#white gays who act like their identity will make them oppressed

[aishabellasbigblogofeverything]

Everytime I see one of those “oh don’t say you hate all men because that includes x minority men so you’re being a bigot!” genres of posts I feel like slamming my face or someone else’s face into the nearest wall. Like do you not realize the difference between being bigoted against a certain minority group and women having a justified rational logical hatred towards the gender/group that as a whole oppresses and mistreats us and sees us as less than??? Like it’s like if someone said that poc aren’t allowed to say that they hate white people because white gay people exist and therefore you’re being homophobic against white gay people. Like shut the fuck up, dumbass. This is clearly just a tactic to silence women for speaking out against misogyny in a way that doesn’t coddle or center men’s feelings like…if you can’t tell the difference between a woman saying that she hates men as a whole and bigotry towards a specific group of marginalized men then you’re a fucking disgraceful idiot and a misogynist lemme be the first one to tell you, don’t even pretend to be a feminist or anti-terf if you think a woman saying she hates men is saying that all men are bad or that she hates minority men in particular. Like

These two posts are the exact fucking same despite being written by two separate people. It’s like you can’t even conceive of the existence of marginalized WOMEN because your view of oppression starts and ends with men and “misandry is real you guys i swear 🥺” like do you think all the women who hate men are white cishet able-bodied perisex thin women and no one else lol do Black women brown women trans women lesbian/bisexual women fat women intersex women disabled women etc. even cross your damn mind? Are you completely fucking ignorant to the fact that all men have male privilege and are capable of using it against women and being misogynistic even if they don’t all have equal access to it/don’t hold systemic power against all groups of women or do you think that somehow only the most privileged echelons of white men can ever do anything wrong or sexist ever? “When you say all men you mean ALL men” yes I do, so? What’s your point? You gonna stop talking now or what? Like it or not there is no marginalized identity that shields a man from male privilege/misogyny or him being able to be called out for it lol there just isn’t and if you try to pretend that it is or that some men are above criticism(like how some people used to say that gay men can’t be misogynistic because they’re not sexually attracted to women) then you’re ignoring the women in those communities who are also oppressed not just by society at large but by the men in those communities who hold systemic institutional and social power over them. ALL men have hating women in common! Read that sentence again!!! Hating men as an oppressive class(which, let’s face it, is what they are) because the majority of them DO hurt or act sexist towards women in some way shape or form is not the same as hating men for their marginalized status because I can guarantee you that women with those marginalized statuses have it WAY way worse and hate men as well and are the vast majority of the people making these complaints about men to begin with, lol, so shut your damn mouths if you don’t have anything important or valuable to say.

They just hate to hear women talking about hating men because it upsets their fragile feelings so they look for any excuse to tell us that we’re the bad guys actually and dress it up under progressive thought when really they’re just the patriarchy’s asskissers, because before long they’re gonna start saying that you’re not allowed to hate white cishet men who are the most privileged in society. It’s just “not all men” in diverse dressing:

Like it never even occurs to these idiots that the women making these statements are also trans or poc or whatever other group and may very well have experienced misogyny and oppression from these groups and now they’re calling us “bioessentialist” and terfs for it as if we say we hate men because we think that they’re innately evil when really we KNOW they aren’t biologically hardwired to be that way! But the vast majority of them ARE that way because they choose to be, because of the social benefits they get from treating women as lesser, them being oppressed too doesn’t change that lol. These people don’t actually care about trans men or Black men or disabled men or queer men or whatever men they just want to pretend men as a whole are a victimized oppressed class just because some girl wrote “I hate men I wish they’d all kill themselves” in a Tumblr post once and they somehow think that’s the same as getting your rights violently stripped away but they want to look “progressive” about their Mra ideology so here you go. If you say you hate men then you’re a terf and gender essentialist! ‘Nuff said! I am very smart! 🤓

And one more thing, like…nobody who makes “I think all men should die” posts is like 100% serious about it lol. Like we all know that men aren’t going to all drop down dead because posts like these are being made lol. If they did then it would’ve happened a long time ago, and not just on Tumblr but on other social media sites too. These posts ultimately do nothing and have no power to hurt any man anywhere whatsoever. You’re all just angsting over literally fucking nothing. NOTHING, my darlings! Women are ALLOWED to vent about their anger they feel at the patriarchy because of what MEN(and it IS men) put them through without someone trying to make them feel guilty with some sort of gotcha to prove to them that they were secretly a hateful bigot all this time. Like I’m sorry if these posts offend you…grow up, maybe? Breathe some fresh air? Touch some grass? Interact with friends and family off the ‘net? You’ll realize pretty quickly how little some angry tumblr posts about how all men should be swept up in a storm cloud actually matter and effect people in the real world. Maybe instead of defending men and policing the way women complain about their oppression because it’s not nice enough for you you could instead work on combatting misogyny(you know, an actual real world problem??? 🙃🙃🙃) and making the women around you feel safe and treat them as equals so that they don’t feel annoyed at men enough to the point of complaining about how horrible men are to them. These posts aren’t made just for funsies they’re an actual legit response to the hostility men unleash upon women in every section of our lives every single goddamn day and I’ve had enough with a lot of you bitches trying to find any excuse to silence women when we talk about these things. Just scroll away or block us if it bothers you so much. It is so so free to do and takes very little effort, far less effort than actually getting up from your computer and taking a good long stretch which is what some of you fuckers actually need. That’s it I’m done here. Gonna go drink some water and eat a cookie.

[sirenium]

"I support trans people!" quick, are you normal about the concept of transandrophobia? Do you think it's just 'white men trying to be oppressed'? Do you brush it off as merely misdirected transmisogyny? Do you scoff at the struggles of trans men and go 'but trans women have it worse! talk to a trans woman and see how bad THEY have it!'?

Do you use a trans man's chest size as an excuse for constant misgendering? Do you hold transmasculine people to a standard of needing to be feminine so to not scare the women, but proceed to not take their gender seriously if they do perform femininity? Do you use your horribly veiled misandry as an excuse to make trans men feel unsafe in queer spaces?

Are you normal about AFAB transfems and AMAB transmascs? Intersex trans people? GNC trans people? Trans people who use xenogenders? Trans people who use it/its or other neopronouns? She/her transmascs and he/him transfems? Can you acknowledge that, sometimes, people are simultaneously transmasc and transfem? Do you accept transmasc women, transfem men, etc?

Do you invalidate the identities of trans women who have beards, or present 'masculinely'? Do you see them as predatory posers? Do you go out of your way to misgender trans women who happen to actually be predators, because 'clearly they were just men'? Do you shame trans women for exploring their sexuality?

Are autistic trans people not able to make decisions on their own transition, as far as you're concerned? Are our ways of expressing and seeing gender 'stupid' to you? Is the concept of autigender too 'insane' to you? Do you see our gender identities as simply jokes?

Can you survive being around a trans man lesbian or a veldian (link) trans woman? Can you support a multigender person who is both gay AND lesbian? Can you include transmasculine nonbinary people in your 'support' of nonbinary lesbians?

I've used the term 'conditional support' a few times, but it is very much conditional support if you explode over one trans person's identity, and then turn around and act all supportive of another's. If all it takes for you not to support a trans person is how they label their gender or sexuality, how they present, what their body looks like, etc, you are not supportive of trans people! Your 'support' is very limited and strict. You have one rigid idea of what trans people are 'supposed' to be, and anyone who deviates isn't valid or worthy, and that is NOT the kind of behavior an ally should exhibit. It is not the way you treat other trans people, and it is far from supportive.

[toasted-valentine]

Ghost Story Good Enough Analysis

Ghost Story Musical has two main couples, Joey and Anthony, and Józef and Hao. The song Good Enough is the backstory to Joey and Anthony's relationship, and within this you can see the major cracks in their relationship and why it is failing when the story starts.

Before I begin this analysis, I would like to define a few terms.

Infantilization: "Infantilization is when an adult is being treated like a child, even though nothing about their mental, physical, social, or intellectual wellbeing requires such treatment."

Fetishization: "Fetishization can be thought of as the act of making someone an object of sexual desire based on some aspect of their identity."

White Supremacy Culture: "White Supremacy Culture is a form of racism centered upon the belief that white people are superior to people of other racial backgrounds and that whites should politically, economically, and socially dominate non-whites."

Internalize Racism: “Internalized racism is a form of internalized oppression, defined by sociologist Karen D. Pyke as the "internalization of racial oppression by the racially subordinated."”

I will be organizing the lyrics by color, Anthony is green, Joey is blue, when they sing together it is orange, and when I am unsure who it is singing then it will be in pink.

(ANTHONY and JOEY, in a bar that is really just their apartment. Younger and hungrier. ANTHONY perches by the edge of the stage, looking into the dance floor like he is going to fall off in a second. JOEY leans on the bar with affected casualness, but after he shifts a little to sip his drink, he carefully repositions himself exactly back to where he was. Neither of them are dancing.)

ANTHONY:

TRY NOT TO WISH THAT I’D JUST STAYED HOME IN BED

Anthony is not a social person, presumably he was dragged out to a gay bar by friends, and really isn’t interested in being there. He’s trying to have a good time and force himself to be happy so it won’t disturb the people around him, this is a negative personality trait that can be seen within Wolf In Sheep Country. From the beginning he has struggled with setting boundaries and openly speaking about his discomforts. This behavior will only escalate and make his relationship with Joey crumble.

TRY TO IGNORE GUYS TALKING OVER MY HEAD

This line is either about Anthony’s friends ignoring him and not really taking him into consideration, or other gay men at the bar not really considering his feelings at all and just fetishizing him being asian.

CHOKE DOWN A CHASER, PRETENDING TO TEXT

Once again, Anthony is keeping his own personal issues pushed down instead of openly discussing them, just drinking and pretending not to be dying a little on the inside.

MAKE SURE MY LOCK SCREEN CROPS OUT MY EX

This could add potential context, Anthony most likely is fresh out of a relationship, and is trying to find a guy to fuck and then forget or his friends made him go out to try and help him forget about the break up. Either way, it’s another instance of Anthony being avoidant rather than dealing with what is going on within his life. The fact he crops his Lock Screen instead of changing it is also a show of it, sweep it under the rug instead of making any actual change.

JOEY:

TRY NOT TO FREEZE AGAINST A FOREST OF EYES

Joey is a transgender man, and like many trans people he experiences social dysphoria. He is deeply aware of how people are perceiving him, and is terrified of people staring at him and seeing his feminine “flaws”.

PULL DOWN MY JEANS TO TRY AND BREAK UP MY THIGHS

Joey is trying to make himself appear more masculine, covering the fact he most likely has a bit more curve to his body fat distribution and that he lacks masculine genitalia. It’s that fear of someone seeing through him and seeing that he’s trans.

TRY NOT TO SPEAK SO MY VOICE DOESN’T CRACK

Many trans men who are early on hormones or pre t struggle with their voice cracking, Joey is avoiding speaking so no one hears the fact he’s not the ideal of white masculinity, no matter how much he looks the part.

IGNORE HOW THEY TITTER WHEN I TURN MY BACK

Joey believes that everyone can tell he is trans and are judging him for it, that when he turns his back every man in that room is staring and scrutinizing him.

ANTHONY/JOEY:

BUT THIS WILL BE GOOD

Joey and Anthony are trying to stay positive and hopeful, they want to have something come out of that night, and are both telling themselves that something other than discomfort will be pulled out of the mess.

