#queer discourse will be the death of the queer community

[gaymothman]

you aren't a good white conservative gay who's made all the right decisions and dislikes pride and sex and saying slurs who has rightfully weeded the impure transgenders, fags, dykes, microlabel users, out of your clean healthy community to be cleaned off the street by laws and bans and police, you are gay and eventually they'll be coming for you too and you won't have all of the freaks and leftists and trannys and undesirables who were once in your community to help you then. you will be all alone and they will want you just as dead as the rest of us

#queer discourse #queer history #pride #lgbt #trans #queer discourse will be the death of the queer community #this is not to fearmonger if anything this is a vent #i'm so tired of seeing walls built up around small groups in the community because the second we have been broken down #into tiny bite sized pieces #they will start eating one by one until we're gone and we won't have the ability to band together to keep it from happening #i don't want that to happen and it is so important to see every non cishet as a brother and sister and sibling that you will defend #for the freedom of yourself and everyone

[jaymber]

I'm just gonna-

Even if you don't count what's happening between the protagonists as romance cause you don't care about stories, just visuals, at least STOP erasing trans and non-binary identities!

#bro can't you wait! #you got this awesome story and all you think about is: 'if they don't fuuck nasty it's not queer' #'boohoo those two enbies in love don't kiss so this isn't lgbt+' could you stop erasing the T from the community for 2 seconds??? #good omens #go #discourse #i'm so pissed! #came for reading y'all essays on this new season not reading death threats sent to the author cause you want everything all at once

[tasmanianstripes]

Sometimes I remember absolutely batshit insane discourse topics I saw when I was a teen and I am just. Amazed

Also, the fact that adults also said this just adds to the insanity tbh

#thylacines can talk #aces stole purple from bis #homosexual/romantic is a slur #aspec actually means autism spectrum and you cant use it if youre acearo. sources? just trust me bro #the mooncourse #people acting rude and entitled because you didn't include a lesbian flag in something. even when it WAS included just in a different post #when a certain art project was split into multiple posts. or they used a lesbiaj flag that they made on their own or that was less popular #because it was back when people still weren't set on which lesbian flag to use. or if it was by-request project #thay one time a lesbian candle maker was harassed because she made a lesbian candle hut didnt use the pink lipstick flag so people accused #her of being lesbophobic despite it saying thats a lesbian flag Right There on heretsy shop #either the same person or another lesbian crafter getting harassed because she made an ace artemis soap #the entire discourseprincessa fiasco #the queer is a slur argument and it's useless anyway because its too vague (thats the POINT) #it was tiring and so stupid when it all was happening and i regret wasting my teens on that bs. but man is it funny in hindsight #i dont miss old tumblr discourse though #I COMPLETELY FORGOT ABOUT ANOTHER ONE. APPARENTLY 'PISS YOUR PANTS' WAS A DEATH THREAT #alsp the fact that i still see people. ADULTS. arguing against the aspec or pan/mga is laughable #what are you? 13? get off the internet. go outside. touch grass. interact with actual queer community. stop being so chronically online #these are just words. if they saw the type of terms older generations use theyd fucking combust on the spot

[dani-the-toad]

how are you, someone who has not lived this persons experiences, going to tell them what they can and cant label themself as. what gives you the right to label someone else. do you live their life? do you understand what theyve been through? why do you care? they hate us all the same so why are you telling someone else that theyre the harmful one? this is fucking ridiculous lmao

#toad rambles #yes this is about the therian bi lesbian who leaked the no fly list. it literally does not deserve this shit #why do we care so much about how it labels itself WHY DO WE CARE HOW PEOPLE LABEL THEMSELVES #like. im reaching the point where you know what? no. its not harmful. nothing is harmful. we are hated all the same like. chill the fuck out #nothing is going to stop us from being hated. god #queer discourse is the fucking death of us all #we are a fucking COMMUNITY #ok to rb #just dont be fuckin stupid ok #god damn

[rynnaaurelius]

Someone explain to me using small words why every time I see a person talking about how The Dangers Of Applying The Word Queer To A Community And Misappropriation of Slur Reclaimation, every time, without fail, I check their blog and see "DNI if you believe X Identity is real"

Like. How does your brain work.

