#yes it is erasure you are saying NB has to be this way or its wrong

[sometimesanartdragon]

A little argument by me

I am finally jumping into discourse (read the whole thing before you get mad please and thank you)

Okay so I want to walk through something about Undertale and to start let me make myself clear: I AM A NON BINARIY INDIVIDUAL  and I am a very big supporter of the trans community at large. There is no trans phobia in my logic and I am constantly working to keep up with a community that seems to keep one to five steps ahead of me.

Now that the disclaimer has been made lets move on

Frisk and Chara can be whatever gender the person playing them wants them to be. End of story. The only point it is wrong is when someone else is imposing their views on you or an AU where they have established sexes 

This is my argument:

First many people believe Frisk and Chara are trans/non binary individuals. Well I am here to remind you, that trans and non binary people can use gendered pronouns, not to mention gender fluid people are both non binary and trans and use gendered pronouns. Also just because someone calls Frisk and Chara a specific pronoun does not make them any less trans just not the trans you want them to be. 

Second the evidence is very weak to Frisk and Chara being non binary to begin with. I can only remember in one scene where they refer to Frisk as “they” and it was said by monsters who could not even tell that Frisk was human to begin with let alone know what human sexual dimorphism manifests as or what modern human gender identity is. 

Not to mention that using they them does not automatically prove someone to be non binary. It just means the other person does not know.  

Third Frisk displays all the signs of a “player insert character” little to no personality, simple design, no real speaking roles (aka no voice/voice actor), customizable name (while it turns out to be Chara later you do not know this at the time and therefor play as if this were true making this a valid statement), little to nothing revealed about characters background/history/culture and so on. This means you as the player fill in the blanks. Some fill it in with themselves. Some fill it in with other things. No version is any less valid. 

Fourth Tobi Fox has not once supported any theory over the others pertaining to Frisk and Chara’s sex/gender. Therefore there is no official “cannon” In Deltarune your customization of Kris gets thrown out. Again this does not mean “non binary wins” It means you cannot impose your views on the character. meaning no one is technically right. This one scene has been used like crazy for confirmation bias as to the player character’s non binary status but again non binary people were also told that they do not get to choose in this scene. There is no real evidence to imply otherwise.

Finally Tobi Fox has made an amazingly inclusive game. there is representation all over for many people who often do not get representation. Tobi Fox clearly made it a goal to welcome everyone possible to enjoy the game and make something that did not alienate players as other games often do. Why would someone who clearly worked so hard to make sure so many people were included stop before they get to the player character? 

People already know that having one type of player character alienates large groups of people. That is why the gaming industry is currently adding more POC and women into their games.(we still have a long way to go) By making Frisk be anything other than everything you are making sure that, those who do feel uncomfortable playing such defined characters, have less chance to get the immersion that others do. imposing one type of non binary still alienates another type. same with trans by imposing that they can only use this set of pronouns you can be triggering dysphoria for other trans individuals. 

One thing that has been consistent for this Non binary talk is that those who argue the hardest for Frisk being Non binary is that they seem to be so emotionally invested in Frisk being their type of non binary (and not all non binary people as a whole) \ that seeing them as anything else but their idea of NB is distressing. I have seen anon hate, general announcements of “my way or the highway”, blocking of any blog that even thinks of liking/ rebloging any gendered Frisk that they do not approve of (even if they support NB Frisk), anon threats, even going as far as identifying them as Non binary afab or amab being wrong and bad.  

If this is the case I am sorry it is distressing for you. I support your need to have representation but it should not do harm to others/exclude others in the process.

Frisk is literally the most flexible and representative character in gaming today. I have never seen a character with more identities race/sex/gender/age etc, (even when Frisk is gendered it is usually hardly even the focus of the plot it just is a simple fact that no one pays a whole fuck ton of to attention to.) 

Often it feels like Undertale is too inclusive as people jump on the main character and fight over what is true and what is not. It seems we were not ready for something so openly welcoming in media. 

TLDR: Undertale is an inclusive game and inclusion is not the same thing as representation. Inclusion means everyone gets a share even if you don’t think they should. Frisk needs to be able to be any sex/gender/age/race/ability to properly include all players, and with little solid evidence that Frisk is any ONE thing then Frisk is likely everything.    