JOEY:

DESIRE LIGHTS ME UP LIKE A CHRISTMAS TREE

It’s notable that Joey is the one who gets to say this line, often times trans men are desexualized due to the male gaze and the idea they can’t openly desire sexual contact, so him openly divulging the fact he is there for a one night stand is a nice touch.

ANTHONY/JOEY:

THIS WILL BE GOOD

Again, more reassurances to themselves that they aren’t going to walk out alone that night. This lyric is a motif that gets brought up throughout the song in various ways.

ANTHONY:

BUT EVERY HEATED GLANCE I CATCH AT MISSES ME

Anthony is trying to find a hook up, but so far no one has shown much interest in him, and it’s getting under his skin. He wants sex, he wants someone to be a rebound after his break up, and is feeling deeply insecure about the fact no one has shown interest so far.

ANTHONY/JOEY:

THIS WILL BE GOOD, AS GOOD AS I CAN DO 'CAUSE BOTTOM-FEEDERS ARE STILL FISH IN THE SEA JUST LOOK, I'LL BE GOOD GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU

The previous line of reassurance is flipped on its head in this, going from a positive affirmation that they aren’t going to be left behind, to one of self doubt. Both men are deeply flawed, believe themselves barely enough for anyone at all, and are willing to settle for anyone because they believe anyone who dates them are settling for “good enough.”

ANTHONY:

I SEE THIS ALL-AMERICAN BOY BY THE BAR HIS SHIRT'S STILL ON, DOES HE KNOW WHERE WE ARE?

Anthony finally takes notice of Joey, and sees just how out of place he is. Joey is dressed like he’d call someone a slur in a bass pro shop, meanwhile he’s in a bar full of guys that all look like they’d make someone burst into flames with how well they’d be able to roast an outfit.

LEANING LIKE HE'S LOOKING FOR HIS PICKET FENCE HE'S NODDING TO THE MUSIC BUT HIS SHOULDERS ARE TENSE

In this we can see Anthony’s attraction to Joey is due to his ideal American boy look, Joey may be uncomfortable, but all Anthony can see is the white ideal he has been chasing and wants Joey for himself due to this.

I'M ALWAYS SOMEONE'S PORCELAIN DOLL OR HIS BRITTLE DREAM OF BAMBOO I CAN BE THE BOY YOU NEED IF YOU SNAP ME RIGHT IN TWO

Anthony reflects on how men have often times fetishized him due to his Chinese background, infantilizing him and feminizing him due to it, and wants someone who can just be rough with him and won’t treat him like a fragile China doll.

AND WHO ARE YOU, ALL CORN-SILK HAIR AND MAPLE TREE, DON'T YOU KNOW WHAT I THINK I KNOW YOU WANT FROM ME?

In this line we can see Anthony being hypocritical, along with a flash of internalized racism. He’s fetishizing Joey’s white and western traits, idealizing him as some sort of perfect model of what he should be, and assuming Joey only wants him so he can be having sex with an Asian guy.

I SWEAR I'M STILL GOOD THE LAST BRUISED PEACH AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BIN I’M STILL GOOD SINCE WHEN IS NOT BEING CHOSEN A SIN? I'M GOOD, AS GOOD AS ANY OF YOU ‘CAUSE THE RUNT OF THE LITTER TRIES HARDEST TO WIN I SWEAR I'LL BE GOOD GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU

Both men are still on the train of thought thinking they’re just good enough, not really being able to have the level of self confidence and love to take pride in themselves, but still wanting to live in a world where they can be enough for someone.

JOEY:

DON'T SNIFF THE BAIT IF YOU'RE NOT GONNA BITE IT'S GETTING LATE, IT'S BEEN A LONG NIGHT I DON’T WANT TO BE YOUR “ONLY EXCEPTION” OR TREATED LIKE A BACHELORETTE I CAN REEL YOU IN WITH A PRIMED PERCEPTION BUT I HAVEN'T MASTERED HOOK-AND-SINKER YET

Joey is used to men fetishizing him for his transness, not seeing him as a man due to it, and having to fight tooth and claw to be taken seriously as a man. He’s worried Anthony is going to do the same, but still wants to sleep with him. He’s also struggling with the fact he hasn’t really gotten to the point here he can feel comfortable openly propositioning someone for sex, so it hoping Anthony will take the first big step.

AND WHO ARE YOU, WITH PRETTY EYES, SOFT INGENUE, DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I THINK YOU THINK YOU'RE TALKING TO?

In this line it is Joey who is being the hypocrite, he is feminizing and infantilizing Anthony, and the vocabulary he uses in particular is something to take note of. Anthony is Chinese, and Joey specifically calls out Antony’s eyes as “pretty”, and follows it up with “soft ingenue.” While there is nothing inherently wrong with finding a partner’s eyes pretty, the context of him calling Anthony an ingenue changes the meaning.

An ingenue is a young girl who is inexperienced, fills the role of the innocent, and in media is often taken advantage of by someone more mature. Joey is feminizing Anthony by doing this, presuming him inexperienced and an easy target, and going entirely based on the fact Anthony is Asian. Joey is a white man who is feminizing a Chinese man for is own sexual gratification and being deeply hypocritical all the while.

Joey also believes that Anthony doesn’t realize he is trans, so is just waiting for the moment it comes out and Anthony doesn’t want him anymore.

I SWEAR I'M STILL GOOD THE CRUSHED UP CHIPS IN THE BOTTOM OF THE BAG I'M STILL GOOD I COULD HAVE A DATE, BUT I'M JUST GOING STAG I'M GOOD, AS GOOD AS ANY OF YOU THE KID WHO'S IT ALWAYS WANTS TO PLAY TAG I SWEAR I’LL BE GOOD GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU

Continuing to play into the insecurities both have, but desire for one enough.

JOEY:

GOD, YOU'RE FLAWLESS

There is a tendency for, white men especially, to sexualize people of POC descent as the ideal standard of sexual beauty. Specifically those of East Asian descent, which ties back to ideas of orientalism and the male gaze. Joey calling Anthony flawless is him falling into the same “porcelain doll” trap that Anthony pointed out earlier, not seeing Anthony as his own person, instead something to be used for his own pleasure.

ANTHONY:

GOD, YOU'RE STUNNING

Anthony is fetishizing Joey’s western traits, seeing him as more attractive due to his whiteness, and finds him the most attractive man there due to Joey fitting perfectly into western ideals of manhood.

JOEY/ANTHONY:

YOUR LOVE COULD MAKE ME PERFECT, TOO

These two are codependent as all hell, they want to use each other to make up for their own perceived flaws, and think if they can have one another it’ll “fix” what’s wrong in their lives. It’s an unhealthy mindset that’ll come later to bite them in the ass in There’s A House, when neither of them want to discuss what’s wrong in their relationship, and instead choose to hide behind the idea of having a perfect relationship.

ANTHONY:

MY HAIR WOULD BE BLONDER-

Based on this line we can assume that Anthony has dark brown or black hair, a trait that is typical of East Asian men, and that Joey is blonde. Anthony wants to be whiter, he wants to fit into the mold of perfect white man, but can’t no matter how hard he tries because that’s just not how is body is made. He wants what Joey has, wants to be that strong white male archetype.

JOEY:

MY VOICE WOULD BE LOWER-

Joey, in this instance, is envious of Anthony’s (presumably) status as a cisgender man. He wants to have Anthony’s lower voice, the ability to pass as a man with no effort, to have what he doesn’t. He’s envious of Anthony.

JOEY/ANTHONY:

I’LL WAKE UP JUST AS HOT AS YOU

Again, both are fetishizing one another and envious, desperately wanting the traits that they admire, unable to see their own positive ones in the haze of self hatred and internalized racism and transphobia.

AND I WON’T HAVE ANY REASON NOT TO DANCE IN THE LIGHT

They think that they can be more confident if they “fix” the parts of themself they don’t like, for Anthony it would be the fact he is a visibly Asian man, and for Joey it would be his transness. They don’t really understand that it’s more their own self esteem rather than something inherently wrong with their own bodies that is causing their awful feelings, and are trying to take each other for the night to hide away those feelings.

JOEY:

I KNOW YOU'LL REGRET THIS-

Joey thinks that Anthony will regret sleeping with a transgender man, most likely having had it happen to him in the past, so is just bracing himself for it.

ANTHONY:

YOU'LL REGRET THIS

Anthony most likely has had white men regret having sex with him due to his race, and is just waiting for Joey to turn around and not want him anymore.

JOEY/ANTHONY:

BUT I'LL GET YOU FOR TONIGHT

Joey and Anthony both see each other as conquests, as ways of taking hold of their own insecurities, and see being able to have sex with one another as a victory over the parts of themselves they hate. A sort of “if he fucks me, then I’m still enough, in spite of all that’s wrong with me.”

For Joey it is being able to sleep with a cis man and be chosen as a sexual partner, being picked out of all the men in that bar, and it being his own self assurance that he’s enough.

With Anthony it is a white man wanting him, him seeing it as a victory over his own heritage, and a victory over the system of oppression that makes him feel lesser than his white peers. If he can fuck a white man, one that is the beacon of white centric masculine rhetoric, then he’s won something in that moment.

This is in stark contrast to how Hao and Józef speak of sex and their desire for one another, in the demos Hao is the one who speaks openly about it, but when he does it is purely out of adoration and love for Józef. They have such a fulfilling relationship that Hao is able to notice the moment Józef starts acting too rough and not himself, because he’s used to Józef being a very loving partner, both in their everyday life and in their sexual relationship. During Hao’s pondering of love during I Breath In, You Breath Out, he makes direct note that sex is nothing but a chore without love.

Joey and Anthony don’t have sex out of love, they do it out of a fucked up sense of obligation and competition.

BUT I SWEAR YOU'RE STILL GOOD SO NO NEED TO LOOK FOR BRUISES THAT I COULDN'T SEE

The earlier line about light comes back here, because they are having sex in what we can assume is a dark room, they cannot actually see one another. Due to this darkness, there is no risk of being able to see each other’s “flaws”, and metaphorically they are idealizing one another instead of being able to love the real person in front of them.

YEAH, YOU'RE STILL GOOD BECAUSE I MIGHT DISCOVER YOU'RE BETTER THAN ME YOU'RE GOOD, BUT MAYBE IF YOU ARE THEN YOU CAN TEACH ME TO BE STILL GOOD GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU

Both men are absolutely terrified that if they see each other in the light, in a vulnerable state, then they’ll realize they can do better. They’re also scared of seeing each other and only seeing what they lack, which they are already doing. They want each other as a broken way to patch up the holes in their hearts and insecurities, not because they actually want to love one another.

The song Good Enough, at its core, is about fetishization, internalized transphobia, internalized racism, insecurity, and only being able to see a partner in the ways they are better than you instead of loving them as a whole.

[narconfessions]

Not dark per se, but definitely a NPD confession that I dont feel I can share elsewhere.

I actually Do want to collect "oppression points." I like being part of marginalized groups because it makes me feel special and being the victim in situations makes brain go brr. I dont go so far as faking things to feel oppressed, but I do take pleasure in being plural/disabled/queer/trans/cluster B/autistic/a trauma survivor/etc (which I am) partly because I like feeling special.