Anyway, if I haven't made it clear before, this is a safe space for he/him lesbians, bi/pan lesbians and gays, pansexuals, the ace and aro spectrums, and any other "contradictory identity".

We don't welcome crypto-TERF talking points in this house

#i will not engage i will not engage i will not-- #discourse is the mindkiller. discourse is the little death that brings total obliteration #for the illiterate this is NOT ABOUT NOT USING THE WORD YOURSELF #'why do you want to call yourself a slur so bad' ALL OF OUR WORDS ARE SLURS #SEPARATION OF COMMUNITY IS THE ENEMY'S TOOL #ACRONYMS ARE LIMITED BY THEIR NATURE #GET UNDER THE UMBRELLA AND LIKE IT #ryn speaks #i need a queer discourse tag #or not i don't wanna make a habit of this #it's just been A Day and my tolerance for stupidity is low

[starberry-skies]

what biphobia is: telling bi girls they can't bring their cishet boyfriends to pride, "everyone's a little bisexual", saying a canon bisexual woman just suffers from comphet, saying that bisexuality is inherently transphobic/enbyphobic, treating bi women as "lesser" than lesbians because they date men, etc.

what biphobia is not: bi veldians/lesbians, pansexuality.

#girl help i'm still on my discourse bullshit #i might leave this one up but who knows #this is semi in response to that one dumbass who i was debating this with then they deleted their response then my response to that #but not the og post #its a bummer too bc that was one of my best debates and i forgot to screenshot it T-T #i debunked their arguments flawlessly (/brag) then i came in with the death blow of: #your logic is flawed + you hate your own community + fuck you #then i saw they were SUPER aphobic so i blocked them <3 #if that sounds mean then just remember they were doing harm to the bi community (and the queer community) as a whole #so i'm allowed to be a little mean #chirping #biphobia #discourse

[palant1r]

not proshipper not anti but a secret third thing (person who has a career in the media and, through covering legislative politics, has watched "associating with problematic fiction or entertainment is an indicator of moral degeneracy" rapidly become a mainstream GOP position that they are encoding in legislation to target the queer community under the guise of protecting children, thus coming to the conclusion that positioning the "can people enjoy things that would be immoral IRL in their fiction" debate as a proship v anti fandom debate is akin to pretending that "should we have the death penalty" is a discussion that only matters in Death Note discourse — the extent and manner to which fiction affects reality is an issue that is immediately relevant to today's US politics, and to summarize my opinions on the matter in fandom terms would be to diminish the ways this debate is affecting america Right The Fuck Now. and i have stopped taking "this person is bad for shipping the wrong anime thing and being horny about it" in any sort of good faith ever since I saw it literally used as part of a GOP smear campaign against a transgender state legislator in an attempt to defend the right from backlash after they used their supermajority in the Montana house to prevent her from speaking on the floor. Anyway I think everyone on this site, especially Americans, could benefit from ceasing to think in proship v anti vocabulary and instead developing coherent political positions on the nature of fiction that do not directly align with current fascist political tactics)

#pisscourse

[aropride]

yeah man that group of queer people really are evil fakers stealing ur resources. for real this time yeah. no it's not dumb meaningless exclusionist discourse that you're traumatizing a group of fellow queer people with this time, it's a good thing this time. keep sending those people death threats and talking about how they're not oppressed enough you're really doing so much good for the queer community

#text #slash sarcasm #if it wasn't obvious #discourse

[knownbyanothername]

periodic reminder that i generally do not fuck with exclusionists. especially anyone who fucks w ace or pan people.

#you can not be 'fuck you i got mine' about the queer community like go fuck yourself #i don't have a strict dni BUT i do block when i'm like. hmmgh. dont fuckin like that. #which isnt to say i generally wish death or ill things on anyone. #but i am like well. you generally reap the energies you put out there yk #pichu barks #discourse #<- just in case for any tags blocking this kind of stuff

[captainjonnitkessler]

I understand if you want to stay out of it but I’m curious as to you’re thoughts on this discourse

https://www.tumblr.com/dappercat123/737173649266737152/your-arguments-sum-to-in-my-perfect-world-there

Anon, I'm going to be entirely honest with you. I have been waiting for an excuse to put my thoughts about this down. Forewarning that this is going to be long and take a dim view of organized religion.

