#but also non-binary ppl don’t need an explanation to exist

[pacifistcowboy]

hey you ready for the most bonkers idea for my sol dimension ocs that i’ve had so far

so i’m thinking sol-rouge will have an older sibling who’s unwell in some way (might be motor neurone disease or based on it ‘cause my dad has that so i’m rather familiar with the symptoms and treatment but i probably won’t go too intense) ((also dw about that massive personal life bomb i just dropped, i also made sure my dad was okay with me applying our experiences into a story)) and sol-rouge tries to take care of them and support them both by just breaking into places for shelter or resources and sometimes fighting people if he gets caught in the act or is desperate enough. if they’re with him at the time, sol-rouge’s sibling will pipe up and try to ask people if sol-rouge can help in exchange for goods so he doesn’t immediately have to jump to just stealing, which is what he usually does ‘cause he’s so awkward and uncomfortable around people that he’d prefer to commit a crime than talk to anyone.

sol-rouge may or may not run into mittens during this time, or maybe they only meet later.

at some point shelly “ivy” organik will come across them and due to sol-rouge’s skill, seeming lack of morals, and desperation, she asks him to help her with her evil plans and in exchange she’ll help his sibling. at first sol-rouge refuses as he doesn’t believe ivy can help them, but using her chlorokinesis she creates some sorta tree-plant-machine-suit thing which helps his sibling in many ways including breathing n having a way to move around, n says they can use the plant-tree-mech thing as long as sol-rouge helps her, so he agrees.

sol-rouge’s sibling is probably very wary and hesitant about helping ivy, but the device she made helps them so much that they can’t really imagine just giving it back and struggling like before, so they go along with the plans, albeit very unconfidently. i think the tree-suit will have some form of weaponry so they can join sol-rouge in doing ivy’s bidding.

sol-rouge n their sib will either meet mittens for the first time or clash WAY more with her during this. things will probably escalate that blaze n stuff has to get involved, ivy probably also recruits glacier (i’ve decided sol-shadow’s name is glacier) so sol-rouge n their sibling are also working with her. stuff goes down.

eventually sol-rouge’s sibling will hit a point where they just morally can’t help ivy, and they choose to help the heroes stop her. glacier will also go through the discovery of how her parents actually sucked n that she’s on the wrong side so she’ll also join the heroes, but sol-rouge doesn’t really care about being good or bad, he just wants his sibling to be safe, but his sib is adamant about saving the people, so he joins them.

stuff happens, they beat ivy, and she tries to take her tree-suit-mech thing back, but literally everyone stops her n protects sol-rouge’s sibling from her, so she gets pissed n gives up. so now sol-rouge’s sibling permanently has a funky plant suit that alleviates their symptoms and they can walk around in! i’d say they’re scared ivy will constantly try to take it back, and might one day succeed, also they just care a lot about the innocent people of the world, so they’re determined to kill ivy. sol-rouge still doesn’t really care about people but his sibling is now healthier so he’s chill, plus he’s so close with them that he’s probably gonna have some of their compassion rub off on him.

anyway, really long-winded way of saying i’ve combined maria and omega into one character and it’s sol-rouge’s sibling. sol-omega isn’t a robot but a fella in a suit made by ivy. it’s bizarre but i think it works.

#they’re non-binary ‘cus maria uses she/her n omega uses he/him so they’ll use they/them #but also non-binary ppl don’t need an explanation to exist #i’m also now gonna have to design a goddamn tree suit that somewhat looks like omega but is still unique enough #i’ve never drawn omega before let alone designed a mech-like thing #and definitely not one made from plant materials #sol dimension ocs

[buddiewho]

As Monday gets closer, I can’t help but think about Buck Begins. So...we’re getting a queer backstory right? We’re not just going to drop this character into queer spaces and call it “no homo” right? We’re not going to be like well if you want gay representation then watch 911 Lonestar.

See thing is...Evan Buckley is bisexual and the tea is that. It’s just that. There’s something queer in it for Eddie Diaz too, but could I hold out hope of double bisexual representation? Two bi guys who finally look at each other one day and just know they’ve been looking the wrong places because they’re actually in love with each other. Buck having the trouble with homophobic parents and Eddie not really having issues because his Tia knows what’s up (and the rest of his fam is fine(ish) with it) but Eddie doesn’t think he has to announce it to everyone so it’s not talked about yet...but because Buck wants to figure it out and finally embrace it, Eddie will have to do the obligatory explanation for ppl to understand why “he’s suddenly ‘gay’ for his best friend...”

