#like how often does he misgender this friend and like how does he really view them if he easily goes back to calling them their given name

[emeritus-fuckers]

Papa Nihil's Ghouls introduction headcanons

Blaze (Fire; he/him)

The youngest of Nihil's Ghouls. The first to actually join the band.

Despite being a Fire Ghoul, he's actually very calm.

The most he does is just... sway. Doesn't jump around, doesn't throw things.

He was named that because he's a big fan of weed.

He's an introvert who spends most of his time in his room.

Transmasc, wears a binder, no bottom surgery since most trans Ghouls don't really feel the need to do that (Ghouls as species view gender very differently and many times genitals have nothing to do with it)

Has performed shirtless (just in his binder) multiple times. Finds the reactions of some people entertaining.

Storm (Water; they/he)

Storm's a demiboy.

Has a bromance with Quake, they are inseperable.

Always making fun of each other.

Storm is the calmer one, they used to be quiet before he met Quake.

Quake, in their enthusiastic manner, just talked at Storm until he evntually spoke back.

When asked Storm will absolutly deny that they and Quake are best friends. But they are.

Constantly having little competitions, they can range from playfights to silly little games.

Such as the time they collected all of Nihil's things and made a tower with them. It reached from the floor to ceiling.

Apart from when Quake is around, Storm is by far the most reliable and calmest of the Ghouls. Nihil will go to Storm when it's anything important/more serious.

Tornado (Air; ze/zir)

Tornado one they woke up and decided ze doesn't need a gender and that's how it's been since then.

If Tornado is asked about zir gender, ze responds with an air compressor or a bulldozer. Why? Because ze can.

Ze's actually Nihil's best friend.

And also the reason he gets in trouble a lot.

They got arrested together sixteen times over the years.

Tornado is banned from sixteen states and twelve countries in Europe.

Ze's not allowed to take part in interviews because ze always says incredibly stupid shit just to see people's reactions.

Tornado may or may not be considered a war criminal.

Ze's Chaos's mate. They have twin baby Ghouls together named Havoc and Uproar.

Quake (Earth; they/them)

Quake is nonbinary.

As an Earth Ghoul, it was their idea to get Storm to build things with Nihil's possesions.

Quake is a lovable fool most of the time. A little immature and useless at somethings, but they are an incredibly gifted musician.

They have an incredibly thick skin, no matter how much you try and make fun of them, it has no effect.

Always very cheerful, happy and enthusiastic. This rubs off on the others and always lifts their spirits.

Likes to spend time with Storm, brought them matching PJs for the tour.

Likes to make jokes at the other ghouls too. Always good natured but sometimes can go a little too far.

When this happens Blaze is sent to calm them down.

Chaos (Quintessence; he/she/they/it)

As the name suggests, Nihil's Quintessence Ghoul is the very personification of chaos.

Chaos was once asked about his gender and she replied with "yes".

Impossible to misgender them. Chaos uses all the pronouns. Chaos is all the genders.

First thing you need to ask Chaos is its pronouns of the day.

They don't really change, it's just a matter of which one it feels like the most at the moment.

Always up to something. Nihil once joked about having to keep her on a leash.

About a week later it stopped being a joke.

Chaos and Tornado are mates.

Chaos often makes jokes about stealing Tornado's gender, since ze doesn't have one.

~

Written and created by Nosferatu.

#oc #ghost oc #ghoul oc #young papa nihil #papa nihil #ghost band #ghost bc #ghost #Blaze #Blaze Ghoul #Storm #Storm Ghoul #Tornado #Tornado Ghoul #Quake #Quake Ghoul #Chaos #Chaos Ghoul

[ryttu3k]

Dark Urge past life questions feat. Tavias, by @daemon-in-my-head , original post here! Um, content warnings for Durge's… everything, and also Orin's… everything, and also misgendering, general gender fuckery, and discussion of pregnancy.

Previous character development posts - personal timeline, 'after the Nautiloid' early game questions, set of 30 questions, assorted questions 1, assorted questions 2, and views and thoughts on companions.

The above are all largely for post-brain-surgery Tavias, so let's dive into a look at the absolute (haha) disaster he was before. Illustration here, for visualising purposes!

Edit: More questions answered here!

1. Do they miss their adoptive family? Why or why not?

Honestly, not really. He had always felt like an outcast - he was the weird kid with scales and horns and occasional fire powers, he was the girl who kept saying he was a boy (they did more or less let him dress in a more masc way, but there was always this sort of undertone of, 'yes, okay, she says she's a boy so let's just humour the poor confused child'), he was the child with disturbingly murderous thoughts. Up to the point where he killed his foster parents, he hadn't actually hurt anyone, and the Urge hadn't actually kicked in yet, but those thoughts…

He never felt like he belonged, up to the point Sceleritas found him. He didn't look back, afterwards.

2. Did they keep anything from their old family and home? A memento or a skill perhaps?

A little training in sorcerous abilities. There had been at least one old sorcerer in the neighbourhood who had recognised that Tavias had dragon blood, and while she was actually a Storm Sorcerer herself, she was able to teach him how to control his magic at least enough to not accidentally burn down the house. Always useful!

3. When Sceleritas fetched them from their comfortable home, what did they do on their journeys? Did they take on any jobs?

It was straight to the Temple for training. His original childhood home was in the Outer City, but he had been to the Lower City often enough that it was reasonably familiar, even if the Temple itself was entirely new to him. Not much journey aspect there. For the first few years, it was entirely education - the history of Toril and its gods, especially Bhaal and all his, er, 'achievements' (somewhat embellished!), discussions on the failures of previous Bhaalspawn (mostly by Sarevok's slightly biased perspective), with the intention that Tavias would one day kill the still-living Abdel, how to really use his sorcery as a weapon, how to use… weapons as weapons, and also just general history, geography, writing, maths, social studies, et cetera. He was only still eleven years old, and while he was absolutely being groomed to take over the Cult of Bhaal, he still needed a good solid education!

4. Do they speak casually or do they try to adorn their speech with frills? Do they maybe even dare to curse?

Reasonably casually, and there is a bit of swearing - especially as a teenager. When he's speaking more 'officially', like in his capacity as the leader of the Cult, he does try to be more formal and dramatic. Sceleritas helps with writing his speeches.

5. What was their relationship with Sceleritas like? Did they like their ever-adoring butler or did they try to run from the most wretched mother hen?

Adored him. Sceleritas was a combination of parent, teacher, and best friend. Orin was his little sister (see more detail below), but Sceleritas was family in a way no one else was. Sceleritas kept him fed, dressed, clean, educated, entertained, the works. As his work started becoming more important to the cult, Sceleritas helped keep things organised on the administrative side, something Tavias… greatly appreciated, haha. After Bhaal's return when Tavias is 21, Sceleritas becomes the only one in his life that he can properly confide in - Father is rather scary, and it's only Sceleritas he can turn to to talk about his insecurities and his anxiety disorder and how he feels when the Urge takes over, and just get reassurances from him.

Basically, Sceleritas was the second-most important figure in his life after Bhaal, and the one he was closest to, since one does not get 'close' to Bhaal even when he's your Dad, and things only started getting… a little tense in that last year, after he met one Enver Gortash…

Also, Sceleritas actively let and encouraged him to murder him. Good for getting out stress after a long day, just murder (affectionately) your butler a few times!

6. Bhaal loves money; did your Durge inherit that trait? Do they enjoy luxuries or try to live a frugal life, giving their all for their temple?

Nah, he's not super fussed about it. Living in and running the Temple itself means that his finances were the Temple's finances, thankfully with Sceleritas having a good mind for budgeting! He does have a weakness for shinies and gold jewellery, but honestly, he usually just went with trophies claimed from his kills.

7. Did they have any connections or companions outside of the local underworld? If so, what were those connections like and if not, why?

Contacts, yes. More to be used as informers, and with Tavias only known as 'the Dragon of Bhaal' or just 'the Dragon' (if the Bhaal part wasn't a good idea to advertise). They'd be things like finding locations and weaknesses of future marks, keeping an eye on anyone who'd be a good potential recruit to the cult, stuff like that.

8. What was their relationship with Orin like? Did it change at some point?

Copypasting this from the character opinions post:

"So messy. She hated him, and vice versa. She was his little sister. She was his rival. She was his best friend. She was an enemy. She was his partner in crime. She was an obstacle to be taken out. She was someone to protect. She was someone to kill. She was a more deserved candidate. She was his usurper. She tried to kill him. She saved his life. They had that very peculiar relationship where two young people in deeply fucked-up circumstances develop this permanent bond - they tried to kill each other more times than either could count, but they also would kill anyone who messed with the other. He wasn't at all surprised when Orin came to kill him, and after, he ended up feeling a weird form of gratitude that she had - she had, quite unintentionally, given him a second chance at life and being a normal person. He feels guilty about having to kill her for the rest of his life, and would have given a lot for her to have another chance, too, but also knows she was just… too far gone. Yeah, messy."

Orin was his little sister. They had a weirdly codependent relationship, where a younger Tavias would consider her second only to Sceleritas in terms of importance and care and was deeply protective of her (especially when he learned about her parentage and Sarevok's plans for her), but also they routinely tried to murder each other. They have multiple scars from each other's attempts, and Tavias, at least, wore them as a point of pride. "See that one? That's from where Orin nearly successfully garotted me! :D"

The dynamic when they first met was… tense. Tavias was eleven, Orin was nine; he was the elder of the two, but Orin was the one who had grown up in the Cult, and she more or less guided her new big brother through his new life. At the same time, she deeply resented the fact that he was replacing her as Bhaal's golden child (having already survived a murder attempt from her mother two years earlier, ending in Helena's death at Orin's then-seven-year-old hands), and Tavias himself knew that one day he would have to kill her (and she would try to do the same to him) to claim their birthright. They were doomed from the beginning, and should have never been friends.

They ended up friends anyway, because she was nine and he was eleven and they were the only kids in the entire cult and neither had ever had a friend before, much less a sibling. Two lonely, isolated kids in a cult to a death god. What chance did they have?

The biggest change to their relationship came ten years after they met, in 1482, when Bhaal properly returned and officially named then-21-year-old Tavias his Chosen. Orin never forgave him for that, and would dedicate the next ten years of her life to trying to win back Bhaal's approval; Tavias, meanwhile, was now able to answer to Bhaal directly, and lost a lot of patience with her. Bhaal had chosen him! Get over it, little sister! And while you're at it, you're doing murder wrong! Like don't get me wrong, he admired her artistry, but he also knew it wasn't what Bhaal wanted. It wasn't the death in droves that would empower Bhaal to end the world. It was just… hobby murder. Add on to that that he was now feeling the Urge, Bhaal's direct influence, and their relationship just became colder.

He still cared about her. He still tried to protect her from Sarevok's, uh, consanguineous desires (and just from the knowledge of who her actual father was, too). He still made her his deputy, largely out of lack of trust in anyone else (he didn't trust her either, but at least he knew her). They still tried to kill each other a lot. It was… yeah, messy.

When she came to attack him, his reaction was, more or less, one of acceptance. "I knew it would be you," and all.

9. What would a typical meeting of the Chosen have looked like when your Durge attended?

At first, it was all nice and business-like and professional! Just three Chosen of the Dead Three, planning world domination, not trusting the others in the slightest :) Then Tavias and Gortash started getting closer and the meetings just sort of… devolved into a mess of flirting while Ketheric questioned all of his life choices while simmering in a pit of thinly-veiled contempt for both of these young idiots. Guys please have some fucking decorum -_-

10. Gortash seemed to have admired Durge, what did they do to deserve this admiration? Did they have any notable personality traits or did they impress him in some other way?

So Tavias and Gortash meet the year before the game, in 1491, when they work together to raid a museum and get back a piece of Bhaalist history. At this point, Tavias has been with the cult for nineteen of his thirty years, has been Chosen for nine years, and is rapidly formulating plans on taking over Toril with an eye to eventually enacting Bhaal's final omnicide. He still has panic attacks, but knows his triggers and early warning signals and can get away from others easily, and he appears to be the picture of absolute (haha) confidence to others, including Gortash. He's a strategist, he has an entire cult at his beck and call, he's an insanely powerful sorcerer (I hc that he's around level 14 pre-brain damage; Sarevok is level 16 due to being much older, but Tavias is more inherently powerful and so has got ridiculously high-levelled despite being barely in his thirties. Orin is on level 12), he's a terrifyingly effective killer.