TL;DR: I think everyone in that thread is maliciously misinterpreting evilsoup's point, which is basically that they think Gene Roddenberry was right about what a post-utopian society would look like re: religion. And you can agree or disagree about whether a post-religious utopia is likely or desirable, but to say that anyone who thinks it is is actively calling for and encouraging genocide is a gross misuse of the term (especially coming from at least one person that I'm pretty sure is currently denying an actively ongoing actual fucking genocide).

@evilsoup can correct me if I'm misinterpreting their points, but as far as I see it there are two main points being made:

A) In a perfect utopia with absolutely no source of oppression, marginalization, or disparity, religion would naturally whither away with no outside pressure being applied.

B) This would be a good or at least a neutral thing.

As far as A) goes - a lot of the responses evilsoup got were basically "well *I* would never choose to be nonreligious, so therefore the only way to create that world would be by force, and therefore you are calling for literal genocide". But aside from the fact that evilsoup was very, very clear that they thought this would be a *natural* event and that trying to force people to be nonreligious would be evil - we're not talking about (general) you. You can be as religious as you want but you don't get to make that choice for your grandkids, or your great-great-great grandkids, or your great-great-great-great-great-etc. grandkids. Just because religion is an integral part of your identity doesn't mean it's something you can pass down, and if you're not comfortable with the idea that your kids might choose to leave your religion, you shouldn't have kids.

I personally don't foresee religion disappearing entirely, but it is pretty consistent that as a country becomes happier, healthier, and wealthier, it also becomes less religious. Religiosity is inversely correlated with progressive values. And the more democratic and secular a nation is, the less powerful religious authorities become - In the 1600s blasphemy and atheism were punishable by death* in Massachusetts and today I can call the Pope a cunt to his face** on Twitter with no repercussions whatsoever. Political secularism is an absolute necessity for true democracy and it necessitates removing power from religious authorities, which has and will likely continue to lead to a decline in religiosity - not just a decline in how many people identify as religious, but also a decline in how religious the remaining people are.

*Blasphemy laws and death penalties for blasphemers/apostates are still VERY much a thing in many places. It's hard to see a path where those places become more democratic but don't become more secular and repeal those laws.

**Well, to the face of whoever runs his Twitter account, but the point remains.

I also believe that many religious communities have been held together for so long via coercion - either internal coercion like blasphemy and apostasy laws, shunning, and threats of hell or other supernatural punishment, or external coercion like oppression from the majority religious group or ethnic cleansings. In a perfect utopia, neither form of coercion would exist and I don't think it's crazy to think that religiosity would drop severely and become a much less important part of people's identities, in the way I think the queer community would not exist in a world where queerphobia didn't exist.

ANYWAY, all this is actually kind of moot. It could happen, it could not, nobody is calling for it to be forced so we'll just have to wait and see. The real point of disagreement is on B).

I'm gonna be honest - I think a lot of the responders are rank hypocrites and are really hung up on the idea of cultural purity, which is something I'm wildly uncomfortable with.

First of all, the idea that a deeply-held religious belief could be diluted until it's just a cultural thing that nobody really remembers the origins of isn't some evil mastermind plot evilsoup is trying to concoct, it's just how cultures work. There's tons of stuff about American culture that are vaguely rooted in what were once deeply-held beliefs and are now entertainment. Halloween is rooted in sacred tradition and now it's a day to dress up and get candy. Christmas is one of the most sacred holidays in Christianity but nobody bats an eye if a non-Christian puts up some lights or decorates a tree just because it's fun. I have no doubt that every culture on Earth has traditions that used to be deeply sacred but are now just fun family traditions. People in Japan use Christian symbology as an "exotic, mythical" aesthetic the exact same way people in the West use Eastern symbology. And if you're okay with it happening to Christianity, why wouldn't you be okay with it happening to any other religion in the absence of oppression?

And there's the idea that if a culture fails to get passed down *exactly* as it is now, it's a terrible loss and the result of malicious outside influence. But . . . cultures change over time. No culture is the same now as it was two or five or eight hundred years ago and I don't believe that change is inherently loss. The things that are sacred to you may or may not be sacred to the people of your culture in the future. That's just the way things work, and I don't think it's inherently good or bad.