(Disclaimer this is not to say that discrimination and hatred based on these things does not affect me negatively. I do experience and struggle with ableism and queerphobia and other things.)

i can't believe my eyes because i genuinely thought no one else felt this way and im so relieved to know im not the only one. this is tough with my severe impulsivity too because sometimes i impulsively come out in situations where i KNOW i'm not safe just because i impulsively want attention and sympathy.

i think the problem with the whole thing surrounding "oppression points" is that most often, it's just a term pulled out by marginalized people who have fallen into the trap of respectability politics, to describe people who don't fit their worldview. for example, autistic people who i've seen shit on autigender people because "IM autistic and IIIII understand gender so why can't you". and just look at the endless cycle of exclusionism within the queer community. it's always that we "just want oppression points to be special" but the whole problem in the first place is that we've made oppression out to be something special in the first place! the online world has placed a hierarchy on who is coolest and most valuable based on how many marginalized identities they have. we've created this idea that being marginalized is "cool". sure, it can be a big part of your identity but i've met so many people online who genuinely believed they were cooler and more interesting than cishets just by virtue of having a different gender modality or sexuality and i've also met so so many cishets and guys whose mental health has genuinely plummetted because they think they are not cool because they have no or very few marginalized identities and it's like. being gay or trans or nd or disabled IS cool, but it's not what MAKES YOU COOL! no one is inherently better than anyone else based on unchangeable aspects of their identity because your morality is based on what you choose and how you act, not just who you are. i'm not saying "aw boohoo white cishets are so oppressed" because that's bullshit, but i do think it's ridiculous how much we've turned marginalization into a competition of cool points. you can have as much pride in your marginalized identity as you want but you are not morally better just by virtue of being an Oppressed Person. so that's why this whole "oppression points" thing has taken off and instead of criticizing the hierarchy of oppression-based worth and value that's contributed to it, people just blame other marginalized people for being the "wrong" kind of queer or nd. there's nothing wrong with liking having multiple marginalizations and enjoying the attention from it, it's just when it becomes, like you said, something that people take as paradigm for peoples value or "coolness" and fake stuff because they think it'll make them cooler, when it's a problem like babe no! you are not a boring person just cuz you're cis or straight or nt or abled or white or whatever you have a personality and a life and a value. if people realized that they had value outside of societal checklists and boxes, then people making fun of other marginalized people for being supposed "fakers wanting oppression points" will die down. (none of this is said to invalidate you it's just my take on the nuance of the whole 'oppression points' thing.)

[transinclusionary]

Ok but for someone who says they don’t care or are suppose ally’s to women you get really upset at women/ terfs I’m saying this as a gay trans masc you need to chill bc this just gives them receipts that all trans women are men who are misgonistic and violent seriously stop replying to them if it really doesn’t bother you

Lord have mercy, I'm going to summon the patience to respond, and give you the response this deserves. I'm going to level with you

I have never clarified what my gender identity is beyond "they/them" because I didn't believe my identity mattered beyond, only the content of my words. But if this needs clarification I will provide it so no one misunderstands me. I am not a trans woman. I believe this discourse shouldn't have to be done by trans women exclusively. Why must someone who opposes bigots be marginalized? Why must the marginalized fight the bigotry in their own oppression? Why can't I, a gnc cis passing queer woman be absolutely appalled and moved with rage at how awful these cosplay conservatives tarnish the very lavel activism with their existence?

It's not fucking fair how little people get in the world to help, and they get even less the more layers of intersectionality we get. And the lower you get the less society cares about you. The only thing you can turn to is fucking activism when you get so oppressed everyone has a fucking reason to hate you. So you join feminist circles to gain community, and a twisted fucking surprise, even the people who claim to care about gender liberation "feminists" dont care.

I'm allowed to find the struggles of others maddening, in the same way I would hope good white allies to find racism maddening or men to find sexism infuriating. If you're a good ally you should be MAD that someone of your same intersectionality can't just fucking treat people right.

It shouldn't be on trans women to take the brunt of this, or insist everyone ignores them. They don't ignore trans women! They go to safe spaces for women and harasses them, disseminates their photos, their information, and relentlessly bully them! Respectfully, I do not see how I am guilty for the anger I feel for the complete blatant acts of human depravity it is to bully a group of women who have a scary high suicide rate. By not talking about it and just expecting people to fight this issue with silence, I believe that we don't provide adequate community.

It is not just enough to be not a transmisogynist, you have to be anti-transmisogynists. I should not have to put my life in danger by standing up for black people in a room of trump supporters. But a white person should use what privilege they have to stand up for what's right. If I expect allies to do that for me, I need to do that for groups I'm allied with.

Thank you for reaching out. And in situations like these please, think about what you say. I believe you intended good with this post, but I also believe you could reflect on your words. I don't believe it's fair to call a black women aggressive for anger.

No minority should be responsible for the whole group of people, it's not fair to make minorities play by their bigots rules to be respected. Basic human respect shouldn't be earned through respectability politics.

[mono-red-menace]

so often i'll try to talk to other white people about racism and their inherent privilege and they'll hit me with a "whaaaat? no, i can't be racist, im good! I'm good! I don't see colour, i'm not racist!"

and im just instantly stuck in that conversation. i'll tell them that privilege isn't like. a sin. you're not bad for being privileged, you just have to be aware of the privilege and try to avoid situations where it is exercised over others and stuff like, it's not even some constant dread, really. like i'm basically saying "you basically have a loaded gun towards some people, and you have to be careful to not hit someone. even if you never intend to hit someone, you might still accidentally shoot them. you need to be aware of the danger you can unintentionally bring to people you have privilege over, and try to avoid it as best you can. but you're not Evil for having the privilege." (i don't use the gun metaphor because i know it'll turn people off to it, but like, i think it's apt.)

but i'm always just met with another "i'm not privileged im not racist, i'm good!" even if i tell them it's not a personal failing to hold privilege over someone, it's just a fact of like. being alive. and like a lot of people carry different privileges, yk, white people vs people of colour, abled people vs disabled people, straight people vs gay people, cis people vs trans people.

being aware of the privileges you hold over others and being able to prevent them from harming others is important, because, again, it can lead to the person you hold privilege over being hurt, sometimes put into a situation where they're seen as being horrible and unreasonable, but sometimes it can lead to them losing their jobs, or their homes, or their lives. you know?

and then that. is often met with an "im not bad tho, im gay/trans/disabled/etc, i can't be racist/transphobic/homophobic/ableist/etc." and it's just, so hard to get through to people that you're not part of some Evil Group for having privilege, and being afraid to acknowledge it just means you won't have the awareness, and you might accidentally harm others because of your lack of awareness.

and like, your own area where you're oppressed and face challenges doesn't mean you can't hold privilege over others in different areas.

like, i'm a relatively small white woman who walks with a cane (well, crutches now, but i'm hoping to get back to my cane or even better with PT), and I approached a black man who was being harassed by the cops for being passed out in the sun this summer, and offered to get him a drink, because I wasn't sure how long he was in the sun. and the cops IMMEDIATELY jumped to be like "Oh! maam are you okay? is he bothering you? are you safe?" and i had to diffuse that situation. I literally Approached Him to offer help, and the cops immediately acted as though he was aggressing on me.

that is a clear indication of my privilege over him, in that situation. it doesn't mean I was bad for being there, i mean, i was literally trying to help him out. and like, i'm disabled and lgbt and a woman. but that doesn't mean i still didn't hold privilege over him. (i don't know if he's disabled or lgbt or anything myself, all i know is that he was passed out on the side of the road when it was 95 degrees outside). the cops literally saw me approach him to talk to him, and then asked me if HE was bothering ME. in that situation, regardless of my intent, my privilege was clearly put on display, and none of my disability, nor womanhood, nor lgbt identity negated that privilege.

it cannot be negated, it can only be navigated with care. and it's not a sin to hold privilege over someone. you're not doing something wrong by being privileged, and you have the opportunity to use that privilege for good instead, for example, intervening to protect someone who is being aggressed upon.

it's a part of life that I would also love to be gone, but pretending I don't have it won't make it go away.

lot of people take the idea they might be an oppressor like it's some kind of curse or marks them or makes them fundamentally irredeemable.

this means whenever someone suggests they might have structural power over some group, rather than being normal about it and going "oh yeah i should be mindful of how i act so i don't abuse that," they take it as a personal attack, and either jump to defending themselves by denying it, or start lashing out.

this makes 99.99999% of all conversations on this website completely fucking unbearable.

[gianttunaring]

Just wanting to respond to your tags - I very much get where you're coming from, and I do want to clarify that I don't think the zero follower blog out there that sometimes says "I hate men" when frustrated is doing this. I don't believe a blame-based frame of mind is very helpful when trying to solve problems like these; blame tends to play into a cognitive bias where we point a finger at people rather than at patterns or behaviors, and every person is gonna get frustrated sometimes. It's even kind of a joke for gay guys to say, "Ugh, men are pigs" and such things. But these kids? I have met these kids, and they are not okay, and I DO see people talk DIRECTLY TO THEM THIS WAY. Not just random people, but friends. And not just friends, but often kids with disabilities like depression, or kids who live in poverty - kids who do not have the language to say what's wrong with their lives yet. And algorithms are a huge, and probably the biggest part of it, but algorithms don't make people directly talk to their friends this way; normalization of the behavior does. It's worth saying that the one form of oppression i see continually ignored when it comes to white boys is ablism. White boys are not supposed to be disabled, ever. White boys are not supposed to have depression that tells them they shouldn't even be alive, and if that's what they hear when somebody says, "Ugh, I wish all white boys would just die already," it is somehow never read as ablism to say, "well, he shouldn't take it that way. The world was made for him, so he should just cheer up and stop being an ass." If you're screaming into the void, or talking with friends for support, that's one thing. If you're making "This type of person is bad regardless of behavior or other factors" part of your every day speech, there are going to be consequences. And unfortunately, I do see that happen all too often. I've had friendgroups split because of it.

I see, I understand your point better now! I took your argument in bad faith and I completely agree, acting like a demographic is inherently bad does something to kids who have little understanding or stake in learning about the oppression of others. A part of me felt frustrated because lots of people in the tags of that post kept talking about how “the left doesn’t provide resources for these young men” which just doesn’t feel… true? (see: content creators like hbomberguy, contrapoints, philosophytube, fdsignifier, etc., people who care enough to break this shit down) And so often political movements shift to center whiteness (cough cough white feminism) that it’s sometimes difficult to see posts that “sympathize” (or at least humanize) those who often dehumanize people of color. As someone who’s felt stereotyped and objectified by my peers because I’m a person of color by a bunch of white kids, it’s hard to not see that post and not have alarm bells go off, but there’s clearly more nuance in the points they’re trying to make. I’m straying from the point. At the end of the day, kids need sympathy and understanding and care.

I think a part of it, at the end of the day, has to do with how political movements are branded into “left versus right” like there aren’t different sides to how identity politics affects people? Like, it is completely performative to act like the 6th grade white boy who genuinely seems to respect his peers is someone that should be blamed for an entire demographic’s oppression, and adults shouldn’t act that way towards a kid. Racism is still seen as some sort of “inherent evil” or whatever that means. And yeah, it is more productive to shift more focus towards how patterns of thinking and behavior affect and uphold systemic injustice.

All this talk reminds me of this Tiktok (ik that sounds bad but please bear with me) I saw of this person talking about the ways communities are defined, like how ones more centered on the validity of an identity will always turn against itself (posted below)

And the creator points out a lot of flaws with the ways “community” is defined. You see this everywhere with shit like the “he/him lesbians” debate (non-binary lesbians exist) or “are ace/aro people a part of the queer community” and other pointless infighting that I don’t have the energy to get into.

Thank you for being civil with me, and I apologize for dumping all of that into the tags of your post. Have a good day/night/afternoon!

