#it just really hurts when it comes from other trans people.

[creatingblackcharacters]

"Let's Have a Talk, First"- Stereotypes, pt 1

Come sit down. You and I, before we get into any of the things I'm sure you're impatient to know: we need to have a come to Jesus talk, first.

There are some things that I've been asked and seen that strengthens my belief that we need to have a reframing of the conversation on stereotypes in media away from something as simple as "how do I find the checklist of stereotypes to avoid". Because race- and therefore racial stereotypes- is a complex construct! Stands to reason then, that seeing, understanding, and avoiding it won't be that simple! I'm going to give you a couple pointers to (hopefully) help you rethink your approach to this topic, and therefore how to apply it when you're writing Black characters- and even when thinking about Black people!

Point #1: DEVELOP THE CHARACTER!! WRITE!!

Excuse my crude language, but let me be blunt: Black people- and therefore Black characters- will get angry at things, and occasionally make bad choices in the heat of the moment. Some of us like to fuck real nasty, some might be dominant in the bedroom, they may even be incredibly experienced! Others of us succumb to circumstance and make poor decisions that lead to crime.

None of those things inherently makes any of us angry Black women and threatening Black men, Jezebels and BBC Mandingos, and gangsters and thugs!

Black people are PEOPLE! Write us as such!

If all Black characters ever did was go outside, say "hi neighbor!" and walk back in the house, we'd be as boring as racist fans often accuse.

I say this because I feel I've seen advice that I feel makes people think writing a Black character that… Emotes negatively, or gets hurt by life and circumstance, or really enjoys hard sex, or really any scenario where they might "look bad" is the issue. I can tell many people think "well if I write that, then it's a stereotype" and to avoid the difficulty, they'll probably end up writing a flat Black character or not writing them at all. Or- and I've seen this too- they'll overcompensate in the other direction, which reveals that they 'wrote a different sort of Black person!' and it comes off just as awkwardly because it means you think that the Black people that do these things are 'bad'. And I hate that, because we're capable of depth, nuance, good, evil, adventure, world domination, all of it!

My point is, if you write your character like the human being they are, while taking care to recognize that you as the writer are not buying into stereotypes with your OWN messaging, you're fine. We have emotions, we have motivations and goals, we make decisions, and we make mistakes, just like anybody else. Write that! Develop your character!

POINT #2: YOU CAN'T CONTROL THE READERS!!

Okay. You can write the GREATEST Black character ever, full of depth, love, nuance, emotional range, all those things…. And people are still going to be racist about them. Sorry. There is absolutely nothing you can do to control a reader coming from that place of bias you sought to avoid. If it's not there, TRUST AND BELIEVE, it'll be projected onto them.

That passionate young Black woman who told the MC to get her head out of her ass? Yeah she's an angry Black bitch now, and bully to the sweet white MC. Maybe a lesbian mommy figure if they like her enough to "redeem" her. That Black gay male lead that treats his partner like he worships the ground he walks on? Yeah he's an abusive thug that needs to die now because he disagreed One Time with his white partner. That Black trans woman who happened to be competing against the white MC, in a story where the white MC makes comparable choices? Ohhhh they're gonna be VILE about that poor woman.

It really hurts- most especially as a Black fan and writer- knowing that you have something amazing to offer (as a person and creative) and people are gonna spit on that and call it "preference". That they can project themselves onto white characters no matter what, but if you project your experiences onto black characters, it's "pandering", "self insert", "woke", "annoying", "boring", and other foul things we've all gotten comments of.

But expect that it's gonna happen when you write a Black character, again, especially if you're a Black writer. If you're not Black, it won't hurt as personally, but it will probably come as a shock when you put so much effort in to create a lovely character and people are just ass about them. Unfortunately, that is the climate of fandom we currently exist in.

My favorite example is of Louis De Pointe Du Lac from AMC's Interview With The Vampire. Louis is actually one of the best depictions of the existential horror that is being Black in a racist White world I have ever seen written by mostly nonblack people. It was timeless; I related to every single source of racist pain he experienced.

People were HORRIFIC about Louis.

It didn't matter that he was well written and what he symbolized; many white viewers did NOT LIKE this man. There's a level of empathy and understanding that Black characters in particular don't receive in comparison to white counterparts, and that's due to many of those stereotypes and systemic biases I'm going to talk about.

My point is, recognize that while yes, you as the author have a duty to write a character thoughtfully as you can, it's not going to stop the response of the ignorant. Writing seeking to get everyone to understand what you were trying to do… Sisyphean effort. It's better to focus on knowing that YOU wrote something good, that YOU did not write the stereotype that those people are determined to see.

POINT #3: WHY is something a stereotype?

While there are lists of stereotypes against Black people in media and life that can be found, I would appreciate if people stopped approaching it as just a list of things you can check off to avoid. You can know what the stereotypes are, sure, but if you don't understand WHY they're a problem and how they play into perception of us, you'll either end up writing a flat character trying to avoid that list, or you're going to write other things related to that stereotype because "oh its not item #1"... and it'll still be racist.

For example: if you wrote a "sassy Black woman" that does a z formation neck rotation just because a store manager asked her something… that's probably stereotype. If you thought of a character that needed to be "loudmouthed", "sassy", and "strong" and a dark-skinned black woman was automatically what fit the profile in your mind, ding ding ding! THAT'S where you need to catch your racist biases.

But a dark-skinned Black woman character cursing out a store manager because she's had a really bad, stressful day and their attitude towards her pushed her over the edge may be in the wrong, but she's not an "angry Black woman". She's a Black woman that's angry! And if you wrote the day she had to be as bad as would drive anyone to overstimulation and anxiety, the blow up will make sense! The development and writing behind her led to this logical point (which connects to point #1!)

I'm not going to provide a truly exhaustive list of Black stereotypes in media because that would ACTUALLY be worth a college credited class and I do this for free lmao. But I am going to provide some classic examples that can get y'all started on your own research.

POINT #4: WATCH BLACK NARRATIVES!

