#specifically to all my trans men out there you aren’t a girl bc of that

[citadelofmythoughts]

It’s both very sad and ironic that cis women specifically who deny or get angry at trans women on the grounds of “they didn’t or don’t suffer the way REAL women do” is proving that they do in fact suffer in similar ways. A woman online who isn’t hurting anyone is being sent hatred either directly or indirectly bc her body does not match What. A Real Woman Looks Like. Which is sownthing cis women struggle with and they’re not only fighting male views on their bodies but other women as well.

Assuming a trans women will hurt you because “she was socialized male and born with a penis which will be used to hurt me” is the same bullshit as “I a white woman feel afraid because this black woman spoke to me in a tone I’m labeling as aggressive and now I will cower an blink tears from my eyes and hope someone stronger will protect me from her”

I’ve been thinking about this at woke actually. I’m afab and was raised by strong black women but I identify very strongly as queer with no big label fitting me but knowing Woman does not fit. Girl used to fit as a child but as an adult Woman does not. And a lot of me wonders if cis women’s fear and hatred of trans women does not stem from They Are Men, at least not all of them, but as a sort of jealousy.

Trans women delight in the way their bodies change. They are so so happy to see developments and document them and tell others they feel safe with. They go shopping for the first time and try out the girly things they didn’t get to experience growing up. The struggles and threats of violence against them are very real but they do not outweigh the euphoria of finally being who they want to be. Who they hoped and feared they could be. Who they love to be.

Cis women and TERFs especially only see the double edged sword. Young girls and their bodies are sexualize. Growing wider hips and breaths is an experience that belongs more to others than the individual depending on if they live in an area that demonizes female bodies. Or if not they get that shit from television. Their bodies are used as weapons and it takes a long time to unlearn that and to live for themselves in a way that’s not tinged with shame.

Trans women if they start hormones are outwardly joyful. That’s not saying being out as trans is only fun and that young boys are sexualized or aren’t given under expectations. But cis women don’t think about that. They only see the current adulthood joy and not the adolescence awkwardness or pain or suffering. Feeling like your body was wrong. Having people close to you and loving them and them loving you back but not all of you. Not being allowed to do certain things bc of The Gender. And there is no time boy equivalent for boys.

Cis women see trans women joy and gender euphoria and instead of going “how do I find that for myself. Am I in an environment that is still holding an axe over my head? That little girl who was scolded for having a body that changed against her will. How do I heal her” they blame trans women and paint them as aggressors or predators in hiding so they don’t have to confront the fact that despite the societal challenges being a women is so so wonderful. They deny themselves the joy of womanhood for the sake of gatekeeping it via suffering or arbitrary biology.

Not every cis women has suffered the same. Some cis women tear down others the same way men do. There is no monolith of how women move through life. But to acknowledge and internalize that? To let go of the idea that YES society does not treat women fairly but you as an individual have the power to change that on a social level by sticking up for others until the respectful outweigh the disrespectful? Letting go of that means realizing that there is more to being a women than Being Born With a Specific Body. That it’s not something you have to earn by being hurt the right ways. And they cannot comprehend that

Damn anon, this was just incredible. If there was a way to do it, I'd hug you.

You're completely correct about my experiences as a trans woman. It's been said that when you start transitioning it's a second puberty and that's not just physical, I've been living the years I never got to have when I was a teen and with that comes awkwardness but also so much joy.

I wish more people would realize that hating others and making them feel awful about who they are isn't going to fix their own pain.

#transgender #trans pride

[flyin-shark]

"Cishet probably". The words of a man who is yet to learn that gender is a circus and clowns can be hot.

Or what I mean is more like.... That's really interesting in a sense, as soneone who is ambiguous/not caring on all levels, I really wanna study the anatomy of the cishet experience. I can't figure it out. Is it like. If you see a person your ability to be attracted to them depends on your current knowledge of their gender? So you could see a person and assume they are a woman, so then you are into them, but then they might turn out not to identify as a woman, and that is a turn-off?