Let’s begin an actual explicit narrative (which it kind of already has been) and not make it a slow burn love story (which it kind of already has been) like another show with that hunter who met an angel in its season 4. We’re stuck in the sweet sweet trap ya clowns 🤡 Yet I’m a sucker for slow burn idiots who look at each other like such platonic bros.

And are we going to just let this kitchen scene exist without addressing it?

Also, the way Eddie was introduced is just highly suspect and not saying that Buck doesn’t have some toxic masculinity issues or body image issues that give him a crisis here too, but it also kinda played out like, “oh shit oh shit he’s hot...Buck you have a girlfriend and she’s coming back, you pick that jaw up off the floor now and decide to hate him (internalized biphobia too), because really I was actually instantly attracted and then even more doubly so when I found out about his son...turns out we end up close, and I’m cool with that, he’s actually very awesome and I’d be okay with him as my best friend forever, but what if we kissed?”

Truthfully, we have this platform and we need more explicitly bisexual characters especially men. Yeah, I said it. Bisexuals, no matter male, female, non binary are fetishized but I don’t know...maybe it’s because I’m still bitter about what happened to the bisexual hunter in that other tv show that had less merit with diversity. 911 and 911 Lonestar certainly holds more clout on the diversity front than the other show.

It’s just...I watch 911 and go it’s all so...

So I ask, what would hold the writers back as writing Evan Buckley bisexual? Or even Eddie Diaz? And/or making Buddie canon?

#buddie 911 #evan buckley #eddie diaz

[sobdasha]

i’ve been rereading a lot of my favorite stuff for months now

since I'm lacking in spoons for library trips

And when I was cottoning on to the fact that I have, in fact, been autistic all along, one of the things I realized is that the connecting thread between the kinds of stories and kinds of characters that I like is in fact that they display autistic or autistic-adjacent traits. I had realized this, come up with a lot of examples. I knew this.

Haha yeah as I'm actually rereading the things the evidence is damning that I did not come even close to understanding the full depth of it.

~ Taucris Ithesta is Autistic and Other Adjacent Things re: Leckie's Novels ~

Actually let's start with The Raven Tower because you can't actually argue with me about autistic Siat.

Siat actively avoids eye contact, is """shy""", speaks too softly, has an excellent grasp of humor, likes rocks as a special interest, likes to collect rocks, likes to sort rocks, likes to line up rocks, has one (1) bff to conduct social interactions for her, notices patterns, is good at learning, and is considered disabled by society's standards.

Ughhhhh all that talk about rocks makes me sad all over again that I pitched my rock collection when I moved out (I saved the best fossils, though).

(ETA: I have since bought more rocks because polished gemstones with carvings on them make for great stims, I am very pleased with me)

Okay so now that that's been established, let's talk about Strength and Patience of the Hill.

Because this rock gets me. Originally I figured it was probably, y'know, like with Ancillary Justice Leckie's given me an ace-aro main character and I can identify with that as an ace-aro. But unlike Breq, who very much loves people and wants to take care of them and found family etc, Strength and Patience of the Hill doesn't give much of a shit about people. With some exceptions of people that are it's people, how dare you mess with them, Strength and Patience of the Hill will kick your ass. Although even then I'm not sure Strength and Patience is all that great at taking care of people. Also Strength and Patience of the Hill is very much absorbed in its own selfishness, very much consumed with his own internal world, and I am also a jerk like that so it was very relatable.

(Yes I am using multiple pronouns because one of my many favorite parts of the book signing was watching everyone scramble over pronouns for a rock because "It never came up so I never figured it out" and I'm pretty sure Strength and Patience doesn't even use pronouns because why would you need a gendered pronoun to refer to yourself??? You don't even need a name to refer to yourself, actually I'm pretty sure Strength and Patience doesn't actually consider itself to have a name.)

So it made sense that this rock just really gets me. I know it's bad when the majority of representation for ace-aro characters is stereotypical robots or rocks or aliens (oooh or sentient space rocks wait wAIT now that I've said that I've just realized the Myriad is the definition of a Crystal Gem, pffft) or whatever but honestly I don't care because I just really identify with the robots??? So I really liked it, YMMV.