As always, I'm gonna push supporting Black creators, because that's the best way to see the range of what you'd like. You want to see Black villains? We got those! Black heroes? Black antiheroes? Assholes, lovers, comedians, depressed, criminals, kings, and more? They exist! You can get inspired by watching those movies and reading those books, see how WE depict us!

I've seen mixed reviews on it, BUT- I personally really enjoyed Swarm, because it was one of the first times I'd ever seen that "unhinged obsessed murderous Black fan girl" concept. Tumblr usually loves that shit lmao. Even the "bites you bites you bites you [thing I love]" thing was there. And she liked girls, too. Just saying. I thought it was a fun idea that I'd love to see more of. Y'all gotta give us a chance to be in these roles, to tell these tales. We can do it too, and you'd enjoy it if you tried to understand it!

POINT#5: You are NOT Black!

This is obvious lmao, but if you're not Black, there's no need to pretend. There's no need to think "oh well I have to get a 100% perfect depiction of the Black person's mind". That's… That's gonna look cringe, at its best. You don't have to do that in order to avoid stereotypes. You're not going to be able to catch every nuance because it's not your lived experience, nor is it the societally enforced culture. Just… Do what you can, and if you feel like it's coming off hokey… Maybe consider if you want to continue this way lol. If you know of any Black beta readers or sensitivity reviewers, that'd be a good time to check in!

For example, if your Black character is talking about "what's good my homie" and there's absolutely no reason for him to be speaking that way other than to indicate that he's Black… 😬 I can't stop you but… Are you sure?

An egregious example of a TERRIBLE way to write a Black character is the "What If: Miles Morales/Thor" comic. I want to emphasize the lack of good Black character design involved in some of these PROFESSIONAL art spaces, because that MARVEL comic PASSED QA!! That comic went past NUMEROUS sets of eyes and was APPROVED!! IT GOT RELEASED!! NO ONE STOPPED IT!!

I'm sorry, it was just so racist-ly bad that it was hilarious. Like you couldn't make that shit up.

Anyway, unfortunately that's how some of y'all sound trying to write AAVE. I promise that we speak the Queen's English too lmao. If you're worried you won't get it right, just use the standard form of English. It's fine! Personally, I'd much rather you do that than try to 'decode AAVE' if you don't know how to use it.

My point is, if you're actively "forcing" yourself to "think Black"… maybe you need to stand down and reconsider your approach lmao. This is why understanding the stereotypes and social environment behind them will help you write better, because you can incorporate that Blackness- without having to verbally "emphasize how Black this is"- into their character, motivations, and actions.

Conclusion

We need to reconsider how we approach the concepts of stereotypes when writing our Black characters. The goal is not to cross off a checklist of things to avoid per se, but to understand WHY we have to develop our Black characters well enough to avoid incorporating them into our writing. Give your Black characters substance- we're human beings! We have motivations and fears and desires! We're not perfect, but we're not inherently flawed because of our race. That's what makes the difference!

And as always, and really in particular for this topic, it's the thought that counts, but the action that delivers!

#creatingblackcharacters #character design #black characters #black character design #black culture

[rebellum]

Logically I know transphobes are dumb and illogical. But.

It's still hard to push their voices out of my head.

If a trans masc has sex with cis men, they're """basically straight women""", and if we have sex with cis women or other trans mascs we are """pussy4pussy""" like we are women copting the trans experience or something.

#obvs trans fems go thru a similar thing too #re: if they date cis women theyre '''''basically dangerous straight men''' who are 'pretending to be lesbians' #and if they have sex with cis men or other trans fems theyre 'basically gay men' or w/e #and dont even get me started on the intersex hatred and.. i forget thr word.. nonbinary hatred baked into this transphobia #assuming our genitals and reducing us to it #it just really hurts when it comes from other trans people.

[corvidcall]

sometimes you see a bad tweet and it makes you upset all day but you cant interact with it in any way because then twitter will just be encouraged to show you more bad tweets. but it did ruin my whole fucking day

#anime life #the tweet was something like #'MAYBE when trans women talk about how bad testosterone is its because of their own trauma #and its not about trans men because literally nobody was talking about you guys oh my god' #like... ok...? #but trans men can still HEAR you tho.... #i don't think its fair to act like trans men are self obsessed professional victims or whatever just because you said something shitty #like yes it's from your trauma and not about trans men but. yknow. #if i post about how ugly my fat body is #just because its coming from a place of trauma and societal abuse doesnt mean my comments don't hurt the other fat people who hear it #anyway i think part of why it's stuck with me all day is because it made me feel so sad #sometimes it feels like no one cares about me but me yknow? #like no one cares about trans mascs but other trans mascs #and no one cares about fat people but other fat people #and no one cares about disabled people but other disabled people #i KNOW that isn't true!!! #factually that is false #but sometimes it really feels like people only care about me in as much as they care about telling me i better not start thinking i matter #as much as they do (people whose lives and problems and societal marginalizations ACTUALLY matter) #and then if you try to talk about your problems to explain how theyre real you just get made fun of #oh well. time to get under my weighted blanket and get real small #and try not to get entirely black pilled by the world lol

[sludgeguzzler]

look i really dont mind having a pre t body with its little biological quirks but i have a limit and the limit is waking up at 4am with immense pain and a puddle of blood on my bed

#im probably most likely overhyping what t will do to my body but i cant wait till my periods stop #if they dont stop i will fr go after some way of stopping them im not kidding there is literally nothing good that i get from having them #its just. its just pain and blood and a constant reminder of how Woman i have to be. it makes me sad #like. all the good cramp medicine is like WOMAN PILL FOR YOUR SCHEDULED GIRL MOMENT OF THE MONTH [picture of a woman] #[venus symbol] [flowers] #and all pads come with th same thing too. like i get that its technically not harming anyone but please man cmon #my mood gets all janged up i cant think straight in the worst ways possible im always having breakdowns during them #and i have to deal with genuinely unbearable pain! and! a heavy flow! because my moms ovaries! are the most fucked ovaries ever! #hhg the only good thing i can think of is that if there was a death metal band of trans guys the lyrics theyd write would be sick #[hi this is me telling you im about to get a little gross so if stuff like this grosses you out uh. yeah] #like the gruesome symbolism of periods is pretty damn cool if im honest. i dunno #i genuinely really like the movements on normalizing periods and how they are not something to be ashamed of and happen with a lot of ppl #but. but. #it puts a lot of emphasis on how its a Woman thing when a lot of women (cis or otherwise) dont have them #and it excludes all the other non woman people who have them #re personal opinion but i think our image of periods really shouldnt be flowery beautiful woman moment that passes by in a blink. #i think we should talk about how it hurts and how it will suck a little too hard for some people and that #periods not always mean a symbol of feminity and fertility and other stuff (its 5am im tires) to everyone #like to me periods are misery and oain and dysphoria but i have a cis friend who sees her periods as symbols of her womanhood abd #*and like. shes not wrong but im also not wrong either #idk my head hurts and i wanna go bacm to sleep so bye #sg.txt