This has been my TED talk thank you

[nbapprentice]

there’s so, so, SO much nonsense surrounding this game that i’m gonna do my best to separate it into digestible bits, with its own categories. even then this is... wow. it’s big.

Warning tags will be added at the start of every section, but the general gist is: incest, pedophilia mentions, fetishization of rape and abuse, fetishization of mlm, fetishization of people of color, racism, ableism, nb erasure and transphobia. aside of the warnings, this post will also touch upon Scummy Business Practices

let’s get going

Dana Rune’s and Elle’s lack of moral fiber: #incest #pedophilia#rape and abuse fetishization #homophobia

tl;dr: dana loves incest porn, elle loves guy on guy rape, and the both of them are friends with at least one pedophile

dana rune has run, is still running an incest zine (please visit my faq on what i think about “thats not really incest” and “it’s just fictional!”). The Arcana, as a dev team, clearly does not care, as shown in their e-mail responses.

dana also very much doesn’t care and has reacted to any criticism on this by dismissing people and blocking actual incest victims who tried to contact her about it claiming it was for her “mental health”

in some tweets she claims she “interprets” the characters as not siblings, but she never really cared enough to cover her ass when it all began (she happily admits she’d “cross the incest line”)

dana has commissioned artists who also ship incest, draw near-pedophilic art that’s supposed to pass as acceptable because the character involved is supposedly not a minor despite looking like a child down to wearing pigtails (the character is also wearing a racist-ass belly dancer outfit), AND even made white-washed fanart of The Arcana.

dana follows twitter user kapymui who also produces incestuous Fire Emblem art

dana has retweeted omocat long after it came out that omocat is, at the very least, consuming pedophilic content (on “omocat didn’t know what shota meant!”: yes they did)

moving on, elle has a long, long, LONG history of fetishizing mlm and the rape and abuse that comes with yaoi and had a rich, RICH “yaoi” tag before they deleted their tumblr

they curiously deleted their tumblr right after i made this reblog

shortly after that, tumblr user thalassiq remade and started attacking and insulting any blogs criticizing them - even people providing support in IMs. Since this doesn’t match Dana and Elle’s normal pity parties I’m personally willing to believe they were just a person wanting to start shit - but it’s so telling how Elle used this chance to dismiss everyone who disagrees with them by calling them “children” and did not even bother to offer a kind word to people who were harassed and even had their trauma mocked by this person. It costs 0 dollars to say “that was not me but I’m sorry about people who were hurt.”

Dana and Elle are close with Ava’s Demon creator Michelle Czajkowski aka that one person who endorses child porn of her characters, and even had her draw a promo image for the game. Michelle has been creating highly sexualized content of her minor characters for a while now.

ok so elle and dana are gross freaks, how is that related to the game?

oh it’s very very related

Dana Rune’s and Elle’s lack of moral fiber that’s Actually Inside The Game or The Game’s Blog: now with more #racism #fetishization of poc and mlm #whitewashing #fat hate #pedophilia #nb erasure #transphobia

tl;dr: the arcana is filled to the brim with racism! so much of it! haha holy shit! and that’s not even where it ends!!!

their game is rated PG-13 but includes incredibly sexual situations such as Julian making this fucking face while getting off on pain. This isn’t the only time Dana and Elle use their videogame aimed at young teens to showcase their kinks and fetishes. I have no issue with NSFW or titillating content, as long as it’s rated accordingly. This content is NOT and it’s a blatant disregard for their audience just to have a larger, more pliable demographic and have more money sent their way.

if you start your argument with “well, teenagers look at porn” 1. shut up 2. theres a HUGE difference between teenagers going after adult content aimed at adults, and adults creating content they know will be seen by kids barely starting puberty

as pointed above, dana has 0 qualms literally commissioning people who make whitewashed fanart of her own fucking game that’s supposed to be all about the inclusivity and safe spaces

thearcanagame blog has a pattern of reblogging whitewashed fanart (before you come in swinging with the good ole “ITS THE LIGHTING”: 1. no it isnt 2. the artist should’ve picked better lightning then 3. i draw and post shit online too so dont come telling me i just dont understaaaand),

fanart of their fat characters showed skinnier than they are in their sprites (although to be real for a moment - Portia is curvy at most and them behaving she’s fat rep is HILARIOUS).

going back to NSFW content: nadia and asra are overwhemlingly sexualized in the game, and were the first to have sexualized CGs and sprites introduced.