And finally, people keep accusing evilsoup of "just wanting everyone to assimilate to your culture", but it absolutely does not follow that a lack of religion means a lack of diversity. Different nonreligious cultures are every bit as capable of being diverse as different religious cultures, so it's weird to insist that evilsoup wants there to only be one culture when they never said anything to indicate that.

#me still nursing the burn i got from touching the Discourse Stove last week: well surely it's not still hot #time to hit post and then log off for the night #atheism #skepticism umbrella

[spacelazarwolf]

every day i thank god i wasn’t on tumblr, or at least that part of tumblr, during the peak of ace, ‘queer is a slur’, transmed, mogai, etc. discourse. bc damn that irreparably changed a lot of young queer ppl’s relationship with the community. now you have 25 yr olds who are still foaming at the mouth over aspec ppl existing or ppl calling themselves queer, and other 25 yr olds who have literal trauma from the fucking World Wide Web bc the aforementioned mouth frothing 25 yr olds had to send death threats to complete strangers.

and like. i joke but that era genuinely affected the trajectory of the queer community, at least in the west, and we are still seeing the side effects to this day. which imo, to see how easy it is to sabotage an entire chunk of a generation of queer ppl, and all you have to do is plant the seeds yourself then get them talking, it’s kinda terrifying.

[lunityviruz]

Something I've noticed is that no matter what fandom or community we are in—black people will always always have to make a safe space for ourselves. Every single fandom I was in there were always black people being treated badly by white people and nonblacks and everytime we spoke on it we are told that we are either making it up or causing problems/discourse.

Even in the LGBTQ+ community where niggas preach about being sooo accepting we have to make *our own flags and spaces because we get talked over and forgotten so damn much. You look up queer related stuff and white people show up first (try the trans selfie tag or look up androgynous stuff on pinterest.) You look up queer shows and it's only white people with a black side character or a white person x a black person like we can't exist on our own. White queers calling black people cops for being uncomfortable with certain labels.

Even with fictional black characters they get the same treatment. Marina from Splatoon 2 and Hobie Brown from Spiderman both are victims of nonblack people hypersexualizing them and masculinizing them. Xinyan from Genshin Impact is a complete and utter stereotype of black people—being seen as aggressive and mean and a literal theft. Don't get me started on how yall whitewash the fuck outta them. It's either sexualize them, whitewash them or forget about them completely.

For some reason white people are seen as more aesthetically pleasing compared to Black people and when we look up aesthetics we literally have to type in "black person x aesthetic" or afro punk or afro goth despite us being the creators of some of these aesthetics. Same with cosplaying, white peoples cosplays are seen as more "canon" compared to black people or even people who's race is literally the character being cosplayed.

Fanfiction writers constantly cater to white people despite trying to market their stuff as "inclusive" while black people get shitted on for making character x black reader fics and don't you know weird ass white people still read them??

Yall tell us to make our own things instead of "complaining" about it and we do, then we get hit with death threats and hate. We make our black edits and get told that it's "blackwashing" and the artists get called the n word, we make black movies and our actors get death threats. We make our own original black art with our black OC'S and get told that we're being selfish and "racist" for not drawing other people. We literally cannot exist without you people hating on us and unnecessarily critiquing us.

[Note: If you nonblack or white niggas come up here and being like "well acschually op🤓☝🏾" I will actually hurt you. If you ask "why is this in the x tag" I will hurt you as well. You try n derail and make it about a different race I'm hurting you.]

#rants n rambles #hooowee time to tag #genshin impact #genshin impact xinyan #xinyan #splatoon #splatoon 2 #marina splatoon #hobie brown #spiderman atsv #hobie spiderverse #star wars #the little mermaid #john boyega #halle bailey #jojos bizarre adventure #fandom spaces #fandom #lgbt pride #lgbtqia #lgbtq community #black queer #coqette #coquette #fandom culture #marvel #loki marvel

[olderthannetfic]

Until I read the comments on that one post I had no idea the Bechdel Test was a joke and wasn't supposed to be a serious measuring stick by which you gauged if something was feminist or not. Everywhere I'd ever heard it brought up, it was brought up as a very serious thing, and it was a failure of media if it didn't pass it. I remember the debate about Mako Mori from Pacific Rim and if she was a character you were "allowed" to like as a progressive person despite the fact that Pacific Rim doesn't pass the Bechdel Test, the discourse, the discussion of if the director was sexist for not writing in another woman for her to chat with about non-men related stuff, the camp of people trying to insist that having a fully realized character arc and being as developed as any of the male leads = good writing even if she doesn't talk to another girl...