[fitzrove]

tag rambles

#sjjflsldk idk if this is weird to share on a public blog.......... #thinking about how [redacted favourite actor] said that for a long time he despised femininity [because of trans bg] #and reflecting on how long it took for me to realise that just because i'm not attracted to or 'available to' men doesnt mean i should #express scorn or distaste for masculinity #like!!!!! okay. You can actually really see this in how people talk about M*rk Seibert's Tod!!! #like... a lot of ppl (a lot of queer women) are like 'ew he's so macho hetero' when... he's not macho any more than máté is #and saying that his masculinity makes him bad or saying that it makes him het can be so hurtful #i joke about how gay men love marktod but like its just a fact lol a lot of gay men love marktod #(including biebz and his opinion as og rudolf is one of the most importantest /hj) #but like!!!!!!! consider that not all portrayals of a role are FOR YOU. but they can be very important to someone else #jakskskd idk i certainly don't intend to shame anyone #but during the past year i've definitely come a long way from internalizing the 'ew het tod' discourse #to being a staunch marktod defender oansöakdkd #idk it's just like. you can be not attracted to men without going on about how men are gross and bad lol #i know i prefer other tods (i'd really prefer woman tod tbh) but i will die on the hill of marktod rights

[queernobi]

Saw a post from a trans man about transmasculinity which I agreed with at first glance, but then it said something like, "maybe the reason why so many trans men are transmeds is because YOU (referring to non-transmasc nonbinary folk and transfems) keep kicking us out of other spaces!" and this tweet had a LOT of positive notes and reblogs from other transmascs who agreed with OP.

As a transmasc myself, I really, REALLY need other transmascs to understand a few things:

1) There's literally no verifiable evidence that other transmascs are disproportionately more likely to be bigoted, not even specifically bigoted in the sense that they are transmedicalist. If you are a transmasc and you accept this assertion at face value, then you have either only ever spent time with the shittiest transmasc groups ever (which, to be fair, I used to be in that position, so relatable), or you yourself have troubling attitudes that need to be examined.

2) While I cannot presume to speak for all transmascs, the transmasc folk that I know have only ever been kicked out of communities with other transmascs, usually because those transmascs had shitty attitudes, and *even then* it's happened very, VERY rarely. If you genuinely have a problem connecting with any trans person who isn't transmasc to such an extent that you cannot stay in a group with them for that long, then I'm sorry to say, I have a hard time believing the problem is with those other trans folk.

3) No, and I can't believe I have to say this, being ousted from a group--even for unjustified reasons--is not an excuse to espouse bigotry (and transmedicalism is bigotry). It does not make you sympathetic, or sad, or relatable, or justified, *it just makes you a fucking asshole.*

I don't want to presume too much, but the most generous reading I can take from these sorts of takes (which I want to insist can very well just be me reading way too much into it!) is that many of these transmasculine folk have never really had a lot of spaces or community with other transmascs, which isn't inherently bad (or even their fault, really), but does make it difficult to talk about actual issues transmascs face. I'd like to be able to discuss specific issues transmascs face, and even discuss how difficult it can sometimes be to get other non-transmasc nonbinary folk and transfems to understand and recognize those issues, without having to cosign dangerous, harmful, and FALSE assertions that no transmasc person ever feels comfortable around non-transmasc trans folk (especially transfems). You are absolutely projecting your own issues and biases there, and as a transmasc myself, I want absolutely no part of that shit.

#transphobia #trans #transgender #transmasc #ftm #i'm sure this will be used to suggest i don't truly understand transmasc issues #but when i was first coming out and trying to find community with other transmascs #i encountered the worst kinds of transmascs who were transmed and incredibly transmisogynist #not to mention extremely judgmental of any deviation from what they assumed was typical masculine behavior #while i'm fortunate to be in an area with a lot of other queer folk #the experience prevented me from wanting to associate with other transmascs irl for a while #i mostly associated with transfems #i don't think i even talked to other transmascs irl until a couple years later #because i was so worried they'd be like the groups i knew online #lo and behold they were nothing like that #most of the transmascs i've met both irl and online since continue to be nothing like those people #i really need other transmascs to understand that this sort of shit hurts not only transfems and non-transmasc nbs #but also other transmascs as well #it makes these communities extremely toxic to be a part of and can cause transmascs to intentionally distance themselves #not just from the specific community but from other transmascs all together #we are already so isolated i am begging y'all to not do this shit

[999deadblog999]

I'm not gonna lie, I feel like I have a problem with the term 'abusive people.' I'm not huge on the indication that they're just like that, as a person, and even if they tried to change, they're 'still an abusive person'

I absolutely don't intend to erase anyone's experiences-I'd be erasing my own too if that were the case. However, doing dbt and learning how to frame things in a healthy lense... It's not helpful to me in my healing to see things phrased like that. It just feels weird. I've hurt people before and not realized it- and they turned and leveraged the idea of 'abusive people' against me and told me I would never change, and that fucked with me for years. It still does sometimes. Even when I'm doing great, being social, and working on myself, it's hard to get away from seeing that drilled at you while you're trying to sincerely apologize for your behavior.

I've never found a situation painted with broad, unforgiving strokes to be compassionate or helpful. It just twists your thinking into a more 'them VS us' view of the world, which is precisely the type of black/white thinking that dbt therapists generally try to get you away from.