And… he's interested in Gortash. He hasn't been around non-Bhaalists much since he was eleven, and he's genuinely fascinated to hear the Banite perspective, but also just learning about Gortash as a person. He's furious on Gortash's behalf when he learns about his abuse at Raphael's hands, he thinks tadpoling his neglectful parents is entirely deserved (he did initially offer to murder them for Gortash), he just… listened. And they talked. And Tavias found someone else who knew what it was like, having the burden of being Chosen on you, having a contentious relationship with relatives, with the isolation of their positions.

He liked Gortash a lot too. He liked his pragmatism and determination. He liked how he rose above the shit deal he had been pushed into and had made his own success. He liked his technological genius, his grand ideas, his sense of humour. It was very much a mutual admiration and attraction and, even if neither actually acknowledged it, love. Oh, sure, he was entirely intending on taking over the Chosen alliance and enacting Bhaal's omnicide mission, but he totally would have killed Gortash last <3

(They definitely talked about the sexiest way to murder each other. It's totally normal to talk about evisceration in bed, right.)

11. The other cultists. How did your Durge view them? Did they enjoy their following or did they dread being idolised?

They were… there. He knew Father needed followers, but he didn't really want to have much to do with them. He knew they looked up to him, and okay, that's to be expected as the leader of the cult, but he thought very little of them, they were just sort of… another asset of the Temple to make use of. Plus side, if any of them pissed him off and he killed one, it both worked as a warning for the others, and still fulfilled Bhaal's murder mandate!

12. Durge gave a gold coin to a beggar once; why did they do it? Did this occur regularly?

Honestly probably at least a few times! Getting out of the Temple and getting to be amongst people was quite a novelty, Tavias enjoyed talking to people about non-work-related things, he probably had a decent conversation with the beggar and was like, well, okay, I'll help out :) I'll murder you later, but I have shit to do, so why don't you get something nice to eat?

13. Orin has her faithful group of changelings. Did your Durge have a similar 'personal guard' or task force at their back and call?

Nope. Sceleritas was more or less it. Oh, there were absolutely cultists who desperately wanted to be part of his personal guard, he just… didn't want to. No thanks!

14. Durge famously acted as an assassin in the last decade or so. What was that like? Did they plan everything out meticulously, or did they act spontaneously and on whims?

Much more planned out, although there was still time and space for some nice spontaneous murder! He'd make plans like, who would be most effective to kill to lead on to other deaths? So assassinating a brilliant tactical leader, so they'd be replaced by someone far less effective, leading to more soldiers being killed on the battlefield, or the like. Or framing people so others would go after them, stuff like that. Same justification Sceleritas uses when he tells Tavias to kill Isobel - her one death would lead to a cascading wave of even more deaths.

And then sometimes it'd just be like, you know what, this guy needs a-killin', but that was more on their days off~

15. Bhaal handcrafted Durge. Do they enjoy and worship their appearance, or did they have a rebellious phase, trying their best to change their Lord Father's grand design?

Haha so. He was very self-conscious about his horns and scales as a kid. When he learned he had been, like, bespoke made, he started appreciating them more, and would actively draw attention to them with adornments, using gold metallic makeup to make the scales show up more, keeping them polished and, in the case of his horns, sometimes painted, stuff like that. He likes his gold eyes and hair. Bhaal's golden dragon. Cool stuff :)

But ooh boy did Bhaal ever drop the ball when it came to other aspects of his body. See, Bhaal accidentally gave him a girl body! And that's Not Right at all, and Tavias knew that from a fairly young age. He was so gratified when he told Sceleritas, who had just picked him up from his freshly-murdered foster parents, that he was a boy, actually, and Sceleritas said that he approved and so would Bhaal - he murdered his previous self, that's an awesome murder! So yeah, Bhaal might have given him a girl body, but that's okay, it was just so Tavias could murder his previous self as he found his real belonging.

He was… less keen when he realised that while Bhaal was happy to give him a flat chest and more masculine build, he was not about to get rid of his reproductive abilities. Bhaal wanted Tavias to reproduce, and the fact that the only way that would happen would be Tavias being pregnant… well, 'gave him the screaming icks' is probably a bit of an understatement. So that was one area where he very much rebelled against Father's design, because he was absolutely positively not going to get pregnant and give birth, nooo thank you!

(Distressingly, Bhaal didn't actually respond in a negative way to Tavias' eventual relationship with Gortash, mostly because Bhaal was lowkey hoping Tavias would get pregnant from it. If it took carrying a Banite's child to get more baby Bhaalspawn, so be it!)

#baldur's gate 3 #bg3 spoilers #the dark urge #oc: tavias #cry little sister #gentleman's gentlegoblin #durgetash

[whitehairedanimeboyfriend]

trans man here who came here to block u from a terf list and have instead discovered that transandrophobia does not mean what i thought it did and i fully support having a more active transmasc movement in tandem rather than lumped in w trans women. im close friends w trans women and know that while our experiences are similar theyre also different enough to warrant different approaches so as not to speak over one another. working together is important but also recognizing diff needs is too.

also. glad to know im not the only trans guy uncomfortable with experiences i have had being lumped into lesbian activism and having lesbians (both cis and trans) make wildly uncomfortable transphobic comments.

sorry this is long i just like to read through to make sure people arent being unfairly targeted by blocklists if i have the time and i really think you (and the arguments being made around transandrophobia) have been unfairly targeted.

I have lived, worked with, protested next to, loved, and dated trans women. I have been in situations where I have been fully supported by the trans women around me, and I go on to support them.

That being said I have also been in situations where I felt left out of the conversation.

At a local trans and dyke march, we had a group of speakers. One (1) of them was a trans man. The person who spoke after him said that "Next Year, I hope we get more speaks that are trans women" (he also spent a good part of his speech apologizing for taking up space and about how privileged he is, since he's a man, and didn't talk at all about issues specific to trans men.) All despite her being one of four trans women speaking that day, and there being only one trans man.

An ex friend (who is a trans woman) asked me about my views on abortion. I said I think anyone should get an abortion if they wanted to, and that if I got pregnant, I would definitely get an abortion. She proceeded to tell me that was a very privileged for me to say that, and that I was rubbing it in her face that I could get pregnant in the first place. That not keeping the baby is transmisogynistic. Somehow. This friend was also a well known trans activist in my community, often on the news and even got on the front cover of a couple magazines.

There's a couple other stories but those get a little dark and personal and are "too soon" if you know what I mean.

Some of the good stories? When I was homeless and in another city, there was at a shelter not inclusive of trans people. They were repeatedly misgendering me. Saying I would have to go the the emergency floor (and wait until midnight to claim the bed) or the women's floor. A trans girl came and sat with me outside while I waited to be able to claim the bed. (She was allowed on the women's floor because she passed.) After that day she got me connected to a trans emergency housing group and I ended up staying with another trans woman for several weeks.

I've got more stories like this as well, but a lot of them aren't mine to tell, and have identifying information in them. There's this idea floating around that I hate trans women... I don't. I love and support trans women, and have been loved and supported by them. I am asking the queer community at large to wake up to the idea that trans men are frequently left out of the conversation. (or are ridiculed when included.)

I see trans women the same way that I see any group of people. Made up of individuals, forming loose communities, worthy of respect and love, capable of both bad and good as either individuals or in those groups.

Apparently this is a really controversial opinion though.

[langbloor]

On Language, Pronouns, and Gender - Part III : Bengali

TL;DR : Bengali has no gendered pronouns and no gendered verbs so this is actually a much shorter read! So when you find a Bengali person struggling to learn the gender hoops of your language, keep in mind that these hoops don't exist in their native tongue!

Link to Masterpost

Part I : Japanese

Part II : Hindi

Note : I am an Indian native Bengali speaker but not a linguist. I have never formally studied Bengali grammar since I am a Probashi Bangali (a bengali person who has moved out of the Bengal region). I do speak it at home but am very likely to make grammar/spelling errors or mention things unique to 'Indian' Bengali. You are very welcome to start a discussion with me about things if you notice something off, but please be polite about it!

Amar shonar Bangla! No gender information in any part of speech at all! What a wonderful language! Here's an example to show how translations to Bangla turn things gender neutral -

English - He is eating.

Bangla (polite) - উনি খাচ্ছেন (Uni khacchen, gender neutral)

The pronoun in the Bengali sentence is 'Uni' - gender neutral polite third person pronoun. The casual version would be -

Bangla (casual) - ও খাচ্ছে (O khacche, gender neutral)

The pronoun changes from 'Uni' to 'O' but remains gender neutral. Verb inflection also changes from 'khacchen' to 'khacche' but again, remains gender neutral. Bangla is fairly strict about politeness levels and conveying respectability but simply does not care about gender at all. The sentence structure is similar to Hindi (subject-object-verb), but Hindi to Bangla translations also omit gender information. Watch this -

English - I am eating an apple (gender neutral)

Hindi (Standard) - मैं सेब खा रही हूँ। (Main seb kha rahi hoon ; Female)

Bangla - আমি আপেল খাচ্ছি। (Ami apel khacchi; gender neutral)

And an example where both English and Hindi are gendered but Bengali is not -

English - She is singing (Female she/her pronouns)

Hindi (casual) - वो गा रही है। (Wo ga rahi hai. Female 'rahi' verb inflection)

Bangla (casual) - ও গাইছে। (O gayichhe. Gender neutral 'O' pronoun, gender neutral casual verb inflection.)

Is that it? Is that the whole post? Well pretty much, but I do want to make a note of a few things. Consider this as my ending note for this series. When Bengali folks learn and speak Hindi not as a native language, they tend to misgender things. I have noticed this a lot less with Bengali English speakers, though it may happen sometimes. But Hindi's 'everything has a gender' messes things up. Non-native Hindi speakers from other parts of India who don't have to jump those mental hoops instinctively to gender things, make these mistakes when learning and speaking Hindi too (example - folks from South India). And more than often, their accent becomes the butt of jokes - among friends, within families, in movies, tv shows, and more. South Asia as a society is fairly insensitive to language differences - pretty ironic for a culture which doesn't really have one uniform language throughout (no, Hindi is not it), but maybe that's a rant for another time.

Bengalis are prone to misgendering things in Hindi but not because they don't respect your or someone else's gender. This is simply because Bangla conveys next to no gender information outside of proper nouns. Yes, proper nouns do have a 'gender'. There is a word for a 'girl' (মেয়ে/mey) and a 'boy' (ছেলে/chhele) and mother (মা/ma) and father (বাবা/baba) and more that are culturally gendered and viewed as such. But proper noun is the extent of gender information that gets conveyed in speech itself. If I were to translate 'She is a girl' to Bangla, I would say 'ও একটা মেয়ে' (O akta meye, casual) which is also a valid translation for 'He is a girl'. 'He' or 'She' is not in the language and any gender information or assumption is coded in the word মেয়ে (mey) which is the limit of what Bangla uses to provide context for gender.

That is all I have to say on gender and language things for now! If you haven't checked out the previous posts in the series, Part I is here and Part II is here. See you in other posts and maybe in the notes/askbox!