CGs: Asra’s here, here aND HERE, Nadia’s here with a NSFW warning because she’s just got her whole fucking ass out. Sprites: Asra’s thank god for whoever compiled it all in one image, Nadia’s and once again, NSFW warning lmfao!

Julian’s sprites on the other hand are noticeably tamer, including the one where he’s fucking strapped in leather. His only sexual (NSFW warning because its literally softcore tentacle porn WHICH, ONCE AGAIN, SHOULDN’T BE PUT IN A GAME AIMED AT 13YOS) CGs were also included months after Nadia and Asra received any of theirs.

Through all of the updates, people have constantly requested that Asra and Nadia’s sexualization be toned down, and time after time The Arcana just churned out fetishistic, hypersexualized content at an absurd rate, especially when compared to the one white love interest.

Oh, speaking of the one white love interest: Julian is based off of Jeff Goldblum (this is not spectulation - they p much bring it up at any given time) but like. If Jeff Goldblum was white. They base their favorite love interest off their supposed favorite man in the world but casually leave his skin tone behind. Lmao.

they also play favorites very obviously - in the prologue, Nadia and Asra have a romance paid scene each. Julian has a scene... that requires no coins. Julian was also the first LI to receive three CGs, two of them requiring no coins, while both Asra’s and Nadia’s first CGs were behind a paywall

Dana and Elle have been notoriously skittish about confirming or denying their characters’ ethnicities. After hyping for weeks on thearcanagame that they would confirm the character’s races they basically made a post that amounted to “well they’re not white lol!”

they only relented after the perfectly understandable outrage... and posted a thread about it on Elle’s twitter. Nothing on the actual thearcanagame blog. Anyway, here’s the thread. Note how there’s mention of Julian being Jeff Goldblum... but nothing about him and Portia being Jewish (or “fantasy Jewish” as it were).

The one time they did confirm their jewishness dana then backpedaled and said she shouldn’t have done that lol.

another fun tidbit of how well The Arcana handles race and how much it cares about feedback from fans: an ask was sent about an anon begging for Nadia to step on them. The blog, with the finesse of a bunch of horny dumbasses, didn’t just publish the ask, but approved of it (even though the fans of color had long, long, LONG been telling everyone not to fetishize Nadia into a “step on me kween” wet dream). People were outraged, of course, and the blog ~apologized~ and said they were still learning.... then a new chapter included a scene of Nadia stepping on the Apprentice. 🙃

not to mention elle, on their twitter, made a passive aggressive “women can be doms?” tweet, trying to twist it into a “yr oppressing women” angle (when the issue is that women of color are always constantly portrayed as aggressive and domineering)

Now for a wombo combo of racism and Elle’s fetishization of mlm:

the devs have spoken at length of how Julian’s and Asra’s relationship was quite unhealthy. In a paid scene in Asra’s route, they’re depicted as Asra being disgusted w Julian touching him+Julian following Asra to his shop when Asra refused his offer to go with him (aka julian... stalked him lmfao).

.......... this scene is promptly followed by a highly sexual scenario where Julian’s pain fetish is played up. Remember how this game is rated PG-13? Me neither. Asra’s previous disgust with Julian is also forgotten, for some reason (and by some reason i mean Elle wants to make them fuck w/o buildup or logic).

Then Asra’s route has yet another paid scene dedicated to Asrian, even though he’s supposed to not even like Julian! And be head over heels with the Apprentice! But Elle just has to make these two be entangled despite insisting their relationship was not good for either of them!

Now here’s the kicker: Julian doesn’t have any paid scenes related to his romance with Asra. Note how it’s one of the brown LIs whose route is highjacked by the white LI, but not vice versa. Hmmmmm.

