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autolenaphilia · 1 year

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I’ve recently seen some The Rocky Horror Picture Show discourse. And like people are questioning if Rocky Horror is transmisogynistic. Of course it does. Dr. Frank-N-Furter is intentionally a transmisogynistic villain. That’s the point.

It’s intended as ironic of course, as deliberate camp. The musical is intended as a parody of old sci-fi and horror movies, mixed with a camp drag aesthetic inspired by the contemporary glam rock movement. The mad scientist villains in the movies being parodied were often queer-coded, and vaguely effeminate.

So to parody that, Frank-n-Furter goes far beyond the queer-coding, and is outrageously effeminate and evil. He rapes people, kills them with an axe and serves them for dinner and force-fems them to take part in his climactic stage show. He is a Frankenstein parody, who literally makes an artificial man in order to fuck him (a joke about Frankenstein I’ve seen on tumblr). And does it all while wearing stockings, a bustier and heavy make-up. He is deliberately the ultimate evil man in a dress trope, referencing Psycho and all effeminate mad scientists in media.

That Frank-N-Furter isn’t explicitly a trans woman doesn’t matter. The musical deliberately blurs the line. The line “I’m just a sweet transvestite, from Transsexual, Transylvania” is like a perfect encapsulation of how horror movies treat transfemininity. “Men in dresses” (transvestites) trans women (transsexual) and a symbol of predatory horror movie villainy (Transylvania) are all conflated, making a pun of out how they all begin with “trans”.

Of course, it’s intended to be ironic. It’s a parody of queer-coded villainy in old horror movies by turning it up to eleven, so that you can’t take it seriously. The whole movie has this drag show camp aesthetic that it celebrates, and the supposed representatives of heteronormativity, Brad and Janet are turned in the end. Frank-N-Furter becomes a symbol of a hedonistic queer liberation “Give yourself over to absolute pleasure.. Don’t dream it, be it.”

This is the clear intent of Rocky Horror, and it’s how it became a “queer classic”. Does it work? I’ll admit that I enjoy the movie version. The glam rock aesthetic is fun, the songs are catchy, and they keep coming at a quick pace. A lot of it is admittedly that I love the old horror and sci-fi movies it’s parodying, so my cultural touchstones are similar. I’m the kind of person to get a thrill out of knowing that Frank-N-Furter at one point uses the exact same prop that Peter Cushing used in the second Hammer Frankenstein movie.

That is a different question however from how well it succeeds at subverting the transmisogynistic tropes it handles. Even in the most sympathetic possible account of the musical, it’s doing the equivalent of handling live grenades. Is it the creators tropes to subvert in the first place? Is it the fans?

Let’s talk about Rocky Horror’s creator, Richard O’Brien. He is certainly a weird and contradictory person, he identifies as a third gender and “70% male and 30% female“, and is using estrogen. So arguably he is a transfem enby and thus transmisogyny-affected. But he’s also a transmisogynist who doesn’t believe trans women are “real women”.( I would like to know what exact percentage of “female” as a transfem person turns you into a bad fake trans woman.)

Of course the important thing about O’Brien is that he is rich. He is in a vastly different class position than the majority of transfems. So while he may be taking estrogen and living as a third gender, he is simultaneously isolated by his own wealth from the effects of the transmisogyny he bolsters in the media (see Caitlyn Jenner for another example of a wealthy transfem doing the same thing).

And O’Brien is rich because Rocky Horror is a huge success. The stage show has seen tons of productions, the original ran for 7 years in the West End, and the movie is a slow but certain money maker, with probably the longest theatrical run out of any movie in history. He is swimming in residuals.

This raises the more interesting question of Rocky Horror’s position in the wider culture, and it’s status as “queer media”. It’s a movie which is just not passively watched but celebrated and performed by its fandom. People show up in cosplay to showings, “shadow casts” perform while the movie plays. And of course the original stage musical is still performed.

So we have to ask ourselves, what are people performing? And who is performing it? And I’ve already answered the former question earlier. Rocky Horror is largely an ironic performance of transmisogyny. And the fact is, the majority of people doing that performance are not the main targets of transmisogyny. They are largely TME cishet, queer and trans people. It’s “ironic” transmisogyny to be sure, I think most fans of Rocky Horror who have any understanding of what it is doing view Frank-N-Furter as the true hero of the show. But is it really their thing to be ironic about? Are transmisogyny-exempt people really the people who should reclaim with irony and camp transmisogynistic tropes in horror media? I don’t think so, and that’s why there is so much resentment about Rocky Horror from transfems. And it’s creator doesn’t help, because while he’s arguably transfem, he also spreads transmisogyny in the media.

It illustrates a lot of things, for example how imprecise “queer” is as a description of people. It’s an umbrella term, and does group together people who have much in common. But it also erases the material differences within the community. Queer people aren’t all equally oppressed.

So Rocky Horror status as queer media, as a campy celebration of queerness and parody of anti-queer tropes in genre films is kinda grating. Because it enables TME queer people to perform and celebrate Rocky Horror, because they are queer and it’s about “queerness”, when there are specifically transmisogynistic tropes parodied in the musical. It isn’t really their place to do so.

It appropriates specific transmisogynistic tropes in the media by thoughtlessly subsuming it into the general anti-queerness which it is part of.

Of course there are transfems who got to explore their gender at Rocky Horror showings. But I think the reason they did that is because mtf crossdressing is accepted as part of a camp ironic performance in such a context. It makes it feel safer to perform femininity in public, because you can backtrack and say it’s purely ironic. That’s no different from the comedy crossdressing in American Halloween parties, and I think we can all agree those are often transmisogynistic.

And of course, Rocky Horror is an example of how cis men can perform femininity, and get celebrated for it in mainstream society, while escaping the effects of transmisogyny that transfems experience, and in fact often furthering that transmisogyny. It’s often a (negative) performance of transfemininity, in which actual transfems play no part and are mocked.

Tim Curry is a very good example. He made his career from playing Frank-N-Furter, and he probably couldn’t have done that if he was actually transfem, and not just crossdressing for an ironic performance on stage and screen. Like I don’t have anything against him in particular, quite the opposite, he’s one of my favourite actors, love him in everything from Clue to Muppet Treasure Island to Gabriel Knight. My objection is to the patriarchal and transmisogynistic system that favors cishet men like him.

Speaking of crossdressing on stage, the drag culture which Rocky Horror is inspired by of course has a complex history. It’s deeply rooted in both African-American and queer culture, and transfems have played major roles in drag. But Rocky Horror is if anything even an appropriation of drag culture. It represents drag’s commercialization and recuperation into the mainstream. It took drag out of the gay bars being raided by the police and onto the more respectable West End stage, making a lot of money in the process.

Rocky Horror beyond any qualities it has as a stage and film musical, due to its popularity represents a lot of complex issues. It’s important to queer culture, but it also represents the commercialization and recuperation of queer drag into the cishet mainstream. And within the queer community, it is a shining example of how TME queers can appropriate specifically transfem struggles as their own. It shows how cis men can gain wealth and fame performing transmisogynistic caricatures (even if they are ironic and don’t mean it).

I’m not saying if you enjoy the musical that you should stop enjoying it. But maybe if you are TME, Dr Frank-N-Furter is not your “problematic queer icon” to reclaim.

#my writings #transmisogyny #the rocky horror picture show #the rocky horror show

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etherealspacejelly · 4 months

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Neopronouns are not even real pronouns. A pronoun is a noun used to describe a living being. They/Them is fine, they are real pronouns used in the English language. And yes, while I think there is no possible way for someone who has boy or girl genes to actually be non-binary, I will respect them as a person. But, neopronouns, however, are way over the top. I’ve seen people online who identify as like, xe/xem. That’s ridiculous, they’re not even a part of the English language. I’ve seen one person who identified as shark/sharkself. That is so annoying. I’m not gonna call you “shark” bro. Nobody is gonna call you that, except for maybe people as delusional as you. So, I’m conclusion, yes, neopronouns are ridiculous and stupid and unnecessary. Whoever uses them certainly needs mental help, but instead we are celebrating and giving them parades and telling them it’s fine and not stupid at all to identify as a fucking shark.

That being said, if we Normalize these outrageous neopronouns, I don't think I'll be able to handle meeting another three or more person with unique neopronouns, I don’t think I'll care about memorizing them if we don’t get along. I can only imagine that inside their head they are going like “Why can’t everyone understand me? why can’t anyone respect me? why can’t anyone get along with me? me… me…me…”. This is just starting to become a narcissistic play. It’s just sad that you yourself are intentionally creating a situation that excludes you from other people. You are making yourself too different, you eventually get depressed, commit die and well, will anybody care about you in the end?