#gender and language #bengali #bangla #south asia #long reads #pronouns #verbs

[torreybv]

Wild how distressing it is when a family member who u thought had been accepting and respectful of ppls pronouns immediately starts misgendering someone when they think they can get away with it

#my brothers wifes friend came out to them like a year ago maybe as nb and like every time they talk abt this friend my bro uses they them #pronouns and so i was like for as much as my brother sucks maybe hes like okay bc hed been making an attempt to repsect their pronouns #but like he was talking to my dad about this friend and all the drama involved eith them bc the friends mom isnt accepting and the friend #is having a hard time bc of it and my dad as soon as he heard gender identity like scoffed and rolled his eyes and was like ive issues with #that stuff and for whatever reason my brother asked him why even tho we both have heard it before #and then once my dad was finished with his rant about it my bro immediately started misgendering their friend #like i fucking see u and this is exactly why i dont like u lmao #like my bro and i arent close at all and like what do i care u know but like idk i thought at the very least he was trying to be cool about #this one fucking thing and its like i dont expect anything from him and yet im still disappointed lmao eild #and like this happened like a week ago and i was like disappointed or ehatever but i shouldnt have been surprised and like #ugh idk like its bad enough that i cant ever talk to my dad abt this shit bc he doesnt see it as a valid thing but like to hear someone u #thought had the potential for decency just completely fail at offering the bare minimum as soon as he could get away with it #like how often does he misgender this friend and like how does he really view them if he easily goes back to calling them their given name #and using the wrong probouns #ugh idk im upset abt it even tho its not surprising and like idk even know this person tbh #but like ugh it just makes me so mad and i didnt realize how mad i was abt it ig #im ranting #personal

[uncanny-tranny]

i feel like, at least in my experience as a trans man, that cishets are actually pretty good about respecting your name and pronouns??

so im in school, and im out as male. not really out as *trans*, but out as male. the name i go by isnt the one in the system.

but, i've found that cishets are actually really good about my name and pronouns?? even when they know my deadname?? like i thought this one guy was transphobic or whatever but??? he isnt???

and for some reason i have it in my head that unless im violently masc, they arent gonna respect my name and pronouns because idk why, but it was just? drilled into my head that every cishet boy in highschool is against me? and i know that's the case for some people, but i dont see it talked about often enough about how cishets *can* be good about names and pronouns, and while they def can be terrible about them and such, they can still be good. i feel like we need to talk more about *both* sides, for people who've experienced *both*, so you dont have people like me who was ready to be so violently masc just because i thought that it was gonna be the only way for me to get my name and pronouns respected even tho ik im not obligated to but i still wanted that respect n stuff

sorry if this is too ramble-y and stuff or doesnt make sense but i just see what cis people expect of me to gain their respect and i still try to conform to it because otherwise im afraid of the dysphoria from disrespect

(also, i've noticed that it's mostly adults that knew me beforehand that dont respect my name and pronouns??? like, literally every other adult does it??? without question???)

I totally empathize with you! I think you're correct - there are many transphobic cis people, and that is a terrible thing - but from what I've experienced, there have been more trans-affirming cis people than I anticipated. I certainly over-compensated for my fear of transphobia by being overtly and overly masculine, and it really messed up my view of myself and how I see masculinity because of how forced it was. A cis friend of mine said that he sussed out that I'm trans because I jokingly referred to his as "his grandpa," and ever since then, he has never once misgendered me. It was really kind of him, looking back. I was very awkward about talking about being trans at that time, and him silently correcting himself felt like an act of compassion. Teachers have done their best to affirm me, too, and my school has been accommodating (I have access to a separate faculty restroom which I also use to avoid the lockerooms lol). I feel blessed, and I know how lucky I got. I was insanely lucky, because I live in a very religious and conservative town, and some of my family (which is religious and conservative) have shown that not every have religious person or conservative is accepting. I hope that acceptance like we've seen before becomes the norm for trans people. We deserve to feel safe. We shouldn't have to worry about being accepted. We shouldn't have to debate about if we should sacrifice our comfort or our safety. But we should also recognize when we are shown compassion and kindness and joy toward our transness by others (especially when they're cis). I certainly hope that more cis people become welcoming toward trans people, but for the cis people who already are, I am very happy for them.

#ask #anon #trans #transgender #lgbt #lgbtq #ftm #mtf #nonbinary #i think that finding my friends has really changed the trajectory of my journey toward acceptance #because before i found those friends i had nobody who really had my back or affirmed me

[incarnateirony]

An anti dressed up as a shipper, an idiot, and a terf all walk into the same bar.

It’s the same picture person.

A lesson.

Warning: if the title doesn’t give it away, queerphobic content comes up in this from the other party being documented.

So, some of you may have watched a twitter exercise yesterday.

It started simple: concern trolling white knight “for the writers” comes in to angrily declare fans doing something tagged in support of them about Destiel was “out of line.” She claimed things like “Misha was gaslit into supporting Destiel”, and pulled all kinds of stunts.

She immediately got on a soap box yelling “I HAVE A LIT CRIT DEGREE, I KNOW AUTHOR INTENT” of course implying she knew better than EVERYONE around her how to read text. She then pulled, of all things, @chill-legilimens​​ ‘ article about the network gods gutting the show out of the internet, and somehow misread it SO FUCKING BADLY -- SO FUCKING BADLY -- she thought it aligned with HER. She argued that fans influenced the writers, essentially, and basically pulled the exact opposite of the very clearly delivered message there out. When it was pointed out we know this author and even sometimes help edit their pieces, and she was, flat out misreading it while bragging about how good she is at deciphering text, it turned into a SHITSHOW.

I had watched her give a large group of queer people 2 days of runaround, while they tried to be polite, and similarly tried to prove everything while she proved nothing. Just preached. After 2 days of them exhausting themselves on her, I came in doing my blunt & savage thing, because fuck civility culture when it’s used by oppressors. Of course, she immediately started tone policing, while herself being an arrogant shitbrick the whole way.

She continued to preach author intent and talk down about “headcanons.” You see, she knew the authors very well. Berens’ name was mentioned in passing, and she came back with. “Who’s Berens? Is that the author of the article?” after Deirdre’s name had been directly cited in associated with it about 15 times.

(credit: @judgehangman​ )

But it gets better. She started pulling the “authors have said Dean is straight.” line. Now, at this point, we had already sourced her at least four pieces of information (quite formally too: SPN Official DVD Collection Season 8 episode 13 creative commentary, Edlund and Sgriccia; Dissent Magazine The Attack Queers Bob Berens review; the books in the office with screenshots, and more.) So we issued one simple request: Okay. Source.

For the next-- I shit you not-- 10 hours she bricked the thread to death, finding any and EVERY rabbit hole she could try to venture down. For the first hour or two a few of us tried to actually debate her newly raised points, but still gave reminder that we were waiting for her source. Every tweet was an opportunity for her to drop a 15 tweet thread trying to derail onto a new topic, and often clarifying she had no idea about any of it (Edlund, Sgriccia, Berens, Dabb--who she couldn’t spell the name of--and Deirdre all became an amorpheous blob in her retelling that she swore she looked at sources and wasn’t convinced, while she crossed all the data and comments about the sources). She tried to challenge that anyone could know all the writers and episodes just because she proved she couldn’t, even when multiple people expressed it to her extremely rapidly with not just author and director listings, but cross references on when they overlapped and major elements (like the 15.20 shot 19 tree being the Kim Manners memorial tree). She randomly babbled about Kripke once. Lied her way through and claimed those sources were vague. Etc.

But at some point, I decided, we’re not playing this distraction game. You wanted a debate, you claim you have a lit crit degree, and thus know the entire art is Argumentation. A source, if you’re declaring knowing author intent. One source. Any time she dropped a distraction tweet, I replied to her thread with things like a list of our sources vs her lack of any and a reminder. I installed a counter ticker. How many times had she been asked to either recant her point or give a single source?

Someone made a list of the logical fallacies she used in the argument. It was two tweets long and still missed several obvious ones. That didn’t stop her. Neither did the dozens of requests for a source or a recant. Onwards, she marched, derailing time and again. She brought in a buddy to try to distract, but he fell out real quick when he realized “the burden of proof lies on the arguer” shot him and her both in the feet in record time and he ducked out. 

Other greatest hits came out like “Dubs (Dabb’s) fanfic books”, and calling the ability to list authors and episodes “headcanons.”

Over time, the dialogue shifted: see, she came in trying the snide “enjoy your headcanons” downtalk, but as time and time again she was pulverized on every point about the show, or the authors, or anything else while STILL never even giving a single source to even her FIRST POINT and running distractions, it became a reality-- she was told, “We’ll enjoy our canon and author intent. You can enjoy your headcanon of... Dabb’s fanfic books and Lord Barons and the writers being collective hallucinations and whatever else in your hot takes about the show content itself” and she FLIPPED SHIT. 

As the ticker for sources approached 100, she started becoming flustered. Before that, even, she started repetitively misgendering Ezra (no tumblr to link in), and Ezra screenshot their bio of they/them and asked them to adjust. Ignored. Ezra linked this request and asked it to be addressed again, and again, and again. 13 times. Ezra linked it 13 times. She even replied to several of them. No avail. No change. Not until literally any and every tweet in her vicinity either had “source?” or “address gender?” for her to reply to did she flee there, and write some giant write-around of “oh, I didn’t see this, sorry” but still refused to actually use it. Or “I’ll use the right one now.” No, just completely strickened pronouns from her vocabulary with Ezra moving forward, after not one mistake, not two, not five, but 13 answers.

At this point, I notice a trend: throughout the entire conversation, she had flip flopped on my pronouns, clearly confused as to what to call me. As I generally don’t care (honestly I prefer he but meh), it didn’t ping me as something to react to while she switched religiously between “he” and “she”. But I realized now, despite all of that confusion: she never once thought to use “they.” Also earlier we found tweets of hers that, while now declaring herself bisexual, she used troublesome wording in the past to blur the line on if she was an ally or, as she phrased it “maybe less than 100% straight in the bell curve” in other conversations.

I mutter about this on the side to Ezra and some friends, but continue on towards the 100 ticker that was the goal to show people in this digital terrarium how disingenuous most people you argue with are -- an exhibit for the class. They know they’re lying and have been caught, but will not cede to admit “oops, I guess I was wrong.” but rather stick, unironically, to their own headcanons about things. After all, they vaguely sorta apologized even if suddenly just refusing to use any pronouns at all on Ezra after that. And she’s so quick to disappear into 15 tweet bombs of distraction trying to play victim for being held accountable at this point, we just didn’t jump to a conclusion on that, alarming as it is.

So. You know. Source.

At this point, she RANDOMLY starts evoking the fact that like, How Dare, She Watched Gay Men Die To AIDS, She Is A Great Philanthropist How Dare How Dare. 

I’m sorry, did you just evoke the blood of our dead to run away from the most basic scrap of accountability in what is literally the first wave of a lit debate because for the last 10 hours you have refused to take the necessary steps to move on to the next point? Did you... just... evoke the ghosts of gay men that were genocided to, essentially, pull up a smokescreen and run away from being party to queer erasure? Or even just? Giving a source? or admitting you were wrong on one point in a debate? Wow, you really just did that. 

Naturally, people involved got pissed. Her Sources ticker hit 100, but at this point, all that haunted her was how completely fucking vile and inappropriate that was in this discussion. 

She got blocked. She then tried to glom onto anyone that hadn’t blocked or muted her and run the same argumentation points she had earlier been decimated in the argument with, while yelling “I ship Destiel too! I wanted them to have sex too! Why does this make me the bad guy?” around the block and hoping nobody actually read the thread. She tried to pitch the “headcanons” point of view again, hoping a new audience would lick her boots. She was, largely, ignored; given a few more comments about her leaving the conversation losing all points and only covered in the blood of our dead she was so proud of; blocked by a few more. (unsurprisingly, if you check her actual tweet history, she seems more invested in Megstiel but)

This is when CommaSameleon -- a professor with two lit degrees and a primary focus in teaching the art of Argumentation -- literally -- stepped in. She initially tried to engage the fact that, well, this woman not only can’t argue out of a paper sack but wasn’t even arguing, she was just running in circles and distracting from all the points and hadn’t addressed a single lit point directly while preaching down at people. But Sam, also, noticed something. This woman kept changing things like “queerphobia” to “homophobia.” Sam mentioned this kinda puts off TERF vibes (I think Sam picked up on the gendering thing herself too.)

Her response? Which she deleted since? But Discord’s embed helpfully saved?

Her inacted non-apologies remain weak, especially in any form of debate be it lit or now queer topics.

Oh I’m sorry, let’s recap her viewpoints: TERF is a slur. “They” is made up and should be avoided at all costs. The blood of dead gay men are a token to use in a lit debate you’re avoiding responsibility in. After this, “authors are headcanons” is suddenly not your worst take, but fascinating that you 13 times didn’t even read the blatant ass screenshot. And I mean, these weren’t subtle or easy to miss these 13 times.

100. She had 100 chances, literally, on a timer, to give a source or shut up with her platforming until she had one. Instead, she chose every rabbit hole she could manifest to disappear into, only to be met by another request for a source, and not moving on until we address the first points. We’ve given ours, now you give yours. Instead, you choose this. This is the hill you choose to die on, rather than admitting, “Sorry, I guess I was wrong” or “I guess I heard that somewhere, my bad.” 100 chances. 13 direct QT requests to address gender which she replied to but didn’t reply to until cornered (and still didn’t, truly, reply to), and “TERF is a slur.” Oh, and after waving around the dead men’s blood she also suddenly Can’t Be A Terf Because She Adopted Two Trans Kids. Lord help those children. Or, you know, the more realistic thing is she’s just manifesting all kinds of bullshit at this point to save face, which is probably why she deleted all the related tweets that show she’s a giant-ass TERF.

