Again: I’m lucky. My parents and their friends did their best to keep that lesson from getting its claws in me. It is still there. It still hangs over my head like a sword at a kings feast. It still whispers in my ear about how horrible I must be to forget a word and say “straight” when I meant “transphobic.” (To the guy who used to be in my girlscout group and had a crush on my cis English classmate, I am very sorry about that brainfart. Doubt you’ll see this, but still.) With this lesson of “your mistake is your own fault” surrounding us, and guilt being an emotion likely to cause people to lash out, it’s very easy to apply this to people we see. You used a word I think is a mistake, your mistake is your fault especially when you double down on the word I don’t like, and that means you’re a bad person. I don’t care that someone is giving me an explanation, that’s just excuses. This isn’t a healthy mindset, but it’s easy and familiar and familiarity seems safe.

6) elder queers are (understandably) tired. Especially the prominent ones.

It’s hard to learn when one doesn’t research, and it’s easy to be lazy. Our honorable elders have been answering the same questions or repeating the same explanations on how “no, we’ve been using/reclaiming x longer than you have been alive” for decades now. Since my generation of younger millennials first found the queer corners of the internet. When I answer the same questions repeatedly I stop feeling like there’s a point. I go from wholeheartedly wanting to be sure we’re all on the same page to going through the motions to saying “I already said that. I’m sick of saying that. Stop it.” So, like, this isn’t meant as an accusation, this is just me pointing out that it’s happening. Given most of the older queer folk ive met have constantly drained social batteries and or physical disabilities that cause chronic pain and exhaustion, it makes perfect sense that this is the case. It still means younger queers don’t find the information. It’s all there but that doesn’t mean we’ll find it.

7) lack of physical social spaces.

Re:point 2, parents can track kids via phone, combined with queer kids not having older queer friends and most known queer social spaces being gay bars, a lot of my peers simply don’t have access to interacting with the community in meatspace, or only have a small circle of agemates and maybe an older sibling or cousin (who likely booked it as soon as possible or is still closeted in particularly controlling families). Even when they do get to community spaces, like Pride, they don’t know how to integrate, to learn the established customs or even how to be friends with different generations. This is again something I have been lucky about, that I was taught how to interact with people 50+ years older than myself as an equal, or at least without one of us being In Charge of the other. My favorite hs classmates however always reacted with confusion or horror when I referred to friends I share with my parents, let alone friends my parents age who are closer to me than said parents. This is not a dynamic most kids can fathom anymore. Sitting around exchanging stories about being The Weird Kid in different decades and schools is not something any of my classmates have done, except for me, and I am saddened greatly by this.

Of course my observation is based heavily on my own scarily isolated suburb (literally some kids in my hs had never left the county in their lives), which is predominantly upper middle class white folk with parents 18-30 years older than them, 2.5 kids per family, something like 30 recognizably poc students in the entire school, and if a classmate didn’t identify as christian, odds were they were Mormon. I had maybe 5 Jewish students in my school, one other Bahá’í, and of the ~15% atheist portion of the student body probably three individuals were multi generational rather than first generation to be such, and I went to one of the larger schools around. I believe the freshman class my senior year was like 1,200? So, yes, anyways, limited observations. I can’t speak for my entire generation and our juniors, but it’s something for us all to think about before we start any new queer/lgbtq+ infighting, yeah?

i think i'm just about ready to snap and start unhinged yelling about generational neglect in the queer community

[mintedwitcher]

I guess No Nuance November is back? Cool, I've got more to say so let's go:

Some people take their hobbies way too seriously and it ruins the experience for other people.

If you're cis you have no say in whether something is or isn't transphobic.

If you're straight you have no say in whether something is or isn't homophobic.

If you're white you have no say in whether something is or isn't racist.

Pocahontas is an atrociously disgusting film that never should've been made.

Marvel is overrated.

Disney is overrated.

"Cancel culture" doesn't work because yall don't follow through.

You cannot have internalised misogyny if you're a man. It's just misogyny.