Pronouns replace nouns and they are a part of a language. Not something we just make up because we think we are more special than anyone else.

Also, this stuff only appeals to children, or adults with some sort of arrested development. No mature human being would want to go by “cupcakeself”.

We all have names. If you want to rebel against pronouns why can’t you just use your name? Be “Johnself” or “Sallyself” or something people can remember. We aren’t going to trouble ourselves to memorize some made up nounself words.

You’re lucky if we can remember your name let alone some made up ridiculousness.

I hope everyone with neopronouns die.

hey anon. anon. just a question for you. does that Actually Genuinely affect you? like at all? do you know anyone in real life who uses neopronouns? or is it just people online who are literally just minding their business. hmm?

also. all words are made up dingus it came free with your fucking language. we make up words all the time. selfie is in the dictionary now. it wasnt 50 years ago. does that make it not a real word? no. it does not. because language is a tool used by human beings to describe ourselves and the world around us, and to communicate ideas and knowledge. do you think we just. found a dictionary under a rock one day?

if neopronouns bother you that much, just block people who use them. block the neopronoun tag. or perhaps just get off tumblr. touch some grass. focus on a real problem instead of people online using words you dont like. there are people dying right now anon. the planet is on fire. sharkself pronouns arent hurting you.

also. you said that neopronouns only appeal to children, then said that all neopronoun users should die. so... you think children should die? you want children to kill themselves anon? is that what you want? you seem like a lovely person /s

and seeing as you mentioned nonbinary people. you know that there are more sexes than just male and female right? like biologically. they taught you male and female in school to simplify things for your developing brain, like how they tell you that electrons are particles and you cant square root -1. but once you start studying these things at a more in depth level, you realise that they arent that simple at all. biological sex exists on a spectrum. it is a collection of attributes that can behave any number of ways. including hormones, genitalia, chromosomes, secondary sex characteristics, and more.

furthermore, gender and sex are not the same thing. but i cant be bothered to explain that to you because you will refuse to understand it anyway, and ive wasted enough time talking to you as it is.

if you send me anything like this again im just going to delete it, but i wanted to at least try and talk some sense into you first.

#inbox #ask #inbox open #neopronouns #tw suicide #tw transphobia

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pinkmandias · 10 months

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i was sifting through a bunch of jesse hate (for an edit not bc i’m obsessed😭) and the gist of what i got was just. a willful misunderstanding of his character, his trauma, and his naivety/innocence in regards to his age/the power imbalance present within his relationship with walt and like. almost everyone else on the show.

obviously all of the people that loathe him and have paragraphs upon paragraphs of misinterpretations & simplifications of his arc to spew online are all people that love & identify with walter (surprise surprise), but i feel like it’s also so very reminiscent of the shit i noticed these last two years with certain media where a large portion of audience is both too stupid to recognize nuances present in writing & leans heavily on their confirmation bias.

and on that note, what was not shocking to me was how many of these complaints could be boiled down to him getting in walt’s way, making things more difficult for walt, or subverting walt’s authority. it’s incredibly similar to the hatred for skyler that has only recently begun to taper off (or at least take different forms or been redirected to other characters - like jane). jesse shares significantly more similarities with female characters in brba than any male character, and i think it’s only because he is not a woman (whereas skyler is) that jesse hate was not more prevalent while the show was airing/i see more of it now than ever.

jesse is a pussy, he’s a little bitch, he’s weak, he cries too much - because it’s not “manly” for him to feel remorse and to be destroyed by guilt. when he self destructs it’s selfish and when he lashes out he’s ungrateful. never mind the fact that he has been through more than enough to deeply traumatize even the most well adjusted individual by s3, much less at the end of his captivity by s5. with no one to turn to, no one to talk to, no one to comfort him. he’s neglected time and time again by the man who, from the very beginning, violated & disrespected his boundaries, his belongings, his personal life, his home, his time & has (both intentionally and unintentionally) methodically chipped away at any meaningful relationship jesse had or could have & left him with nothing but Him, nurturing a deadly codependency. he has at least two members of walt’s family being projected onto him as well as the role of a student & business partner. perfect obedience & perfect fulfillment of these roles is expected, but not praised.

would you not also be a little bitchy sometimes? do impulsive & risky things to gain attention or love or some semblance of power in your otherwise powerless life? would you not fall prey to fleeting affection given by a dying man (with the same sickness as your late aunt that you shared a home with and loved so dearly that you spent her remaining time on this earth by her side, taking care of her) when that affection is so heady? when you have nothing and no one else??

it always circles back around to “he knew what he was getting into”, “he deserved xyz”, “he could have stopped at any time”, and “why didn’t he just leave” - just like with skyler. i don’t think i have to explain why those comments are so disturbing & i don’t think it’s difficult at all to understand why he cries or bitches so much…

anyway, i’ll conclude this post with these quotes because i think it says a lot that the only character vince remembers the audience hating so much is skyler -

#sympathizing with jesse and skyler is HUMAN so it does actually disturb me when people twist canon to make them out be the true villains #in s1 when jesse asks to talk about what happened and says ‘it’s not like we can talk to anyone else’ i just. shuddered… my poor sweet lamb #u have no clue what’s coming #long post #oh it speaks #jesse #brbabcs #jesse pinkman #breaking bad #meta #no clue if this is readable but i’m gonna start tagging my word vomit soon. maybe #skyler white

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canonicallysoulmates · 5 months

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J2 Jaxcon Gold Panel 2023

How has working with women in the SPN group of actors affected them in a male-dominated society?

One of the things Jared is very proud of, and thinks SPN did very well, is that it pointed out how strong you are and can be no matter what you look like, your gender, or your sexuality. So, having done the show from age 22 to 38 it was awesome, not just in the way the characters were written but to meet people like Kim Rhodes, Briana Buckmaster, Felicia Day, G, and D. He adds that being on a set, male or female or however you wanna identify as, it’s difficult. It’s not that they all go play pretend and then it’s lollipops and candy canes, it’s shitty hours. He shares a story about how when they were filming Bugs it was raining torrentially, and they were filming outside and Kim Manners, who was directing, gave them umbrellas.

But the next day the dailies went to Kripke and told him that Sam and Dean hunt what goes bump in the night they don’t use umbrellas so for the next 14yrs no matter rain or shine, sun or snow, they didn’t use umbrellas. They got used to it but when they would have someone over for an ep or more they would be ask, “why don’t you have umbrellas?” and he'd tell them to ask Kripke. He’ll speak for both he and Jensen, the way they were raised with strong women in their family, mothers, and sisters they never doubted the strength of women and furthermore having seen their wives go through childbirth it becomes very clear they (men) are the weaker sex. And that it was an honor to work with amazing people.

Jensen says Jared is right, and he will say the set they worked on was on for so many years that it didn’t matter who walked through the door, where they were from, what they looked like, how they identified or any of that stuff because they were already part of the team. They got to play together and create together, and some people rose above others and those are largely the ones you see on con stages. Guys and girls, and the ones who stick around, and still speak about this do so for a reason, it didn't matter if it was a male-dominated show or a male-dominated society, it wasn’t something they necessarily noticed they just saw a teammate coming on to set and they got to play, and some were really fun to play with and they're still doing it today. x

How many seagulls would they have to find in their house before they started getting suspicious that someone was putting them there?

Jared says one. He lives inland in Texas, he hasn’t seen a seagull in 38yrs.

Jensen says 14 cause if it's a flock of seagulls, like 6 or 12 of them, if the door was open maybe they could have gotten in but if there's 14 somebody is up to something. x

Next fan has two questions: Did they enjoy their whiskey? And does Jensen have a favorite song of his? Whether it's a collab he's done or something with Radio Company.

The question about the whiskey is because the fan had gifted them like a seven-gallon Canadian Club Whiskey which Jared says they had not tried just yet.

As for Jensen's favorite song first, he says he doesn't know but then one of the fans mentions Angeles and he says that he likes Angeles because he thinks that’s probably the first time he put himself out there in that way which was a little scary but he had some good encouragement from some good friends so it does hold a special place for him.

Jared says remembers that day vividly because Jensen did that on set in the same place they would do their voiceover. Jensen explains that Don Painchaud their sound mixer on set had a soundproof truck that they would do their voice-over recording in while filming so they’d be on set, take a break, and hop over to do voice-over work for an episode that was previously filmed. So Jensen told him he had a buddy coming over and they were looking to lay down some vocal tracks for a song and asked if they could do that in the truck and Don agreed, and also got them a fancy vintage recording mic and set it up because he's an avid collector of vintage mics.