(It's probably also bad if the trend for autistically-coded characters is just stereotypical robots or rocks or aliens or whatever too but like honestly a big autistic #mood is feeling like you are a robot or an alien or whatever so maybe that's why I'm not offended???)

My point being that Strength and Patience of the Hill displays a lot of autistic traits and is therefore very relatable, in this Ted Talk I will.

Strength and Patience of the Hill processes things slowly. She will come up with the perfect retort and tell you 5 years later with absolutely no context.

It loves daydreaming, staring at things, noticing patterns, and enjoying quiet and solitude. It loves thinking about why things are the way they are. Look I have fantasized about what if I could exist as just a pair of eyeballs and a mind floating around in space, observing things, thinking things, and not having to actually interact with the world, and I'm pretty sure this rock is living that life. (Until y'know it gets told life doesn't work like that.)

Despite his slow processing speed, and taking a while to learn language, Strength and Patience of the Hill is good at learning things, and I feel like it's the kind of sort-of-sideways, context-based accumulation of knowledge that I learn through as well.

Strength and Patience of the Hill has one (1) friend, and through the Myriad it benefits from the fact that the Myriad has an actual social circle, without having to put forth any effort of maintaining friends on its own, which is 100% the way to do it.

Strength and Patience of the Hill tends to attract the other "quirky" kids--that is, my impression is that the people who become his priests tend to be those people who look at the world a little differently, those people on the fringes. Trans people, autistic people, people with other disabilities.

Strength and Patience of the Hill trying to explain the state of affairs in Vastai to Eolo: "Okay so my first memory I can recall is…" No, okay, no, I know, it's just literally how the narrative has to be told, I'm not criticizing, but that doesn't make it any less reminiscent of "autistic person trying to explain a simple thing but starts in with 10 pages of context first to ensure the over-explanation makes sense" (haha that's why I consistently got stuck training endless new hires, I'm literally so bad at it that I'm the best in the department and I hate life).

Difficulty understanding other's feelings/points of view/circumstances (I know it's because he's a rock and a god but that doesn't make it any less relatable), hmmm what else…

Oh right, a typical interaction with Strength and Patience of the Hill:

Person: (gives offering) Strength and Patience: (offering is accepted because the transaction literally occurred, no need to respond) Person: "(asks petition)" Strength and Patience: ... Strength and Patience: wait Strength and Patience: what Strength and Patience: wait was I supposed to do something else Strength and Patience: did you ask something of me? Strength and Patience: I don't understand what you asked????? Strength and Patience: it's been an entire year now it's too awkward Strength and Patience: i'm sure it's. Fine. Strength and Patience: It's fine. (rinse and repeat)

Like I said, this rock gets me.

(Haha I was reading through my notes from the book signing and I found "Strength + Patience doesn't give a shit about balance, Strength + Patience is just selfish, which it manifests as apathy, which is why this rock gets me. All of my best interpersonal traits also spring from not giving a fuck and waiting ppl to go away faster lol" and why is that, oh because ~I'm~ ~autistic~ pfffft)

I started this post a while ago and this was as far as I got and I don't remember if I had more??? Time to talk about Taucris probably!!!

(I'm skipping Ancillary Justice etc for now because I do want to make a post about that but like there's just. So much. In those books. It's masking all the way down. So it can be its own post. One day.)

Because I waited so long I forgot what I was going to write so I'll just grab the book and flip through and comment as I see things.

To start off with: Taucris and adulthood. I've seen other people pick up primarily on the gender aspect of it--that Taucris waited until almost 25 to take her adult name because she she never figured out what her gender was (non- uhhhhhh what's the word for binary when it's three and not two? Non-tri-something Taucris in a society with 3 options but all 3 options are gendered? I'll go with that.) What really resonated for me was that Taucris waited until almost 25 to take her adult name because she never felt like an adult. And I get that ~everyone feels that way~ but I feel like it's Different for Taucris in the same way it's Different for me. Anyway I feel like no matter which aspect you choose, it's probably an autistic vibe.

Also Taucris seems to have a bit of a flat affect? She seems very serious (both in body language and in speech), and kind of intense sometimes when she talks, and Ingray notes how Taucris usually doesn't smile (she smiles with Ingray because Ingray makes her comfortable) and has always been """shy""".