So anyway, this is very much a lesson on:

Paying attention to how people manipulate conversation to erase genuine discussion and debate.

Paying attention to WHY they do it. Motivation on methods and tactics will clear up a lot.

Figuring out HOW they try to sound woke about shit and when it’s entirely fucking vile and inappropriate to pull

And by all above points, figuring out that these people are among us, and how NOT to let them influence your conversations.

I don’t care if it’s about a discussion on a ship or show or anything else. People do this. A lot. Extremely dedicatedly, if the 100 asks doesn’t make that clear. 

Stop letting people railroad your conversations with disingenuous bullshit.

So anyway in honor of this I made everyone a gif

Use at will. It’s tagged anti-terf if you want to use the search feature on it.

UPDATE: 

Just went and checked. She went and deleted literally her entire side of the conversation, hundreds if not thousands of tweets. Luckily, Ezra mentioned repeatedly -- and I do trust them inherently -- that they were saving the entire conversation, so that zip file exists somewhere. How fascinating, after she accused us that we would want to delete tweets. Someone realized they had a bad look and giant failure all around.

Also, a related anon that links to an earlier part of this conversation I didn’t even document where she was crying about “cis erasure” [x] This shit went on so long I legit forgot about that.

#supernatural #spn #destiel #anti-terf #debate

[theinformantofficial]

In regards to Chris-Chan

There has been a lot of Buzz around Chris-chan recently so in hopes of clearing that up for some of you.

(most of the info is taken from the Chris-chan wiki page, and the documentary series on Youtube.)

IS CHRIS ACTUALLY AUTISIC?

Yes. 

Chris Chan is actually Autistic and he was diagnosed when he was 4. However the earliest documentation we have of this was from 2004. There is believed to be additional information regarding Chris’s diagnosis but those were most likely destroyed in the fire that occurred at Chris’s home. 

Chris however never received services to help address some of the issues he faced cause by the Autism in conjunction with his other mental disorders. Bob and Barb were both in denial about Chris’s diagnosis and thus refused to pursue any form of treatment that would likely help Chris thrive later. From when Chris was a child up until fairly recently his parents for the most part instead enabled his self-destructive behavior.

As an important side note: Chris is not representative of all Autistic people and should NOT be used as an example of what autism is like. Chris’s case is unique to him and he is like the way he is due to many contributing factors (including but not limited to his upbringing, other mental issues, and the trolling he faced on the internet). 

IS CHRIS ACTUALLY TRANS?

The first thing people often argue over is Chris’s gender (or rather the fact that Chris self identifies as a woman). The answer to this question is: kind of, but not really. 

I am sure many of you are familiar with “Chris’s love quest” (which for those who are unaware its Chris’s ongoing struggle to find a girlfriend). Chris struggled for years to find a woman who would date him. Around 2016 Chris was introduced to the concept of being Trans and self identified as such inorder to “open his dating horizons” to lesbians and other female identifying individuals who usually do not date men. Chris’s main goal in life was to obtain a girlfriend and Chris viewed being trans as a way to accomplish this. Chris also bounces between pronoun usages and has used he/him pronouns within recent christory. 

However: THIS DOES NOT MEAN that all trans people, autistic people, or trans autistic people act like Chris. Chris is a stand-alone case. And ontop of that, Chris’s gender identity is completely separate from the crimes he committed against his mother. They do not play into each other. Along with that, please do not use Chris as an excuse to misgender people in general. Chris, as I said, is a stand alone case and is not representative of trans people as a whole. 

IS CHRIS AN INCEL?

By definition yes. As far as I know he did not participate on any of the popular incel forums or message boards, but his behavior regarding women (more specifically his predatory behavior towards his ex friend Megan and later his mother) relies on a lot of textbook incel psychology. 

IS CHRIS AWARE OF WHAT HE HAS DONE TO HIS MOTHER?

No.

For those have been involved with Christory for awhile you may already know this, but for those who are not Chris suffers from several untreated mental health disorders including possible schizophrenia and psychosis. Chris can barley discern reality from fiction (case in point The Idea guy saga) and is not capable of the self awareness required to own up to his own actions. 

Chris thinks what he had with his mother was a healthy relationship. He does not see what he did as disgusting because his mind is so diluted and broken that he can rationalize every horrible thing he has ever done. You see a lot of the same behavior in many other parts of christory such as the time he pepper sprayed a game stop employee, or when he got thousands of dollars in debt by constantly maxing out credit cards on DLCs for games he did not even own. 

For those who think Chris premeditated this, and that Chris knew what he was doing you are greatly overestimating what Chris is capable of doing without being prompted. 

HOW MUCH INFLUENCE DID THE TROLLS HAVE IN CHRIS’S LIFE?

Chris is VERY easy to manipulate. This is due in part to his untreated autism (he never received services to help him due to his parents refusing to accept Chris had Autism) but also due to his lack of general self awareness and detachment from reality. And this lead to Chris being an easy target for trolls to get a reaction out of. 

Isabelle (the woman who convinced Chris to rape his mother) was not the first person to get Chris to do something that was morally appalling and or illegal. Many trolls, some of which pretending to be his girlfriend, got Chris to send them thousands of dollars (much of which he stole from his mother), send them nudes of himself which were then leaked online, and convinced him that the cartoon world and the human world were going to combine in an event known as “the dimensional merge”. This is not an exhaustive list but you get the point, Chris is very easy to manipulate and people often take advantage of that to make Chris do things they find funny. The golden age of Chris trolling (when the trolling was mostly mundane and not inherently predatory) is over. And at this point the Trolls are just as guilty as Chris is in this situation. They took advantaged of a disabled person who legitimately does not know better, and in essence ruined his life. 

WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO CHRIS AFTER THE TRIAL?

This part is still fairly up in the air since the trial has not conceded yet at the time of writing... but it is very likely Chris will either be sent to prison and placed into protective custody (what most sex offenders get when they are sent to prison), or sent to a intensive inpatient psych facility. 

Let me reiterate that DUE TO CHRIS NOT RECEIVING ANY TREATMENT FOR HIS AUTISM, PSYCOSIS, OR ANY OF THIS OTHER MENTAL ISSUES he does NOT have the self awareness needed to know what he did was wrong. He does not know why he is being sent to jail, he only knows that he is in jail and cannot access the internet anymore. He does not know why he cannot contact his mother. He was told the reason but he cannot comprehend it. He does not know why the thing he did was wrong and cannot see why others find his actions repulsive. His lawyers will most likely use this as a defense to get Chris a reduced sentence or possibly a sentence that does not involve prison. But there is NO WAY Chris is walking away from this situation to go back to what he was doing before. 

Chris will not be walking free from this. This is (for all intensive purposes) the last major chapter in Christory that does not involve his death. The story is over. He will either be sent to prison or will be locked away in an inpatient facility. 

SHOULD I FEEL BAD FOR CHRIS? 

I know many people are using this situation as a reason to unequivocally hate Chris and I cannot say you are wrong. Chris is no longer a harmless Lolcow; he has done some serious shit and deserves to face consequences. His disabilities are not an excuse for his actions. They will never justify them.

Chris has had a hard life and was denied many of the things that could have changed the trajectory of this timeline such as therapy and other forms of psychiatric treatment. He was instead continuously coddled and validated regardless of what he did. And the treatment he faced at the hands of the internet trolls certainly did not make any of that better. Chris is a victim but he is also at the same time a perpetrator. Sympathize with the person Chris used to be and the things he has gone through, not what he is now and will be indefinitely. 

#chris chan #christian weston chandler

[blogsanscontext]

A Closer Look at: Momoe Sawaki’s character arc; by a nonbinary (trans) viewer.

CW: Major spoilers for Wonder Egg Priority + mentions and discussion of sexual assault, transphobia, lesbophobia, self-harm; please proceed with caution.

Wonder Egg Priority came as a relatively pleasant surprise for me; I heard about it some time after the first few episodes aired, but I never actively went out of my way to ever try to watch it myself until, that is, a few days ago. I must say, I’m glad to have taken the initiative to experience such anime on my own.

With a stunning animation to accompany the heavy subjects this work touches on, I quickly fell in love with it; all the characters feel very grounded in reality, with their struggles (even someone like Neiru’s, who is a literal genius and CEO of her own company) feeling relatable in one way or another. Episode 7 became my favorite due to this very thing, Rika’s problems were things that not only have I seen in other works before, but that I know exist because of the stories told in the news every so often. It only helped, in my opinion, that they gave a character with her background such a hopeful ending.

That being said, Wonder Egg is not a perfect anime, and though I didn’t expect it to be in the first place, I do think talking about why some of the ways it handles a specific character of the main cast are problematic are worth the time. When I mentioned that “all the characters feel very grounded in reality”, I actually only meant three of them, a.k.a.: Ai, Rika and Neiru. The reason Momoe is not included in this group is what I will be discussing in the next paragraphs.

This anime lets you know, right off the bat, that it will not stray away from heavy subjects throughout the duration of its runtime; the show deals with suicidal idealization (and actual suicide as well as its aftermath; in fact, “female suicide” is at the very core of the show and is what essentially moves it forward), self-harm, sexual assault, same-sex relationships, transphobia, and being a gender noncomforming person in a society that punishes you for not adhering to the roles it has imposed on you since childhood. The last points are the ones I took issue with, however, and though they are mostly the show’s fault, they also took it upon themselves to make Momoe be at the center of all three.

See, when we are first introduced to Momoe, we can guess by context that she is a girl, however, the other characters aren’t aware of this fact yet, and so they seemingly go out of their way to call her a boy, which makes her deeply uncomfortable, and this (ie. her reaction to be treated or perceived as a boy) is a running theme throughout her arc. This, in itself, isn’t really the worst creative direction to take with a character, it’s a story that has been told time and time again, but there is a problem with the way Wonder Egg Priority specifically deals with it: Momoe is cisgender, and so far, there hasn’t been a sign of this changing whatsoever, so she will most likely remain cis until the show ends. Normally, a story about a gender noncomforming cis person wouldn’t be seen as anything out of the extraordinary, as I’ve mentioned before, but it seems that they wanted to… “innovate”, so to say, with her character. And it’s this innovation, in my opinion, that which makes Momoe’s struggles miss the mark for me.

Momoe is perceived, almost ridiculously so, as a boy by whoever even so much as stumbles upon her; her followers on Instagram most likely worship her because they’re under the impression that she’s a bishounen, and yet the show goes out of its way to deal with just how uncomfortable this makes her. This is the issue I take with her and her arc: the show has a keen awareness of AFAB people’s issues, and treats them with the respect they deserve (which is not to say some jokes at their expense aren’t made, but in general this tone is kept throughout the duration of the story), and yet the tone-deaf manner in which they deal with her issues feels… disappointing, to say the least.

Momoe’s struggles, though they are valid on their own, are not a societal issue, no matter how one may look at them; if she were a trans person (either a trans girl, boy, or nonbinary), the strong emphasis on her discomfort at being misgendered would have made so much more sense. The reason why ‘switching around’ the stereotype of a tomboy falls flat on its face is that there is no real pressure from society to present feminine, it’s what they want you to, or more accurately, force you to do if you’re perceived as being assigned female at birth; however, this is not where my issues with Momoe’s arc and character end.

At first, I imagined a variety of (albeit vague, still reasonable) reasons as to why this show couldn’t have just made Momoe be trans, and semi-understanding of this decision; that was, of course, until I watched the actual episode mostly focused on her struggles, and that’s when I got slightly mad. Being honest, I still think it was a good episode, and it definitely made Momoe seem way more sympathetic than any of her past appearances, but it also perfectly highlighted my problem with her, and subsequently, the show itself: using queer people’s actual, realistic, problems in order to push her, a cisgender character, forward.

The thing with Wonder Egg Priority is that I love how, despite all these girls literally risking their lives to save a specific person, they still seem to have conflicting feelings about them (ie. Rika’s mocking of Chiemi, Ai’s frustration towards Koito, etc.) but I also take issue with this when it comes to Momoe specifically; Haruka is very much intended to be seen as gay, yet when push comes to shove, we are supposed to be taking Momoe’s side in this conflict. We, the audience, see these events from her point of view, and are therefore made to feel, in one way or another, uncomfortable with Haruka’s attraction for her. Yes, Momoe has worked hard to bring her back to life, but the fact that she’s cis and heterosexual stands; this isn’t just exclusive to Haruka, however, but every egg she’s had to save in order to get her friend back. All of them express a clear attraction for Momoe, “despite her being a girl”, and it’s just very easy to read these attitudes as wlw-phobic, extremely so.