Jared asks Jensen if he remembers who filmed the scenes inside the truck and Jensen says 'you'. This is such a cute moment, it's clear they both have a soft spot for this song and music video.

Jared says it was a small space and if you even breathed it picks it up because it picks up everything so he’s trying to do cool shit but his keys are jingling in his pocket- Jensen says Jared is effectively a moose in a china shop. x

Have they had any supernatural experiences themselves?

Jared tells a story about how when he and G went to Edinburgh a couple of weeks back they were staying in a refurnished castle and their room was haunted. While they were unpacking G went 'I think our room is haunted', and he replied that he knew; they went out to dinner, came back and the curtains were opening and closing, lights were turning on and off, the bathroom light started leaking water so they’re in bed, and Jared says out loud 'hey we see you, we hear you, we know you're here, can we talk tomorrow?' and it all stopped until the next day.

Jensen says their house in Austin was built in 1920 and they’ve been doing some refurnishing and remodeling and stuff with it, and they had some of the workers quit on the job without saying why, the project manager said they had to do some work on another project but then they found out they had seen some things on the third floor. In the 50s it used to be a multi-unit and there was an apartment on the third floor so they had reportedly seen something or someone. He says D got a medium to come over, he was out of town, but allegedly the medium went over and when she went to the third floor she said that there was bad energy and that's where he had hurt her. He starts to say something about the drywall being down to the studs but immediately after he says the word studs he tells Jared 'don't say it' because he knew Jared was going to jump on the chance to make a joke and he was right 😂

Anyway, the medium makes this rice mixture and she does some incantations and they put the whole thing down on the porch and it's supposed to make the spirits leave the house. The next day it was all gone. x

If they had one song they could listen to over and over again for the rest of their life, no other music, what would it be?

Jared says it probably changes on a semi-regular basis but he’s gonna go with Hey Jude. Jensen says Stairway because there's so much going on it's an epic tune. x

Were there ever discussions about doing a Bobby and Rufus spinoff?

Jared says he would watch that.

Jensen answers he thinks there were discussions of doing something but he doesn’t know if it was a full spinoff or adding another story arc to focus on them but a lot of ideas got tossed around.

Jared says much to the credit of the writer's part of wonderful storytelling is everybody gets to imagine what happens when the cameras aren’t rolling. That’s one of the magic parts of this 15-year journey he and Jensen went through is we all get to imagine what it's like when we don't see the characters for a while; but if Jim Beaver and Steven Williams decide to share a screen together he's tuning in. x

What would be their favorite skittle flavor?

There is context behind this question, the reason for it is due to Jensen’s Soldier Boy cameo in The Boy’s spinoff Gen V.....I'm gonna let y'all look that one up.

Jared answers musk....you know if you keep the reference in mind....I'm not gonna say anything I'm just gonna raise my eyebrow and move on 🤨

Jared's explanation for his answer is that it'd be like the Harry Potter jellybeans. I say this with affection, Jared you are into some freaky shit cause musk, musk would be your favorite flavor...not even scent, flavor....

Jensen says he’ll be honest there's not a specific flavor but the wildberry Skittles pack beats them all. x

J2 Gold Panel Jaxcon '23

#j2 tinhat #j2 #non iwtv #mine

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batboyblog · 3 months

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Transgender teen boys and nonbinary youth who were assigned female at birth are at least as likely as cisgender girls to become pregnant, but they don’t always receive appropriate sex education. A health organization is looking to change that, with help from a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The grant of $698,736 went to the Center for Innovative Public Health Research, based in San Clemente, Calif. The center will take a sexual health program designed to be inclusive of lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth and adapt it to reach transmasculine and nonbinary teens. The new program will be known as #TranscendentHealth. “Youth who are assigned female at birth (AFAB) and identify as non-binary or as trans boys are at risk for negative sexual health outcomes yet are effectively excluded from sexual health programs because gender-diverse youth do not experience the cisgender, heteronormative teen sexual education messaging available to them as salient or applicable,” says a description of the program on the center’s website. “This lack of programming is likely contributing to obstacles to sexual health: Data suggest that AFAB trans-identified youth may be less likely to use condoms when having sex with people who have penises and are at least as likely as cisgender girls to be pregnant,” it continues. #TranscendentHealth seeks to address this with inclusive education and support, plus promotion of condom use. The needs of youth vary across the nation, depending on the region and whether they live in an urban or a rural setting, so the program will be tailored to meet those different needs. Such a program is needed more than ever now that some states are preventing teens from accessing sexual health information and gender-affirming care, the description notes. The program will be based on the center’s work with Girl2Girl, a project designed to provide sexual health info to gay, lesbian, and bi cisgender teen girls through text messaging. It was associated with higher condom use in penile-vaginal sex as well as higher use of other types of contraception, according to the center. To adapt this into a trans-inclusive program, the center will convene focus groups to identify the factors that affect sexual health decisions among AFAB trans and nonbinary youth. It will monitor how these young people respond to the material and will ultimately test its effectiveness among 700 teens. The goals include increased use of condoms and other means of contraception, uptake of testing for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections, and, where needed, use of pre-exposure prophylaxis to prevent HIV transmission. The work began in September and will continue through June 30, 2027.

Boys, please have safe sex out there.

#Trans #Transgender #transmasc #transmasculine #trans boy #sex education #Joe Biden #trans healthcare #trans positivity #trans ed

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genderqueerdykes · 10 months

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Hey! Sorry if this is too invasive or rude, I certainly don’t intend it. However I am rather ignorant on this point.

I’ve seen a lot of people (from regular folk to actual doctors and endocrinologists) online saying that there’s a load of variations on intersex. One of them being hormonal. I’m a trans guy, it’s how I’ve ID’d for over a decade and I’m pre-T. I had some blood tests done and it turns out my natural testosterone levels are in the average to high range of a healthy cis male my age. And besides some rather enlarged bottom stuff and facial hair, thats it. I was still assigned female at birth. I’m still gonna keep identifying myself as male, but I was just curious - in situations like that, can a person *really* be intersex? I saw a doc saying so but unfortunately I’m a sceptical bastard and thought I’d ask someone who actually IS intersex.

Sorry for the rambling. Again, I mean no offense nor do I wanna start anything; I was genuinely just curious about that aspect since, according to some folk *I* am intersex(?). Also, I wanna be a better ally and, therefore, better educated on the topic. Have a lovely day and thanks for all you do on here!!

hey there! i think i get what you're saying

honestly i am not sure why there is a sentiment that there is any kind of difference between hormonal and "biological" intersex variations, because it doesn't make any sense. hormonal variations would naturally fall under a "biological" intersex variation, as sex organs are involved in the production of sex hormones, and all of this is biology.

even if some folks do not have "abnormal" hormones for their agab and only have variations in their genitals, this does not make them "more" intersex than someone who just has a hormonal variation. we are all intersex, there's no line in the sand to be drawn, there's a very wide gradient of conditions and variations that can be present independently of or alongside one another and there's no reason to pit them against each other

i would definitely say it sounds like you would fall into intersex territory, or at least, very well possibly could. it sounds like you are possibly dealing with hyperandrogenism or something similar, at the very least, which is "abnormally" high production of androgens for your agab. whether or not it's paired with anything else, that is technically considered an intersex condition/variation on its own, especially if it is affecting your primary and secondary sex characteristics. natural bottom growth is definitely a big indicator

whether or not you choose to identify as intersex is up to you, it's not necessary or required, you are the judge at the end of the day. if you don't feel intersex and you feel like this has all just made you a man, then you can identify that way, it's up to you! it definitely sounds like you do fall into intersex territory, but it's ultimately up to you to decide, especially considering you have seen the results from your bloodwork. take care, good luck, let us know if you find anything else out

#asks #answers #intersex #hyperandrogenism

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tequilaasquared · 2 years

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Whilst the BL fandom isn’t particularly huge on tumblr, its much easier to write out more comprehensive and detailed thoughts about serious subjects here than on twitter, and I think today that is needed.

I’m pretty disappointed that the one main takeaway from Aof, Professor Dew, Pompam and Nanon’s discussion of BL being a soft power for Thailand and now having an impact on Thai culture, is that Nanon is heterosexual. It’s pretty ridiculous if I’m being honest.