Now, on the topic of Asra: thearcanagame has said repeatedly that he’s nb and uses he/him pronouns, and promised (since last year) that there would be dialogue where he speaks about his gender

as of the making of this post such dialogue still does not exist

so basically asra is the nb to dumbledore’s gay: anyone who just plays the game w/o keeping up with the official blog has no idea of what asra’s gender is supposed to be.

aka he’s not nb. he’s just a cis guy. the arcana just doesn’t want to put its money where its mouth is, i dont care if elle is nb themself. the team made a promise which has not been fulfilled yet and i suspect will not be.

instead, our introduction to canon nb characters is... these two.

By “these two” i mean neither vulgora nor valdemar are even fucking human, and stick out like sore thumbs with their monstruousness.

so our nb rep is... non-human villains. a few books later one of Nadia’s sisters with they/them pronouns shows up, but that’s too little too late on top of the fact that we should’ve known Asra was nb from the first to begin with. It’s a fucking embarrassment and an insult.

at least two villains are visibly disabled (Lucio’s missing arm and Volta’s blind eye+intentionally asymmetrical face). Julian’s eye doesn’t count because, spoilers, he’s not lacking an eye and even if he was it’d still be hidden behind a dashing eyepatch instead of grotesquely displayed as a sign of his lacking morality.

BUT WAIT! IT DOESN’T EVEN END THERE!

The Arcana Exploits The App Business Model To Price Their Full Game at $500, $1000 if the three extra routes make it out, and they never delivered their Kickstarter rewards:

tl;dr: you heard me

the original price per route was planned on being $1.99

they took that “subject to change” really seriously, it seems, because now each route, once the game is fully out, is estimated to cost around $170 each.

both those screenshots are taken from this post which explains in detail just how truly scummy all of The Arcana’s business model and decisions are: https://mysticmicrotransactions.tumblr.com/post/174308723344/dishonesty-from-the-arcana

the tl;dr is basically what’s listed in the beginning of this section, but other highlights from that post are: the use of addictive gambling mechanics such the Wheel of Fortune, and the dazzling calls to action in the new mini-game.

something that The Arcana supporters forget (or choose to ignore) is the fact that for a long, long time the game did not have the mini-game or the log-in rewards for coins. Players depended only on the gambling of the WoF or paying absurd amounts of money for the new chapters.

the devs went from playing the victims who were unable of controlling prices to (as spoken of in the link from mysticmicrotransactions) saying the making of the game (a pathetic little app game backed by a studio and a kickstarter) justifies the prices

they also gave people false hope about maybe changing the prices in the future, all while bleeding money from loyal players in “micro” transactions

the arcana literally added a $99.99 coins option on their latest update

in case it hasn’t sunk in yet: you can pay a hundred dollars upfront to the arcana, and you still will not have access to the whole game

there is no defense to this

none

“it’s free stop whining” let me explain:

“spend months on end accumulating fake currency or pay hundreds of dollars up-front to be able to play” is a scummy business model no matter how you look at it

if i can spend $60 upfront to play an AAA game there’s no excuse to demand more than that for a game with much smaller and, honestly, inferior content

the combination of there being already far and few games featuring lgbt characters and characters of color AND the little cult of personality set up by Dana and Elle makes people feel that spending money to support them is an acceptable expense.

it’s not

manipulating people into spending ridiculous amounts of money and then claiming “it’s their choice” is just scummy business, baby, and thats all the arcana does

the devs are brats who instead of admitting $500 is absurd for a game instead write petty little caricatures into their game - like, lbr: dana, elle, if i could afford diamonds in my hair i wouldn’t have even bothered with your shitstain of a game

despite bragging that ppl would get the full story w/o needing to pay, the paid scenes are pretty much required - the first few books of julian’s route have no romance without accessing any of the paid options. you dont even get so much as a kiss in without handing coins over. many, many people were baffled when julian had a teary break-up scene when from their perspective they hadn’t even started building a relationship.

wow that’s more than i ever thought it’d be

and i’ve been aware of their bullshit for near a whole year now!

i don’t have much of a note to end this on, other than: the arcana just isn’t even that good. it suffers from weak writing, pathetic character development and above all actually harmful content. do not try to argue with me on any of these points unless you’ve read all of that, because whatever you have to say i’ve likely mentioned before. if you still are that determined to yell at a me on the internet, please preface your argument with the phrase “I’m a pee pee poo poo man” so I know you’ve read everything in here. thank you!