Everyone has the capacity to heal. Whether they act on it or not is on their own accord.

#Clavikiss personal #Im just frustrated with seeing that in trauma healing communities and I'm like... :/ #It's just a different type of weaponization. People are just people. And sometimes people can get real lost and be really shitty. #Sometimes they're remorseless and not interested in don't better. My birth family is like that. I get that. #My biggest prob with it comes in when ppl use it to assert their ableism against ppl with stigmatized mental health problems #Which seems like it happens quite a lot unfortunately #And it's precisely that type of thinking that led an older trans woman to abuse myself and my boyfriend-she was convinced one or both of us #Have NPD. And sure #One of us does #But turning around to be unremorsefully shitty towards with that others won't heal the trauma she acquired from her abuser. #It left us with even more trauma we'll have to unpack with a therapist that'll hear us. #It perpetuates an exhausting cycle. #Hurt people hurt people. Break the cycle. There's never a reason to believe someone is innately shitty because 'it's just how they are' #Everyone has the capacity to heal and be better. #Everyone. #I mean it. #Doesn't mean you have to talk to them #But developing an us VS them mindset won't heal your pain. It'll just make you scared. Or a hurtful person to be around. #Also- no I'm not being transphobic I'm literally trans and talking about my experience #If you come into my askbox with that I will not give you the time of day. #People in minority groups have just as much capacity to be abusive as someone who is not.

[readymades2002]

ah lads not again

#got outed without my permission to people it is necessary for me to live in proximity with by my overly supportive mother. a third time 👍 #i should really stopbeing upset about it i dont know what it is she like cannot help herself #three people i work with INCLUDING ONE OF MY BOSSES during one of the most violent reactionary periods imaginable #i thought her going on about how she doesnt tell people my sister has a girlfriend because its 'not her story to tell' #was a sign that she had learned from how she treated me and it hurt to have that support built on throwing me into the fire #but bearable but no she did it again. #and then when i was upset with her about it and told her so she spent the entire time i was at work miserable #and still crying when she picked me up and going 'just when i thought i got it right with you i fucked it up again' #which. i KNEW she was going to do. i knew she would be hurt. i knew she would feel guilty. and i knew she would say so #and i knew more than anything that then the onus would be on me to comfort her for potentially putting me in danger #or even literally just spreading my business to other people because she won't talk to them about herself #and needs to tell them about ME #i cannot tell her im trans i literally cannot ever come out to her because it will put me in harms way #i wish id never even told her im gay but i never had a moment of realizing that it was always just kind of what i was #ive never ever ever had a fucking choice in the matter and its pointless to be mad. but im mad #the aforementioned boss approached me about it at work to get overfamiliar (supportively i guess) #and it felt like a kick in the stomach!! i cant believe she did it again i really cant

[specialagentartemis]

I get variations on this comment on my post about history misinformation all the time: "why does it matter?" Why does it matter that people believe falsehoods about history? Why does it matter if people spread history misinformation? Why does it matter if people on tumblr believe that those bronze dodecahedra were used for knitting, or that Persephone had a daughter named Mespyrian? It's not the kind of misinformation that actually hurts people, like anti-vaxx propaganda or climate change denial. It doesn't hurt anyone to believe something false about the past.

Which, one, thanks for letting me know on my post that you think my job doesn't matter and what I do is pointless, if it doesn't really matter if we know the truth or make up lies about history because lies don't hurt anyone. But two, there are lots of reasons that it matters.

It encourages us to distrust historians when they talk about other aspects of history. You might think it's harmless to believe that Pharaoh Hatshepsut was trans. It's less harmless when you're espousing that the Holocaust wasn't really about Jews because the Nazis "came for trans people first." You might think it's harmless to believe that the French royalty of Versailles pooped and urinated on the floor of the palace all the time, because they were asshole rich people anyway, who cares, we hate the rich here; it's rather less harmless when you decide that the USSR was the communist ideal and Good, Actually, and that reports of its genocidal oppression are actually lies.

It encourages anti-intellectualism in other areas of scholarship. Deciding based on your own gut that the experts don't know what they're talking about and are either too stupid to realize the truth, or maliciously hiding the truth, is how you get to anti-vaxxers and climate change denial. It is also how you come to discount housing-first solutions for homelessness or the idea that long-term sustained weight loss is both biologically unlikely and health-wise unnecessary for the majority of fat people - because they conflict with what you feel should be true. Believing what you want to be true about history, because you want to believe it, and discounting fact-based corrections because you don't want them to be true, can then bleed over into how you approach other sociological and scientific topics.

How we think about history informs how we think about the present. A lot of people want certain things to be true - this famous person from history was gay or trans, this sexist story was actually feminist in its origin - because we want proof that gay people, trans people, and women deserve to be respected, and this gives evidence to prove we once were and deserve to be. But let me tell you a different story: on Thanksgiving of 2016, I was at a family friend's house and listening to their drunk conservative relative rant, and he told me, confidently, that the Roman Empire fell because they instituted universal healthcare, which was proof that Obama was destroying America. Of course that's nonsense. But projecting what we think is true about the world back onto history, and then using that as recursive proof that that is how the world is... is shoddy scholarship, and gets used for topics you don't agree with just as much as the ones you do. We should not be encouraging this, because our politics should be informed by the truth and material reality, not how we wish the past proved us right.