The talk was just 30 minutes long and yet was incredibly in depth. We were being told the perspectives of an academic, an openly gay Thai director and a well known actor who has acted in a BL.

Nanon was not there to represent the LGBTQ community nor was he talking on their behalf; his answers were from the perspective of a young Thai actor who has grown up during the height of BL popularity and stared in an acclaimed BL which gained international attention this past year.

The four men covered topics such as making BLs more inclusive, it’s affect on lgbtq awareness in Thailand (a pretty conservative country with a ban on gay marriage) and personal stories told to them by people who’s lives have been affected by them.

I’m still kinda shocked Nanon got so much hate for it on Twitter, which sadly took away from the importance of the conversation. I think it’s pretty common knowledge that many BL actors will not be members of the LGBTQ community. Many of them maintain ambiguity to retain fans, many don’t come out because of the fear it could ruin their career. I think Nanon was trying to be as honest as possible, appreciating fans’ love of his friendship with Ohm and saying that he hopes he has provided them some sort of representation and comfort even though he is straight. I think it’s fair to say we’d all like more queer actors to take on queer roles, but that’s not always the reality and many people praised Nanon at the time of Bad Buddy’s airing for his relatable and respectful portrayal of Pran without knowing how he himself identified.

The most ‘controversial’ part of his interview was taken completely out of context by BL fans on twitter. Nanon was asked if growing up he found gay people and culture uncomfortable and he shot that down, making the distinction that he didn’t meet many openly gay people growing up and so gay culture was unfamilar to him. He mentioned educating himself more when he took on the role of Pran, but he never stated, as some people are suggesting, that he only became comfortable with LGBTQ folk when he did Bad Buddy. There was a significant translation error that was only corrected the next day and changed the meaning of some parts of his answer. But the idea that saying you educated and familiarised yourself with a community you yourself are not a part of, through research and friends who are LGBTQ, is somehow an admission that you were previously homophobic is insane to me. I am queer myself and learn new things every day that was previously unfamiliar to me that help me understand others within the community. Does that make me a bigot?

I don’t stan real people, but I have followed Nanon’s career on and off for many years as well as following him on social media. And I’m pretty surprised that he’s became the BL fandom’s new villain because he’s the last person I’d consider in any way problematic when it comes to support and allyship. He’s consistently used his platform to talk about political and social issues (including the issues faced by members of the LGBTQ community in Thailand), he’s secure in his sexuality and is very openly physically affectionate with many men, he’s spoken out about how he was a sensitive and emotional kid and made more female friends than male ones because he found girls were less harsh and easier to get along with than boys, and will comment on how handsome his male friends are from time to time on social media. He made a comment several years ago that he didn’t really watch BLs because he didn’t usually find the topics interesting, but still listed off his favourite queer Thai directors and movies/series. Regardless of his level of knowledge, he’s always been open minded and respectful; you have to be to learn about topics you don’t have an understanding of.

Nanon didn’t use BLs and fan service to make a name for himself; his big break was arguably The Gifted and he also became popular as a musician. He chose to take a role in Bad Buddy because he liked the script, he had wanted to work with Director Aof and he wanted to collaborate again with his friend Ohm Pawat. The idea that he used Bad Buddy as some sort of popularity stepping stone is silly.

And this not to say that BL series are somehow a lesser form of television entertainment. There’s nothing wrong with making your name in BL. There’s nothing wrong with solely acting in BLs. They bring a lot of comfort and entertainment to a lot of marginalised people. It’s the fact that he’s being accused of taking advantage of the LGBTQ community to gain popularity and followers because of this one answer, that I take issue with.

In a way I understand the knee jerk reaction from queer BL fans online; many of them were forming opinions based on one out of context screenshot. Some watched a clip of his full answer but still criticised him. The clip itself still didn’t explain the context of the question and answer which was all about the importance of Thai BL as a way to familIarise the average Thai with the LGBTQ community. Nanon specifically mentioned an example where he was told a mother and her queer daughter both watched Bad Buddy as a way to understand each other. This was the whole point of the talk.

I’m not saying his answers were perfect, or that he was the best representative for BL actors at this specific talk, or that hes fully knowledgeable about the LGBTQ community. But the vitriol I’ve seen the past few days is unbelievable. The fact that many of the accounts who posted the most viral tweets have since been informed of the mistranslation and yet have not deleted the tweets, spreading misinformation and hate, just shows complete immaturity and ignorance. It screams of fake ‘wokeness’ when these same accounts are fans of BL actors who have been accused of really heinous stuff with the receipts to prove it, and just shows how petty and toxic stan culture is. You don’t have to like the guy, but spreading stuff like this can be akin to defamation. And it’s unfair.

#bl drama #nanon korapat #bad buddy #vice versa #ohmnanon #sorry this is ridiculously long #but this has been brewing since thursday #i cannot believe i feel the need to defend a straight man #but here we are

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goosiewoo · 1 year

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i went outside and touched grass and i still care about people identifying the way they want. had a situation where this transmasc was bullying this poor kid for not identifying as either cis or trans because that’s “not how it works” and i’m just appalled at how fucking ignorant they are to their own ridiculousness.

labels are there for the individual using the label. what they identify as doesn't concern you or anyone else in the slightest unless that person invites you to be concerned by it. what concerns you is the terms they use and the pronouns they use, but unless they say otherwise, their relationship with their gender identity is theirs, not yours. so many people have such complicated relationships with their gender that can take years to even get the slightest grasp on it. questioning can be stressful, it can make people feel like they're going insane. it can make them depressed. suicidal. just like how you so desperately want to understand other people's identity, they just want to understand theirs which, no offense, is way more important than you understanding it. that's why people create labels for themselves that fit, so they can finally feel comfortable in their identity and have it make sense to them, and it's okay if the labels they choose don't make sense to other people because, like i said, it doesn't affect you at all. it affects them. that experience is not yours to police or say that they're not "following the rules" because gender identity and expression has no rules except for the rules that the individual creates for theirs, but in no way does that give them the right to push their personal rules onto other people just trying to live their life. labels change, and evolve and everyone has their own definitions for those labels, and believe it or not those definitions can peacefully co-exist. the only reason they don't is because you're so insistent on them "making sense" and understanding it when in reality it doesn't matter. none of it matters. we are brains inside of meat sacks all with our individual experiences and no matter what you believe in you cannot force other meat sacks to fit in with your perception of the world, gender or whatever it may be.

people are allowed to be contradictory. they're allowed to not make sense. some people find otherkin/therians weird for identifying as animals because it doesn't "fit" their definition of humanity but you'd think that's wrong of them, so why is this right? their experience is theirs and you should let them spend what little time they have on this planet identifying comfortably in spite of if it fits what you view as the definition of a label, and you should spend what little time you have here worrying about your own life and not stressing so hard over other people "not making sense." disagreeing with someone's way of living makes you fucking miserable even if you don't realise that's what it's doing, i implore you to just not give a shit. gender. is. fake. if people can create male and female as a concept and other people can deconstruct that, deconstruct the binary, why can't other people deconstruct the binary of cis and trans? because those labels personally benefit you or what? hypocritical. you preach self-expression until someone's self-expression doesn't fit yours and then you act like a dick like a fucking cis person telling a non-binary person that "you can either be one or the other" and i find it atrocious that you can't see the hypocrisy of that

"you can't identify as neither cis or trans, that's not how it works" says who? society? as if trans people haven't been outcasted from a cis-dominated society for centuries. who gives a shit what society deems right and wrong, society clearly hasn't treated minorities well so why are you so insistent on other people using the labels it has created? society is shit, it oppresses us regardless of if you identify as trans, trans and cis at the same time or neither. if you don't identify as completely cis, guess what, society doesn't fucking like you. why would you force someone in the same community as you to comply with those gross rules?

yeah, reality check, if you’re not completely cis society hates you. i know you’ve spent so long online, oppressing other people in your own community that you’ve forgotten how the world works, but this is it, baby.

#inclus #radinclus #queer #mspec gay #mspec lesbian #lesboy #turigirl #rad inclus #radical inclusivity #anti exclu #is this enough tags i've never used them for the purpose of reach before

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feminist-bitches-only · 1 year

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My current belief system (always subject to change) in case anyone found my blog and is wondering:

I am not a libfem

- I don’t find centering men in my feminism as empowering (ex: it is a myth that men’s mental health isn’t taken seriously while women’s is. When has women’s mental health ever been taken seriously??? We should be able to label our oppressors as men without being labeled as bigoted generalizers, as any other oppressed group is able to label their oppressors).