[austenpoppy]

Mental Torture in the Wizarding World (2.2.)

Please read "Mental Torture in the Wizarding World (1) and "Mental Torture in the Wizarding World (2.1) first.

Mental Torture: A Critique of Erasures in U.S. Law by David Luban and Henry Shue

"We conclude by examining the specific evil of mental torture: the merciless attempt to break down and occupy the personality of the victim.Torture can be psychological as well as physical. Prolonged isolation, sensory deprivation, humiliation and sexual degradation, close confinement in coffin-like boxes, and threats to yourself or those you love, all produce horrific mental suffering."

"Regrettably, the law defining mental pain and suffering is itself so flawed that the torture lawyers had little need for frivolous interpretations to absolve interrogators inflicting systematic humiliation, prolonged isolation, threats to “disappear” a detainee, sleep deprivation, and other techniques of psychological torture."

"In our ordinary language view, mental pain and suffering simply means the kind of pain or suffering we describe using psychological terms like “anxiety,” “terror,” “humiliation,” “despondency,” “broken-heartedness,” “grief,” etc. (We wish we had a handy categorical way of describing these, but we do not). What makes them mental is that the terms name emotional states; what makes them pain and suffering is that they feel bad; and what makes them severe is how bad they feel. There may be vagueness here, but there is no mystery."

"People also often say that what they fear is not so much death but dying. It is one thing to have gone, it is another to continue to survive but in despair and with no grounds for hope."

A8. Induced desperation: arbitrary arrest; indefinite detention; random punishment or reward; forced feeding; implanting sense of guilt, abandonment, or “learned helplessness.” A9. Threats: to self or to others, threats of death, physical torture, or rendition; mock executions; forced witnessing of torture (visually or aurally). A13. Pharmacological Manipulation: nontherapeutic use of drugs or placebos."

And now I want to give you some examples of mental torture which have been realised in Guantanamo, quoted in the same study above :

"Finding #16b: On 06 Dec 02, the subject of the first Special Interrogation Plan was forced to wear a woman’s bra and had a thong placed on his head during the course of the interrogation.

Finding #16c: On 17 Dec 02, the subject of the first Special Interrogation Plan was told that his mother and sister were whores.

Finding #16d: On 17 Dec 02, the subject of the first Special Interrogation Plan was told that he was a homosexual, had homosexual tendencies, and that other detainees had found out about these tendencies." ( NB : Not that being homosexual is bad, not at all, but it was used as an insult aiming to confuse the detainee)

This one particularly striked me : Consider another threat made to Slahi: Interrogator’s colleagues are sick of hearing the same lies over and over and are seriously considering washing their hands of him. Once they do so, he will disappear and never be heard from again. Interrogator assured detainee again to use his imagination to think of the worst possible scenario he could end up in. He told Detainee that beatings and physical pain are not the worst thing in the world. After all, after being beaten for a while, humans tend to disconnect the mind from the body and make it through. However, there are worse things than physical pain. Interrogator assured Detainee that, eventually, he will talk, because everyone does. But until then, he will very soon disappear down a very dark hole. His very existence will become erased. His electronic files will be deleted from the computer, his paper files will be packed up and filed away, and his existence will be forgotten by all. No one will know what happened to him and, eventually, no one will care.This horrifying threat, too, was deemed not to “rise to the level of torture under U.S. law”— probably correctly, because of the materialist bias in the law, and because threats of oblivion are not threats of death, torture, or drugging."

Threats of oblivion. Affirmations that no one cares and that he is nothing. Does that ring a bell ? My head was spinning when I read this.

Did it remind me of a seventeen-years-old boy, sunk on his knees in the snow ? Yes it did.

Did it remind me of a young boy thinking that his own mother didn't really like him, thought echoed by the locket ? Yes it did.

Did it remind me of a young boy thinking that no one cared about him and that no one would ever care about him, that no one would ever love him, thoughts echoed by the locket ? Yes it did.

Did it remind me of a young boy thinking that he was unworthy of love and friendship, thought repeated by the locket ? Yes it did.

Did it remind me of a young boy thinking that he was nothing, thought repeated by the locket ? Yes it did.