It frequently reinforces "Good vs. Bad" dichotomies that are at best unhelpful and at worst victim-blaming. A very common thread of historical misinformation on tumblr is about the innocence or benevolence of oppressed groups, slandered by oppressors who were far worse. This very frequently has truth to it - but makes the lies hard to separate out. It often simplifies the narrative, and implies that the reason that colonialism and oppression were bad was because the victims were Good and didn't deserve it... not because colonialism and oppression are bad. You see this sometimes with radical feminist mother goddess Neolithic feminist utopia stuff, but you also see it a lot regarding Native American and African history. I have seen people earnestly argue that Aztecs did not practice human sacrifice, that that was a lie made up by the Spanish to slander them. That is not true. Human sacrifice was part of Aztec, Maya, and many Central American war/religious practices. They are significantly more complex than often presented, and came from a captive-based system of warfare that significantly reduced the number of people who got killed in war compared to European styles of war that primarily killed people on the battlefield rather than taking them captive for sacrifice... but the human sacrifice was real and did happen. This can often come off with the implications of a 'noble savage' or an 'innocent victim' that implies that the bad things the Spanish conquistadors did were bad because the victims were innocent or good. This is a very easy trap to fall into; if the victims were good, they didn't deserve it. Right? This logic is dangerous when you are presented with a person or group who did something bad... you're caught in a bind. Did they deserve their injustice or oppression because they did something bad? This kind of logic drives a lot of transphobia, homophobia, racism, and defenses of Kyle Rittenhouse today. The answer to a colonialist logic of "The Aztecs deserved to be conquered because they did human sacrifice and that's bad" is not "The Aztecs didn't do human sacrifice actually, that's just Spanish propaganda" (which is a lie) it should be "We Americans do human sacrifice all the god damn time with our forever wars in the Middle East, we just don't call it that. We use bullets and bombs rather than obsidian knives but we kill way, way more people in the name of our country. What does that make us? Maybe genocide is not okay regardless of if you think the people are weird and scary." It becomes hard to square your ethics of the Innocent Victim and Lying Perpetrator when you see real, complicated, individual-level and group-level interactions, where no group is made up of members who are all completely pure and good, and they don't deserve to be oppressed anyway.

It makes you an unwitting tool of the oppressor. The favorite, favorite allegation transphobes level at trans people, and conservatives at queer people, is that we're lying to push the Gay Agenda. We're liars or deluded fools. If you say something about queer or trans history that's easy to debunk as false, you have permanently hurt your credibility - and the cause of queer history. It makes you easy to write off as a liar or a deluded fool who needs misinformation to make your case. If you say Louisa May Alcott was trans, that's easy to counter with "there is literally no evidence of that, and lots of evidence that she was fine being a woman," and instantly tanks your credibility going forward, so when you then say James Barry was trans and push back against a novel or biopic that treats James Barry as a woman, you get "you don't know what you're talking about, didn't you say Louisa May Alcott was trans too?" TERFs love to call trans people liars - do not hand them ammunition, not even a single bullet. Make sure you can back up what you say with facts and evidence. This is true of homophobes, of racists, of sexists. Be confident of your facts, and have facts to give to the hopeful and questioning learners who you are relating this story to, or the bigots who you are telling off, because misinformation can only hurt you and your cause.

It makes the queer, female, POC, or other marginalized listeners hurt, sad, and betrayed when something they thought was a reflection of their own experiences turns out not to be real. This is a good response to a performance art piece purporting to tell a real story of gay WWI soldiers, until the author revealed it as fiction. Why would you want to set yourself up for disappointment like that? Why would you want to risk inflicting that disappointment and betrayal on anyone else?

It makes it harder to learn the actual truth.

Historical misinformation has consequences, and those consequences are best avoided - by checking your facts, citing your sources, and taking the time and effort to make sure you are actually telling the truth.

#history #history and the world #misinformation

[bomber-grl]

SAL FISHER RELATIONSHIP HC ! ₊˚⊹

₊˚⊹ PAIRING(s): Sal fisher x Gn!reader

He’s so sweet it hurts

Honestly, Sal is the best boyfriend ever, he’s always there for you and he always knows the perfect things to say when comforting you.

The two of you met because of the ghosts and the whole cult thing while at high school.

You were the more outspoken one out of the two of you since Sal was mostly against violence even when Travis was brought into the convo.

I can definitely see Sal being the first one to approach you.

It all started when Sal started becoming increasingly interested in you to the point that Larry and even ash started teasing and encouraging him to talk to you.

He would fluster, occasionally and say the wrong words out of nervousness however with luck, he managed to get your number.

It was hard not to fall for him, especially with how lovable he is.

He’s so genuinely nice and actually cares for others.

Of course, you eventually see his face, and although he was neutral about it since he trusted you he was still a bit nervous.

Definitely warms his heart when you not only accept his face but also kiss it.

He flusters and stutters so badly afterwards.

Continuing from that, he’s definitely the type to tease lightheartedly

Definitely not in the beginning though

So when you first started teasing and provoking him, causing him to get super flustered

He wouldn’t really know what to do except accept it, so imagine your surprise when he turns the tables once day and makes you a blushing mess

Most times when you hang out, you usually hang at the apartments in his room, or when sals an adult you’d hang out in his room in the house

During these hang outs you guys would usually listen to some music or just enjoy each others presence

Most times it’s just you and sal cuddling and ngl he smells rlly good

Like I’m not even joking and when you mention this, he can’t help but laugh and just tells you do too

However, when you guys hang out with Larry (which is more often than not) you guys end up in more than sus situations 😭😭

The. Larry is all like “I’ll leave you guys at it” and dips

Like??? We’re not doing anything 😭🗣️

Anyway

While you’re at high school ofc Travis has something to say, and if you’re a guy then he obviously calls you the f slur and a lot of homophobic nonsense

And if you’re a girl Travis still calls y’all homos in a negative way, and always says shit about you two

And I don’t think I need elaborate further about how Travis would probably hate crime you if you were non-binary, gender fluid, or basically anything under the trans umbrella

(Basically any gender identity that isn’t your assigned one 😭

Larry, ash, and Todd all get pissed at Travis , and they always come to the both of your guy’s defense

And ofc Sal is bit lenient towards Travis, well only ever when Travis is talking shit about him

If Travis talks shit about you he’d be pissed

But ofc younger Sal is less violent and more open so he’d obvs be kinder

Anyway, we all know what happens at the apartments and if you live there-

Let’s just say it pains Sal so much to have to kill you

I mean him having to kill all the people he grew up with and the people he cares for is horrible but he knows he has to

However, if you don’t, well let’s say you know about the cult and why he did it

Still doesn’t stop you from trying to find a way to get a lower sentence and from trying the convince ash of the truth

When sal dies, let’s just say you feel so alone

Of course you have ash by your side but it’s just horrible

Eventually you’re the person that sals soul would enter and you’d defeat the cult that way

But let’s all pretend that they were able to defeat the cult without having to kill the innocent tenants

Making sal a free man

Well if it were that way, you and Sal would be together for a long time, and if you both wished it, married too

———

Art credits : @/toasterdoodle22

#male reader #gn!reader #gn reader #female reader #sally face #sal fisher #fluff headcanons #fluff #fanfic fluff #sal fisher x reader #sal fisher x female reader #sally face headcanons #sally face fandom #sally face fanfiction #sal fisher sally face #relationship headcanons #sally face x reader #sally face x male reader #sally face game #fanfic

[genderkoolaid]

The transandrophobia brainrot has hit tiktok hard. There's a sound going around right now that uses the T slur in a reclamatory way, but whenever a transmasc person uses the sound people lose their minds saying it's transmisogynistic for them to use that word. But when cis male drag queens use the audio it's a slay.