My biggest issue though lies within the very existence of Kaoru’s character, the trans boy she has to protect in the episode mainly focused on her; while he is an endearing and sympathetic character, and I like that despite him presenting ‘majorly female’, Momoe never misgenders him. The thing is: he’s made out to be almost a “parallel” of her own gender-related issues, and this is just a very tone-deaf statement to make; trans people fighting not to be misgendered, fighting to be called their chosen name (something Momoe, while being cis, can just freely enjoy) - trans people’s pain is very much real, which the show is aware of, but Momoe’s is very much an individual’s problem rather than the way society actually works, which Wonder Egg is seemingly unaware of, for whatever reason.

Before I arrive at my last point on why this comparison doesn’t work, I would like to quickly point out the fact that most, if not all, the eggs the girls have had to save until this point were specifically meant to be girls, in one way or another. Therefore, taking this into account, Kaoru makes me feel… a lot of things, the more time I spend thinking about it; the show acknowledges he’s a boy, though not cis of course, but still very much a boy, yet also places him in this very much ‘female’ space; no matter how I looked at it, I could find explanations both for an opinion in favor of this decision (the way a lot of trans men’s problems are defined by our patriarchal society seeing them as women) as well as some for an opinion against this decision (the fact that it could be read as the show ultimately deciding he’s ‘female-aligned’, etc.) and though I won’t be discussing this decision in-depth, I still possess that it’s an event worth examining from different lenses.

Now, onto the actual element that got me heated about Kaoru serving as a parallel to Momoe’s struggles: Kaoru was not only sexually assaulted by a man who’s always thought of him as a ‘pretty, delicate girl’, his death directly relates to the fact that he was abused and then impregnated by this man for not living up to his gross ideal of what a man and a woman are; contrast this to Momoe, who pretty much gets the treatment Kaoru would love to have: she’s pretty much right off the bat seen as a guy, she’s fawned over by women because of this fact as well, they literally call her ‘Momotaro’, etc. Taking all of this into account, it’s simply impossible for me to be okay with a comparison that ultimately decides a cisgender person’s discomfort is, in any sort of way, on equal grounds as a (might I remind you, dead) trans person’s basic human rights.

All in all, though her episode made me take a bigger liking to her character, it also served to almost perfectly highlight the very problem of her existence, as well as the “struggles” she’s intended to represent; I don’t hate Momoe in any sort of way, and though I know there must be someone somewhere who relates to her, I also think that they could’ve done something way more meaningful with her had they just made some changes that made her more realistic (as in, make her at least be LGBT rather than just cis and heterosexual); I will be patiently waiting for the finale, and who knows? Maybe something does change about her in the end, that would be even more of a pleasant surprise.

#wonder egg priority #meta #momoe sawaki

[comradekatara]

hi. which of the character is most likely to be trans (in your opinion) and why? personally, I'm alternating between toph (nonbinary) and zuko (trans guy) but I'd love to hear your thoughts. (if you don't have thoughts you can also just answer in a shitposty way)

okay so just a disclaimer that we are both cis, so take these with a grain of salt, but here are some thoughts. i did run this post by a trans friend before posting.

smellerbee is a trans girl. this is pretty much canon, as we see her distress when iroh misgenders her and her relief when longshot reassures her afterwards

i like to think kyoshi is trans. she’s resilient in the face of intolerance and has a sense of resolve and inner strength that comes from dogged survival. the way she gravitates toward concealing her identity with face paint also suggests both a complicated relationship with femininity and a desire for privacy born out of hypervisibility. and we see in the rise of kyoshi that her appearance is often hurtfully remarked upon and used to single her out, even when she is a very young child

on a related note, it would be pretty rad if the kyoshi warriors were a group of trans girls, or at least mostly trans girls. certainly suki could be trans

aang could be nonbinary! i don’t think that’s controversial. see @gayavatarstyle​​’s iconic post where aang laughs in the face of gender like he laughs in the face of gravity (haha! ...gender)

aang and suki are the only members of the atla gaang who i can really see as trans, but damn if they’re not legends!

on the other hand, any of the LOK core four could be trans! this exchange comes to mind from last year when orianne and i were talking about it and i said korra and bolin could be trans at the EXACT same second that she responded “trans asami trans mako.” so there you go, all-trans friend group

[ID: a whatsapp conversation between me and orianne, exactly as described above. we both reacted with amusement to saying opposite things at the same time. end ID]

jinora and kai, also both bi and trans, simply because they’re too cool and smart not to be

[ID: a whatsapp conversation between me and orianne. i said “also trans jinora??” and orianne responded “DUH.” i said “Jinora is too genius to be cis” and orianne replied “She’s bi & trans and so is Kai DUH.” end ID]

finally, i’ve long had a trans headcanon for jeong jeong. specifically i think jeong jeong could be read as a trans woman who’s still working towards coming out. (to avoid confusion, and on the advice of a trans woman friend, i’m going to use they/them pronouns here, but to be clear i do think that the endpoint of my analysis is that jeong jeong would identify with she/her.) the first thing we learn about jeong jeong is that they were forced to serve in the fire nation military until they took a big stand by deserting. deserting, of course, is unthinkable to most fire nation citizens, and it’s made jeong jeong an outsider, but jeong jeong is an unusual citizen. so what does it say about them that they deserted? well, throughout the series, the fire nation’s objectives of conquest and imperialism are strongly linked to masculinity; we see this most clearly with zuko as he aspires to perform socially acceptable masculinity and struggles to find a relationship with masculinity that he can stomach. jeong jeong, too, rejects norms of masculinity, which is strikingly shown in contrast to aang--who is hardly a traditionally masculine character either. aang's haste to learn to control fire is understandable (sozin’s comet is a ticking clock, after all), but jeong jeong correctly observes that there is a degree of boyish carelessness and even arrogance to the way aang behaves in this episode and it puts everyone around them in danger. (incidentally, it’s very unusual for aang to act this way, and he pretty much never does it again, as his recklessness gets katara hurt and causes sokka to blow up at him. aang only needs to learn that lesson once.) and so aang and jeong jeong’s philosophies are contrasted. jeong jeong is advocating for patience and self-control, attributes that would have been critically important to, say, a closeted trans woman in a hypermasculine military culture. and aang’s behavior in this episode is then characterized as the more masculine tack for dealing with this subject, as he argues in favor of haste and reckless action. if aang is the more masculine operator in this interaction, then jeong jeong is the one whose behavior aligns with womanhood.  furthermore, it’s not just the fire nation that’s linked to masculinity through their actions. it’s the elements themselves, too. jeong jeong’s principles of strict emotional control are at odds with the sweeping, out-of-control nature of fire in the wrong hands. jeong jeong resents fire for this reason. it’s not in their nature to relinquish control, or to destroy. (i don’t think their distaste for the element could be solved by a meeting with the dragons, either, though it might have helped them to understand how some people can bear it.) and if the element of fire is often linked to masculinity, then water, its opposite, is often linked to femininity. we see by the episode’s end that jeong jeong has dedicated time to researching waterbenders and has a profound admiration for them. upon watching katara heal, jeong jeong even tells katara:

[ID: two screenshots from "the deserter.” jeong jeong has just watched katara heal her burns from aang’s firebending. with a pained look, jeong jeong says “I’ve always wished I were blessed like you--free from this burning curse.” end ID]

this is a very telling exchange. jeong jeong is uncomfortable with fire and thinks of it as a curse, something they were born with but never wanted. fire pains them. they see how it consumes and destroys. they long for an association with water instead, something they view as healing and restorative. i also think it’s worth thinking about how waterbenders who can heal might be able to use their abilities to change the body, and why jeong jeong might be particularly wistful toward that gift. in watching this episode for the first time, it was instinctive for me to read this character as a trans woman. their aversion to the element they were born with and rejection of the hypermasculine culture they were expected to adhere to demonstrate a physical and emotional dysphoria. meanwhile, jeong jeong respects and admires a different, opposite way of life. and the stress they’re going through is really hard. while jeong jeong is a very kind and generous person, the pain of living a life they don’t want (and the expectation to teach the avatar how to bend an element they hate) is taking a toll. jeong jeong is depressed, anxious, and quick to anger. jeong jeong is in a dark place at this point in their life. but i hope that by the time the war is over and they’re reunited with their friends in the white lotus, they can begin to find themself and live the way they want to live.

so those are our trans headcanons! if anyone else wants to weigh in on any of these (especially trans people!), pls let us know <3 

#c #asks #catsarecutebutaliens #good url btw #anyway i've been thinking about jeong jeong and trans womanhood for a LONG time (since i first saw the episode in fact!) #so i'd be happy to discuss it further! #jeong jeong #aang #suki #jinora #kai #kyoshi #bolin #asami #mako #korra

[writeanapocalae]

A Guide for Writing Trans People

Written by a Trans Man. 

I’ve seen a lot of different posts on how to write trans characters (absolutely none on how to write cis characters and I am so lost on how to do that oh my goodness) but maybe I’ve got a different perspective and maybe I’ve got something you haven’t heard before. Let’s go! 

Terminology

There are a lot of different genders out there, not just male and female. Some people think Trans men and women are some outside of the binary extra gender, which is very much not true. While many trans people do fall outside the binary, there are a lot who are strictly male or female. Therefore their genders are male and female. The trans part is not part of the word, it is a definer to state that the person is transitioning, that is all. So when you write trans man or trans woman the words are separate, not transman or transwoman. 

A trans man is someone who is transitioning his appearance for society to view him as male. 

A trans woman is someone who is transitioning her appearance for society to view her as female. 

The reason I am wording it this way is because they were already their genders. They have always been their genders. Transitioning is greatly influenced by the way we are treated by society, the same way that beauty standards influence people to contour and get surgeries and whatnot. 

Demi means mostly in terms of gender so a demi boy is someone who is male most of the time and a demi girl is someone who is female most of the time. 

Agender is someone who has no gender

Genderfluid is someone who shifts from gender to gender

Genderqueer is someone who’s gender is nondefined by other terms

Two Spirit is a third gender that encapsulates masculinity and femininity (according to Wikipedia) that is only used by Native Americans 

Third Gender is a gender that can encapsulate or be a completely different solid gender like male or female

Nonbinary is someone who is somewhere on the spectrum between genders and their gender is defined by them 

Pangender is someone who has all genders

Androgyny is not something that actually relates to gender as much as it does presentation. Presentation does not inherently tell you someone’s gender. Being androgynous just means that someone fits right in the middle of societies expectations of male and female and their AGAB cannot be guessed by onlookers. 

AGAB AFAB and AMAB mean Assigned Gender At Birth, Assigned Female At Birth, and Assigned Male At Birth. At birth someone will often assign a gender to a baby based on their genitals and parents tend to show off what sort of genitals their baby has with accessories and colors. Pretty creepy if you ask me. 

FTM and MTF has been deemed problematic but many still use them. They mean Female to Male and Male to Female. The terminology states that the person’s AGAB is their initial gender and they are becoming the opposite when, as stated before, it’s more that they were always their gender and now society has to catch up. 

Gender Nonconformity can be practiced by anyone regardless of gender. It just means that they do things that aren’t expected of someone of their gender like men wearing skirts (for some reason?) or women growing beards or a nonbinary person not being androgynous (for some reason that’s become an expectation)

Intersex is not a part of the trans umbrella, even though it is often lumped in and people who are intersex can also be trans. It is a sex (different from gender) in which different parts of genitals and chromosomes and hormones are produced in a way that deviates from the norm. Many intersex people undergo genital reconstruction or reduction surgery when they are infants (and can’t consent) in order to fit the mold better. Intersex people can be cis. 

Cis just means that someone agrees with the people who assigned them a gender when they were a baby and how society treats them. 

Slurs: Don’t use them. There are a lot. If you see it in a porn category you probably should stay away from it. 

Pronouns

Pronouns are highly personal and can be a myriad of things so I will not be going over all of them. They do not always match presentation (a long haired man with breasts is still a man) and many people will use multiple sets of pronouns or fluctuate between them for what they feel most comfortable with. 

Common pronouns are: they/them, he/him, she/her

Less common pronouns are: xi/xir, fae/faer, it/its, e/em, per/pers, ve/vir, zie/hir

Neopronouns: People make up pronouns all the time since they are personal and these new pronouns are just as valid as any others. Someone made up his and hers after all. When making neopronouns the main thing to be aware of is consistency. You want the different forms of conjugation to make sense and you want to spell them the same way every time. 