- Plastic surgery, makeup, and shaving are absolutely not empowering and I truly don’t believe there is any woman out there who truly deeply believes that these are simply personal choices that you would make regardless of social influence. In fact, certain plastic surgeries being considered as gender-affirming care is extremely misogynistic (ex: if you are on estrogen and grow breasts, but you’re unhappy that they are smaller than you want them to be - that is a symptom of misogyny & insurance should not be covering additional breast implants under gender-affirming care, thus enforcing the idea that something like breast size makes a woman).

- Sex-based oppression is VERY real. Thus, spaces for afab people should exist in addition to spaces for all women because of this & afab imagery is empowering to afab women and should not be shamed or called trans-exclusive - it is for the purpose of empowering afab people. Who are oppressed.

- Gender abolition is the goal. Gender has been constructed for the purpose of oppressing women, and has been clearly show to be used as a tool of oppression against trans people as well. Additionally, considering gender is constructed, it is perfectly valid for some to experience attraction based on sex vs gender.

- Gender-neutral language can sometimes borderline on offensive (but usually not as bad as radfems make it out to be). Additionally a woman’s issue can still affect people who are not women (ex: abortion access IS a woman’s issue [affects women mostly and is an issue of discussion only because it’s used as a tool to oppress women], but also affects trans men/enbies). If you would not say that poverty & underfunded schools are faced by the Black community just because there are also white people who face poverty, do not try to say that calling issues like abortion women’s issues is a problem.

- Misogyny against straight women/cis women/white women/etc. is still misogyny. While intersectionality increases the burden of oppressions, misogyny is still a very VERY real oppression that is often not even labeled - it’s just seen as part of living in this world as a woman (ex: rape, sexual harassment, and stalking are often not considered hate crimes; cunt, bitch, and slut aren’t considered slurs by the general public).

I am not a radfem

- There is literally no reason to misgender or deadname trans people. I cannot ever read posts on this site with purposeful misgendering without believing it is in bad faith (I don’t consider sex-based terminology as misgendering [it is perfectly okay for someone to have female/male biology but identify as a man/woman], but I ascribe to afab/amab terminology since it seems so be more affirming/less dysphoria-triggering to the trans community).

- Trans women are women. Trans men are men. Non-binary people are non-binary. While it is completely fine for you to base your gender off your sex [ex: I am a woman because I am an adult human female], it is not okay to act as if everyone’s gender needs to be determined that way. This is a major flaw of radfem ideology - if gender is a social construct, why would people be forced into a gender identity based on their sex??? Makes no sense.

- Queer is a good, empowering term. Anything can be used as a slur, doesn’t mean people can’t identify with it. I ascribe to the belief that slur reclamation greatly decreases a slur’s power. It is perfectly okay for people to not want to put their sexualities/genders into very neat boxes. Who cares if you could get a more specific understanding of someone’s sexuality with a gay/bi label?? Why is it any of your business to get a specific reading of someone’s sexuality?

- Trying to insinuate that you know someone’s sex based on shit like their facial features is embarrassing as fuck and incredibly misogynistic. I can’t imagine the embarrassment of being anti-patriarchy to only go to a cis woman and claim they’re trans because you think their shoulders are too broad or something lmao. Or, in the case of trans women, claim you know they’re trans because of *insert feature that many cis women also have here.*

My main interest: bringing communication and building relationships between the feminist & trans rights movements. Both of these groups are fighting their own oppression and I genuinely believe that they misunderstand each other’s concerns, goals, and experiences. I think that we are stronger together and as oppressed groups, we are not each other’s enemies. We can work together to stand up to the patriarchy, without dismissing the trans experience, and stand up to the gender binary, without excluding the afab woman experience. But as oppressed groups, we need to listen to each other. Lateral oppression is not, has never been, and never will be cute. ***For this reason, you will not see me tagging posts as “radfems dni” or “tras dni” or any variance of the two. People need to be able to interact and understand each other’s thoughts and concerns to be able to bridge this gap. I will not tolerate bad-faith conversation, however.

#always feel free to ask me questions #or if you disagree with a take of mine I am always down for civil good faith discussion and am very open to changing my mind #feminist #feminism #trans rights

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silverliing · 9 months

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why is genderbending bad? /gen

This is kind of a loaded question and I will answer it to the best of my abilities and through my own understanding of genderbending and gender identity politics but if you don’t want to read all that i’ll just leave you with the short answer: It’s complicated. I don’t think “genderbending” is inherently a bad thing (i do it) what i do take an issue with is the actual name of this trend as well as some of the rhetoric and ideas about gender that run rampant along it that have largely been ignored or gone unchallenged.

I also do not think that the bulk of this work has been made with malicious intent, rather just out of ignorance in a cissexist society. so yeah, complicated. I would also like to point out that I am gender non-binary and identify as trans, so these are just my personal thoughts regarding this type of content in fandom spaces and the ways I think it (more often than i’d prefer) plays into the erasure of trans and intersex identities from the conversation and can perpetuate cissexist ideas of gender and gender identity.

Anyways, long answer is long so more after the cut -> -> ->

For starters I think the most egregious thing to me about this whole genderbend thing is the name. now, i absolutely hate the name because genderbending is never just about changing a characters gender is it? what we generally understand as genderbending in fandom is typically the changing or switching of a character’s sex from male to female or from female to male and assigning to them the gender that “matches” their sex. And if this is exactly what you’re trying to do then that’s fine! i don’t want to be the arbitrator of what people can or can’t do in fandom spaces so… just maybe call it what it is? maybe also understand how this trend feeds into the rhetoric that gender is a binary and how it conflates sex and gender as if they were interchangeable or one and the same as well as perpetuating some outdated and ill informed views on sex, gender and sexuality too!(since typically when a character gets genderbent their sexuality changes as well)

There’s a lot of discourse on this very topic and much of it might probably disagree with me on these points so i encourage everyone to seek alternative opinions on the matter, but from my own understanding of gender, gender identity and gender expression, i find that the idea of “genderbending” —in the ways it has been traditionally done by fandoms— can have some cissexist implications:

It implies that there are only two genders which are opposite from each other, and that those are (generally cis) “male” or (generally cis) “female”.

Gender is not a binary and gender is a social construct. this is something that psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists, biologists, gender theorists and medical professionals have all agreed upon for decades. The thing that happens in genderbending where a character can only jump from fully mature phenotypical male “man” to a fully mature phenotypical female “woman” (or vice versa) without any wiggle room in between is ill-informed at best. And then there are people who will say “oh well that’s not true because i saw a non-binary intersex genderbend once!” and all i have to say to this is… okay. Yes this kind of NB “genderbend” does exist but it’s is not the norm. For the most part when looking up the genderbend tag will generally bring up a lot of stereotypically female petra parkers and harriet potters, and this is just the truth.

It implies that physical traits and gender are related.

Usually this type of work will have things like a tall, flat chested, muscly “masculine” character switch genders to become short, curvy, large breasted, “feminine” one (usually without any regard to how that character’s personality and lifestyle affect their physical attributes) typically the act of genderbending will come along with changes to a characters genitalia, gender markers, and phenotype, not just their gender. I trust you understand how this idea is inherently cissexist and reinforces the thought that things like the set of genitals you were born with ought to dictate the gender you identify as. This also gets into the territory of intersex erasure. Since our society has yet to come to a consensus of how intersex individuals ought to look like (and how could they!) it is less likely that you will find a genderbend that envisions a character as intersex given that genderbending isn’t just about changing someone’s gender but also making them look the part. Which is a whole other can of worms because what does a woman or a man look like? what does an intersex or a non-binary or an agender person look like? these nuances often get pushed to the side in genderbending. And if you have found genderbent art or fanfic that subverts all of these trends that’s awesome! But again, it’s still not the norm.

I know this one sounds bad, but there are some arguments against it that are very valid to me; namely that although not every trans person’s goal is to appear cis-passing, there are some trans folk whose goal is to look as cis as possible and their visions and fantasies of what their ideal gender presentation ought be reflected in this type of art is imo quite valid.

It implies that someone “changing genders” can be reduced to a thought experiment.