And I've also had the remark about my writing not passing the test, just not to my face. I searched my fanfic's name once, curious to see if anyone was discussing it outside of tumblr and AO3, and found a Tiktok complaining about it not passing the Bechdel Test. The top comment was "motherfucker YOU don't pass the test but we still watch your ass". I cackled and moved on, but neither the commenter, poster, nor I had any awareness this wasn't Feminist Media Critique 101 theory and was, in fact, a goof.

Right now there's a segment of fandom debating if Blue Eye Samurai is feminist since when Mizu and Akemi talk, they do bring up men, since, y'know. Women aren't considered people with rights in their era in Japan and thus it's something they mention instead of only talking about being cool girlboss badasses who never bring up gender. If something doesn't pass the Bechdel Test, a smug segment of the internet high-fives itself and congratulates one another on being More Feminist Than Thou.

They then get really angry if you disagree, even though by this metric, Sleeping Beauty (the original animated one, where Aurora has only 16 lines of dialogue) is more feminist than Blue Eye Samurai.

--

*DYING*

Okay, so, nonnie....

Dykes to Watch Out For (1983-2008) was a long-running comic and major piece of lesbian media. I grew up buying compiled volumes at the bookstore. To be honest, that kind of 90s-ish lesbian culture isn't really my scene despite me being bi, but it was very nice to have this slice of life-y somewhat realistic, occasionally somewhat parody, look at the queer communities around me. It's up there with Tales of the City for me in terms of being a window into a particular culture and time and place.

If anybody is interested in queer history, in addition to looking up factual info, I think a read of the complete Dykes would give a really good overview of how people were thinking about things and what issues came up a lot. You'll see things like Barnes & Noble increasingly putting feminist bookstores out of business in the 90s, attitudes towards porn in lesbian circles—all kinds of cultural issues of the day.

I drifted away as I got later in my teens and found more genre fiction I cared about, but at one point, this comic was a very welcome antidote to the glurgey coming out stories that made up a lot of the more realistic media.

Anyway, here's the comic itself, reproduced in its entirety because I think it's important to actually understand the context.

This is from 1985, so the era of Rambo, Conan, and Death Wish, each of which you can see being made fun of here. It's based on Bechdel's friend Liz Wallace's actual rule for seeing movies.

That's it. That's the origin of this whole stupid test.

"LOL, fuck 80s action movies". That's it. That's the joke.

The fact that blockbusters still routinely fail to pass in the 2020s is shameful, but that was never the point of the strip.

[piratecaptainscaptainpirates]

I've been able to put a finger on what's really been annoying me about the current discourse surrounding Izzy's death, and it's the claims that the show "suddenly" isn't happy anymore or about queer joy and how that's a betrayal.

And my thing there is...OFMD has alway been the queer joy show, yes, but it has also never shied away from dark topics, and depicts topics such as the domestic abuse Ed suffered as a child and Stede's childhood trauma and the resulting PTSD from those events very realistically. OFMD is a kind show, at its core, and it never makes jokes that punch down. At the same time, though, this season began with Ed in a self-destructive mindset and actively planning his suicide, culminating in an attempt that was very nearly successful. This is heartbreaking. We've seen Ed sobbing - both at the end of last season and the start of this one - and last season we saw Stede absolutely shaken and traumatized by watching Chauncey shoot himself, right after Stede agreed that it was best he just die. It's heavy stuff, and I'll be the first to admit that it's honestly a bit hard for me to rewatch the first three eps of s2 just because of how hard Ed's suicidal arc hits, but I don't think it detracts at all from OFMD as the queer joy show - it adds to it, because the story is about coming out of these dark places through the power of queer love and community!

