#we welcome open discussion on this blog but absolutely no bad faith arguments and no clowning. no bullshit

[zelda-without-a-licence-plate]

The ‘no men in Gerudo town’ rule: unpacking the inherent transmisogyny

The Legend of Zelda is a well loved fantasy series, this we all know. When it’s good it’s really good, but when it’s bad... it’s really bad. It should come as no surprise that Nintendo is full of prejudice (and if it does, well... you should read more) but the bigoted overtones relentlessly present in Legend of Zelda are only highlighted in Breath of the Wild, with pretty much everything about the entire Gerudo region. From the mixmatched cultures, to the fetishistic unrealistic clothes, to the makeup and bras on small Gerudo children, to the main plotline itself, this entire section of the game is designed so poorly it makes me physically wince just thinking about it.

This blog is run by two white people, so instead of getting on a soapbox and preaching our thoughts on the racist aspects of the game (and entire series) that don’t actually affect us, I’d like to direct you to @toshiirou​ ‘s blog and their posts on that specific subject for more details. It’s not optional, it’s required reading. Go read their posts and then come back.

What I’d like to dismantle here today is specifically the inescapable transmisogyny woven into the rule of no men being allowed in Gerudo town. Let’s begin.

If Link tries to enter Gerudo town as he is, he’ll be turned away by the guards on the basis that no men are allowed within the city. When he first arrives in the desert, he’ll find a merchant spying on the guards, trying to find a way to sneak inside. Pretty much all of the male npcs in the area only want to get into Gerudo town so they can be surrounded by “foxy ladies”-- something that makes me wish I could murder npcs in this game so so bad. Link will hear rumours of a ‘man’ who frequently enters the city in ‘disguise’. This is the ‘man’ that Link finds:

Anyone with a brain can tell that Vilia is a trans woman-- or at least, she’s what the game developers at Nintendo think a trans woman is like. This is how she’s referred to in Creating a Champion, the book on the development of botw.

I expect that I don’t have to hold your hand and explain to you that ‘man pretending to be a woman to infiltrate a women’s space’ is perhaps THE OLDEST transmisogynist myth in the book, used most frequently to argue against trans women’s right to use the women’s bathroom. Most white lgbt+ loz fans are able to figure this much out, but unfortunately referring to Vilia by her correct pronouns is about as far as they typically get.

You like to think to yourself, “oh it’s okay because trans women are allowed into the town bc they’re women, it’s inclusive and it’s okay :)”. But it’s really, really not okay, because you haven’t even questioned the racist orientalist trope that the no men rule embodies, and furthermore, we finally arrive at the point of this post;

IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO MAKE THE NO MEN RULE TRANS INCLUSIVE!

Because whether or not trans women are theoretically allowed in, you still have the glaring fact that the rule is enforced by the individual guards making judgements based on their personal opinion on what a man or woman looks like, and they can and will, in the game, reject anyone they think looks too much like a man. It can never be trans inclusive as long as that is the basis for it.

This is what happens in real life. Terfs will constantly make judgments and reject people that don’t fit their narrow vision of womanhood, which is entirely centered around white cis womanhood. Demonizing masculinity will always lead back to bioessentislism, which is the core of terf ideology, right next to white supremacy. Trans women, even moreso non-white trans women, and also non-white cis women do not fit into this view of womanhood and are made the targets of real systemic violence because of it. The ideology that you are spreading by not questioning this trope is one that feeds real life violence.

It is impossible to fix the no men rule to make it not racist and/or trans inclusive. The only solution is to erase it entirely.

And the point of this isn’t so that you can write better fanfiction-- though if you are writing fanfiction featuring the Gerudo you had better be putting the work in to do it right-- it’s to make you aware of the real life harm that these tropes cause. Caring about fictional injustices means absolutely nothing if you don’t care about the actual real living people affected by this violence.

That’s all for now. If there are terms used in this post that you don’t understand, look them up. This isn’t a transphobia 101 course, we’re more advanced here than that and we expect the same from you. And if you’re a white and/or TME zelda fan and you’re uncomfortable by my use of ‘you’ then good. Unlearning all the bigotry you absorb over your life is uncomfortable and it takes time and work and it is one hundred percent necessary. Get started.

[theletmeliveproject]

Welcome!!

Hi there, welcome to The Let Me Live Project community blog!

I decided to create this blog due to recent global discussions around women's bodily autonomy, specifically events in America including the overturning of Roe v Wade and the school shooting in Texas that left 19 children around the age of 10 and 2 teachers dead.

In hearing many people debate abortion, both sides seem very preoccupied about the socio-economic factors that lead people to be childfree by choice. I believe that this is absolutely valid as there are definitely many people who would certainly have children if not for certain obstacles, however, I find this argument a bit reductive. There are people like myself who would never want to go through with a pregnancy or raise a child regardless of how much money, time off or great medical services are offered because that's just not who we are. Whilst I won't dare say this point a view matters more than others, I think it deserves to be heard and I would like to contribute to that. This blog will also have strong pro-choice themes as being child-free by choice means having some kind of relationship to or reliance on bodily autonomy.

The purpose of the Let Me Live Project blog is to hopefully provide awareness of the childfree by choice community in general but also specifically the subgroup of us who have always known we were not destined to be parents regardless of our circumstances. I also want to open up another avenue of community for not only childfree people, but any womb carrying or female identifying person who has been affected by conversations around motherhood, what it means to be a woman and what a woman's role in society should be. There is an idea that people who don't want to be parents or don't have a great love for children (these two things are not necessarily interlinking) are broken or not human, that we don't have the same emotions as other people or must've gone through some trauma. I want people to know they aren't alone and it's okay for kids to not be part of your journey, to help normalise it and fight the stigma around people who don't have children.

We welcome people of all demographics into this community! I would love to hear contributions and questions from a variety of people. Whilst unlearning bias and becoming educated is a lifelong process, we here at The Let Me Live Project aim to be as inclusive as possible and are excited to learn from our community! One area in which feedback is greatly appreciated is on the vocabulary we use to describe the many demographics of people in this community especially with regards to gender as talking about gender and biological sex together can lead to more complicated discussions and we don't want to leave anyone out! As a person who considers themselves to have a disability, I also welcome feedback on the accessibility of this page for other disabled people.

I would like this blog to be a launching pad for a much bigger project that branches out into many more forms. One specific long-term goal I have is to eventually publish a book filled with works and testimonies about being childfree, childless, pro-choice, and motherhood, and individuals' journey with these topics. I am also developing an adjacent Instagram for this page on which posts will be shared from this blog and vice-versa, the link to that is in the bio.

HOUSE RULES

All contributions and questions must be made anonymously and give clear permission to be shared or not and on which platform.

I will accept anonymous methods of contact e.g., an email address that doesn't have your name in it, should anyone want to be potentially contacted in the future to contribute to any works published by myself for this project - although that eventuality is not guaranteed.

Any hateful comments or questions submitted in bad faith will be ignored, reported and blocked. This applies to trolls and members of the community alike. This is a space for support and discussion and whilst we all have nuanced and varied opinions and these topics can become heated, unhelpful and volatile behaviour cannot be accepted.

Thank you for visiting this page! I hope you stay and make yourself at home!