Appearance

As has already been stated, there’s no correlation between gender presentation and gender and many trans people are unable to present the way they want to due to the economy, genetics, health, or community. Still, people do what they can to pass or feel comfortable in their body and these things need to be in mind during descriptions. People tend to think of the slight things that make people not pass are unattractive and will point out a woman’s 5 o’clock shadow or a man’s high pitched voice as flaws. These things do not necessarily need to be skipped over but they can be described in a way that doesn’t distract from the characters gender. 

Try to stop thinking of an hourglass shape as an intrinsically feminine trait and height as an inherently masculine one. There are cis women with full beards and cis men with round jaws. Exploring different features, combining them, and seeing how they meld will give your characters more depth and help with differentiating them from one another. A good rule of thumb is, if you mention something that people don’t immediately clock as the characters gender, describe it as gender accurate. 

Misgendering

This is another one that I would say don’t do but there are characters who the writers don’t always agree with. Misgendering is extremely harmful, puts trans people’s lives in danger, and can out them without their permission. The narrator should never misgender a character unless the character does not realize they are trans until the story is underway but this should be rare. The trans character would have no reason to ever misgender themself and may talk about how they presented in the past but will, most likely, still refer to themself with the correct gender. The POV character may misgender a trans character upon meeting them but after being corrected should fix their behavior unless you want your audience to dislike the POV character. Friends of the trans character should not misgender the character unless they are in a situation in which being correctly gendered would bring them harm, otherwise they’re not good friends. Family may misgender the trans character if they are not out or if the family members are terrible people. 

Dysphoria/Euphoria

Dysphoria is when there’s a painful discrepancy between mind and body, like when someone knows they are one way but they don’t look the way they feel. Misgendering can be a large cause of dysphoria, as can hearing a recording of their voice, reflections, binding and tucking not hiding what the individual may want to hide, height, muscle structure, bone structure, etc. 

Euphoria is the exact opposite of this. It is an extreme sensation of peace and joy in personal gender presentation. This can be caused by hormone replacement therapy, correct gendering, presenting in a way that feels natural, and acceptance. 

Dysphoria is not necessary for being transgender. 

Social Groups

Look around your friend group. Notice anything eerie? Notice how most of your friends are similar to you in a lot of ways, especially IRL friends? They’re people that you trust and expect to keep you safe while having a fun time with because you share interests and experiences with. Same for trans people. This is why, if you look at my friend group there’s 2 genderfluid, 1 agender, 1 nonbinary, 2 trans women, 1 trans man, and 1 cis man (who’s a cousin). If you have just 1 trans character in a group of friends it is going to read as a need for diversity points and that character is less likely to feel safe with discussing trans issues due to no one around them being able to relate.

Outing 

This is one that a lot of people have a hard time with and even trans writers mess up a lot. We all know the infamous scene of someone walking in on a trans person changing and, hopefully, we know that this is not only cliche but actually harmful as it tends to lead to the idea of “lying” when it’s really just not anyone’s business and that trans bodies must be on display. I would say that you shouldn’t have to out your character because coming out is dangerous for real trans people in a lot of situations and it normalizes the idea that trans people must doxx themselves at any moment but due to the lack of representation and the nature of novels, you pretty much have to out your characters. No amount of subtext will be as beneficial to a trans reader as cementing the fact that there’s someone they can relate to in canon. Luckily outing a trans character is a lot easier than people think. 

Some of us can’t shut up. A lot of trans people will hint at it a lot and just flat out say it if they’re in similar company. If we see people who we feel confident are also queer we often drop hints that we understand we’re safe, they can come to us (especially in a retail setting), because we want a community. The amount I bring up my masculinity is very very often, to the point I’m surprised people aren’t annoyed with me. I don’t pass very well so I wear a lot of brightly colored buttons that explicitly state my pronouns. There’s also this very strong urge to correct people who use gendered language for things that don’t need gender (like sexual organs and menstrual cycles). There’s nothing wrong with just saying that a character is trans. 

Resources

The best thing you can do for your story is research. The trans people you know are not google and they do not deserve to be treated like google. You can use google. Here’s some stuff I found on google: 

Dummies | Transequality | EverydayFeminism | Scriptlgbt

But no matter how much research you do it’s not going to be as useful as a sensitivity reader. Once your story is complete ask people to read it as beta readers and sensitivity readers and listen to the people that fit your minority characters. 

Some musicians to check out for inspiration

I have to recommend music. I wouldn’t be myself if I didn’t. 

Agender: Angel Haze | Mood Killer

Androgyne: Florian- Ayala Flora | 

Genderfluid: Aja | Miley Cyrus | Dorian Electra | Jana Hunter | Ruby Rose |  Sons of an Illustrious Father | Eliot Sumner | Maxine Feldman | Chester Lockhart 

Genderqueer: Sopor Aeternus | CN Lester | Planningtorock | Chris Pureka | Sam Smith | Rae Spoon | Vaginal Davis | Ezra Furman | Randa | Vivek Shraya

Genderneutral: Grimes | 

Nonbinary: Arca | Mal Blum | Justin Vivian Bond | Adore Delano | Grey Gritt | Rose McGowan | Shamir | T Thomason | Beth Jean Houghton | Openside | Fraxiom 

Pandrogyne: Genesis P-orridge 

Trans Man: Alexander James Adams | Bettens | Little Axe and the Golden Echoes | Cidney Bullens | Meryn Cadell | Ryan Cassata | Quinn Christopherson | Beverly Glenn Copeland | Quinn Marston | Clyde Peterson | Schmekel | Lucas Silveira | Billy Tipton 

Trans Woman: 1.8.7. | Nadia Almada | Vacancy Chain | Barbra Amesbury | anohni | Estelle Asmodelle | Backxwash | Mykki Blanco | Namoli Brennet | Tona Brown | Sara Davis Buechner | Mya Byrne | The Neptune Darlings | Simona Castricum | Lili Chen | Jessie Chung | Coccinelle | Jayne County | Bulent Ersoy | Deena Kaye Rose | Bibi Anderson | Marci Free |  Teddy Geiger | Gila Goldstein | Laurie Jane Grace | Romy Haag | Ai Haruna | Juliana Huxtable | Mila Jam | Christine Jorgensen | Lady | Left@London | Amanda Lapore | Liniker | Jennifer Maidman | Michete | Trevi Moran | Angela Morley | Ataru Nakamura | Octo Octa | Dee Palmer | Kim Petras | Axis of Awesome | Katey Red | Patricia Ribeiro | Danica Roem | Jackie Shane | Breanna Synclaire | Sophie | Ramon Te Wake | Terre Thaemlitz | Cindy Thai Tai | Titicia | Venus Flytrap 

Two Spirit: Tony Enos | Cris Derksen

#writing advice #transgender writing #queer writers #trans writeblr #trans writing

[the-witty-pen-name]

The list of books I read before finishing TDATT...

YA Fiction, Graphic Novel

This book is the book that got me out of my years long reading slump. It also only took me just over an hour to read and I absolutely loved it. It’s a graphic novel about two vacation friends who stay at the same beach town every year. This book genuinely really captures that feeling of summer and I felt like it really felt authentic in how you feel as a kid, when things in life are happening around you but you’re still just a little too young to fully grasp everything. Also, the illustrations are just so well done. I literally recommend this book to everyone!

Adult Fiction, Realistic Fiction, Contemporary 

I have not been able to stop thinking about this book since I finished it. Everyone has been talking about it and I agree that it’s worth the hype. I think it’s so hard to find a book that accurately depicts how it feels to be navigating your 20s and I think this book did so just so authentically. Also this book is such a great commentary on race and socio-economics. It really brings attention to the idea of intention versus impact- how people’s good intentions can still be overtly racist. 

The book follows Emira Tucker, a young African American woman who is a recent college graduate, struggling to find her place while her friends continue to succeed and seem to have it together more than her. Emira babysits for public speaker and blogger Alix Chamberlain. The story follows the events that unfold after Emira is accused of kidnapping three year old Briar at a grocery store when a security guard does not believe Emira when she tells him that she is the child’s nanny. 

Adult Fiction, Rom-Com, Romance 

If you want a really cute enemies to lovers story, this book I read practically in a day. I adored both main characters, and their back an forth. This is one book in a series about the Brown sisters. This is the third book in the trilogy, but they don’t have to be read in order, and they all can be read alone. This is the only one of them I’ve read so far and I loved it so much- definitely will be reading the other two at some point. Eve is incredibly chaotic and can’t seem to figure out what she wants to do, and she ends up through a series of crazy events, working as a chef at an adorable bed and breakfast owned by Jacob, who is very by the book and organized. The two of them are total opposites and yet compliment each other so well! This book is also very body positive, and has autism representation. It’s witty, funny and *spicy* 

Science Fiction, Fantasy Fiction, Philosophical Fiction

*TW: suicide and depression*

Okay, this book I feel like I’ve seen people love or people say it’s a cliché. I actually really like the cliché message of this book. The final takeaway of the story, as overdone as some people may say it feels, is really uplifting I found. I found the concept really relatable as Nora ponders all the choices she’s made in her life and wondering what could have been. When Nora attempts to take her own life, she finds herself in a library. This library contains an infinite amount of books, all of which contain alternative lives she can choose to live out. I really liked this book, and would recommend! This is book also reads really quickly, some chapters are as short as a page, so you make more progress than you realize as you read which is nice. 

YA Fiction, Comedy 

*TW: suicidal thoughts, depression, eating disorder*

*TW: misgendering and deadnaming* 

The amount of excerpts from this book I found myself underlining because it was so relatable... Okay, really related to this book, and I think it’s such a good read. However, I have one grip with it that I want to address before talking more about the story. One of the characters in this book is a trans woman. Once the narrator discovers that she’s trans, he refers to her as Charles/Jennifer rather than just Jennifer, continuing to use her dead name. This novel was written in 2006, and so you can clearly tell that it reflected the more ignorant views at the time. It’s not mentioned often throughout, but this was something that bothered me a lot, despite overall loving the bigger story. (I actually am not sure about if the name was Charles, I could be wrong about what her deadname was, but just using Charles as an example about how the name is written in the book)

I really related to a lot of the struggles the main character, Craig, had in this book. I think a lot of students can relate to the pressures Craig faces with regards to his assignments and just school in general. As a person who was a college student (during a global pandemic!) and has GAD, Craig is a very relatable character. He’s not perfect, but many of the issues he has and how he describes them feel very authentic. Craig, who is a 15 year old high school student, suffers from depression, and after having suicidal thoughts, he admits himself to the hospital. The book is about Craig and his time spent in the psychiatric wing of the hospital and the relationships he forms with the fellow patients. 