In contrast, Izzy started this season in a very rough place, and grew through the power of accepting queer community. His death was narratively important to Ed's arc, and he said himself he was satisfied and wanted to go. Why is this where you draw the line?

It's okay to be sad if a character you like died. That's the point, deaths in fiction are rarely supposed to make us feel happy. But it really just sounds like a lot of people are upset the narrative isn't centering around their favorite yt side character.

#ofmd #ofmd s2 spoilers #our flag means death #that's my piece it's the last thing i'll say about the izzy drama i promise #izzy critical #tagging that just in case

[iwanthermidnightz]

Ahhh did you see the new rolling stone gaylor article ?? I'm so impressed.

When Taylor Swift released the long-awaited rerecording of her genre-leaping album 1989, fans eagerly pored over vault tracks, theories of double albums, and limited edition vinyl releases that could predict Swift’s next re-record. But for Gaylors, a dedicated Swift fanbase that’s existed for over a decade, Swift’s prologue and a mention of her feelings surrounding speculation about her love life have dampened what should have been an exciting release.

Thinking about the 24-year-old she was when 1989 was released, Swift writes, “I swore off dating and decided to only focus on myself, my music, my growth, and my female friendships. If I only hung out with my female friends, people couldn’t sensationalize or sexualize that — right? I would learn later on that people could and people would.” Many users online interpreted that line as a subtle callout to Gaylors, supporters of the niche theory that Swift is queer or leaves queer messaging in her songs. But several members of the Gaylor community tell Rolling Stone they’re actually not convinced the callout is about them — and are receiving targeted and homophobic harassment in the process.

For those not extremely online, Gaylor is an unproven theory that Swift is queer and leaves messages alluding to past relationships in her work, a fan theory that originated on the blogging site Tumblr in the mid-2010s. It is also the fan name for groups of people who believe there are queer interpretations of Swift’s songs. (While Swift has been a vocal ally and advocate for LGBTQ+ rights and representation, she has never publicly commented on Gaylor and has only been in public relationships with men.) Gabriela, a 27-year-old Gaylor, tells Rolling Stone she doesn’t believe Swift’s prologue is about the Gaylor fandom specifically, but she’s frustrated at the use of the word ‘sexualize,” which she says has long been co-opted by fans who think Gaylor is harmful or inherently rude.

“I think it’s a call-out yes, but more to the media at large, rather than just about the Gaylor subset of her fandom, which is only a small piece of her complaint. [Swift] doesn’t want to be assumed to be in a sexual, romantic relationship with anyone she is seen next to,” Gabriela says. “Hetlors [those who object to the Gaylor discourse] are cherry-picking to make it about her ‘shutting down gay rumors.’”

As an internationally beloved artist — one capable of selling more movie tickets than Martin Scorcese and convincing an entire fandom to rebuy her music her way — Swift professes an unusually close relationship with her followers. The lyricist often hides clues in her work and visuals, encouraging fans to decipher what coded messages and hints she’s leaving behind. But Swift has also verbalized how upset slut-shaming and assumptions about her love life make her. Anna, a 23-year-old Gaylor who uses they/them pronouns, agrees that the prologue wasn’t about Gaylor specifically but says they do think all Swift fans online could operate with more boundaries.

“Of course, I’m a little annoyed that people are pulling one or two lines of the prologue out of context and using it as a justification to be homophobic and send death threats to my friends, but I don’t think Taylor is at fault for people misconstruing her words and I think she has every right to call out things that make her uncomfortable,” Anna tells Rolling Stone. “’Shipping’ culture across the fandom seems to have gotten really ugly recently on all accounts. I’ve seen people speculate on her sex life, openly and graphically, track her location, insinuate that she wants/has children and just overall cross a lot of boundaries. It may be unpopular for me to say it, but I do think members on all sides needed to be put in their place a little bit.”

All of the Gaylor fans who spoke to Rolling Stone expressed that beyond the prologue, much of the reaction to them as a group has stemmed from a lack of understanding about why the fandom exists and has lasted for almost a decade. Liv, 26, says that the Gaylor community has been a large part of her life — it’s even how she met her current boyfriend. And she tells Rolling Stone the identity has allowed her to have a deeper understanding of Swift’s lyrics.