Maybe this isn’t the best wording but it’s when you see genderbend being done as a way to explore how a character would be different if they had just been born in a different body. This one doesn’t sound too bad, it’s just a little thought experiment right? and in a way it is but i still want to bring it up because again, it assumes that being born with a specific set of physical attributes will dictate a persons gender. This also could imply that anyone who identifies with a gender that is different to the one they were assigned at birth does not have an equally as meaningful relation to their own gender as someone who was born with the “right” set of genitals. It is also kind of funny to me that some of these genderbenders who just want to do a thought experiment with their blorbo would want to see said blorbo navigating the “opposite” gender from a cis perspective. Now i don’t have any sources to back me up on this but i’m just going to assume that between a trans person and a cis person, the individual who is most likely to be aware of gender identity politics is probably not going to be the cis person. just make the character trans just make them trans

Why I do it

Literally i had not thought about this topic in over a decade, and i had no genuine interest in seeing characters under this type of lens since i was like 12. However, the idea for lesbyler was born as a response to the critiques toward byler fans that said the ship would not be so popular if they had been two girls instead of two boys. I guess you could say it started as a joke or out of spite but in my personal case (which i know is true for many others in the fandom) it became a way to project my own sapphic youth into a ship that is so special to me. Of course i would love them more if those characters had been written as girls! Byler has such a soft spot in my heart because it’s the story of my first love —its the story of a lot of peoples first love— and so in that vein i thought it was permissible to make it all the more mine. I did not entertain the thought of “making” them girls because girls are the opposite of boys and i thought that was cool, or because i wanted to see lesbian rep instead of gay rep, i entertained the thought of two lesbian best friends navigating first love because it’s the story i would have liked to see in a show like stranger things.

Furthermore, i also do not see my lesbyler characters as inherently cis, I still see them as an offshoot or extension of the original characters, so in my head they’re just inherently trans. Of course that is just me and there is nothing wrong if you prefer to see them as cis as long as you understand the aforementioned discussions of gender at play.

Am I also perpetuating the harmful rhetoric by indulging in this type of trend regardless of my intent? Maybe. It’s so hard to put yourself on blast but I will for a second here. I think the vast majority of this type of content is ill-informed, but i don’t think the bulk of it was made with the intent of harming minorities, so i don’t think making it is inherently bad. I think what can be harmful is to have these ideas go unchallenged in this specific trend where they would have been more widely addressed if it were on any other more publicly available platform, and i think that talking about it and bringing this topic up when i make this type of work is a good opportunity to make others aware how cissexism can be perpetuated even in the ways we interact with fandom.

I don’t believe i am spreading hate or harm when i make this type of work, but maybe i’ll cringe at this and change my opinions for the better in the future who knows. All i’m saying is that i think the best way to approach this trend is through information and awareness and on that regard i do consider myself more well-read on this topic than your average joe 🤷🏻

There’s many people that will disagree with me who will say genderbending is more harmful than i claim it to be or that it is not wrong at all, so i would just like to reiterate that this is all based on my experience, understanding, and knowledge on the topic of both genderbending and gender identity politics.

One more time I don’t think imagining a character as a different gender is inherently bad but i do think that a lot of the ideas perpetuated by fandom genderbending are some of the same rhetoric and propaganda that has been used to erase and harm trans and intersex individuals.

Last thing and i am saying all of this in good faith, if you ever looked at my lesbyler (or any genderbent art really) art and thought “those characters are cis girls”, or that they had to have been “born” girls because the opposite of boy is girl, i would like you to consider and challenge why you had those thoughts. Maybe even question why little compulsory cissexist thoughts like those are part of our every day lives. I also just want to say that if you want to make genderbend art or fic go for it, but I do strongly urge you to first consider understanding and acknowledging the arguments i’ve made here. Just know what you’re getting into and know that there is more than meets the eye with this topic. aaaand just remember that these arguments feel hidden and compulsory for a reason, cissexism is everywhere, even in fandom spaces.

Also there’s a chance you’ll probably go your entire fandom career without ruffling anyones feathers about it but i would just advise to be careful, be respectful and know when to apologize and move on. And most importantly don’t forget that trans, non-binary, intersex, agender, gender fluid, etc. identities exist so there’s a lot more options and experiences for you to think about if you do decide to play with the gender and identity of a character.

#sorry for tagging this as byler but i feel like this is relevant to the lesbyler uptick #let me know what other tags i should add pls #byler #lesbyler #millow #genderbend #gender #gender discussion

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lavenderfeminist · 1 year

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Hello. I have a question and I don’t know if you’ve talked about this before because I’m fairly new to your blog. I also haven’t heard other people talk about it either, but until pretty recently I wouldn’t really use social media so it’s possible people have talked about it and I just don’t know. I’m also curious as to what you have to say. Anyway I don’t know why I’m giving such a long introduction lmao it’s a simple question.

So, you know how gender isn’t real (in an innate biological way) and I’ve recently become quite critical of what it means to be trans if gender is not this innate thing. But something that I can’t wrap my head around is how when people transition, they discover that their sexuality is different. Like there will be lesbians who were like 100% certain of their homosexuality and then they transition and find that they are attracted to men. Sometimes they’ll even quit being attracted to women entirely. And they’ll say stuff like “testosterone makes you gay”. Before, I wouldn’t think too much of it, I would think about that episode in The L Word where Max is transitioning and realizing he likes men when he was a butch lesbian before and he says something along the lines of “it’s not about wether you’re attracted to men or women specifically, it’s about same-sex attraction” sort of stating that since he’s a man now he likes men because he’s same-sex attracted. But now that I’m thinking about how the concept of having a gender identity doesn’t make sense, there’s just male and female, and being same-sex attracted is liking one or the other forever, I’m confused. Does this mean that people like Max were bisexual after all? Does this mean that how you identify with your gender has some sort of impact on your attractions? What does that mean for people who wish for the abolition of gender? How does that explain former lesbians who now aren’t even attracted to women? I doubt they were straight all along. I have never been attracted to men (nor have I ever had the desire to transition), but if I went on T, would I magically start liking men? This is so confusing!!!

Anyway I said it was a simple question and then followed with a whole bunch lmao but thanks for reading anyway✨. No pressure to answer by the way, just curious on what you think.

I wrote my entire response to this and then tumblr deleted it 😭 Here we go again.

The first thing I want to point out is that male homosexuality and female homosexuality are two separate entities. Yes, I relate to and connect with gay men on a social level over our shared experience of homosexuality, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we’re homosexual through the same biological mechanisms. For example, there’s no female counterpart to the fraternal birth order effect. A man’s statistical likelihood of being homosexual increases with his number of older brothers, but there’s currently no recognized phenomenon where a woman’s likelihood of being homosexual is linked in any way to her number of older siblings or their sex. That’s because the hormone they believe is responsible for the fraternal birth order effect influences the development of attraction to males; in a woman, that’s not going to make her a lesbian. I personally believe there are unrecognized phenomena related to the development of lesbianism specifically, which obviously would not have the same effect in males. Of course, there are also some mechanisms that affect both sexes, such as the genes that might be responsible for high instances of both female and male homosexuals in certain families. I don’t think I’m homosexual only as a matter of genes, and that’s not concerning to me. There are no other instances of homosexuality in my family that I know of, so it makes sense to me that I developed this way through mechanisms beyond the genetic material I received from my parents. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t born this way.

Why am I saying all this? Well, because I think Max from The L Word is full of shit. First of all, Max is a character: a representation of a human being, not a human being who actually exists in the world. What that means is that Max was created by living breathing human beings, who have their own beliefs and biases towards homosexuality that are inevitably reflected in her character (hint hint). Second of all, cross-sex hormones…don’t change your sex. A female on testosterone is still female. So even if we believe there are some mechanisms which result in same-sex attraction (rather than male attraction or female attraction), they’re not going to change their presentation in one person, because humans can’t change sex. Max is materially bisexual; she was seemingly attracted to just women for a long time, and now seemingly just men. We’ve all heard of the “bi-cycle” before, where a bisexual person can experience attraction to just one sex for a stretch of time, and then just the other for a stretch of time. This is not uncommon among bisexuals, and that’s in cases where they’re not taking a cross-sex hormone that has the known effect of *drum roll* increasing your sex drive.

Once, when going for a walk with my (to my knowledge at that time, lesbian) ex girlfriend, she lightheartedly confessed to me that she “only fantasize[d] about men when [she was] really, really horny.” If you imagine that I was taken aback, you’d be correct. That is the farthest thing from my experience. Being turned on doesn’t make me more receptive to thoughts of men, it makes me more disgusted by any thought of them. I’m never more hot and bothered for women (and repulsed by men) than when I’m ovulating (which happens to be when women’s testosterone levels increase). It’s not a far-fetched idea to me that if you’re a bisexual woman with a much more significant attraction to women, testosterone is going make you pay more attention to your less-apparent attraction to men. And without getting controversial, if you’re the kind of person to dismiss your attraction to men and call yourself a lesbian, it’s utterly unsurprising to me that once you’re paying more attention to men you’re going to jump right over to calling yourself a gay man. That’s far more believable to me than that testosterone can literally turn a lesbian straight.