Likewise you cannot have internalised racism if you're white, or internalised homophobia if you're straight. Same concept. If they don't apply to you, you cannot internalise them. The word you're looking for is INGRAINED.

The correct response to being called out for your fatphobia is NOT "skinny people have insecurities too!". Shut up.

Just because you can stretch a regular sized condom over your arm/leg does not mean it "fits".

Women/afabs who complain that men don't care about their comfort during sex, but then turn around and mock men/amabs for not being able to "keep it up" or wear a condom comfortably, are hypocrites.

Consent goes both ways. Always.

If you're white/non-black saying the N word in 2021, you're not edgy, you're pathetic.

The general online level of obsession with complete strangers and their genitalia and/or their sex lives is genuinely gross and just fucking weird.

Masks are an inconvenience but its really not as bad as some of yall pretend it is.

"Get vaccinated or lose your job" is not a new concept. Many employers required you to be vaccinated LONG before covid. Grow up.

"Cunt" and "bitch" are not specifically slurs, but they ARE gendered insults. (Unless you're Australian, in which case "cunt" is a term of endearment.)

Tangentially related, Americans are just bad at swearing.

Last but not least: hitting your children is abusive. Every time. Go to therapy.

I think that's all for now, I might check back in later with a part 2. If you want to see my "hot takes" from last year, check the No Nuance November tag on my blog.

(Also if you have any of your own that you wanna add on, go for it.)

[mstandsformoon]

listen, when I grew up, where I grew up, gay was the swearword everyone used. To say that school sucked, a teacher sucked, another kid sucked, something or someone was stupid or crappy or absolutely fucking shite. You're so gay, that's so gay, [teacher's name] is so gay, that's how people around me talked.

Many gay people I know irl use the word homosexual to describe themselves, because it feels less tainted, less negative.

Other people, in different places maybe or who are a different age or from different circles, might have grown up hearing the word homosexual used like a diagnosis, to mean sick, depraved, something's wrong with those people, they need to be cured from how terribly sick and wrong they are in the head. These people might cringe if they hear that word applied to them.

Yet nobody would ever expect us to censor the word gay. Nobody begs us to tag our posts with g-slur, nobody attacks us about having dared to call another person gay or talk about gay spaces or about being gay or celebrating being gay or just daring to use the word gay in a sentence. Nobody sees a post that mentions the word gay and decides to go out of their way letting everyone know that "you shouldn't call everyone gay, tho", like, duh?

All our words are slurs, and do you know why?

because cis straight people have constantly, deliberately marginalised us, and they still do.

Focus your anger on them, not on queer people who just want to be allowed to say the name of our own identity without having other LGBT+ people try to fight us on it.

Sometimes I feel like on the internet I see more hate coming from LGBT+ people than from cishets, and I think that's something to be fucking ashamed of.

I curate my own online experience and make it as discourse free as I can, but it's impossible to be in LGBT+ spaces on the internet without seeing people (who by the way have never spent a day in a real life LGBT+ space) trying to lecture us about our bloody identity.

Also, it's not a coincidence that the word queer is the one people chose to single out and try to police.

There's more than enough gay people who are blatantly transphobic, and they don't want us to be able to call ourselves queer without letting them know where exactly on the gender and sexuality spectrum we fall, because they're uncomfortable if they don't know how cis or not someone is.

If you buy into the whole queer is a slur crap, you should do some serious thinking about why this is the identity people chose, the one slur we aren't allowed to reclaim when literally all our words have been used against us at some point in history or the present.

Hint, it's because you're buying into someone's barely concealed transphobic ideas of what LGBT+ should be allowed to be.

[takashi0]

Here’s a hot take for you

TERFs are just the Lefty Woke version of Nazis.

Both in the sense that they’re a bunch of vile, bigoted monstrous cultists created for the express purpose of bringing harm to marginalized identities, and also because they’re the perfect scapegoat for Authoritarians to deflect all criticism towards in the “Everyone I don’t like is an X” fashion.