“It’s always fun for me to think about what inspired a song. So even if it’s not what happened in Taylor’s life, it’s interesting for me to think about a song through a queer lens, because I feel like it adds a lot of layers that a song about a guy might not have,” Liv says. “And I don’t really know any straight people who are that deeply obsessed with Emily Dickinson.”

The X account @gaylornews has over 12,000 followers. The admin behind the account declined to include her name but tells Rolling Stone Gaylor isn’t just a fun internet conspiracy theory, but means a lot to the community.

“Analyzing her lyrics through a queer perspective is more about defying heteronormative narratives and finding representation and not about invading Taylor’s privacy or sensationalizing her personal life,” the account owner says. “Gaylor is about queer people finding a safe space which straight people not only find but already have everywhere, is about all the things you never learned about yourself, is about feeling seen and genuinely understood.”

Regardless of what people think the prologue is about, Gaylors are worried about one thing: targeted harassment from more mainstream fans of Swift. In an April 2023 report from social media tracking firm Graphika, researchers found that Gaylors made up nine percent of active Swift fans on social media, but are often exiled and isolated from neutral fan spaces. The study also found that anti-Gaylor accounts, also referred to as Hetlors, “play a key role” in how the theory is presented to mainstream audiences and often misrepresent commonly held Gaylor beliefs, which can lead to the harassment and doxxing of neutral Gaylor accounts. Each of the Gaylors who spoke to Rolling Stone detailed targeted harassment, hate speech, and homophobia they’ve received online, something they all believe Swift would stand against.

“I think that people who are against Gaylors think we’re way more serious about it than we are. A lot of the things we say are jokes or ideas or possible theories,” Liv says. “And at the end of the day, none of us know what the truth is about her personal relationships. And we shouldn’t want to because [Taylor Swift] is entitled to her privacy.”

(link)

#wow well done!

[wordsinhaled]

for the love of... i don’t even know what to invoke??? don’t send neil gaiman asks about ships and don’t drag him into fandom purity culture bullshit oh my god

HE DOESN’T WANT TO BE INVOLVED IN FANDOM why is that so hard for people to understand???

listen neil gaiman is a queer ally but that doesn’t mean he signed up to be the fucking arbiter of whether or not you are allowed to ship dream and the corinthian, or any other characters, for that matter

the actual truth is if you want to you can and absolutely no one should stop you, least of all the author himself, who already gives us not only loads of canon queer representation but also full carte blanche to interpret his work any way we see fit and leave him out of it (as is his right)

if you lack the contextual comprehension to understand that dream’s creations are only his metaphorical children, the endless are siblings but are probably only loosely related (because they’re all personifications of concepts after all), and also people are allowed to have kinks without personally harming you, then like... perhaps figure all of that out before you harass shippers to the point where they feel the need to go to authors for validation

and on top of that the same people who are purportedly so concerned with stuff like boundaries and barriers and comfort and whatever are making some fans feel so needlessly harassed that they in turn cross an author’s very reasonable boundary of wanting to be minimally involved in the interpretation of his own work

on top of all of that it is wild to me that the queer community has become so overtaken with this moralizing rhetoric that neil, of all people, is now being called on to enforce purity culture by members of our own family??? i am not calling him flawless by any means but this is the same neil gaiman who has been under fire since the literal 1980s from right-wing groups that felt that the sandman was too queer or too radical or too generally threatening to the conservative status quo, yet he still stood fast to his creative vision and to including representation of our community in the comics

like. the same neil who wrote “death talks about life” and was working to normalize and destigmatize queerness before some of the folks imposing purity culture on his works were even born???

it’s just like... abundantly clear from some of this Discourse that some of the folks putting forth this vitriol toward shippers and now unnecessarily extending the discussion to him do not have an understanding of our history. these are the same people who try to tell people the labels they’ve been using for themselves for 20, 30, 40 years are wrong or offensive, who try to isolate groups within the community and create barriers between queer elders and queer youth because of perceived predatoriness that simply isn’t there. and i wish these folks would gain a little understanding of the context, touch some grass, meet some queer folks out in the world and stop acting like this

#GOD I’M TIRED