My answer to those people is Get Kate Bornstein'd:

Tranny. Many people don’t know the history of the word, they assume it was an assigned hate term or slur along the lines of the “n” word. That’s not how it happened. Tranny was invented by us in Sydney, Australia in the 1970s where drag was a big deal, and still the best drag shows ever are in Sydney, Australia – they’re amazing. So a lot of trans-identified women who were assigned male at birth did drag, that’s how you made your living. And so they were transsexuals, transvestites, drag queens, and they were all doing drag to make money. They all bickered amongst each other who is better than who, “Well the drag queens are better,” “No, the transsexuals are better.” “You are all freaks, we’re better.” And on and on and on. But they worked together and they were family together, so they came up with a word that would say family and that was tranny. In Australia they do the diminutive, that’s how they come up with words. So tranny. I learned the word in the mid-1980s, late 1980s from my drag mom in San Francisco, Doris Fish, who was the city’s preeminent drag queen and she’d come from Sydney. And she schooled me in this word tranny, she said, “This way it means we’re family, darling.” “Thank you mama.” [...] So we used it and we were trannies together. And F to M was just beginning to start, the trans men were just beginning to become visible, Lou Sullivan was a neighbor of mine around the corner, and he was the first big out trans man, wrote his book. So trans men and cross dressers . . . cross dressers were also family. Transsexuals, we were all trannies and that felt good. That got into the sex industry and became a genre – there was tranny porn, there were tranny sex workers – chicks with dicks, she-males. [...] And, my only guess is that people who . . . because the only way they would have found out about the word is if they were watching tranny porn or having been with a tranny sex worker and then hated themselves so much that they turned it into a curse word. So it’s not really technically correct to say we’re reclaiming a word – it was always ours. So, many people mistake the word for the hatred behind the word and, in my generation, and I’m sure in future generations of trans people, tranny is going to be a radicalized, sexualized identity of trans in the same way that faggot is a prideful identity in the gay male community – not all gay men are faggots, but those who are are proudly fags and those who are dykes are proudly dykes within the lesbian community, trannies are proudly tranny within the transgender community. Does that mean we can’t call ourselves that because some trans woman does not want to be called a tranny? No. I’m going to keep calling myself a tranny. To the trans woman who gets called tranny, I’m sorry – as soon as . . . you’ve got to look at why you’re getting called tranny and if you don’t pass, you’re going to be read as a transgender person and then you fall back on the cultural view of trans folk which is freak, disgusting, not worth living, we can hurt you. It has nothing to do with the word, it has everything to do with the cultural attitude. So the word has stirred up a shit storm, but it’s not the word.

^ From this interview

Four weeks ago, Bear posted a call for submissions on his blog. In the interests of keeping the call as open as possible, we agreed to include as many trans-identities as we knew, so we used the word "tranny." And that's where the activist shit hit the postmodern fan base. People have been pissed. Here's their argument: FTMs are co-opting a word that belongs to MTFs. The word "tranny" belongs to MTFs, reason those who were hurt by our use of the word, because it was a denigrating term reclaimed by MTFs—ergo, only MTFs could be known as trannies. I spoke with Bear, and we agree that’s wrong on several counts:

Tranny began as a uniting term amongst ourselves. Of course it’s going to be picked up and used as a denigrating term by mean people in the world. But even if we manage to get them to stop saying tranny like a thrown rock, mean people will come up with another word to wound us with. So, let’s get back to using tranny as a uniting term amongst ourselves. That would make Doris Fish very happy.

It's our first own language word for ourselves that has no medical-legacy. 

Even if (like gay) hate-filled people try to make tranny into a bad word, our most positive response is to own the word (a word invented by the queerest of the queer of their day). We have the opportunity to re-create tranny as a positive in the world.

Saying that FTMs can’t call themselves trannies eerily echoes the 1980s lesbians who said I couldn’t use the word woman to identify myself, and the 1990s lesbians who said I couldn’t use the word dyke. 

At one phase in the evolution of transpeople-as-tribe, it was the male-to-females who were visible and representative of trans to the rest of the world. They were the trannies. Today? Ironically true to the binary we’re in the process of shattering, the pendulum has swung so that it's now female-to-males who are the archetypal trannies of the day. The generation coming up beyond the next generation, i.e. my tribal grandchildren are the young boys who transition to young girls at the age of five or six. They’re the next trannies. None of us can own the word. We can only be grateful that our tribe is so much larger than we had thought it would be. How to come together—now that’s the job of the next generation of gender outlaws.

^ From Who You Calling A Tranny?

We've been having this debate forever and its been stupid forever.

And its an increasingly outdated debate. More people know about trans men&mascs than ever and there are plenty of TM&Ms who have been called tranny by transphobes who don't give a shit about this distinction. And not just people who have been mistaken for transfems, either, but men like Andrew Jonathan Blake-Newton and Saye Skye who were attacked by people who knew them. Do they have more or less of a right to say tranny than a trans girl whose never been called it by a transphobe? (Neither. Because no one owns this word.)