[werewolfcave]

It should be noted by point in bringing up Cheleanor wasn't to say "oh it's hated on" (because as someone who only watched TGP after it ended I never really encountered hate about it so I can't really speak on that? I'm sure there is some, especially considering it's a biracial relationship and people always get so pissy about white queer women being in love with black guys but that's a topic for a whole other post) or "oh we shouldn't call them this or that" (but I do prefer for them to be called m/f BECAUSE of the rampant bi erasure in fandoms, so calling them het leaves a bad taste in my mouth but that is literally personal opinion)

It's to say that I have seen Cheleanor referred to as if it is an exception. (And that often times Eleanor's bisexuality is erased within referring to it as an exception)

I bring it up because of the attitudes that go around of "oh all m/f ships are boring EXCEPT this one" or "the only m/f ship I respect" and Cheleanor was the first prominent example I could think of, where it's that good m/f ships are thought of as some "exception"

In general the whole point of this post is that:

A.) people will pass off other biases that may be present simply to say that "oh it's boring because it's 'straight'" rather than, say, "oh it's boring because the female lead is being written in such a way where the author is sanding her down to make her more 'appealing'" (this is my point about media literacy)

B.) this idea that there are only a "few good ones" or "m/f is inherently boring" or even "ew they're straight" bounces back onto people who are in those relationships in real life!! This is not just a commentary on fandom!! This is a commentary on the amount of legitimate biphobia that exists within the LGBTQ+ community because there are sections that legitmately believe "the straights" to be our enemy! And we pass that vitriol onto the next generation!

It doesn't matter if it is a joke! It gets normalized for younger members of the community and it creates this genuine idea that a bi person dating someone of the opposite gender, or a straight aro and/or ace person is inherently betraying their community!! This even harms nonbinary people who are in what are perceived as "straight" relationships or even transhet people! There are parts of your community that are legitimately hetero in some way! Saying "ew the hets" JUST HARMS THEM!! THERE ARE MEMBERS OF YOUR COMMUNITY WHO ARE CISHET!! BUT SOME PART OF THEIR IDENTITY LANDS THEM IN THE LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY!!!!

Even then! There are fucking allies! And we need to understand that these allies can be VITAL at times! We cannot act like these people are inherently our enemy!!! Its systems of systemic oppression that are our enemy!!

C.) The amount of blatant misogyny that creates this phenomenon!! There is a very specific reason I brought up specifically yaoi ships! Because there is an unwillingness to engage with female characters!!

That isn't to say that this biphobia isn't present within yuri shippers, I've been in the warrior cats fandom! I've fucking seen people be fucking weird about Fernsong because everyone hced Ivypool as a lesbian! There was a lot of biphobia there! Biphobia is present in so many different spaces!

But my point with bringing up yaoi is because I will see certain male characters (I made the original of this post about Goro fucking Akechi) who will have absolutely fascinating relationships with female characters BUT THERE ARE LEGITIMATE SECTS OF THE FANDOM THAT ACT LIKE THE MALE CHARACTER IS "SO GAY" THAT HE WOULD DIE IF HE HAD TO TALK TO A WOMAN?????? There are people who just create the most misogynistic bitchy gay boys for their, half the time, bland ass yaoi ships and its infuriating!

Or there is the fucking age old behavior of hating a woman character (OFTEN TIMES IT IS A FUCKING BROWN WOMAN IN THE MIDDLE OF TWO WHITE MEN) because they "got in the way" of their gay ship. Which then leads to some insanely vitriolic shit about that woman and half the time towards the fucking actor who plays them if it's a live action media!!

This post is first and foremost about the idea that a queer person dating someone of the opposite gender is betraying their community and how that plays into fandom spaces but the misogyny is also very much a KEY FACTOR HERE.

Sometimes. The "het" ship is more compelling than the yaoi. I know. It's crazy. But it's true.

[papirouge]

Ugh I hate being reminded that he exists but Leiv S is a pedophile, yes. And there are a lot of elite gay white males in entertainment, tech, fashion who are actually transhumanists that aims to eliminate women completely while robbing our bodies to create children for these pedophiles to abuse for their sexual gratification. These males are actually demons - rather they were human but given their souls to satan so they’re actually in hell right now and their body is controlled by demon(s). These transhumanists are directly trying to eliminate women from the world in law, culture, everywhere because women are typically the ones to protect children. These males since they are gay believe all men are gay secretly and brainwashed to be straight. The envy they express to women is deep which adds to their contempt for us. What Leiv S is doing with his son is what these demons want every one to do. Manipulate children with puberty blockers (remember the blockers also halt mental development so these pedophiles are able to freeze children in time for their enjoyment) and sexually abuse them publicly. Many are pushing the trans agenda because the narrative of children being in control of their sexual identity and orientation will pave way to introduce the ideology of children being able to consent to sex to be widely accepted. He’s just one of many but I do appreciate how he gets shamed anywhere outside of the Hollywood bubble. I’ve actually noticed how so many of these “Hollywood” people are getting more shame for their antics as they should

I have gotten dreams before of the western entertainment industry on fire so I think it will collapse as the truth will be revealed.

I think many artists/creatives do channel demons for inspiration, that's why many fashion designer are pulling out such blatantly demonic show. There's no wonder many of them do rely on drugs bc they help channeling demons (+ to cope with stress and exhaustion)

Dilara Findikoglu SS2018 is the most satanic fashion I ever seen so far. There's been quite an uproar around it bc it was INSIDE A CHURCH. Mind you, Dilara Findkikoglu is Turkish and one would wonder why she didn't pick a Mosquee instead to show off her suBveRsIve fashion but we all know why she didn't 👀

✅Masonic checkboard floor

✅ pentagram

✅ horns

✅ angel of light symbolism

✅ shroud reference

This whole brand is very satanic anyway, even the designer (right) looks like a witch...

I absolutely do not subscribe to the "female genocide" narrative some radfem/feminist have been trying to pull out. It's as ridiculous as the White genocide thing (unsurprisingly the radfem rehashing this narrative are mostly White👀). Transhumanism is an ideology overriding genders. Some female actually do see a benefit in artificial wombs (even some radfem/anti natalists) who see pregnancy as an oppression. There will always be a need for female eggs so there's no point to whipe female off like that. And as I previously said, men will always prefer real women to abuse and rape, that's why I don't think sex dolls will ever replace women. Men get off the abuse of (unconsenting) women. Pretty much like men who could have countless of women fawning over them picking the one who doesn't to rape & abuse her. Same for pedophiles (who sometimes are married/have a fulfilling sex life). Abuse and transgression is what makes them get off. Many pedophile get off the idea of children being defenseless, innocent and knowing nothing about sex and their twisted mind oftentimes project onto them their own fantasy (they love acting like these children initiated sex while not knowing what they were doing).

What's really disturbing with these photo of Liev Schreiber and his son is how inappropriate the son's outfit are. This kid was only 13 y.o I think. 13 years old girls don't wear high heels and mini skirt like that. It's fascinating how transness is always linked to inappropriate sexualization...

Those people are getting shamed bc in the era of social medias nothing much is left unchecked. Hollywood dirty laundry is exposed all over the place now. Blind items are messy and it's a whole sport to discern the true from false (I suspect them willingly inserting false stories to not be dragged to court for diffamation. That's also why they have a disclaimer saying "those stories are made up...of course😌" on their website lol). I don't think the whole #freebritney viral movement would have been a thing 15 years ago without social medias.

[colorisbyshe]

Isn't it idk weird how the default language for LGBT history is "queer"? Like, you'll see articles talking about old gay men or something and the article will call them queer even tho statistically older LGBT people (and gay men in particular) are the least likely to reclaim the term. And as someone outside the Anglosphere, to me it's always been... uncomfortable how "queer" has been soft powered into the LGBT communities of countries that don't have English as a language. idk ppl are weird

It's easy to guess why this is happening.

A. It's because a lot of cishets are happy to finally have a chance to use a slur without being called out. (And a lot are now claiming the term for themselves.)

B. A lot of LGBT people who use the term "queer" history and "queer" community are the type who haven't been involved in the community but think using a vague, broad term wil be more inclusive... not of marginalized people but of THEM. Rather than acknowledge the specific people and identities involved in specific historical events, it's now OUR history, OUR elders. It's a way to obfuscate their own minimal involvement and claim all LGBT history for themselves.

To be specific, it's like the people who use "We're here, we're queer, get over it" at people who ask to not be called queer. By invoking a "queer" history and making it THEIRS, despite them VERY MUCH not being part of that history, they think it makes their point more powerful.

Everything in the community belongs to everyone. No individual identity and conflict is allowed to be acknowledged. We can't acknowledge the fact that sometimes we have competing needs/wants or ideological disagreements or other oppressive dynamics at play (cis people vs trans people, white lgbt people vs lgbt people of color, etc). We are an amorphous, queer blob that anyone can pull apart like taffy and claim.

This is a lot of people with privilege who want to cosplay as the most marginalized people in the community. And then wield that marginalization as a badge of honor, as ethos, as "understanding."

I'm gonna be real with y'all. Most LGBT history has left most of us untouched, not just because we weren't alive back then, but because other forms of privilege would have shielded us from the worst of it. Or because we would be too cowardly to get involved in the actual movement. Or because we disagreed with the politics involved.

We can't blanket-term our way into reclaiming a history that in no way was truly OURS. We can talk about how we are maybe reliving echoes of it now or how the fall out of it can still be felt today.

But we can't act like Stonewall, the AIDS Crisis, the Lavender Scare is universally "ours." As if we have a bond with the people who lived through that shit.

ESPECIALLY if you are only doing such to lord that connection over other LGBT people to make some point or bully them into using language that makes them uncomfortable or traumatized.

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

I've been sitting on this post since I saw it on my feed because something is being demonstrated here about one of the biggest misunderstandings people often have about intersectionality as a framework of approach. I have absolutely no idea if I can articulate my thoughts in a way that can be heard, but I think I need to try.

I'm feeling a resonance to growing up hearing white people breaking down their ethnic background into rigid fractions purely based on which relative last lived in the old world. We've all seen the math. 20% Irish, 50% English, ⅛ Cherokee on my mother's father's side.

Except that they got to that math by subtracting their "ethnic eccentricities" from a default White American Experience. In this framework, one imagines A Person as being the same as the hegemonic default, with each "marginalized intersection of identity" acting as a sifting filter that removes your access to certain Personhood Privileges. At one end of the experience is the Unfiltered Person, wholly privileged and never at a disadvantage. At the other, the Most Oppressed Class in America, with their scant smattering of remaining humanity at the bottom of a tall tower of sifting trays. To be marginalized in some way is to be Without Privilege, as if privilege and oppression are mutually exclusive states of existence. A black man is no longer fully a man because he is black, and therefore while "he still has male peivilege" the assumption is that some of these privileges aren't accessible to him. That one can confidently say "these are the male privileges a black man doesn't have, but always remember that he's still more privileged abd therefore less disadvantaged than any woman."

This obviously makes (white) people squirmy because they recognize they're treading into territory of "white women are more oppressed than black men" which is an argument with immediate and obvious counter (see above). But trying to walk this tightrope allows them to leave the underlying framework of hierarchy within systemic oppression while laying claim to "intersectional" politick.

Perhaps the black man isn't MORE privileged than a white woman, but at least **equally so on a different axis**. Perhaps he can both oppress and be oppressed because his manhood is inherently dominating, but his blackness is inherently deemed subservient?

Except that black men aren't (only) harmed by systemic oppression in the direction of timidity/subservience. Their perceived "hyper-aggression" is itself a form of embodied violence against them.

So perhaps it's not about positioning, it's about the manner of violence! Surely we could claim that black WOMEN are the ones who experience sexualized/gendered racial violence, while black men only experience *racial* violence!