We can add that Voldemort also made threats to the members of his family, that they would die and suffer, as the night he left shows.

And don't tell me Voldemort didn't implant a sense of guilt and helplessness into Ron. The way he speaks in the Goblin's Revenge speaks volume : "Don't expect me to skip up and down the tent because there's some other damn thing we've got to find. Just add it to the list of stuff you don't know", "It's not like I'm not having the time of my life here (...) you know, with my my arm mangled and nothing to eat and freezing my backside off everynight. I just hoped, you know, after we'd been running round a few weeks, we'd have achieved something", "we're about as near getting rid of it as we are to finding the rest of them - nowhere effing near, in other words" "Yeah, maybe I will (go home) (...) Didn't you hear what they said about my sister ?" "Oh, you're sure, are you ? Right then, I won't bother about them."

And I'd like to precise that even J.K.R referred to the scene in the Silver Doe as torture : "The thing that had lives in the Horcrux had vanished; torturing Ron had been its final act."

At last, the goal of Voldemort. Voldemort wanted to break Ron. Voldemort was actively trying to break the Trio and especially Ron because Voldemort had succeded in opening the door to Ron's cell (I will have to comment on why Ron got tortured and not the others but that won't be today).

Voldemort was trying to break Ron's resistance by first implanting him a sense of guilt and helplessness, then adding threats to his family and using his terrors and fears to torture him, threatening him of oblivion, and ultimately telling him that it was Harry's fault, which would lead to Ron's possession. Under possession, Ron would kill Harry, and afrer the self-loathing would be so huge that he would kill hilself.

That was the plan of Voldemort, as attests the fact that during The Silver Doe Ron's eyes were red and that the moment they turned red Ron turned his head towards Harry. Moreover, during the Goblin's revenge, Ron focuses his accusations on Harry.

In the Goblin's Revenge, Voldemort, after having pushed Ron to attack Harry, took the opportunity given by Harry to get rid of Ron - which was not as efficient as his former plan to take down the Trio but still very, very useful.

Now that we are aware of the fact that Ron has been tortured, let's be reminded that after having fled his torturer he came back. I wish I could say I would have had the same courage, but I don't think I would have been able to do what he has done.

He came back, with the certitude that he would never be forgiven by Harry and Hermione, who probably didn't care anymore about him if they ever did, who were probably better off without him.

He came back with the lingering effects the Horcrux had on him, his already crippling low self-esteem shattered in pieces of self-loathing.

He came back knowing that he would probably have to wear that locket again. Let me repeat : he came back knowing that he would have to suffer terribly again.

I am currently crying. So much courage... I am just speechless.

Sooo, I'm going to tell you why I have concluded that Harry has not been tortured by the locket.

I had very quickly get Hermione off the list, because the effects did not seem so visible and destructive on her...

But Harry... The sense of helplessness was very present in his mind, the feelings of distrust on the verge of paranoia towards Hermione and Ron as well (p.237-238), and the mood swings... Have you seen the way he yelled at Ron even if he was not wearing the locket (p.235) ? He was honestly as irritable as Ron in the few scenes of the Goblin's Revenge showed on screen.

The doubts implanted in Harry's mind - clearly a fear of being abandoned- were, as for Ron, already present and the locket toyed with it. It toyed with it so much that Harry, the night Ron left, acted upon those doubts - he taunted Ron to leave and acted out of anger and fear - up to the point that Harry was clearly not Harry anymore. The way he spoke to Ron was absolutely awful.

However, I will call it manipulation, abuse even if you want, but not torture. Because the pain he felt was just not on par with Ron's. Ron said it himself : "it affects me worse than it affected you and Hermione." Even through Harry's eyes, we know the atmosphere is dark, but we don't feel that much emotional pain compared to the Silver Doe for example.