Also Taucris...talks strangely? I am not sure exactly how to explain it. It's not written badly or anything, it's...you know how sometimes you suddenly sit back and look at dialogue and go no one speaks like this and it throws you out of the story because you dropped your suspension of disbelief? Taucris kind of gives me that feeling, and only Taucris. Almost like her speech is a little bit stilted? Awkward? She's very serious and matter of fact and says things like "You've always been so kind to me" with a straight face. But it doesn't feel like a """bad writing""" (quotation marks for subjectivity) thing. But I notice it every time I read her dialogue… I think it's just that Taucris is autistic and awkward and that's how she speaks. Also I think she's adorable.

Police work is Taucris' special interest. So much so that that's the entire reason she became an adult, so she could engage in her special interest better. She's ~weird~ for her single-minded interest and her interest in a job below her ~status~ and she doesn't care, she set her heart on this anyway, volunteering and interning so on.

Oh that was something else I was going to talk about--Taucris mentions feeling like she doesn't have her shit together, not like Ingray (who also doesn't feel she has her shit together. Kind of like "no one really feels like an adult). But Taucris seems quite calm and capable in Planetary Security. I don't know if this is just masking, but...I really hope that she does feel that way in her job. That because it's her special interest, that helps balance out the stress of being alive and simultaneously employed full-time. That because she's been volunteering and interning here so long, she's been familiar with the office and it wasn't a stressful transition. That she acts confident because she feels competent and respected. Taucris may look calm and cool and collected on the outside and be screaming on the inside but I hope she actually feels pretty good on the inside too.

I would also like to say that I like Taucris' nother. Despite what Danach implies, I get the picture from Taucris that e is supportive of Taucris' personality and interests even when e doesn't get it. E indulged her interest in police work, e didn't understand why Taucris wasn't taking an adult name but tried to be patient about it...so I assume that also means that e was understanding of all of Taucris quirks and stims and particularities. E's been a good support system while Taucris' peers have not.

(Except for Ingray, Taucris' one (1) friend.)

I like Taucris' relationship with Deputy Chief Veret too--the way Taucris quietly manages breakfast so e doesn't have to think about it or be put out (this is The Love Language to me, not being inconvenienced, and I feel that this is part of my personality because my personality is autistic, so). I don't know why specifically Taucris does this, but all the reasons I could come up with feel very wholesome. Taucris respects Veret as her boss and as a person. Taucris is empathetic and thoughtful (she doesn't like Danach but she tries to consider and understand where he's coming from; Taucris isn't Hatli but she considers Veret's fasting etc to be valid rather than a choice of superstition). Taucris' situation is different but she knows that it doesn't feel good to be treated as weird, to be sneered at because you don't act the way people expect you to. Taucris, being autistic, maybe has a lot of experience with "perfectly good foods" she won't eat. Taucris strikes me as someone who observes quietly, and considers carefully, and maybe takes a long time to make up her mind but when she moves it's deliberately and not carelessly. Which is, to me, a masking trait.

In the quantum version of this post I was going to write everything so polished and lay out my points so nicely but clearly that didn't happen and I don't know where to end this and I'm sure I didn't even explain things that well so I'll just say, I feel it was very autistic of Taucris in the last chapter to just be like "well IDK what you want from me and rather than expending massive effort trying to suss it out and guessing wrong I'll just be direct: I know you can't talk about what happened so I won't ask you about what happened unless you want me to ask you about what happened in which case you should say so and I will ask but I think maybe you just need to watch a movie with me instead."

#sobdasha fic adjacent #al provenance #the raven tower #HAPPY AUTISM MONTH #look i actually did a thing while it was still april #all my faves are autistic #also is this not showing up in the tags as punishment for my sins or like can I not see it because dumblr

[solroja]

Why is it popular to say that? I mean TME, is it to say you are not trans? Which in the end is just saying you are cis? Is there explanation for exempt from transphobia due to being trans masc? (I mean, then wouldn't we say all the stuff we are except from?) Not saying is not valid, but I don't get the purpose

Saying that you are TME does not mean you aren't trans (I'm a trans masculine nb person myself), it's mostly a way to disclose what position you hold when discussing trans specific issues. Yes, TME can also account for cis men/women, but you'll mainly see it used by trans men and non-binary people — whether they're aligned masculine or not. (mostly bc the only cis people who are exposed to this language eventually are allies).

You'll probably notice that a lot of resources and groups online are put forth and lead by trans masculine folks. This limits the voice trans fems have, which is especially sad because we (trans people in general) DO face different flavors of transphobia depending on what we were assigned at birth. This comes into play when it comes to recognizing different types of directed transphobia.