Except that's not true either. Racial violence against black men has ALWAYS been gendered, and OFTEN been sexualized. Black men and boys being treated as inherent sexual predators ISN'T because they are men. It's because they are black men. For decades, we have understood that positioning men from racial minority groups as inherently hyper-masculine and as default potential sexual predators has been used as described above to enact gendered violence (e.g. revenge killings related to the "ruin" of a family woman). But we have also understood for just as long that it is also used to deny the higher rates of sexual abuse these racialized men and boys endure (see the positioning of racialized "othered" men and boys who are raped using phalluses and phallic like objects by members of the dominant racial group, often REGARDLESS of the gender of the perpatrator).

But to acknowledge that black men experience gendered and sexualized racial violence, is to acknowledge that men of ALL groups may experience gendered and sexualized violence related to their marginalized identities. A concept easily confirmed simply by looking at the ways that trans men and gay/bi men experience gendered and sexualized queerphobic violence. Acknowledging these things means accepted that gendered violence is not the domain of women or other gender minorities, but rather **the impact** a person's gender has on how the violence they experience when they are exposed to systemic violence for ANY REASON.

I think this is the piece people struggle with. They imagine "axes" of oppression being different algorithms charted on a graph where each person inhabits the whole of the algorithm, and is simply experiencing separate but interacting relationships to systemic violence.

Instead I would recommend people imagine a spiderweb. Every web is unique in how it is woven around its spider. The different "threads" of self that make up the whole of "me" are not separate from each other but actively comingling, connecting and reconnecting, and entirely one comprehensive self that is far more than the sum if each thread combined. The web includes all the components of self at once, not distinct but in tandem with each other. A black man is no more "only black" than he can ever be "only a man". A man of mixed race is each of his races and is SOMETHING ELSE ALTOGETHER- the **synthesis* of each of his races. That's what it MEANS for race to be a social construct. For gender to be a social construct. A man who is mixed black, white, and latino for example is never just black, never just white, never just latino. He is all of those things together and he is also NONE of those things, because he is HIM and race isn't actually something you can quantify.

We CHOOSE to construct meanings, and as long as we accept the premise that the meaning of each component of self is in any way separable from the others, we are truly failing to deconstruct the supremacy underlying those meanings. We NEED to understand that "privilege" is not a state of being. It is a permission slip from authority. The ENTIRE POINT is that as long as authority gets to decide whether or not you get to access your rights, then NO ONE HAS RIGHTS, because authority is far less worried about having an internally consistent logic between their prescribed (the values we SAY we have) and described (the values we are OBSERVED to have) values, and far more worried about wielding power to enforce their described values. They WILL happily revoke the permission slip to people who "aren't oppressed" for the simple reason that they ARE otherwise a threat to the dominant order (see the white preachers lynched alongside black civil rights protestors as "race traitors").

We need to be able to understand that intersectionality isn't about dividing people down into fractions of self. It is about recognizing the way every facet of self interacts and expands upon each other and themselves. If we can't get there? If we can't ACTUALLY let go of the hierarchies used to enforce the oppression? All the "good talking points" in the world mean literally fuck all.

So here is my problem with the "by virtue of being a man, you have to make your peace with the fact that some people will be uncomfortable with you, and thus you have to make yourself a safe person"

I've heard the same thing about being black. A lot of people have taken my very presence as hostility. I have had people escalate situations just because I am present as a black person in front of them. Before, and after transition.

You know what the problem with bending over backwards to make other people comfortable with your presence even though you haven't actually done anything to them besides breathe the same air?

It's never enough. You can be One Of The Good Ones for ages and at some point you will fail your Good One inspection and people will turn on you at the drop of a hat. People who you thought you had a good rapport with. People you thought were your friends.

I have *experienced* this, both online and in person.

The onus is on everyone to be safe people to be around. Singling someone out and blaming them for daring to share a demographic with someone else who has caused harm isn't cute when people do it to me because I'm black, and it's also not cute when they do it because I'm a man.

People are uncomfortable about my blackness all the time. I didn't magically stop experiencing racism when I started taking testosterone. So it's absolutely wild to me that people think "well, you know, with what you look like, some people won't want you around" is going to fly when I was explicitly taught *not* to tolerate that shit by every single one of my black relatives.

Someone doesn't like that I'm occupying a space? Well I'm not hurting them, so that's a them problem and not a me problem. That's how I've learned how to exist as black in white-majority spaces. Why do you think you can change the demographic and get me to agree with you?

[gendercensus]

hi! i was wondering if you, as the one running this, would consider your data to be exclusively pertaining to english speakers, or if in the future you would like to have more opportunity for non-english speakers to participate? would you consider the lack of non-english/culture specific terms to be missing data, or is that not the sort of data you're looking for? would it make things too complicated to moderate/measure? (i got to analyze the data in stats class + it really piqued my curiosity!)

This is a great ask, because it’s brought up in the feedback box of the survey quite often and I have a lot of thoughts about it but I have just never gotten around to responding to it properly!

i was wondering if you [...] would consider your data to be exclusively pertaining to english speakers, or if in the future you would like to have more opportunity for non-english speakers to participate?

I am not 100% sure that I know what you mean by non-English speakers, so I will answer both versions of the question to cover all the bases!

I am very happy for people who speak languages other than English to participate, and I specify in the survey: “It's okay to enter non-English words that you would use to describe yourself while speaking English.” That’s how languages grow, right? Words get transplanted between languages all the time, and everyone knows that English is about 17 languages in a trenchcoat. For example, people often choose or type in words like “neutrois” and “maverique”, which may or may not originate from the French language itself. Ay’lonit (Hebrew) and Takatāpui (Māori) have been quite common in recent years, off the top of my head.

I can’t run a survey for people who don’t speak English.

Ethnologue tells me there are over 7,000 living languages, although 23 languages account for over half of the world’s population. I speak 1.02 languages. (English, and a little French.)

Here’s a selection of issues that I would run into for those 7,000+ other languages if I were to run the survey in more languages:

As a person who only fluently speaks English, do I have the expertise to run this survey in any language I do not speak at all?

Do I translate the survey into other languages? If so, which ones, and how? If not, I am limiting responses to people who speak another language and English - is that ethically okay? Would it produce biased data?

In some languages sex and gender are indistinguishable. How would I change the identity question to ask about [sex/gender] sensitively [in a language I have never spoken], as someone who has never encountered this mindset personally and has no knowledge of how trans people growing up with this language feel about this issue?

For the title question, if I ask native speakers for a selection of titles (standard and gender-neutral) in their language, how will I know who’s trolling if I don’t speak the language? What about the languages where titles are just not used?

For the pronoun question, English pronoun sets have five forms: subject, object, dependent possessive (determiner), independent possessive, reflexive. Other languages have more than five, and others have fewer than five. How are those neopronoun sets formatted in writing when communicating your pronouns to others? What about languages where, unlike in English, pronouns are an open class - would I need to change that question in some way?

For any language that is not English, how would I spot and remove trolls, abusive TERFs, etc? Bigotry can have nuance, where something can seem superficially inoffensive while actually being transphobic/bigotry/trolling (e.g. concern-trolling), and realistically only a native-speaker or someone who is very familiar with nonbinary-specific trans issues in that language/culture would be able to recognise it.

A lot of these questions are themselves shaped by my limited worldview as a person who only fluently speaks English, and that’s before we get to my being white and from a country whose empire covered a quarter of the globe. The actions of my ancestors decimated whole peoples, many of whom had genders that were not what I would consider binary. The fundamental concept of the gender binary is rooted in historical white Western acts of oppression and worse.

No doubt there are questions that should be in the list above that I wouldn’t even be able to conceptualise. As people often point out in the feedback box, the survey is super white - it is very obviously designed by and mostly filled in by white people, the whole concept of the gender binary and genders outside of the binary being deviant is extremely white-Western, and I don’t even know enough to know how to start overcoming that. All I really know to do right now is read and listen to all the feedback box entries as best I can, keep researching interesting genders from across the globe and throughout history, and take extra care to combine and count all the various spellings of non-white, non-English gender identities so that they can be added to the checkbox list if they go over the 1% threshold. (Part of this process has led me to learn that in a lot of cultures “trans” and “LGB” are not necessarily separate parts of someone’s identity/character the way they are in most white Western cultures that I’ve encountered, and that’s a big part of why I’ve enthusiastically added lesbian and gay as identity words in relation to gender in this year’s survey.)

But if we sidestep all of that (nope), the answer to a lot of these questions is: recruit people who speak those other languages natively. At that point I become a manager! Instead of being a 2-3 month per year task, the Gender Census would become a year-long management job without pay, and I wouldn’t be able to run the English version of the Gender Census. Even if I had the skills and executive function for that (and I don’t), I’m not here to be a manager, I’m here to read and process 40,000+ gender identities and play with spreadsheets, you know?

So I’ve concluded that it’s inappropriate for me to run the survey in other languages, I would also be incapable, and even if neither of those things were true it just wouldn’t make me happy. It seems more fitting for me to support, endorse and amplify the voices of people running similar surveys in other languages, which I do try to do.

would you consider the lack of non-english/culture specific terms to be missing data, or is that not the sort of data you're looking for?

I do like to learn about non-English specific terms, and that data is not missing. The questions specify “while speaking English”, and people enter non-English identity words, titles and pronouns all the time. They don’t ever go over 1%, but they are typed in and they are counted. I love to learn about them, and anyone downloading the data will be able to learn about them too.

I can’t hope to include the “while speaking a language other than English” data in the survey as things currently stand, so that’s not the sort of data I’m looking for.

[nostalgicatsea]

Common questions about and excuses for racism in fandom

I noticed that the same excuses, justifications, and questions that have come up in response to racism in fandom over the years appear in the notes for my post, so here’s a FAQ of sorts to address them. Hopefully, this will help people understand why these arguments don’t stand up to scrutiny and have something to refer to in lieu of writing a new reply every time someone says these things. 

Due to the length of this post, I made a Google doc for easier reading. Please note that several points are specific to the Marvel fandom and to the post linked above and are often M/M-focused (I explain why in that post), but generally speaking, the following can be applied to any fandom and various relationships. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

I can ship whatever I want. Stop being the fandom police!

Shipping isn’t activism. 

Fandom is supposed to be fun. Being told what to do or not to do isn’t fun.

I put a lot of different people in my works, and I do research about the groups they’re in. For example, I have a *marginalized group here* character (e.g., disabled), and I did research to represent them accurately. It’s not fair to say that I don’t care about diversity.

I don’t think people should write about POC if they’re white, just like I wouldn’t want anyone to talk about *insert topic you’re passionate about or interest group you’re in here* (e.g., the BDSM community) if they didn’t know anything about it.

I really don’t have any knowledge about what it’s like to be a POC, though, so maybe I’m not the best person for this. If POC want to see themselves represented, they should make their own works.

I’m not comfortable with writing POC as I’m unfamiliar with the struggles they experience. I don’t want my writing to come off as inauthentic, inaccurate, or offensive. Why are you saying it’s harmful to use this as a reason for abstaining from writing POC?

It doesn’t make sense to include every single POC in my work.

What you said and the data you have don’t necessarily point to racism. It might just be individual preference. I prefer certain ships over others, and it has nothing to do with race/I don’t see color.

A big part of what informs my shipping is physical attraction or interest in the characters.

I don’t ship _____ because I see them as brothers/sisters/siblings.