#the-witty-book-club #tw: ed #tw: suicidal thoughts #tw:depression #tw:suicide #tw: deadnaming #tw: misgendering

[rittz]

thoughts about being trans, idk where else to put them so here u go

it’s not like i don’t have trans guy friends to talk to about this, it’s just usually in the form of jokes or passing comments rather than an actually serious conversation. also, the transmasc people that i’m closest to identify more with the label “nonbinary” than i do-- it’s not like they couldn’t understand or relate to things i’m saying, but i’m just assuming that they probably don’t feel the exact same way i do

anyway, as a trans person we get often asked “so why do you feel like a [gender]?”, and the answer is usually some variation of “i just feel like it”. this is the most accurate but also vaguest possible answer, so i kinda wanted to break down my personal answer to that question?

basically, i identify as a man because i identify with men. in a general and also personal sense. gender stereotypes are something that trans people by necessity both embrace and reject. i relate to gender stereotypes about men more than those of women-- i’m less outwardly emotional, i like being handy, i don’t like kids, i have questionable personal hygiene, etc-- but obviously these things alone don’t make someone a man. however... you can’t deny that there is some general truth about behavioral differences between men and women (bc of society, not biology). men and women both experience different problems in the world, and each have trouble understanding the experiences and problems of the other. generally, i can relate to the experiences and problems of men more than those of women, even if it seems like i shouldn’t (for example, i am not afraid of walking alone at night, even though i am very tiny).

i, from a young age, have had a constant yearning for more male friends. i would occasionally choose to play video games as a male character. i was upset that i couldn’t be in boy scouts. i have been jealous of my younger brothers being treated by my parents the ways i wished i was treated. when i imagined myself older, i pictured myself less like my mom and more like my dad. when i’m around men, i want them to treat me like one of them. i want to be seen as a man.

and i think that’s what being trans really boils down to. wanting to be seen as someone other than how everyone sees you. wanting what you see on the outside to match how you feel on the inside. this obviously extends to nonbinary individuals, who face their own struggle when it comes to presentation. but at the end of the day, i think that presentation is equally important to gender identity as internal feelings. i mean, i think we’re all familiar with the research proving that transitioning makes trans people happier. surgery is an invasive, expensive, painful process that i DON’T think is necessary for every trans person, and HRT isn’t always easy to get. but changing a name, getting a new haircut, dressing differently, binding, etc. counts as transitioning. you don’t have to hate your body to be trans, but wanting to alter it in order to better connect your internal identity with your presentation, i think is necessary in order to consider yourself to be trans. 

i will admit i am confused by “GNC trans men” i see on tumblr and insta, who use he/him pronouns but exclusively present femininely. i’m not talking about trans guys who don’t yet pass, i mean trans guys who don’t want to. i don’t harbor any ill will, i’m just confused. if i understand being trans to mean “wanting what you see on the outside to match how you feel on the inside”, you can see how. doesn’t that make you feel dysphoric? don’t you want people who see you to read you as male? how is your life different from when you didn’t identify as male but presented the same way? this isn’t me trying to gatekeep on who’s “trans enough”, and especially when it comes to nonbinary identities it’s arbitrary to harp on presentation like this. but like, what’s going on here?

taking a turn here that will come back around, an extremely key component to why i identify as and with men is my sexuality. i have always idolized, envied, and evoked various queer icons from media and real life. the hunky, grunting, macho, hetero version of “man” never appealed to me the way that the fashionable, artsy, flirty, homo version of “man” did. drag queens, my mom’s hairdresser, glam rock stars, i could go on. associating my more feminine qualities with GAY stereotypes instead of FEMALE stereotypes suddenly made more sense, and made me feel less dysphoric. it’s also something that took me a long time to realize, because i had surrounded myself with queers who were mostly attracted to women. transmascs and butch lesbians historically have a lot in common, but personally, i didn’t relate as much to lesbians as i did to drag queens. in dating and loving men, i developed my understanding of them. but my attraction to men was why it had taken me so long to realize i felt more like a man-- i thought i was just some weird straight girl.

now, am i calling these “GNC gay trans men” with long pink hair and poofy skirts and conventionally attractive bisexual boyfriends “weird straight girls”? ...well, not to their faces. but i have to admit that i’m thinking it. these people would never go to a predominantly-male gay bar, these people would never be harassed on the street. i’m not saying i know someone’s identity better than they do, but i don’t agree with the liberal utopian ideal of “let everyone do whatever they want as long as they aren’t hurting anyone” when taken to mean that we can’t question other people’s choices. “why do you feel like a man?” is a question that, coming from another trans person, isn’t inherently transphobic. it’s not “forcing” someone to “prove” their “transness”, no one “owes” me an explanation of their identity. i’m just confused. i don’t disapprove of the way these people live their lives, i just want to know why.

a straight girl being feminine is different from a gay man being feminine, because it has less to do with personality and more to do with society’s historic view of gay men as closer to female than male because of the loving and fucking men aspect. an AMAB gay man wearing makeup and a crop top probably just wants to look good, but he is also signaling to other men that he’s gay via gender non-conformance. by being AFAB and female-passing, wearing makeup and a crop top is not GNC. in fact it’s pretty GC, and gay men will not recognize you as a gay man.

it’s easy to say “gender is fake so do whatever you want”, but like, we have to acknowledge reality. time is a social construct too, but we still use days of the week when talking to each other. strangers will treat you differently depending on what gender they interpret you as. different people will be willing to date you or not. you have to choose which public bathroom to go in. if being misgendered doesn’t bother these people, then who cares? but if it DOES, which it usually does, wouldn’t you want to take steps to prevent being misgendered in the future? if your desire to present femininely is stronger then your desire to be seen as male, then like... why call yourself a male at all? ultimately nothing these people do will really affect me in any way. it just makes me wonder if these people will eventually go on to present as male, or if they will later ID as nonbinary or even cis. i encourage people trying out different labels and exploring their identity, so it’s not like i think these people SHOULDN’T identify as trans guys. it’s more like, i wish they were able to articulate WHY they identify as trans more than “because i said so”. not wanting to be a woman doesn’t automatically make you a man, it just makes you not a woman.

maybe i’m particularly cynical because of the MULTIPLE times that people with larger online followings who identify and present this way have later turned out to be lying, manipulative people. hopefully it goes without saying that i do NOT think that everyone who identifies and presents this way is a toxic liar. the reason i bring it up is because some people genuinely can’t understand the possibility or purpose of misleadingly claiming a marginalized identity, but it can and does happen. an analogy could be made here about white people claiming indigenous heritage. we all WANT to believe what people say about themselves, and asking for “proof” is a social no-no. but we shouldn’t just... automatically trust everything someone says about themselves, right? and as bad as i WANT to live in a world where gender doesn’t matter and everyone default uses neutral pronouns and there are no divisions in clothing stores and bathrooms, we don’t live in that world (yet). when you are AFAB, /extremely/ femininely presenting, and have little to no plans of transitioning, saying “i am a man” will not make other people see you as one. and if you don’t want to be seen as a man, then maybe you aren’t one.

#lgbt #ftm #long...

[thenightling]

LGBT+ Neil Gaiman characters

All right.  Let’s begin.  This is a long list so I’m bound to accidentally leave a few out.  Feel free to correct me if you think of one or two I may have forgotten to list.

April Spink and Miriam Forcible from Coraline (couple.)  

Angela (Lesbian). 

The character Neil Gaiman created for Spawn is Angela.  Angela is now owned by Marvel.  Angela is a lesbian in a loving relationship with a transwoman named Sera.

Salim and The Jinn from American Gods (Couple).

This relationship got nominated for a GLAAD award.  

Sam Black Crow in American Gods (Bisexual)

Snow White (Lesbian) Snow White (Yes, the fairy tale character) is the lesbian protagonist of The Sleeper and the Spindle, which is a sort of crossover fanfiction of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty that Neil Gaiman wrote as a short story.

Captain Shakespeare in the film adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust (Gender nonconforming.)

His sexual preference is ambiguous but he loves feminine, soft, and pink things including womens clothing, hairdressing, and theatre. He also leads a band of cutthroat pirates who follow him loyally so there is that.    

Loki (Loki)

There’s Loki in Neil’s book on Norse Mythology.   Loki also appears in American Gods and The Sandman.

There’s also quite a few LGBT+ characters in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, which include (but are not necessarily limited to):

Paul and Alexander Burgess (male couple).  

It should be noted that Alexander and Paul were clearly in an open relationship (Polyamorous?) in the 1960s (With Alexander Burgess likely being panasexual) and they are now exclusive to each other by the end of Sandman: The Wake.

Judy (lesbian). 

Judy was, unfortunately, phyiscally violent with Donna and it cost her the relationship.  Judy died along with several other character at a diner when John Dee (Doctor Destiny) got a hold of Morpheus’ dream stone.

Donna AKA Foxglove (lesbian). 

Donna is Judy’s ex-girlfriend but she ultimately found happiness with Hazel.  

Hazel (lesbian).

 Hazel had a one night stand with a man that resulted in pregnancy. She did not really enjoy it and now she and Donna (Foxglove) raise the baby together after having overcome many relationship issues.  The baby was named after Wanda (the transwoman character).  Since the baby was a boy they named him with Wanda’s deadname to remember her (Personally I think Wanda should have just been his middle name. Wanda hated the name Alvin).     It should be noted that Donna and Hazel’s love story (which starts in Sandman: A Game of you) got a spin-off comic called Death: The Time of your Life and that comic won a GLAAD award for representation in the mid-90s.    

Cluracan (Bisexual.  Possibly panasexual by modern standards.),

Wanda (Transwoman). 

Desire (Genderfluid and panasexual).    Desire is the living embodiment of desires, good and bad desires.  One moment they might want your death, the next they’re helping save the universe.  Desire can be male, female, both, or neither at will.   

The Corinthian (gay), 

John Constantine  (Bisexual.) Though not originally created by Neil Gaiman he was written by Neil Gaiman in a few stories.  Including his appearance in Sandman.

Lucifer Morningstar. (Complicated.) Lucifer Morningstar (like all of Neil Gaiman’s angels) is depicted as having no true biological gender in both The Sandman comics and in Lucifer’s own solo comics.  Lucifer presents as male and uses male pronouns.  He self-identifies as male but many other angels don’t really consider themselves as male or female despite how they present themselves.   

In the TV adaptation of Lucifer he is portrayed as having male and female lovers.  It should also be noted that in the comics Lucifer was physically modeled after biseuxal rock star, David Bowie.  

Mazikeen (Female identifying.  Bisexual) Mazikeen is a female-identifying demon portrayed as bisexual in both the TV show Lucifer and in Lucifer’s spin-off comics.  In Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman she was Lucifer’s lover.

Eve (Bisexual)

Eve appeared in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman and in Lucifer as well as American Gods.   In the Lucifer TV series she is portrayed as bisexual.

Note: Eve can change her age and appearance at will.   Sometimes she’s young, sometimes she’s old.  Sometimes she’s middle aged.  And though she’s often appeared as white (such as in Sandman), she is black in the newer Sandman Universe comics, and in Good Omens.  

Various angels.  (Diverse)

This one is a little complex.  Many of Neil Gaiman depictions of Angels do not actually identify as male or female though many of them present as male.  

Anatomically they are without gender unless they will it to be otherwise. Many of them have taken male and female Earthly lovers.   You can see Lucifer depicted without physical gender in Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, and other angels depicted similarly in the Lucifer solo comics that spin-off from Sandman.  

Pollution from Good Omens (Non-Binary)

Aziraphale and Crowley in Good Omens (Couple. Demi panromantic celestial?)  

Neil Gaiman does not personally view Aziraphale and Crowley in Good Omens as gay because they only present as male but aren’t truly male or female by nature. He has also said he does not view a male and female presenting angel couple as straight either for the same reason.  He has said “I never said they are not queer.” just that he wouldn’t use the word gay for them.

I know that’s not all of them but there you go.   A list of LGBT+ characters created by Neil Gaiman.

And before I get a stupid hate-DM about how Wanda is “transmisogynist” because you read a Mary Sue article by someone who doesn’t understand context, understand this.   There was no Trans representation when Wanda was created.   She can’t follow a stereotype.  The stereotype didn’t exist yet.   She had not medically transitioned and ask yourself if you find her problematic just because she isn’t the conventional idea of feminine in her bone structure and height (Something even cis women have to struggle with).   Yes, Wanda died but it was to show the cishet readers of 1992 that her soul was always that of a woman.  There are still people today (even some Trans people) who don’t think you really count unless you fully medically transition. Wanda was scared of surgery but that shouldn’t matter.  She was always a woman and that was the point Neil was trying to make.

Yes, Wanda’s family was transphobic.  They were supposed to be seen as transphobic.  Also Thessaly AKA Larissa and George are NOT supposed to be seen as good people.  They are supposed to be seen as Transphobic. Thessaly is a pretty horrible person in The Sandman comics. She’s selfish and kind of homicidal.  She represents the cold, self-absorbed immortal Morpheus used to be like.   And before you try to argue “Just because Transphobia is real doesn’t mean Neil has to depict it!” (and yes, I’ve been given that argument while defending Neil Gaiman) ... Before you argue that, I want you to know something.

A Transman friend of mine was deeply moved by Wanda’s story because he went through similar.  His parents still deadname him and misgender him on birthday and holiday cards and gifts.   They never disowned him but they want to pressure him to “realize” he’s a woman.  When he saw that Wanda went through similar, especially at her own funeral, he no longer felt so alone.   Wanda may well have saved his life.  So yes, I will defend that “problematic” character who died nobility and who was used in the early 90s to teach cishet readers that Transwoman (medically transitioned or not) are still women.  Also, Neil is NOT accountable for how the story was drawn.  He’s not the illustrator.  So stop using the artwork to claim he’s homophobic.  A comic book writer essentially writes a script and then it is up to the illustrator to draw it as best they can.   By the way, the illustrator of Sandman: A Game of You (Where Wanda came from) was Colleen Doran, who was nominated for a Gaytastic Spectrum award in 2001.     