Ex: one issue would be when trans feminine people constantly point out that certain caricatures on TV are not the epic non-binary representation some ppl think they are. "But surely since this non-binary (+tme) person thinks this is positive..!"

Ex2: Another issue would be the different ways cis people view trans masculine and trans feminine people, especially in real life. Ig: Trans men are often painted as confused women, lost and 'hurt' by misogyny so much they turn to being men (que eye roll). Trans women are portrayed as both confused and predatory, existing for ""trickery"". (Yes, trans mascs are sometimes viewed as predatory in the case of being viewed as invading mlm spaces/tricking mlm. But case by case it has not been reacted to as violently).

In order for us as a community to maintain solidarity and to support one another, we need to be extra vigilant, keeping each other aware of both community issues and our specific issues, which again means listening and uplifting those most affected.

I do think that when coming forth abt issues, or in any discussion really, it's vital to disclose from where you're coming in from. Your perspective changes both how personal an issue is and the way you know it's effects. A white person will not talk the same about racism as a nonwhite person will, abled bodied folk cannot talk about disabilities in the same way those with them can. You (well not you specifically anon, i don't know you) could be equipped with all the resources in the world, have read all the books and talked to anyone and everyone, but in the end you could walk away from a discussion and that would be that. You wouldn't be directly impacted. There is simply a level of understanding that you can't reach about somethings you haven't lived.

#im using directed language in case any trans fems want to jump in on this (please do) #by directed language i mean using 'you' statements #mostly bc when white ppl make responses like this and use 'we' it feels weird to jump in and closes the conversation #replies #tme #// #transmisogyny #also the 'aligned masculine or not' is me trying to cover all nb ppls experiences ksbsjs #bc some people are like: no gender! or: not fully man/women! or I'm both! etc etc #im speaking on the trans masc side so the trans gay issues is from personal experience as a mlm and friends anecdotes #ill make this my only post for today and rb it later so it doesn't get buried but if you have any more questions pls reach out! #long post

[theroguefeminist]

I think a big thing stopping people accepting nuance in regards to the gendered socialization one picks up, is because so much of our theories about CIS gender dynamics can become very thorny and not as immediately satisfying if that happens. A very unambiguous socialization model seems super super baked into everything third wave feminism has to say.

The existence of trans ppl definitely throws a wrench into a lot of simpler frameworks for gender in society. That’s one reason terfs, who are 2nd wave feminists and even more behind, can’t stand trans ppl bc terfs can’t really reconcile their narrative about how being “female” can only be understood as an oppressed class you’re put into based on genitalia at birth and then imprisoned in due to socialization–and how abolishing these classes would solve patriarchy. Now suddenly you have ppl saying they identify as women despite being “socialized as male” and ppl saying they identify as men despite being “socialized as female”? That flies in the face of the framework. It starts to become clear that gender is more than a hierarchical class system rooted in power and oppression, but also has a component of identity and self-expression.

Fortunately, most of us have moved on from 2nd wave feminism. We have come to realize that gender is more than that. Most women and men don’t want to cease being women and men, and that desire isn’t necessarily incompatible with dismantling patriarchy or challenging gender norms.

Later strands of feminism take the identity and self-expression aspects of gender into account but tend to use clumsy attempts to reconcile the problems trans people bring up, i.e. disconnect between identifying as one gender but being treated as another, spending a large portion of your life living as one gender and another portion of your life living as another, being treated as one gender in some instances and another gender in different instances, opting to live as one gender despite years of being “raised” as another, being unable to identify or tell everyone’s gender by their behavior and appearance, identifying as /neither/ male or female, etc.

The fact that gender involves coercive socialization is not something any of us trans people would deny: we are the first to point out how we are all forcibly assigned a gender at birth and raised according to the strictures of that gender. In fact, our experience is even more painfully at odds with that gender assignment than the average cisgender person. Which is why most (non-feminist) cis people’s first objections to trans people are that we’re trying to say gender isn’t biological or innate but socially constructed and we’re all being pushed to play narrowly defined roles. The average person has to reconcile a completely uncritical understanding of gender as innate when presented with exceptions that prove the rule. Most cis people balk at this and just try to deny our existence in response.