Conclusion? No, gender identity doesn’t influence sexuality. No, the abolition of gender does not mean the abolition of homosexuality. Yes, I consider people like Max bisexual. No, testosterone doesn’t turn lesbians straight; bisexuals exist, and they’re very comfortable claiming labels that don’t fit them even before adding in a regressive belief in gender identity.

#asks #long post

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vespertine-legacy · 11 months

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From Pride themed asks: 3, 5, 8 and 9 for Enex, Mena, Moxie and Chatelaine (mix questions and characters however you like) and 16?

thanks, pauletta! <3

Enex (male, cis, bi)

Mena (female, cis, lesbian)

Moxie (genderqueer, queer)

Chatelaine (female, cis, pan)

3. How did your oc discover themself? Did something cause them to question, or did they always know?

Enex - Enex didn’t always know that he was bisexual, but I don’t know if there was a specific “aha” moment to it, or just like, talking with friends about sexuality and being told “honey, you’re probably bi.”

Mena - For her gender, I think Mena and her dad have probably had academic discussions on the sexes and gender identity. Mena just sort of tested things out for her sexuality. She used to identify as bisexual, but then she realized the only man she was ever attracted to was Quinn, and she wasn’t actually attracted to him, she was just attracted to having sex with him.

Moxie - Moxie’s gender identity is queer and their sexuality is queer. She was raised by people who didn’t really put any one gender over another (there were distinctions between them, but no real hierarchy), so she grew up pretty well connected with what some would call both masculinity and femininity.

Chatelaine - Chatelaine didn’t really get a whole lot of time to herself until after she left Intelligence, so got to just, as an adult, discover: huh. people pretty. But as an adult with a strong desire to go back to Intelligence and “kill ‘em all!”, she hasn’t really given herself a ton of time to think about her own identity.

5. How did you figure out your oc's identity?

Enex - Vibes?

Mena - Mostly I just knew in my heart that she was gonna be with Jaesa and also I wanted my tiny Warrior to be a lesbian.

Moxie - A tiny bit of “I should actually pretend I’ve read some Star Wars lore” but mostly just “this feels right.”

Chatelaine - Vibes

8. Have they had struggles with their identity, be it due to internal or external reasons?

Enex - He was born on Belsavis and spent the first few years of his life there. Folks don’t really care what you identify as or who you’re bunking with on Belsavis, they care what skills you are bringing to the table (even if you are just a kid). And once he was smuggled off-planet to go to the Jedi Order, they were more concerned with helping him work through his emotional regulation that with who Enex was getting pants-feelings about

Mena - Mena struggled with her identity for a little while, because she wasn’t sure if…everything with Quinn meant that she was bisexual, or if she’d be a “bad” lesbian if she did identify as a lesbian despite everything with Quinn.

Moxie - I don’t think Moxie struggles with identity at all, and if anyone else struggles with Moxie’s identity, they have a flamethrower you can talk to about it.

Chatelaine - Yes, and I would say mostly for internal reasons, but it’s kind of internal reasons brought on by external circumstances, because being forced to participate in putting psychic toddler leashes on your coworkers for so long that you forget how to actually interact with other people in a way that approaches normal so now you overanalyze all of your social interactions isn’t entirely an internal thing. But yeah, Chatelaine doesn’t really have a super strong grip on her identity yet and has just sort of slapped a label on there like FlexTape to hope it holds.

9. Are there cultural or lore specific aspects to their identity? If applicable, does their species affect it?

Nope, just vibes. For the most part, I don’t have enough of a brain to pay attention to whether or not any of my OCs’ culture or species is significant to their identity.

16. Did you ever change an oc's identity when they were already established? Why?

Yes. I think I’ve waffled on several of my OCs’ identities while creating them, then started sharing Lore about them and said “hey this is so-and-so, they’re X,” and then later either decided something about them because of how their story played out or met a character that changed how I felt about them, or found something in established lore about their species or something…

#swtor oc enex #swtor oc mena #swtor oc moxie #swtor oc chatelaine #pride asks

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twigon0metry · 2 years

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The Female Experience (Through My Eyes)

Before I begin with yet another one of my annual multi-paragraph discourse posts, I want to clarify that this is not a coming-out story. I felt pulled to share my thoughts around my own experiences with gender in today’s day and age as a Christian, which is something I don’t see most people speaking about. My desire is to share my experiences in order that other Christians like me can be reassured that they are not alone, and it is normal to doubt. I wish to be the representation I needed back when I was struggling.

TW I do talk about my faith and how it connects to who I am, however, I am sharing my personal experiences, so I hope it is more accessible than offensive--if you are not a christian, you are more than welcome to engage as well.

Here we go!

I’ve never felt like a woman. When I was a child, I didn’t feel like a girl, either. I doubt there is a single point in my life in which I have actively felt and identified with what the world deems to be female. I was never distressed, but I did feel different sometimes. Not in the way that one might feel wearing pants in a room full of other girls in dresses, but in the way that I was myself and they were something else. I did things differently, I acted differently, and people could tell. “Quirky”, “Bold”, “Different”, “Confident” are all descriptors I’ve heard many a time, and I’ve been lucky that they’re positive. These aren’t bad things, and I am in no way complaining—just explaining that even people around me could see that I was different.

Not once did I question myself until I reached the age that the internet became a larger part of my reality. The most I’d ever done was watch my testimony play on the screen in the green room at church, on the day I was baptized, noticing how my mouth moved funny when I talked. Or perhaps, observing my spindly limbs in a photograph, suddenly and uncomfortably aware of how differently my body moved in the world. But later on, as I immersed myself in our society, observing its movements in order to understand, I began to feel further and further away.

The only people I saw who were like me, were not women.

To the tiny part of my lizard brain, this had to mean something, and my OCD latched onto it like a moth to a flame. Any suggestion to this end sent my mind spiraling. I felt an intense need to define who I was by a label of some sort, in order that I might fit in, or perhaps prove myself, or maybe, to truly find rest.

I had to discover what being a woman meant, because if I didn’t, I was afraid I might not be one. I had to know what a woman was in order to be sure I was one. But finding no connection to what I saw femininity to be, I had no choice but to leave my questioning in the dark, unanswered.

When I tried to think of the things that defined femininity, I could only think of the warped things I was bent upon rebelling against. Besides being generally uncomfortable with my anatomy, I hated that women were reduced to the sicky-sweet, seductive, rose-tinted narratives I saw all around me. So what was left? Nothing, except my own feelings and how I perceived myself. And when I thought about it, I didn’t perceive myself as a woman, just as myself. There were no “female” feelings to be found, either.

What I’ve finally come to realize, however, is that those two concepts can coexist. Woman, and me—that is, everything that makes me myself.

If, say, I were to come out as nonbinary, or, agender, the more specific microlabel for those who don’t identify with gender (discovered during one of my obsessive internet searching phases), to be honest, I’m really not sure it would help me. Because I know that no matter what I did to change myself, even if it was no more than try my best to continue being genuine, being myself—the reality of womanhood would always follow me. I would still be seen within the binary of male and female, and my sex would always affect how I was treated by others. And beyond that, I would merely be stepping outside of one box into another—just as society pressures women to be feminine, I have seen how nonbinary people are pressured to be androgynous, to be not female, or not male, or a specific mixture of both that has to be palatable to others in just the right way. If I pursued this path of fitting into boxes, it would undoubtedly be a painful one, because to me, I fit perfectly in neither.

Soon I realized that the problem, for me, is with the warped stereotypes associated with being a woman, and not being a woman itself. Woman, as a term, was not the box I had always thought it to be—if anything, it was more like a garden, and the garden grows what it will, no matter what I choose to plant.

I have always been myself. Woman has always been a part of that, subconsciously, as a reality of my existence. But it never did, and doesn’t have to, hold the weight I thought it did. I am a Christian, but if I were to ask myself if I felt like a Christian, that would in turn raise the question of “how do I know what being a Christian feels like?”. I am also 20 years old. I do not feel like I am 20, but the reality is that that is the amount of time I have existed in this world, outside of the womb, for. (Quite frankly, most days I still feel like a teen.) I am also 5.9”, or to be specific, 175cm. But if someone were to ask me if I felt like I was 5 feet 9 inches, I wouldn’t be able to answer that, because I don’t feel like it, it just is.