#m. #ask box

[chucktaylorupset]

goddddd it’s fine!! its fine!!! its okay if if 12 year old girls decide they’re asexual and look back and realize that actually it was just puberty and the gross sexualization of women that alienated them from their feelings of attraction and actually now she feels she was always allo. That’s allowed! That’s okay! Its not the end of the world if some of the people coming home to the label of asexuality are actually arriving at a way station onto what will be a better place for them. Cause you know if what she wanted was to feel she had the language to give herself permission to not be obligated to engage in sexual acts, to not exist as a sexual foodstuff for the consumption and digestion of others, If she needed the world asexual to shield her like that that’s okay!!! Cause whats important is she found a way to not do the things she wasn’t ready to do. What you wanna say no? No, you are obligated to figure out your attraction to others and the torture of its existence in a complicated fucked up world with language that doesn’t always sink home. Who is she hurting. Oh yeah it’s on a twelve year old to never be wrong about who they think they’re becoming, it’s up to a twelve year old to find a permanent state of self, it’s on a twelve year old to figure out the uncomfortableness of becoming a sexual being on their fucking own. Cause yknow if she’s wrong then people are going to use that as evidence that asexuality is a phase as if people looking for an excuse to dismiss other people’s identities would just not exist if we all perfectly performed our fucking labels like they’re the audience that decides if our fucking rock opera gets to hit broadway. Like there’s a fucking quota on how many times a person can be wrong about a label. I’m bisexual!! And if I’d just allowed myself to think that it’d be okay if I was wrong about being bisexual, or that it was okay if it wasn’t permanent, then I would’ve taken the first step to realizing I was actually a long term bisexual all the sooner.  There isn’t a fucking deadline for figuring out the perfect label for yourself, there isn’t a fucking surety purity test at the door. God, and all these trans kids and people agonizing about if they’re really trans or if they’re just faking it, as if that’s important when transitioning makes them happier! But no, we gotta make a philosophical argument from the ground up for what it means to be queer every fucking time so you don’t get it wrong cause god forbid, can you imagine

#my post #drafts cleaning #asexuality #im bi and i am handing out free passes to be bi and then later be like oh whoops

[kidrat]

having feelings about trans Gwen,,, like there's the 'superhero leading a double life' allegory for being closeted, which ppl have noted, but there's plenty I haven't seen anyone mention yet! like, the fact her dad has a trans patch in support of her means she's out.

She's a young trans *girl* (as opposed to a trans woman) living as her authentic gender in a loving home. she went to her school dance in a dress. she did ballet! which of course boys can do too, but often times when people are assigned male they don't get the chance to explore feminine hobbies. It's really lovely that someone, likely Gwen's dad, supported her enough to let her have those girly experiences and memories, whether she was living as a girl when she took dance up or as a gnc boy.

While it's subtle rep, I still think it's awesome to imply a character like Gwen is trans. Trans girls don't always get to have a childhood. Transmisogyny fetishizes transfems and presents them as always victimisers, never victims. They're barred from girlhood and it's connotations of innocence, vulnerability, lovableness.

Not that Gwen isn't a hashtag strong female character! And not that she hasn't had to grow up fast in other ways. She Is Literally Spiderwoman and she plays the drums and has agency and expresses negative emotions. But she's also a teenager, and she gets to be hugged and comforted, and to be set up for a soft friends to lovers relationship with another teenager, a cis boy who respects her and only knows her as a girl and thinks she's amazing and draws her in his sketchbook. That is not a role the media often lets trans girls have!!! It's lovely to think young transfems might be able to see themselves in a character consistently shown as worthy of affection.

Of course, the fact that Gwen is in the closet about being spider-woman is even sadder knowing this is her second rodeo. Lots of us have hesitated to come out a second time because our parents were supportive about the first thing and well, putting something else on them feels like taking the piss or hoping for too much.

Something else I wanted to talk about is how Gwen being trans effects a reading of her Peter's death, especially taking into account the new information this film gave us about this. There's this gendered switch happening, where Peter passes on his usual role to a woman. What's more, he has to die for her story to happen. She loves him, and never wanted him to die, but she's blamed for it anyway. Her father talks affectionately about the dead Peter, calling him his daughter's best friend. He talks about him like a son. He vows revenge on Gwen for killing him. It's a fantastic allegory for how some transphobic parents hate their out trans children for 'killing' the kid they had before.

I think with the above in mind, maybe we can see the subtext of Gwen's arc with her dad in this film as that of a supportive parent who's nevertheless got some biases left that hurt his trans daughter, who doesn't speak up for fear his acceptance is conditional.

I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that protecting a trans daughter is this Captain Stacy's motivation while he's working as a cop. Obviously there's the text that he wants to be a 'good cop' to work against the institution's bigotry, and he displays the trans flag on his work jacket. His quitting the police is a fantastic story beat because it makes a point about the real world while also serving a lot of the analogies going on.

Good cops quit. They realise you can't be a well intentioned cog in a bigoted machine. It doesn't matter if you're a bigot or just taking actions a bigot might because you're working within parameters set by bigots. It's an important message. Within a trans reading of the film, I'd also see this plot moment as Stacy realising he can't protect his trans daughter if he's still playing by the rules of a society that see her as threatening and duplicitous. He's then able to stop seeing her on some level as having killed his son.

They're able to be close again because he has completely rejected the cis culture he was a part of, rather than just decrying the worst parts and slotting Gwen in. She no longer has to worry that he'll rescind his acceptance if she's too trans, and so he gets to know all of her because she can let him into her world without self-editing.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on Gwen after watching Across The Spiderverse two hours ago lmao.

#atsv #atsv spoilers #across the spiderverse spoilers #spiderverse spoilers #spiderverse #spiderverse gwen

[blackswallowtailbutterfly]

My nana at 9 years of age was dragged kicking and screaming to school. Her math teacher had been molesting her. She told her parents. They did nothing. Best part? Her father was the principal. So obviously that teacher learned he could get away with anything and started molesting the other girls, who then blamed my nana because...I dunno, little kid logic I guess. It was unlikely their parents were going to be any more helpful than my nana's and he knew it.

My great aunt at the age of 13 was forcibly kissed by a teacher in full view of several witnesses who then gave her shit for seducing an honourable man.

My mom at 12 years of age left her physically abusive father to live with her mother and stepfather, only for her stepfather to molest her. Her mother to this day refuses to believe it.