Some white characters and ships are popular in the MCU fandom because people bring in canon characterization or material from the comics to the character(s)/ship. Your MCU-only examination fails to account for ships with one character from the MCU and one from comics (e.g., MCU Bucky/616 Clint or Spideypool).

Some subfandoms just have fewer POC which means there will naturally be fewer ships featuring POC. To say that the Marvel fandom is racist as a whole is disingenuous; you can see how more diversity in the cast leads to more diverse ships in fanworks.

Some of the characters and ships are popular because white characters get the lion’s share of screen time and development or they appeared in canon earlier.

Is it racist to racebend a character?

Racist language in fics is more important than fandom representation.

My fanworks tend to focus on one ship and don’t really include other characters in general. When they do, the others mostly talk about that relationship. Am I falling into the trap you mentioned? 

I feel guilty about not including or writing about *character of color’s name here*.

How do I ensure that I don’t offend anyone if I include POC in my work?

What should I do to examine myself for any implicit biases?

The rest of the post is under the cut.

I can ship whatever I want. Stop being the fandom police!

As explicitly stated several times in my post, I agree that you can ship whatever you want. I’m not targeting a specific ship. I’m not telling you to stop shipping what you ship. All I’m asking is for everyone, including myself and other POC, to regularly examine ourselves for any implicit biases. If you’re a multishipper, are all of your ships in the fandom white? If you only have one ship and it’s white, are most or all of your ships in your other/previous fandoms white? Is the only media you consume predominantly or all white? 

Shipping isn’t activism. 

No, it isn’t and in many cases, shouldn’t be seen or treated as the same thing. However, by responding this way to POC who want to see themselves represented in fanworks more and not be ignored or written stereotypically, you’re telling us that our mere existence is a “political issue.” 

Fandom is supposed to be fun. Being told what to do or not to do isn’t fun.

It should be fun for us POC too, and it’s not when we’re consistently misrepresented or we don’t exist in this fandom. By using this as an excuse to exclude POC from your works, you’re saying that only some people are allowed to have fun or that having fun is conditional. Also, no one is forcing you as an individual to do or not do anything. See two paragraphs above.

I put a lot of different people in my works, and I do research about the groups they’re in. For example, I have a *marginalized group here* character (e.g., disabled), and I did research to represent them accurately. It’s not fair to say that I don’t care about diversity.

Just like you do research for those groups, you can easily do research on POC. Also, please be aware that this statement is similar to the “I’m not racist because I have a ___ friend/have a ___ person in my works” argument that many people use to prove they’re not racist, homophobic, sexist, etc. We aren’t interchangeable with other groups. 

I don’t think people should write about POC if they’re white, just like I wouldn’t want anyone to talk about *insert topic you’re passionate about or interest group you’re in here* (e.g., the BDSM community) if they didn’t know anything about it.

Something like BDSM is a lifestyle and preference. It is a choice. Being a POC isn’t. We can’t take off our identity every time we leave the house, the way you might keep it secret at work that you’re in the BDSM scene. 

I really don’t have any knowledge about what it’s like to be a POC, though, so maybe I’m not the best person for this. If POC want to see themselves represented, they should make their own works.

We do. Also, all of us fanwork creators make works with characters who are different from us all the time. Fandom is largely composed of people who aren’t straight cis men, yet the bulk of works on AO3 features characters who are canonically or implied to be straight cis men even if we end up changing that in our works. Most of us aren’t billionaires, but we don’t have a problem writing Tony. We don’t know what it’s like to be a WWII-soldier-turned-brainwashed-assassin who was kept in cryo for decades except when deployed on missions, but we don’t have a problem writing Bucky. The list goes on.

I’m not comfortable with writing POC as I’m unfamiliar with the struggles they experience. I don’t want my writing to come off as inauthentic, inaccurate, or offensive. Why are you saying it’s harmful to use this as a reason for abstaining from writing POC?

Your concern isn’t harmful. Reducing us to our trauma is, and you’re doing that if the reason you’re not comfortable with writing POC is that you don’t know how to write our struggles. We’re not only our pain. We’re more than that.

Not every fic has to be about the trauma of being a POC. We deserve to have fun, silly fics in addition to serious, plotty drama. We’re not thinking about our suffering 24/7 even if we do think about or are affected by it a lot. It’s not like if you write a Sam/Bucky fic, Sam is going to randomly lecture Bucky about the history of Black people in the U.S. and modern enslavement through the prison industrial complex while Bucky is trailing kisses down his neck in bed. We don’t need everyone being racist to MJ in a Pride and Prejudice AU. If you do want to include their struggles because that informs the way the characters think or act in your story, you can do so in ways that feel organic. 

Additionally, this is an excuse that we hear often; you may have heard it as people in Hollywood have used it to explain why they don’t have any, or at least any major, characters from marginalized groups in their works. If we allowed this excuse, an overwhelming majority of who we see in the media would be straight, cis white men considering who has power in the film and TV industry—and we would have to say that’s okay. We would have to say that the only people allowed to write about a certain group are members of that group, e.g., only women can write women. That’s not acceptable especially considering the gatekeeping, oppression, and high barriers to entry and success that make it difficult for marginalized people to even be in the room let alone make a name for themselves.

Fandom is no different. You’re saying that you can’t relate to POC because you’re white, but none of us POC have any problems making fanworks with white characters even though we don’t know what it’s like to be white. There are straight women who write fics about gay men and don’t feel uncomfortable doing so when they don’t know a single thing about being a gay man and the struggles of gay men (M/M can include bi or pan men, fics about gay men by straight women can sometimes include problematic portrayals, and straight men, queer women, and non-binary people write M/M too, but this is just an example).

You should be more careful when writing a POC if you're not a POC. The same goes for men writing women, cis people writing trans people, straight people writing queer people, able-bodied people writing disabled people, etc. However, there ARE ways to go about it, and while I understand the fear of messing up, the truth is everyone is racist, sexist, etc. Everyone including people in marginalized groups. Being a white lesbian doesn’t mean you can’t be racist. Being an Asian man doesn’t mean you can’t be sexist. You can see that within groups themselves. POC are not exempt from racism against other POC or from internalized racism against themselves or their own group. Women aren't free from internalized misogyny. The best we can do is to not make that prevent us from making inclusive works; if you make a mistake, which may happen, all we can ask is that you try your best to be open to feedback and grow. 

It doesn’t make sense to include every single POC in my work.

No one is telling you to. Choose characters who make sense for the story. Don’t choose them just so you have a POC in your work. We don’t want them to be tokenized. 

What you said and the data you have don’t necessarily point to racism. It might just be individual preference. I prefer certain ships over others, and it has nothing to do with race/I don’t see color.

This argument is identical to the “not all _____” rebuttal (“not all men,” “not all white people,” etc.) which places the blame on a few lone individuals and shifts the conversation away from an existing widespread problem. When there’s a consistent pattern and there are many examples of it both within the fandom and in other fandoms, it no longer is about individual preference. 

I urge you to consider the following:

If most people say they don’t write about or include a POC in their work because it’s too difficult or they’re afraid of making that character inauthentic, but they don’t seem to have an issue with writing other characters from groups they’re not in (e.g., if you’re a straight woman who writes a lot of M/M fics despite not knowing what it’s like to be a bi, pan, or gay man), doesn’t that say something?

If most people have the same reasons you do about not being interested in POC (e.g., “they’re not fleshed out enough” while being interested in or fleshing out minor white characters who get the same or even less development as those characters) or ships with POC (e.g., saying “they’re like brothers” while being interested in a white ship with similar dynamics and tropes or seeing why other people might ship it if you don’t), doesn’t that say something?

If most people give characters of color the same roles in their works even if that makes them OOC and/or the role reduces them to a (frequently stereotypical) trope, especially if they’re never fleshed out beyond that trope (e.g., the funny sidekick, wise friend who always helps or gives advice/free therapy, or responsible, mature, and sometimes stern friend who “parents” the protagonist), isn’t that saying something?

If race truly isn’t a factor for you when it comes to liking characters and ships, then this isn’t about you and you don’t have to distract people from the conversation by announcing that. That said, we should all look at characters and ships we like anyway instead of assuming that’s the case as that’s good practice. How much of your list is white? If it’s mostly or entirely white, why is that the case and why do you feel differently about ships of color?

A big part of what informs my shipping is physical attraction or interest in the characters.

What characters and actors do you find attractive or interesting? Are they all or mostly white? If they aren’t, are you drawn to any ships that include those POC? Refer to the section above.

I don’t ship _____ because I see them as brothers/sisters/siblings.

Part of this is preference as it comes down to perceived chemistry and relationship dynamics. However, POC are often not seen as romantic leads both in fanworks and the media and are just friends or “brothers/sisters” (this is why Crazy Rich Asians was a big deal). Sometimes, people even argue against POC being or having love interests in the name of diversity. You see this a lot with WOC in the media where the explanation against a love interest is “she’s a strong, independent woman who doesn’t need a man”; yes, they don’t and sometimes the story doesn’t need a romance, but WOC deserve love too and it’s strange that while white women can get the guy and be independent, WOC can’t and it somehow belittles or reduces them if they do. 

The way you can gauge whether it’s just preference at play or biases you may not have been aware of is to see how many relationships featuring a character of color fall under the “just friends/siblings” category for you, what you need to ship something, and how you feel about white ships with the same type of relationship or same lack of chemistry. For instance, you may say that there needs to be enough interaction for you to ship something and that’s why you don’t care much for Rhodey/Sam. Do you feel the same way about Clint/Coulson then, which has much less interaction (actually much less than Rhodey/Sam in this case)? If it’s about chemistry, are Steve and Sam just “brothers,” but Bruce and Thor aren’t or, if you don’t ship Bruce/Thor, you still “see it” and get why other people might be into it?

What do you ship, or what ships do you understand even if they’re not for you, and how is that different from ships that follow the same beats? Why are Steve and Bucky not brothers, but Rhodey and Tony are (there are many parallels between the two relationships—and one can argue the latter is more nuanced—than appears at first glance, and Rhodey/Tony can be just as sweet or angsty)? If you like the rivals/enemies-to-lovers or meet-ugly aspect to Steve/Tony, Sam/Bucky, Scott/Jimmy Woo, and M’Baku/T’Challa have that dynamic. You like that superior/subordinate-to-lovers dynamic that Clint/Coulson has? Coulson/Fury. Flirty meet-cutes or love/trust-at-first-sight? Steve/Sam.

Some white characters and ships are popular in the MCU fandom because people bring in canon characterization or material from the comics to the character(s)/ship. Your MCU-only examination fails to account for ships with one character from the MCU and one from comics (e.g., MCU Bucky/616 Clint or Spideypool).

I explained why I focused on the MCU here and that most of the fics that feature an MCU character and comics ’verse character tend to be heavily or entirely MCU-influenced here.

Also, characters of color exist in the comics, cartoons, and games too. By this logic, Steve/Sam and Rhodey/Tony should be juggernauts in the MCU fandom considering the depth and history of the characters and relationships. Ask yourself why people are happy to ship MCU Spideypool, to draw on the comics for that relationship and even bring a non-MCU character into the MCU and write him based on his comics history and characterization. Ask yourself why people are unhappy with MCU Clint’s terrible writing and lack of characterization and decide to give him his 616 (usually Fraction-era) characterization. And then ask yourself why people don’t do that for characters of color and then use “___ is a minor character/doesn’t have much development” as an excuse for why they’re uninteresting or not shippable with others.

There are many strong and interesting relationships in the comics, but only a few make it to the MCU fandom and almost all, if not all, of them are white.