The more bullshit I read from privileged zoomers and naïve college kids from Blue State inner cities about how “Saying Queer is a slur is TERF rhetoric!”, the more convinced I am that “TERF” is undergoing the exact same metamorphosis into a Wolf-Crying boogyman as Nazism/Fascism has, especially in the last 5 years.

People have been complaining about the term TERF being thrown around haphazardly where it doesn’t apply the exact same way lefty nutters claim everyone to the right of Mao is a Nazi and that there’s no possible reason anyone would ever vote Republican or Third party besides Muh Fash even if you’ve been constantly burned and scorned by the Democratic party, it’s pretty obvious to me that it’s going to become a majorly popular past time to accuse people of being TERFs based on fucking nothing except “How dare you not agree with me on this topic.” And anyone with half a brain knows the TERFs are going to take advantage of it, just like the Nazis can, have and WILL CONTINUE to take advantage of Cancel Culture and the constant crusade of slander and ostracization encouraged by clout-chasing dipshits. Some people legitimately do not want to be called Queer. No matter how much academic pretentious garbage you spew at them, it’s not going to change the fact that many parts of America and the world over use the term as an insult, a slur, and a hurtful label to demean, belittle and oppress those who are not in the majority group. No amount of “But it’s ~Reclaimed~!” talk is going to fucking erase all the hurt that people feel or make them buy into your rhetoric, especially not when you outright harass and abuse them and try to bully them into accepting it. 

If it’s true that the TERFs have outright started saying that Queer is a slur, that’s not a confirmation that you were right this whole time, no. It means that you morons have been repeating this cultish line of thinking so often that the TERFs have caught wind of it, and they’re gonna use it to recruit the people you’ve hurt into their ranks, just like the Nazis seduced the poor disenfranchised Germans of Post-WWI Germany and the disillusioned American lower classes today. 

I fucking GUARENTEE you that’s how they got J.K. Rowling on top of manipulating her based on some pre-existing trauma, they convinced her that the reaction to her woke contributions to post-completion Harry Potter weren’t the result of her being incredibly tonedeaf, they told her it was some ridiculous conspiracy about how [Insert slur for trans people here] hated her for being a cis woman and were ungrateful in the face of trying to appease to them. The same way that Nazis point to BLM and Antifa and claim that their conspiracies about “White Genocide” were true and it’s what causes people to believe them when they say “Anti-racism means Anti-White.” 

And I can’t figure out whether if it’ll be easier or harder to push back against TERFs as a result. Because on the one hand everyone knows what a Nazi is, what they did, and why they’re awful (or at least they used to before the Left apparently just decided to resort to constant Godwinning out of sore loserdom), whereas nobody outside of Discourse circles knows what TERF stands for. It’s not Mainstream enough. And furthermore the only thing that distinguishes TERFs from regular RadFems is that they believe everything RadFems do but they’re also Transphobic, and everyone who’s looked at tumblr and twitter for more than five minutes knows that Self-proclaimed Feminists are more than happy to file off the “TE” and keep the “RF.” But on the other hand TERFs are even less subtle than Nazis and probably easier to spot as a result of them not having the same gigantic backlash that the Nazis did post-WWII that forever ingrained them as the ultimate evil of western civilization in our public consciousness. Nazis have had a long time to hone the craft of dogwhistles and the art of grooming potential recruits by way of acting welcoming and accepting of the downtrodden and rejected and then hooking them with their bullshit about how DA JOOZ control the world the way cults do. Whereas TERFs make no effort whatsoever to hide what they’re about with how obsessed they are with how much they slobber over Vaginas and related parts of Cis female anatomy, their constant usage of slurs, their shaming of bi women, their constant fawning over and attempting to seduce lesbians, and even outright calling themselves TERFs to the point of putting it in their usernames. They’re more honest about it. 

Either way I’m not looking forward to what the rest of the 2020′s brings. 2010 was horrible enough with constant politicization, I’m not seeing improvement anywhere in sight.