My best friend had a longterm close male friend who sexually assaulted her in her sleep. Their entire friend group as well as the youth counselor encouraged her to forgive him because it was obviously a misunderstanding and she'd been giving off mixed signals and he'd had a huge crush on her and he wasn't intending to hurt her! So she did forgive him, publicly. And he did it again. And again. And again. And then it was her fault because she kept hanging out with him. If she really didn't want him doing it, why didn't she just abandon her entire friend group? He also got emboldened and went on to sexually assault other girls, so eventually they all started talking and went to the school against him. The youth counselor admonished my friend for going forward against him.

My other best friend decided to be "open-minded" and dated a trans-identified male. He also sexually assaulted her multiple times in her sleep but he framed her as the abuser at their youth support group for not adequately validating his identity.

My stepfather molested me from the ages of 7 to 12 and when I reported him he was dating a new woman at the time. She didn't believe it. They're still together. I can only imagine the number of girls he's been given access to over the years (he didn't go to jail, or get convicted of sexual assault).

I was also sexually assaulted in my sleep at my friend's party once. That guy's friend said I "probably wanted it".

Went to group therapy. All the women there had very different stories, but one theme that kept cropping up: they weren't believed or they were blamed.

I read books about therapy sessions with other victims. And that theme kept up. Not believed or else blamed. One woman told her story, learning to gloss it over before being dismissed out of hand, for decades before a professional finally asked her to elaborate and put her in touch with a sexual assault crisis centre. Another thing that came up in those books: knowing how hard it was for victims to come forward, and all the discouragement from people in their lives, many women must take it to the grave.

But hey, it's fine. Men have it worse. I mean we all watched a rich abusive man successfully publicly humiliate his victim while everyone said he was the victim and she was the abuser. And actually it's super common for abusive men to claim to be the victim, and police and family believe it! And it can take multiple women to come forward against one man for anything to be done, and often even that's not enough. But never mind that, men have it worse. We know this because they so--no, no, don't pay attention to hospital records or homicides or child marriages, or--Men. Say. They. Have it worse! So they do. Everything a man says is truth. That's why you must believe whatever a man says and accept every observation he makes as objective. No, there's no irony here, no historical precedent, no global trend.

[gb-patch]

Saw an ask about an apparent problem of people drawing Qiu whiter than he is and whitewashing. With that in mind, I think you should hold the same standard for Tamarack for artists that draw her darker than she is to outright black. Tumblr and Twitter in general have an obsession with coloring traditionally white/pale characters the complete opposite race or adding details like kinky/coiled hair and see no issue with it but raise hell the moment a poc is one hue lighter. It erases their identity just as much as everyone says whitewashing does but everyone constantly falls back on the "only whites can be racist so changing their identity in art is okay!!" pipeline

Tamarack comes from a German family and is white, so please take the same level of importance when artists "blackwash" her or any other character in your series.

You know generally, I don’t like to use this blog to as a place to act like I’m the best, most correct person in the world and respond to things where I’m simply telling an anonymous person they’re wrong. I’m just someone who has people following me because they like the stories this company makes.

However, this is something that people should know. If our POC players draw our characters having a darker skin tone than they do in-game and/or give them a different hair texture, that’s alright. I’ve fallen off on reblogging stuff on Tumblr but it’d still be liked or reposted on Twitter.

Whitewashing means far more than the literal act of a single individual making someone look white in a fanart. If a trans player wanted to headcanon a cis character was trans, that’s one thing. If a cis person decided to take the only trans character for miles and insist they are, in fact, cis, well that’s another matter entirely. Your experience with your race and your experience based on sexuality or gender aren’t the same things, it’s not a one-to-one comparison at all. But can people who don’t get it at least start to see how there can be a difference in impact here?

The people who are oppressed in this country aren’t hurting you by trying to enjoy the media that most of the time intentionally excludes them. POC weren’t the ones dehumanizing white people in horrific ways. The overwhelming majority of stories and representations of heritages out there have been and still are white people’s already. Anyone reading this who was thinking along the lines of what’s in this ask need to get comfortable understanding and accepting that. And if you don’t, maybe you should find another game because I’m not going to “protect white identities” from being drawn as people of color. In fact, I think it’s actually really nice if our characters are fun and comforting to people of color so much so that they’d like to imagine those characters being included in their own culture. I think it’s strange that someone would be angry about it.

#our life #ask #our life: beginnings & always #our life: now & forever #gb patch #gb patch games

[doberbutts]

I think, honestly, the thing that gets me about The Collection of Posts from last night is:

“Trans men would rather be misgendered than admit any culpability or power”

1: culpable for what? What exactly did we do? I’m not talking individuals. Individuals of any demographic can be bad people. What are we, as a demographic, culpable for?

2: what power? Seriously, outside of some social power in individual interactions, which can change on a day-to-day or even scenario-to-scenario basis, what power to trans men have?

3: you know, it really sucked to be called a gender traitor by someone who I once held as a friend before they went full mask-off TERF. I was so incredibly hurt by it and I didn’t speak to that person for several years, nearly a decade, before they approached me to apologize and extend an olive branch. Even now, our relationship is strained at best because I cannot get over the amount of pain I felt at their words. We talk... maybe once a month or so, where we used to videocall every night and chat for hours about everything and nothing. And... this type of thing now coming from other trans guys is really not any better.

And

“Trans men have transition goals that match their Anime Boyfriends while refusing to break up with cishet men who won’t let them even cut their hair”

1: it’s now funny to joke about transphobic abuse in romantic relationships?

2: you know every single abused person in a relationship has heard “just leave” and “it’s your fault because you didn’t leave sooner”, yeah? Victim blaming is okay when it’s trans guys though? Is that the lesson from this?

3: again, TERFs and TEHMs say this. “You just want to look like an anime boy” and “you’re trans because you watch too much yaoi” and “you’re not really a gay man since you’re trans” are nothing new and having it come from other trans guys is, shockingly, not better.

Can you hear yourselves? Do you really think you’re doing anything but being outlandishly cruel, mean-spirited, and, yes, transphobic? Who are you helping by doing this?