Some subfandoms just have fewer POC which means there will naturally be fewer ships featuring POC. To say that the Marvel fandom is racist as a whole is disingenuous; you can see how more diversity in the cast leads to more diverse ships in fanworks.

It’s more important to see how many fanworks there are for ships of color in a fandom than how many ships of color there are in that fandom. See how few works there are for POC ships other than MJ/Peter in the MCU Spider-Man fandom despite the diversity of the cast. See how the most popular ships are white and three of them involve white characters from the Iron Man fandom (explain to me how Harley/Peter has over 1,000 works, but Ned/Peter has 436). 

And sure, you can say almost all of the Black Panther ships feature a character of color so there’s “more” diversity, but see how few works there are for them and how works with a white character fare compare to POC-only ships (almost all have 100-200 or fewer fics, with many having so few that I didn’t include them in the post, while BP ships with a white character have more works despite little to no interaction between the characters). 

Both of these, by the way, are critical and box office hits with characters who are clearly supposed to be the faces of the MCU now that the OG6 are gone. Black Panther is an award-winning critical and box office hit, and it is, more than any other film in MCU history, a huge cultural phenomenon with tremendous impact. It broke so many records and milestones, and it’s STILL breaking and making them. It has the most nuanced and balanced ensemble cast with side characters just as three-dimensional as the lead, a rarity in MCU films. Yet, its tag only has 3,966 works, fewer in total for the whole fandom than some of the white M/M ships on this list. Even if you account for BP fanworks that may have been tagged as MCU instead of BP, the number is paltry as you can see in this post. People simply do not want to make fanworks for characters of color (in this case, specifically Black characters) and don’t. It’s not about how diverse or successful a film is.

Some of the characters and ships are popular because white characters get the lion’s share of screen time and development or they appeared in canon earlier.

Yes, that’s true, but fandom has no problem catapulting white ships with minor characters into extreme popularity. See Clint/Coulson. See fics prioritizing Happy and having him show up more than Rhodey in Steve/Tony fics. 

It’s not about chronology. Many ships of color came before white ships as a whole and before white ships with the same white character they have. See Bucky/Clint vs. Bucky/Sam. 

Lastly, please don’t tell me how certain white M/M ships came to be to explain how they’re exempt or how I’m failing to consider other factors for their popularity. I’ve been in the fandom since 2012, and I’ve seen almost all of the white ships in the fandom be born or boom into popularity. Don’t try to explain, for instance, that Clint/Coulson is big because Coulson has his own show and his fans followed him from the show (this logic falls flat when you look at something like Luke Cage); that ship became huge way before that happened and way before Agents of Shield became “big.” Also, see the section above regarding screen time, development, and fame. 

Is it racist to racebend a character? 

People’s opinions differ on racebending—and often that comes from personal background and on the situation—so I can’t speak on anyone’s behalf. However, I think everyone can agree on the following:

Racebending a white character is not the same thing as whitewashing a POC. For example, making Tony Stark Indian vs. turning T’Challa white or as canonical examples, making Fury black in Ultimates and the MCU vs. making the Ancient One or the Maximoffs white. The latter (whitewashing T’Challa, the Ancient One, and the Maximoff twins) is racist for various reasons. There’s a long history of POC being erased and white people taking roles from POC, a huge imbalance in representation between white people and POC, the unfortunate perception by the public and media that “white = neutral/standard” (Bruce’s whiteness doesn’t define his characterization and development), and the way race plays a role in influencing the way POC feel, act, and are treated.

Racebending a POC from one ethnicity or racial group to another is also problematic as we’re not interchangeable. Hollywood often does this and goes, “But they’re still a POC! We’re being diverse!” 

In general, people who racebend white characters to POC want to see more POC in canon and in the media! These aren’t mutually exclusive.

Sometimes people racebend because they’re not represented at all in their works. (This happens with other marginalized groups too; for instance, some people make cis characters trans in their fanworks as there are few to no trans characters in the canonical source.) For example, there are, as of now, no Latinx superheroes in the MCU films. Even if people wanted to, they can’t make works with an MCU Latinx superhero unless they bring one from the comics or the one Latinx superhero from Agents of Shield (if they know the comics or AoS), make a minor Latinx film character like Luis a superhero, or racebend their favorite white character and put a fresh spin on the character, drawing from their personal experience and background.

There’s a massive difference between fans racebending a character and a creator taking credit by pretending they viewed a character as non-white or didn’t see race all along when it’s clear that the character is canonically white (this is different from a creator saying they support anyone, POC or white, playing that character onscreen or onstage). 

Racist language in fics is more important than fandom representation.

We don’t have to pick our battles. Both are important! I focused on fandom representation as it’s much more quantifiable and easy to find and analyze data for than racist language on a fandom-wide scale on my own without any tools. You’re right that the latter is a problem as is racist representation in fanworks, though. 

My fanworks tend to focus on one ship and don’t really include other characters in general. When they do, the others mostly talk about that relationship. Am I falling into the trap you mentioned?

If the story is about a relationship (examining that relationship and the feelings of the characters in it) and there isn’t much of a plot outside of that, then that makes sense. However, even in situations like this, consider how much time you dedicate to characters of color vs. white characters. If the story is about a ship featuring a POC, do you spend more time on the white character of that relationship? Their white friends and how they feel about that relationship? If it’s about a white ship, do white side characters appear more than side characters of color even if the latter have a closer relationship with the protagonists? For example, does Wanda show up more than Sam or play a bigger role than him in a Steve/Bucky fic? Do you have Pepper show up all the time (or even Happy), but Rhodey is chronically absent? Do only the white characters get to be more than the tropes you’re using, if you’re using any, while the POC don’t get to be nuanced? Are there any stereotypes that you’re reducing the POC to?

I feel guilty about not including or writing about *character of color’s name here*.

See “It doesn’t make sense to include every single POC in my work.” Include the character(s) who make sense for the story, perspective you’re writing/drawing from if applicable, and central group or ship if this is a ship-specific work. For example, if you’re drawing the Avengers and you include the newer Avengers, Rhodey and Sam should appear too, not just Wanda, Scott, Bucky, and/or Carol (this happens a lot). If you’re writing a Tony POV fic that includes other characters, depending on the story, it may make sense that Sam doesn’t appear much as he and Tony aren’t close whereas he would in a Steve POV fic.

How do I ensure that I don’t offend anyone if I include POC in my work?

You can’t ensure anything as POC aren’t a monolith, but you can try to be as informed as possible and avoid common pitfalls while writing. You can do research, just the way you might research anything you’re not familiar with. You can ask if anyone is willing to do a sensitivity read while you write or before you post. You can look for betas. There are a lot of resources out there, but these are good places to start if you’re looking for more information and help:

Writing with Color - resources

Writing with Color - Stereotypes and Tropes page

Reference for Writers - POC tag

What should I do to examine myself for any implicit biases?

We should all take stock of:

our feelings about different characters and relationships, both platonic and romantic, who we prioritize in our works, and how much they’re prioritized

our decision whether or not to seek or make content with characters of color. This includes content for white ships because sometimes every white character in the MCU shows up as a side character, but characters of color don’t or all of the white characters play bigger roles than the POC despite how close they are to the protagonist(s)

the way we interpret and write/draw those characters. For example, is Sam a yes-man? A figurative or literal therapist for white friends? The bro who only cracks jokes and/or gives sage advice but seems to not have any flaws, struggles, or life of his own outside of his white friends? The BFF who thinks his white best friend is being ridiculous about another white guy and wants them to get their act together already? Does the character of color talk in the way you perceive everyone of that race to talk rather than the way they personally do (e.g., does Luis randomly and awkwardly switch into Spanish when he talks just because he’s Latinx despite never speaking Spanish with Scott? Does Sam use AAVE with Steve, Bucky, and Natasha when he doesn’t do that with them?)? 

Also, here’s a Google doc with more anti-racist resources.

Even well-meaning people can slip up or not be as proactive as they hoped they would be so it’s just good practice to check in with ourselves every once in a while and see if there’s anything we missed or didn’t notice.

[olg6328]

Some things I as a queer individual learned the hard way while being around both queer and non-queer circles

(tl;dr below)

Some allocishet people are more aware of their privileges and will not think twice about making the queer community comfortable in the spaces they share.

They don't question queer individuals whenever they ask for basic respect, they just give it.

By just listening and acting as requested, they spare the queer community the burden of having to explain their oppression and need for equitable treatment.

It's true that they may accidentally get some things wrong (like pronouns or appropriate words to use) in a way that might hurt queer individuals. However, they apologize for it, they're willing to be corrected, and eventually they learn to correct themselves in a way that doesn't bring negative attention to the affected queer individual(s).

The queer community tends to have a negative perception of white allocishet men (for a good and obvious reason), but if we give the well-intentioned ones a chance they could probably be one of the best allies we can have, even better than truscums, anti-NB trans groups, trans-exclusionist "LGB" groups, and other "queer" groups that harm our liberation agenda more than they help it.

Some queer individuals are too caught up in their own identities that they don't consider the relevance or even the mere existence of other identities. They only care about themselves.

Whenever another queer individual asks for basic respect, they will reply with "but what about...?!", "okay but it's not as bad as...", "I don't see the issue here", or some other excuse without taking the effort to understand where the other party is coming from.

They have selective empathy, which I find worse than having no empathy. There are individuals who indeed struggle with empathizing with others, but at least their struggle applies equally to everyone. Those with selective empathy are capable of empathizing with those who are different from them, but they choose not to.

They perpetuate the darned "us versus them" mentality that has prevented society at large from progressing faster.

If anything, I feel more unsafe with these kinds of queer individuals than with allocishet people, because I find it hypocritical that they, as an oppressed collective, are participating (consciously or unconsciously) in maintaining oppressive systems that don't affect them but still harm others.

Also, I fear that they will take advantage of those who are completely unaware of the queer community by using the "queer" label as a weapon to further their own agenda at our expense. Unaware people might think they're credible enough to represent the queer community at large, so they're at risk of being convinced that "trans people are the reason why lesbians/gays aren't being taken seriously", "non-binary people are the reason why trans people aren't being taken seriously", or some other divisive and downright false rhetoric.

tl;dr

Someone being queer or marginalized isn't a guarantee that they're a safe space for another queer or marginalized individual.

Someone being allosexual, cisgender, hetero-oriented, and part of the privileged majority isn't a guarantee that they're never going to care about you as a marginalized individual.

Queer individuals who deny the existence and needs of other queer individuals who are different from them are forgetting that they can be marginalized in one aspect of identity and privileged in another. Their energy is better spent in being allies to those who are less privileged than them.

Allyship benefits our community much more than defensiveness due to seeing the existence of other queer individuals as threats.

So I posted a comic over on r/comics. I've had two comments, one from a white cis man telling me I should be proud of being trans and agreeing with the sentiment of my art and one from a queer person telling me I'm the problem and that being proud of being trans is why no one takes up seriously.

That was unexpected to say the least 😬

[queermediastudies]

“A Queer Who Cares” : The Intersection of Class and Queerness in Tokyo Godfathers

Tokyo Godfathers is a Japanese animated film, made in 2003, that follows the adventures of three homeless friends on Christmas Eve in Tokyo, Japan. Throughout the movie, we follow Hana, a transwoman and former drag queen, Gin, a middle-aged man with a gambling addiction, and Miyuki, a teenage runaway, as they find a baby in a trash can and spend Christmas Day trying to reunite the child with her mother. A comedic adventure quickly ensues, as the chaotic but loving trio, do their best to take care of their new baby, solve the mystery of her appearance, and all the while combat the dangers and prejudices that come with being homeless. Though predominantly a comedy, the film also strays away from its humorous tone and delves deep into the characters’ complex backstories, emotionally exploring the myriad of reasons why Hana, Gin, and Miyuki are homeless and why getting the baby back to her mother is so important for each of them. Directed by the famous Satoshi Kon and loosely based on the 1913 novel “The Three Godfathers”, the film explores themes of parenthood, found families, classism, transphobia, and addiction, and illuminates the complex ways in which these forces interact and impact daily life. In essence, Tokyo Godfathers effectively explores themes of transphobia and the intersection of classism and queerness, and though not entirely unproblematic, is unique and powerful in its complex characterization of both Hana as a character and the oppressions she faces as a transwoman who is homeless. 