Feminists on the other hand ALREADY KNOW gender is socially constructed. I think this is why SOME cis feminists are more readily able to absorb trans people into their worldview. After all: gender is socially constructed, it’s forced on all of us, and being gender nonconforming can be seen as a form of rebellion. HOWEVER, even the most well-meaning, trans-positive cis feminism will find points of conflict with trans existence. Like you say, that the explanations reliably model CIS gender dynamics and experience but not trans ones. Unfortunately, a lot of feminist critique of male power/privilege and female oppression rely on the very gender binary system that, in mainstream patriarchal society, situates male and female at opposite, mutually exclusive poles. 

We know to critique the gender binary of course. We know it’s “bad” or at the very least incomplete, but beyond an elucidation into restrictive gender norms that keep women down or further men’s toxic behavior, no feminist framework truly escapes the binary. We still talk in terms of men versus women, male and female socialization, etc. I’m not saying this is wrong per se when you consider that, in many circumstances this framework actually is correct. You can probably compare most mainstream current feminist thought to Newtonian physics: it’s a perfectly accurate model in the limited scope it was used to model phenomena. In fact, to do away with it would be a mistake.

And I guess that’s what I mean about trying to reconcile anything being next to impossible because I would say the trans model, like the Einsteinian model, is looking at things with a different lens. Using a lens that includes the phenomena of trans experience we see gender differently–and dynamics do not follow the predictions we would make with the cis feminist model. But I would say that like the Einsteinian model, the trans lens does reveal things the cis feminist model left out and see the original phenomena we measured in a different light. If someone accepts that gender is an identity, and not just a mode of oppression or power, that may change how someone approaches feminism and liberation, particularly in terms of how their actions and words might impact trans people.

One problem is we do not deal very honestly or thoroughly with this issue. We sidestep the conflicts that arise–the ways in which trans existence challenges cis feminism–for a variety of reasons, I think partially in the name of solidarity, partially because we fear minimizing/enabling/obfuscating the very real system of patriarchal power or, on the other hand, excluding or hurting trans people from the conversation by acknowledging the conflict. I think our constant quest for solidarity and intersectionality–for a wholeness of theory–has forced us to collapse the complexity of this issue. But the feminist lens and trans lens are different lenses, and that needs to be acknowledged sooner rather than later.

#feminism #transgender #trans #gender #zablorg #gender socialization

[freedom-of-fanfic]

antishipping as the ‘cool new trend’

or: why are most antis under 25 years old? (posted June 2017)

I really think that antishipping is a movement that’s gaining ground with the younger & newer arrivals to fandom spaces; a kind of ‘cool trend’, so to speak. In aggregate, antishipping culture is beautifully constructed to be particularly appealing to teenage or college-age people in the late 2010′s - and especially American people - who are marginalized, oppressed, often social outcasts in real life and often under-educated about their own marginalized identity, and I kind of wanted to get into why.

EDIT (October 2018): this post is was originally put up in June 2017. I’ve tweaked it a bit to correct some stuff I now think is just patronizing/incorrect, but overall, I now think it’s overly reliant on adolescent growth stages when the best explanations are societal changes (fandom being on viral social media, fandom being conflated with social justice activism, and increasingly authoritarian trends in 21st century America.)

the other day I posted to talk a little about why I think antis tend to be young (and American). To sum up & simultaneously add a little more:

a brain still growing - until the age of 22-25, the frontal lobe of the brain does not finish development. the frontal lobe handles higher reasoning skills and complex problem-solving. Thus: the growing mind is particularly prone to incomplete reasoning, black and white thinking, and total empathy failure, making it hard for those under 25 to fully comprehend the impact of their actions, sympathize with others, or tackle social problems with nuance. Truly comprehending that others come from entirely different worldviews or have entirely different experiences and that being different doesn’t make them wrong and that most deep-seated problems need complex solutions that require nuance tends to come with this final brain growth. (Not always, of course. but often.) nah I’ve completely changed my mind on this. It’s true that physiological changes are still occurring in teens that make empathy harder, but they can respect the choices of others just as well as an adult can.

current American sex education being mostly scaremongering and abstinence-only + ready availability of sexual content, specifically pornographic material, online + hypersexual marketing = a deeply fucked cultural understanding of sex that adolescents are particularly unequipped to detangle

escaping religious/Christian fundamentalism but not  black&white thinking or authoritarian ‘us vs them’ mindset: the moral/communal purity that organized Christianity often demands can take years to deprogram (and this is not to mention the gender essentialism, homophobia/queerphobia, and anti-sex/anti-kink messages, accompanied by a strong undercurrent of anti-intellectualism to discourage self-education on these subjects!) teens just breaking away from this toxicity are especially unequipped to untangle themselves. Young ppl tend to take the same worldview/us vs them/b&w thinking they grew up with to a more liberal cause instead (such as enforcing ‘social justice’ in shipping), with a side-order of internalized, unexamined anti-lgbt/sex/kink/etc rhetoric that dovetails rather neatly with exclusionist rhetoric.