[sleepywoodlouse-blog]

Here’s the thing. I am a transgender man (see photo of my mug for context). I love all trans people and I love non binary people. But lately some of my trans spaces (both on the web and irl) that are mainly non binary have started to feel a little hostile. I want to make something perfectly clear before I continue - I love and respect non binary people, I think their genders are valid and I am in no way suggesting they are any less important that myself or any other binary trans person. I also need you to understand that this isn’t meant to be a post calling out non binary people at all, it is just me talking about my personal experiences in the hope that it can get people to be a little more considerate sometimes? In university spaces, it seems that there is a growing population of non binary people that tends to dominate trans groups. Which is good in lots of ways, especially since it shows how this generation has become much more relaxed and aware that gender is a construct and fluidity is key. However, amongst people I know there is a lot of 'ew gross men', or 'ew gross trans men that are masculine', while at the same time being predominantly DFAB populations. Now trust me, I very much understand the dislike a lot of dfab trans people have of men. A lot of us are survivors and I think that does play a big part in how we feel about the gender overall. Not to mention it is not uncommon for men to be, for lack of a better word- wankers. However, I don’t think people consider trans men when we are talking about this. Making a comment like 'ew men are so fucking gross' to a room of trans people means that to a trans man you are saying one of two things - 1) you are gross, or 2) you aren’t gross because you’re not a Real Man, and you are excluded from this statement because you are and always will be, partly a woman. Even now I feel uncomfortable 'complaining' about this. I have to remind myself that just as suggesting that a trans woman is somehow different to other women would be considered incredibly offensive, so is it for trans men. I didn’t realise how much this stuff affected me until it did. Constantly being around people that talk about, how body hair on men is gross, masculinity is by default toxic, making jokes about my masculinity being toxic when I excitedly tell people that I’ve started going to the gym and its making me feel better about my body. No, it’s not funny. It’s MY dysphoria I’m trying to ease. I as a trans person want to feel supported and loved when I do things that have a chance of making me feel good about my body. It hit me like a brick wall when I realised how much it had affected me. I was with my partner, and was trying to have sex, but I just broke down. I felt so incredibly disgusted with my body and myself. So much hair, so masculine. The noises I made, gross. The way I touched him, creepy. I couldn’t get out of my head the idea that later in life he would talk to people about how gross and unshaven I was, just like I had heard friends describe ex boyfriends so many times before. I felt cheated because these were the changes I WANTED my body to make. But now they felt ruined. Spoiled. It was after that realisation that I decided I had to get out. I stopped going to some of student socials and instead started attending a group for older trans people. It was so refreshing to meet other trans men for once (just because I rarely meet them at uni, and it was nice to talk to someone similar.) It was awesome to be around people who weren’t shitty about trans people being stealth (as I remember I once was.) There are some important things to take away from all of this: 1) Telling trans boys and men that they are disgusting for wanting to be like men will only destroy self esteem and feed into the toxic environment that a lot of cis boys grow up in. 2) Non binary people are extremely valid and awesome, but also must accept they have a responsibility to cultivate a supportive and friendly atmosphere in spaces where they are dominant (I put this in here for university spaces especially) 3) Laughing at a trans man/woman for being excessively masc/fem presenting if you are a dfab nb person who mainly presents as fem or androgynous is facetious and not respecting that they may have to present that way to stay safe, (especially in the case of trans women that may be more 'obviously trans') and that despite suffering prejudice in many ways, the one thing you are not realistically facing is street violence and such because you inevitably are not going to be clocked as trans. (which yes, does NOT make your transness invalid but we have to respect the different struggles people in our community face.) 4) Someone being stealth does not mean they are adhering to 'toxic gender roles'. It means they are either 1) trying to be safe or 2) surprise surprise they want to live their life as the gender they identify with. Trans people are not less legitimately trans because you think they are 'acting cis'. 5) Being a binary trans person does not give you privilege over nb people. Like seriously, trans women are literally the most likely to be murdered. Don’t be a dick. Erasure is a problem yes but it’s not the same. I read names out at the TDOR vigil and pretty much all of them were trans women of colour. Respect that. Help the community. This isn’t about scoring points over who has it the shittiest. 6) The idea that the only good kinda of trans men are 'soft sensitive kinda trans masc guys that don’t have surgeries and shave all their body hair' is shitty and offensive (tho that kind of trans man is totally valid, that not what i mean). Its shitty because one you’re sexualising them either as more childlike or more feminine (both is rude, former is creepy), but its perpetuating the idea that trans men aren’t really men and the best ones are the ones that YOU think still kinda look suitably enough like women.