(Hana speaking about her desire to be loved)

Before beginning, it is important to note that the following analysis is of the 2020 English dubbed re-release of Tokyo Godfathers by GKIDS. As of now, there are many fan-subbed versions of the film circulating on the internet that misgender Hana in their subtitles. The GKIDS re-release does not so I will not be addressing that form of transphobia in my analysis. Similarly, in the original Japanese version, Hana is voiced by a man, and the fluctuations of her voice, from high and feminine when she is happy, to low and masculine when she wants to be intimidating, is present and follows a very transphobic trope in comedy. In the GKIDS dubbed version, Hana is voiced by Shakina Nayfack, a transwoman, actress, and activist, and these vocal fluctuations are not present so, once again, I will not be addressing that form of transphobia, as it was not present in the updated version that I watched.

How Shakina Nayfack used her voice to reclaim trans representation in animation

(A short article on Shakina Nayfack, the English voice actress for Hana in the 2020 GKIDS re-release)

Though Tokyo Godfathers does not have the popularity or mainstream attention to be considered a breakout text, it’s humanizing and complex characterization of Hana breaks traditional transphobic tropes, particularly in comedy, that lends itself to “creat[ing] small cracks in the glass ceiling of cultural consciousness and makes room for future breaks” (Cavalcante, 2017, p. 4). Hana is the main protagonist of the film. She is both the center of comedic relief, the leader of her found family and the driver of the plot as a whole. It is through her desire to fulfill her dream of becoming a mother, and her desperate need to understand why parents abandon their children (as her parents did to her), that motivates her, and in turn, her friends, to find the child’s parents themselves, instead of going to the police. It is in this complexity that Hana, “breaks historical representation paradigms” of both trans characters and queer characters as a whole (Cavalcante, 2017, p. 2). In her desperate search to love and be loved, Hana is immediately humanized, her identity centered in love and family, and not in her gender or sexuality, as so many queer characters are. In addition, she is not portrayed as “sexless” as is the norm for queer characters, wherein they can exist in media as long as their love stories and intimate desires do not. Though very subtle, Hana is the only character in the movie that has a love interest, Gin, and she had a boyfriend, who died, but is still a key part of her characterization. Though these love stories are not centered in the film, they are the only ones in the movie, and this exclusive existence, unique to Hana, illustrates their importance to both the themes of the movie and Hana’s character.   

(Miyuki asks Hana about her feelings for Gin)

(A photo of Hana and her ex-boyfriend Ken at the club she once worked at)

That is not to say that the queer representation in this film is by any means perfect. As mentioned, the movie is a comedy and thus falls into the historical “preponderance of these representations occurring in the comedy”, especially given that  Hana is the comedic center (Dow, 2001, p.130). Even more so, there are instances in which Hana’s trans identity is stereotyped and used as the joke itself. In one scene, she flirts with a cab driver knowing that he is uncomfortable by the fact that she is a trans woman, and his transphobia is framed as comedic. She also has a very flamboyant personality, with sharp emotional highs, and equally dramatic lows, that once again plays into stereotypical representations of transwomen as over-the-top and overly dramatized to the point of ridiculousness. In line with this, her previous line of work was as a drag queen, and though scenes of her in the drag community are dominated by a sense of love and community, it still plays into already established tropes of transwoman living as a performance. In these ways, her representation at times leans towards the role of the “clown...putting on a show for The Other” where it is “never quite clear whether we are laughing with or at this figure” (Hall,1995, p. 22).  However, as mentioned above, Hana’s complex and nuanced backstory, combined with her frequent acts of heroism and her leadership role, make it so she is deeply humanized. Though her dramatic personality falls into these stereotypical tropes at times, it does not detract from her character arc of motherhood and finding love, a nuance that is missing from many stories of trans women in media.  

(As pictured, Hana’s emotions are very dramatized and quickly jump from very high to very low)

This nuance is heightened through the intersection of classism and queerness, which is an equally prevalent theme throughout the film. In particular, class struggles are illustrated through medical care. At one point, Hana falls ill, and Gin is forced to give away his life savings in order to pay for her treatment. It is also here where Hana’s gender identity is questioned, as the hospital houses her in the men’s ward, and she explains that she “is not pleased with this”. This particular intersection of class and queerness within a medical setting is impactful given the long and “oppressive role of medicine in trans people’s lives” (Keegan, 2016, p. 607) and the strong tendency of media to tell trans folks stories, about both life and transition, in a way that is medicalized. For Hana, the discrimination she experiences at the hospital, and her inability to pay for her treatment, illustrate the violence of intersecting oppressions of queerness and homelessness in medical systems, while also straying away from the problematic representation of trans folks that are centered around a rhetoric of medicalization. More visually, the family is also a key illustrative example of how class and queerness are explored. The trio is constantly visually contrasted with traditional Japanese families in a variety of settings. This harkens back to ideas of “alternative forms” of families that queer folks create and this difference is visually exasperated by the trio’s homelessness, making them stand out in whatever space they are in (Keegan, 2016, p. 607).

(An angel asks Gin if he would rather have her magic or an ambulance. He chooses the ambulance.)

(Hana in the hospital. The subtitle reads “This ward, it’s the men’s isn't it?”)

(One of many scenes where the trio is set up in  familial positions)

As a queer, white woman living in the United States my subject positionality had a great effect on how I consumed the movie. Most notably, I was born and raised in Western society, and given that this film is Japanese and made for Japanese audiences, there is a variety of cultural norms and perceptions that I did not pick up on because of my lack of familiarity with them. In the same vein, I watched this movie translated into English and, as with every translated work, there are words and subtle, yet important, nuances in the language that were very likely lost to me as a viewer. My identity as a queer woman made it so that I was drawn to Hana as a character and was very moved by her deep desire to be a mother. The movie is steeped in images of Hana and her friends encompassing the idea of a non-traditional family, and since I would love a family of my own one day and I expect that to look different than the dominant nuclear family norm, I really focused my experience on the variety of nontraditional families that this movie shows, all of them as loving as the next.

(Hana and her drag mother reuniting)

(Hana and her family)

As a whole, Tokyo Godfathers, though not without its faults, is a refreshing take on the traditional feel-good Christmas movie trope, delving into class and queerness, and using the two to explore what it really means to be a family that is loving and kind. Spoiler alert, that family looks a little something like one ex-drag queen, one man with a gambling addiction, a teenage runaway who loves cats, and their baby they found in a dumpster.  

Sources

Dow, Bonnie (2001). “Ellen, Television, and the Politics of Gay and Lesbian Visibility.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 18(2), 123-140. 

Cavalcante, Andre (2017). “Breaking into Transgender Life: Transgender Audiences’ Experiences With ‘First of Its Kind’ Visibility in Popular Media.” Communication, Culture & Critique, 1-18. 

Keegan, Cáel (2016). “Tongues without Bodies: The Wachowskis’ Sense8.” Transgender Studies Quarterly 3(3–4), 605-610. 

Hall, Stuart (1995). “The Whites of their Eyes: Racist Ideologies and the Media,” in Gender, Race, and Class in Media 3rd ed., pp. 18-22. 

[transkingbee]

Every. Single. Person. Alive. Experiences. Misogyny. Get that through your head. Every single person. Trans men, cis men, gay men, straight men. Just because they’re men doesn’t mean misogyny doesn’t effect them. The patriarchy exists to enforce misogyny. This obviously means systemic oppression against women. All women. But the way that patriarchy demands that men behave and treat each other in ways that are completely void of any “feminine” traits (emotion, friendship, anything that can be perceived as effeminate or gay) stems from MISOGYNY.

That doesn’t mean men are systemically oppressed, they still have greater social power than women, but it is an effect of misogyny and it does harm men.

Now obviously if we’re taking intersectionality into account there are men who have social power over other men. There are women who have social power over other women. And there are WOMEN who have social power over MEN. Look me in the eyes right now and tell me white women don’t have social power over black men. You can’t. Or you’d be denying centuries of black men killed for looking the “wrong way” at white women, having the cops called on them because white women weaponized their whiteness and their tears to hurt them.

Now we can talk about transness. Homophobia and transphobia both stem from misogyny. The transmisogyny that trans women face comes from the same place homophobia comes from. Because the bigots will never see you as a woman. They see you as a man in a dress. To them you are no different than a drag queen. Most of them don’t even know the difference. The misogyny they are attempting to enforce against you with their hatred is that of forcing “a man” back into masculinity because how dare you be effeminate when they can’t be. How dare you be feminine happily and confidently instead of masculine and miserable like men are supposed to be. These are the kinds of people who cannot extricate their manhood from toxic masculinity. These are the kinds of people whose womanhood is still defined in relation to manhood. So trans women are now experiencing misogyny in the same way cis women do, and ALSO in the same way cis gay men do, and ALSO transphobia because people just hate us for existing and for daring not to exist within their boxes.

Trans men are in the same boat. We are experiencing 1. Transphobia for daring to exist outside of our assigned box. 2. Misogyny because the world still views us as women, 3. Misogyny and homophobia in the way lesbians experience it because they think we’re just masculine women. But we’re ALSO experiencing the loneliness and isolation that comes with manhood because misogyny has conditioned men into silent suffering and lack of camaraderie. And of course we’re looking for that in each other and in the larger queer community because that’s what the queer community has always been for us on our gender journey but now we’re men and we’re being treated like we’re automatically the oppressor without any thought or regard for the intersections that make up our identity or the fact that we still get treated like women anyway.

Don’t even get me started on the nonbinary experience of misogyny and transphobia which is either “silly girl who doesn’t know what she’s talking about and trying to get attention” or “evil man trying to invade afab spaces”.

If you can’t eradicate the radfem ideology that man automatically equals evil then you can’t participate in this conversation. You’re not working toward equality with that kind of mindset. You’re not working toward freedom of gender and expression for EVERYONE. You’re working toward revenge. And you’re scapegoating trans men as if we haven’t suffered right alongside you this entire time. And your views on sex and gender aren’t only bioessentialist but incredibly colonized and white.

Everyone experiences misogyny. Even if we all experience it differently. And acting like any group is “tme” isn’t helping anything or contributing to any sort freedom from patriarchal constraints.

transmisogyny = intersection of transphobia and misogyny.

transphobia towards trans men assuming they're women = transphobia. the misogyny is due to transphobia. it is just transphobia. you want to be oppressed so bad

This makes absolutely no sense lmao. If transphobia towards trans men is also the intersection of transphobia and misogyny than transphobia towards trans men would be transmisogyny but it’s not, because transmisogyny refers to transphobia and misogyny aimed at trans women. Hence why transphobia + misogyny towards trans men is called Transandrophobia. The misogyny isn’t “due to transphobia”, the misogyny is entwined with the transphobia. They are tied together.

“You want to be oppressed so bad”…. Anon… do you think transmasc people are not oppressed? Do you think trans men are not oppressed? What??????