exclusionary gatekeeping as baby’s first lgbt/queer culture lesson - transformative fandom is a frequent haven for marginalized people who don’t see themselves in the media they consume (so they change the media to meet their emotional, sexual, social, etc needs, you see?). because it’s not taught in schools here in the US, it’s not too uncommon for newcomers to get their first big dose of history and cultural education that’s not centered around straight white men in fandom. but what are they learning? here on tumblr, since about 2013, exclusionists have used the relative lack of education on queer history to build an false history, one where the gender binary is strongly enforced and sexualities can only exist on the binary axis: nb/queer/ace/pan and sometimes even bi and trans -identifying people are erased or ‘not oppressed enough’. this history is the one that young entrants into fandom are more likely to encounter first and have no knowledge with which to counter it.  Antishipping derives its mode of operation and principle values from exclusionists. It dictates who can write or do what based on their sexual/gender identity (and sometimes race as well). Its definition of social justice is also heavily influenced by exclusionists because its members are mostly young people who learned all their queer history from exclusionists.

the particularly adolescent vulnerability to peer pressure (the need to belong & the fear of being ostracized): teens are particularly inclined to be influenced by friendships and maintaining social ties. [...]  it’s easy to become an anti in order to keep your friends and almost impossible to quit without losing everything, and teens are especially vulnerable to this kind of social structure.  I think this was a factor 18 months ago, but not so much now. both ‘sides’ of this argument are pretty well-known and people in fandom can have strong opinions on shipping or anti-shipping from very early on.

less focus on teaching critical thinking & self-government. Education in America has long been aimed towards adequate training to work an assembly line, but 21st century American parenting and education both have neglected teaching young people how to make decisions for themselves & how to engage in critical analysis of what they see and read. antishipping is a highly cohesive, insular culture with enforced rules of conduct, striking clear in/out lines and valuing loyalty and groupthink over originality and intellectualism. also: keeping the party line & persecution of outsiders is encouraged, further strengthening the need to conform.

having a just cause & a space to control: antishipping rests its laurels on a(n incomplete, corrupted) form of social justice/righting the wrongs of the privileged. being an anti feels like making a difference b/c your actions have visible impact on your immediate surroundings. (and having a space you feel you can control can be even more urgent with additional pressures like abusive home situations, past traumatic experiences, academic pressure, untreated/unrecognized mental illness, being forced into the closet b/c of queer/transphobia, etc.)

an American (and to a lesser degree, western European) post 9/11* cultural shift from prioritizing personal freedom to prioritizing communal safety; those under the age of 20 were 3 or younger or not yet born when the shift happened. antishipping prioritizes communal ‘safety’ (‘bad’, ‘dangerous’, or ‘inappropriate’ things must never be mentioned to protect people from hearing about them and being either corrupted or harmed) over personal freedom (allowing ‘bad’/’dangerous’ things to be  discussed, and it is up to the individual to personally decide what content to avoid).

(*actually, this shift started in the US before 9/11. 9/11 just sped it up.)

of course, all of this is conjecture based on my own experiences and observations, and it’s not a set of rules - just circumstances that I believe absolutely encourage young fandom members to end up falling headfirst into antishipping and either never notice how hurtful it is or never get the courage to leave it behind. And I think there’s a lot more the popularity/prevalence of antishipping today, but this post is already longer than I meant it to be.

(I always go light on racism when i talk about antishipping because while antis frequently accuse shippers of racism, it’s disingenuous to class racism as the same kind of oppression as lgbt+-phobia & misogyny, particularly in America - they’re related, but not the same. Centering non-white (and especially black) voices does not get the same focus as centering lgbt and women’s voices in fandom, and I think it’s easy to dismiss legitimate charges of racism as ‘anti bullshit’ when we class all these types of marginalization together.)

#ever think about how white feminism seems like such a natural dovetail with radfems? #antishipping #anti culture #why antis do the thing #reg culture #christian fundamentalism #what is sex ed? we just don't know #an americentric post