Stop looking for reasons to hate one of the only men who has been trying to give the LGBT+ community representation since the 1980s.

#Neil Gaiman #LGBT+ characters #Gay characters #Gay representation #The Sandman #Lucifer Morningstar #Good Omens #American Gods

[suzyundertale]

Non-binary characters in Undertale and Deltarune

A lot of people don’t notice this, but there are several major characters in Undertale that are referred to exclusively with they/them pronouns. In this post, I’ll go over them, and I’ll explain why so many non-binary people identify with them.

Napstablook and Monster Kid

Both Napstablook and Monster Kid are referred to only with they/them pronouns. This suggests that they are non-binary.

Of course, even with characters being exclusively referred to with they/them, there will be people who say it’s intentionally “ambiguous”, or an oversight, or what have you.

Fortunately, we have definitive evidence this isn’t the case.

In the first printing of the official Undertale art book, featuring commentary from Toby Fox himself, these two characters were mistakenly referred to with he/him pronouns.

However, when this was pointed out to Toby, he told me that it was a typo and it would be fixed in the next run - which it promptly was.

This serves as confirmation that referring to these two with he/him pronouns is incorrect, and they/them are the correct pronouns.

Frisk

Frisk is the protagonist and player character of Undertale. It’s worth noting that, for the majority of Undertale, you’re definitely supposed to think that Frisk is a player self-insert character, a blank slate for you to project yourself onto. You’re tricked into thinking you name them, and they have an ambiguous skin color and gender.

However, in the True Pacifist ending, it’s revealed that they have their own name: Frisk.

This reveal also serves as a reveal that Frisk isn’t you, or an in-game representation of you. They’re their own person. They’re a character that exists within this universe. It’s always been just them. Not you or anyone else.

I mean, why would a character who’s meant to be “you” have their own name? Toby never calls Frisk “Frisk” in merchandise or interviews, simply calling them “The Human”, because their name is a major spoiler for the True Pacifist ending. It’s quite easy to only call them “The Human”, he has no trouble doing it now, so if they’re meant to be “you”, there’s no reason to give them a name at all.

In the True Pacifist ending, after Asriel returns everyone’s SOULs, everyone magically learns Frisk’s name (except Napstablook, who closed their blinds upon seeing the flash of light.) Suddenly, everyone knows who Frisk is.

And… all of their friends still use they/them pronouns for them.

If they’re clearly meant to be not you, then surely it would be easier for Toby to hammer in that point by suddenly having everyone refer to Frisk with different pronouns. But he doesn’t, because Frisk isn’t a girl or a boy. Because the monsters were never wrong to use they/them for Frisk. Those were always their pronouns, and they still are.

Chara

Chara is the character we name at the beginning of Undertale. However, this doesn’t mean that they literally are you.

Chara has their own backstory - they had a family, they had likes and dislikes. They’re not meant to be an in-game representation of the player. If they were, there’s about a million better ways Toby could have done that. Like, you know, not giving them a clearly defined backstory and personality. Why would someone who’s supposed to be “the player” be so… different from so many people? A lot of people don’t like chocolate or flowers or knives. Actually, I’d guess that most people don’t like all of those things at once. But Chara does.

In any case, Chara is referred to exclusively with they/them or, occasionally, it/its pronouns. Their own brother, Asriel - their best friend and undoubtedly the person they were closest to -  uses only they/them pronouns when speaking of them.

Kris

From the very beginning of Deltarune, it’s made very clear that Kris is NOT a self-insert of any kind, even more clear than Frisk and Chara. Whether you believe the red SOUL is literally the player or not, Kris is clearly their own person fighting against someone for control of their body. They have their own clearly defined personality, likes and dislikes, etc. I really don’t think there’s any way to reasonably argue that Kris is meant to be a representation of the player. You don’t get to choose anything about them. Their personality, their likes and dislikes, their hobbies, their past, all of that is set in stone.

So why, then, would their gender be up to player interpretation? Why would that be the one single thing we get to decide about Kris? It, quite simply, does not make any sense.

Seam

Seam is a lot less obvious than the other ones - but if you play through Deltarune, you might notice something about all the dialogue where people refer to Seam.

Seam is never referred to with any pronouns. The way it’s written seems very deliberate, in my opinion, so I don’t think that this is a coincidence. 

In the real world, some non-binary people elect to use no pronouns, as well, and ask to be only referred to by name. Seam may be representation for this. Honestly, I think it’s really great of Toby to include a character that doesn’t use pronouns. All the other non-binary characters in Undertale and Deltarune use they/them, but that’s not always the case for real non-binary people. In real life, non-binary people can use all sorts of pronouns, or no pronouns at all.

At first it may seem confusing or difficult to not use any pronouns to refer to someone. But if you reread this section, you’ll notice I’ve never used any third-person pronouns. It took a bit of thinking, but it’s actually quite easy once you get used to it!

--

Kris, Frisk, and Chara are never explicitly stated to be non-binary. That’s true. Some people make the argument that because it’s never explicitly stated, it can’t be canon. That is not true at all. To demonstrate this, I will use an example from Undertale.

Take Alphys. From the Mettaton Quiz Show segment of Undertale, we can learn that Alphys has a crush on both Undyne, a woman, and Asgore, a man. Therefore, Alphys is canonically bisexual. Alphys herself never states that she is bisexual. No one else ever says that Alphys is bisexual. In fact, the word “bisexual” is never used once in Undertale at all. But Alphys being bisexual is still canon.

Therefore, it’s possible for Kris, Frisk, and Chara to be canonically non-binary without it ever being outright stated.

But why? Wouldn’t it be easier for Toby to explicitly state it? Sure, maybe it would be easier to write - but that doesn’t mean it’s better writing. Finding a way to somehow mention a character’s gender would most likely come across as forced and unnatural. After all, most people don’t openly discuss their gender or sexuality in everyday situations.

So, Kris doesn’t need to explicitly say “I’m non-binary and use they/them pronouns” to be a character who is non-binary and uses they/them pronouns. They just… are. The same goes, of course, for Frisk and Chara.

They’re only ever referred to with they/them pronouns by close friends and family, and we’re given no reason to believe they’re anything other than non-binary. There’s absolutely no reason to use any pronouns other than they/them for these characters.

If you meet someone in real life, and notice that everyone around you is only using they/them pronouns for that person… well, it’s pretty safe to assume that person is non-binary. Even if you never hear anyone say “This Person Is Non-binary”, you don’t have an excuse to start calling them a he or a she. It’s the same with the kids.

The fact is that Frisk and Kris are no different than other video game protagonists. No one tries to argue that Ninten or Ness or Lucas are girls. No one tries to argue that Samus is a boy. It’s only when the protagonist is non-binary that people try to argue otherwise.

Why?

Some people may ask, well, why is this important? Why can’t I just headcanon them as whatever I want? They’re not even real!

Well, you see, non-binary characters are really rare in fiction. Especially as a protagonist, and especially a human protagonist. When you see a non-binary or genderless character in fiction, it’s usually going to be something non-human, like an alien, or otherwise non-sentient, like a robot. This happens a lot, and it dehumanizes actual non-binary people. Even worse, transgender characters in fiction in general are often treated like jokes, or something to make fun of. Like they’re not even a person.

So, to a non-binary person, to see a non-binary protagonist who’s a human being, like them, is.. very important. It’s something you might not understand if you’ve grown up seeing people like yourself on TV or in games or books all the time. It brings comfort to non-binary people to see someone like themself in such a popular video game. It gives them reassurance that “yes, we do exist”, as many people in the real world deny the existence of non-binary people. In both Undertale and Deltarune, no one makes a big deal of Frisk or Chara or Kris being non-binary. No one ever challenges it. No one ever misgenders them. And that’s incredibly comforting for so many non-binary people. For once, for once, they can be immersed in a world where people like them are unanimously accepted, and treated with respect.

That’s why so many non-binary people feel hurt when they see people in fandom misgendering the kids, as well. It’s a denial of their identities, it’s a denial that non-binary people exist in the Undertale and Deltarune universes. Even though it’s just a fictional character, it can still impact your view of actual non-binary people - if you can’t even respect a fictional character’s pronouns, what does that say about how you treat real people?

In addition, a lot of trans and non-binary people in the Undertale fandom are harassed over this. When they try to defend Kris, Frisk, and Chara’s pronouns, people will inevitably throw hate at them. People who identify with these characters are met with mockery and hostility. Unfortunately, there are transphobic people in the Undertale fandom. Misgendering the kids validates those people. It tells those people, “even if someone uses only they/them pronouns, it’s okay to call them a he or a she.” It tells them, “you’re right to think these people are unreasonable. you’re right to think these people don’t exist.” And that’s wrong. That’s not true at all.

#ut #deltarune #undertale #analysis #save

[wolfenm]

It's International Pronouns Day!

Out of habit, my pronouns are she/her/hers, but as a middle-aged genderfluid enby (non-binary), I am working on using they/them/theirs more for myself. And when I'm presenting male (usually when cosplaying a male character), I actually prefer he/him/his ... but I'm a little triggered by being called that *otherwise*, because I have been gendered as male a few times before coming to understand that I am enby, and it made me feel like a failure as a woman. So I prefer to only be identified that way on my own terms (trust me, it will be obvious).

"But Wolfie, why do you identify as enby"? Please keep in mind that what I'm about to say is only my feelings on the matter and are not meant to imply in any way that people without uteruses can't be women. But having played more with boys than girls at school as a child; having never had a period growing up (at least, not until right before I was diagnosed with endometrial cancer); having always been inordinately hairy (I highly suspect I have PCOS); having never had any desire whatsoever to be a mother; having never really been accepted into girly cliques; having been frequently mocked for not being pretty; having seldom attracted positive male attention for my appearance, no matter how hard I tried; having been misgendered multiple times when presenting as female; and having found myself gravitating more often towards cosplaying male characters than female, and having been disappointed when then referred to as female, I realised that, while I have lived the female experience / my life has been greatly affected (usually negatively) by being perceived as female,  my own idea of *myself* had nothing to do with a fixed gender. It just didn't matter. I could see myself in what I considered to be a masculine persona -- but not all the time, though! I hate sports and cars, for one thing, things that, growing up, I had often seen as going hand-in-hand with masculinity. And, well, sometimes I DID feel girly, and want to LOOK overtly feminine!  And there were times when, being a person who cannot reproduce (I wasn't the slightest bit upset to lose my uterus), I didn't feel like I was anything, genderwise. Most of the time, I dress unisex.

And then I learned about "non-binary", reading about various non-binary experiences, and found myself nodding, like ... yeah. What makes me female? I think of femininity, and my view of it is something I have seldom felt applied to me -- but not NEVER, either. Same goes with masculinity. So that's how I came to identify as genderfluid enby. There are times when I am feminine, times when I am masculine, and times when what I am doesn't even really register. But I DO NOT apply this thinking to other people! Just because a lack of a uterus is *part* of why I feel I am enby, does not mean that I feel any other woman who either had a hysterectomy or never had a uterus in the first place are not women! Just because I view certain behaviors and appearances as masculine and feminine, and that I apply these idea to myself, doesn't mean that my ideas of gender presentation have anything to do with anyone else's gender identity! I will always respect each person's own gender identity, and how they express it. I also don’t identify as trans, because I have many non-fluid trans friends, and I feel like our experiences regarding gender differ, and like, if I identify as trans, it ... belittles their hardships they endure, I guess? Since I can easily accept being seen as the gender I was assigned at birth (we'll, except when I cosplay). I certainly understand other enbys and/or genderfluid people applying the label of “trans” to themselves, though, and I am not bothered if other trans people consider *me* trans. But I also worry that people may use the genderfluid concept as “evidence” that trans people chose their gender identity, and therefore can be made to “unchoose” it -- much like how people think that the existence of bi / pansexuals like myself is evidence that gay people chose and can “unchoose” their sexual orientation.

I look at it this way: some people like pepperoni pizza and hate pineapple, while others like pineapple but hate pepperoni, while others love both (me), and others HATE both. None of us chose what we have a taste for and what we don't, and our personal likes and dislikes have no bearing on what others like or dislike. My loving pineapple pizza doesn't mean others must be capable of loving it as well.

#personal #mine #enby #genderfluid #pronouns #my pronouns #on gender #gender #genderqueer #non-biinary #2020 #essay #LGBTQIA #lgbtq issues #queer issues #international pronouns day