To me, womanhood is the same. I am a woman, and it doesn’t have to mean anything more than it already does. It doesn’t mean I have to conform to what the world says a woman is like to be one—as a matter of fact, it doesn’t mean I have to act any certain way at all, since it is nothing more than an immutable trait of my flesh. I can ignore it, but I cannot avoid it. Regardless of anything I do or say, it is there, and it is what I was born with. I do not have to hate it, nor do I have to find joy in it—because it simply is, the way it is true that I have arms, I have hair, I have a face. I have a woman’s mind, a woman’s body, a woman’s soul, and to reject that would only hurt me further.

Don’t get me wrong, femininity is important. I’m still on a journey to find out what it means. But my feelings aren’t the most important aspect of that, and to give them weight would only enforce the very things I sought to avoid.

When God met Moses in the desert hundreds of years ago, He gave this response to being asked His name—“I am.” God is God. He simply is. He does not prove Himself to anyone, nor does He change Himself to fit one box or another, or force Himself to sit outside of them entirely. He rests in His identity and His way of being, perhaps like a cat stretches out and lies in the sun, its decisions not at all swayed by the musings of man.

I don’t identify as a woman, I just am one.

At this point, since I have little understanding of biblical femininity outside of how the world has warped it in misogynistic ways, this I believe is how I can glorify God with my femininity. He made me the way I am, with the things I like, what I do, and how I think. He also made me female. And the best thing for me to do for my anxious, restless mind is to abide in that “I am”—I am who He made me to be, messy parts, clean parts, parts that fit and parts that don’t. Woman is weaved so intricately, gently, within that, as part of who I am and how I experience the world. To reject that would mean I really do believe what society tells me about who I am—nothing but my own thoughts and feelings, crammed into an empty box painted with purple, yellow and white stripes.

#side b #gender stuff #christianity #discourse #my story #twig talks #society #gender roles #tw religion #side b stuff #sideb

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blackamite · 10 months

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Said a while ago I might post on why my sexuality was confusing so here we go. I’ve never known my emotions super well so who knows if I’ll interpret it different in a few years but whatever.

1. Hyperfixations

This one’s kinda simple, but I tend to randomly get obsessed with things (minecraft, gothic cathedrals, cats.... idk) and sometimes it’s a character which everyone always interprets as a crush but is not a crush.

2. Faces

Ngl I didn’t really used to look at facial features much. They kind of all looked the same and I’d mainly identify people by their hair. One thing that helped a lot with this was recognizing the difference between how men and women looked (partly because I was seeing more gnc people and it’s easier to tell what’s actual features and not just societal apparatus) and that both changed how I saw gender but also who I was attracted to. After I started really seeing people’s facial features first thing, suddenly men were a lot more ugly. I remember seeing a trans man and thinking “huh he’s cute but like in an anime guy way” except now when I see anime guys I see their male features and they don’t look that androgynous anymore. I really didn’t used to see secondary sex characteristics as much unless I really looked hard.

3. Female objectification + uncomfortableness w/ oneself

Ick with the female body, combined with wome sort of madonna whore complex, makes seeing the female body in a sexual way feel pretty gross and make dysphoria worse. Doesn’t affect me now but did before I desisted. Also doesn’t help when the height of ‘attractive women’ is usually portrayed as pornified looking with exaggerated proportions which is often just gross/not attractive regardless.

4. Fictional vs. real

This is sometimes described using the word ‘compulsory heterosexuality’ which is silly because that’s different. There’s nothing compulsory here, it’s just being attracted to men from a distance in a vague ‘he’s hot but only cause he’s on a screen and should also keep his clothse on’ kind of way. I don’t know if this makes any sense. But anyway, not actually having any sexual experience can make it feel like you’re bi even if male genitialia seems absolutely nasty and you want nothing to do with it (especially if you don’t even know what female genitalia looks like :\)

#0x20 #some of this is me being very stupid but who knows maybe other people have some similar experiences #also on point 4 - After figuring all this out it happens much more rarely #also this has been sitting in my drafts so long. oop

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dopesotherstuff · 10 months

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That is so gender

When I say my gender is “female but IDK what the hell I’m doing” it’s for two reasons:

1: My relationship with being a woman is not a “celebration of the divine feminine” so much as it’s a giant pain in the ass that I don’t feel intimately connected with, but don’t reject either.*

2: Being “acceptably feminine” in presentation is impossible for me due to various neuro, sensory and balance issues, and lack of money. It also seems incredibly pointless given the amount of effort, discomfort and expense involved and the lack of any real payoff for someone like me. I’m already ostracized by a stunning number of people for being autistic and not being conventionally attractive, and getting a makeover I can’t even afford absolutely will not change that.**

Elaborations below the cut...

*It’s less “I am woman hear me roar” and more a combination of “oh, okay, my body’s got boobs and a uterus this time around” and “WHAT THE FUCK why is all of this so hard”.

I don’t identify with being male, and I’m not unhappy with having a biologically female body--I’m just unhappy with all the stupid shit I have to deal with as a result. Periods. PCOS. Living in fear of getting pregnant. The insane social expectations. The shitty, uncomfortable clothing. The various dangers. The medical prejudice. The social pressure to limit our interests and pursuits to what’s “acceptably feminine”. The sheer number of men who refuse to think of and treat us like actual human beings (and then wonder why we won’t date them). The attacks on our rights. And so on, and so on.

My soul, my inner self, isn’t defined by my sex or my gender. My physical and social experience of life is heavily affected by them, but the rest of me is just sitting back going “this is all very weird and some of it sucks.”

**Performing femininity is this great weird mystery to me (yay autism) that I can’t do well at all due to so much of the performance being physically uncomfortable (yay sensory issues). I also can’t identify at all with anyone who considers activities like getting their eyelashes dyed or their pubic hair ripped out (CRINGE) to be “self-care”.

I can’t do high heels either. Some women look at six inch stiletto heels by some designer and go “I would die for those shoes”. Me and my balance issues go “I would die IN those shoes”. Also the idea of exposing too much of my round little hobbit body or wearing anything too tight makes me super uncomfortable.

And all of it seems so fucking unnecessary. The performance of femininity feels alien to me, and contrived. It’s like something society made up to busy women with shit that doesn’t matter instead of our having more time and energy to get important things done or just enjoy ourselves. In addition, making myself up, showing cleavage, wearing ankle-breakers and all that won’t make me more confident, because I’ll be self-conscious and physically miserable the whole time.

I don’t feel prettier in lipstick; I feel ridiculous, and even more self-conscious. And also like my lips are coated in axle grease. And it feels pointless, too. Even if I did up a full face of makeup perfectly it wouldn’t “make up for” enough in the eyes of those who care about such things. It’s still my fat, plain potato self, only now with red lips and sparkly eyelids. It doesn’t improve how people treat me, or make me more comfortable in public, so why bother with it except maybe when I have to dress up anyway?

So not only am I bad at performing femininity and made terribly uncomfortable by it, I just don’t see the point. Or the point outside of the massive social pressure for us to put on the performance, and the ostracism we face if we don’t conform.

I’m rejected by most people anyway for being autistic and not conventionally attractive, so trying to be ultra-feminine would not gain me social acceptance. In fact, it would offer little reward, if any, especially compared to the cost in time, effort, discomfort, distraction and sometimes, physical risk.

I have no control over other people’s prejudices, and there’s an overwhelming number of people out there who look down on me for things I can’t control either. Putting myself through severe discomfort to satisfy other people’s idea of what a woman should look like doesn’t protect me from social ostracism, even if I could do it right, so why try?

Besides, it often feels like doing so would be pandering to the same assholes who treat me like a lunatic if I infodump or stim in public. It honestly feels like a lot of people out there are just looking for any excuse to reject someone, whether it’s their dress size, what they do with their hands while talking, or whether their fingernails have the right color of lacquer on them. Stupid, ridiculous, petty reasons. But it happens all the time, and I will never understand why.

I’m clean, fairly well-groomed, and usually comfortably dressed in something clean and decent-looking, like a long cotton skirt. I’ll wear something nicer for special occasions, and maybe even endure some lipstick. If that isn’t “feminine” enough for someone, well...they can go fuck themselves. Nobody asked them to play conformity police in my life.

So yeah, that’s the whole explanation of my weird relationship with femininity and its performance. I hope it made some kind of sense.

#gender #femininity #performing femininity #queer #autism #fat #not conventionally attractive #gender conformity #cw bullying #cw ableism #cw sexism #sexism #what is my life #she/her but IDK what I'm doing

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