And the other way around, maybe you meet someone and assume they're a guy so it doesn't enter your mind that they could be hot, but then you learn that they are a woman, and then it becomes an option?

I'm really not trying to be offensive so I'm so sorry if I am. I'm just super curious, as a person who was never able to conceptualize gender in myself or others very well. I find attraction complicated as is, and imagining adding the matrix of gender into it is like... Galaxy brain woah h o w ?

Uh. Anyways, good vibes.

(Came to think of it cuz you say you're a top/into bottoms. And like certainly the top/bottom dichotomy transcends gender, but at the same time, I wonder what the "communication" is in there in a cishet context? Does it mean "I don't like getting penetrated by a partner", or is it more about "top energy". And if yes, what is "top energy" in a cishet context?

I really hope I'm not coming across as rude, I'm literally just super curious about people who ID as cishet, so when I run into someone who seems approachable I turn into 12 questions with ....

Also this also is related to the fact that I'm like a dude but in a girl way you feel? Like most people attracted to me are also attached to gnc women, but also if you need to call me 'her' to get off, we probably won't vibe, and as a general rule I do avoid having sex with cishet guys bc if their attraction is somehow contingent on internal misgendering of me, it's awkward. But I'm trying to figure out how that works. )

Sorry I'll stop asking now. I'll get my ND ass under control.

Yes to your first three questions.

So I call myself cishet because first I’m fairly sure that I’m not trans. I feel like a man, whatever that means. I get what I think is a sense of euphoria from doing certain “masculine” things (wearing suits, fixing things, etc.). I don’t like the idea of me wearing a skirt of other typically feminine clothing. I don’t like when people use feminine versions of my name and pronouns that aren’t he/him for me. In all aspects I can think of I’m a man.

As for the hetero part I know I like women. I always have as far as I can remember. I’ve never had attraction to men. Although in the past few years with learning about trans and nb people I’ve had to think more about it. I used to be transphobic in the sense that while I respected pronouns and names I wouldn’t accept that people were their something other than their assigned gender. After learning about the science behind sex and the social dynamics of gender I now fully accept trans and enby peeps. But that means reconsidering what I like about women and don’t like about men.

I’ve seen femboys that I’ve mistaken for women and been attracted to them. After finding out they were boys i was confused but I just wrote it off and didn’t think about it. I saw a lot of enbies that looked more masc or fem and I was attracted to them if I thought they were afab. But then I saw some enbies that were really androgynous and was really confused again. I learned that you can’t tell if someone is a man or woman or other just by looking at them. It’s possible I’m just attracted to femininity and not women specifically. But also women with muscles are hot.

Answering your question about tops and bottoms. After spending time in queer spaces I realized just how boring most cishet relationships are both romantically and sexually. The top, dom, and giver roles, etc are all dumped on the man while the bottom, sub, and receiver roles are all given to the woman. I think most cishets don’t even differentiate between the roles.

My brain still doesn’t comprehend what it’s like to be “a dude in a girl way” or anything similar to that. Like I respect you as a person I just don’t understand how that works. It seems like a contradiction at first but I know boy and girl aren’t opposites.

Sorry for taking so long to respond to this but I wanted to give you some good answers.

#long post #shark sayin stuff #I hope this answers all your questions :3 #dm or ask me if you have more :3

[genderqueerwhohatesithere]

where are all the trans men…at least in the queer spaces im in its predominantly trans women which is great yknow? but there will be like one or two other trans guys. if that. and they won’t be super active. i saw someone make a reddit post with similar feelings about bisexual men. and yeah. i’m gonna be honest, i think the way misandry has been made into a cute and funny joke and people casually throw out things about hating all men has deeply affected men in minority groups. the fact that people don’t see this astounds me. because i am a trans man, people see “man” and block out anything i’m saying like this. if i say i’m genderfluid, i might get a bit more leeway. it’s just frustrating. it’s maddening. i already have to deal with bs from cis people, i shouldn’t have to deal with hatred from my own community. it was so bad i was afraid to transition. i have a fucking complex about how being a girl is better bc it’s been fucking drilled into me. i’ve seen other trans men say similar things. when will people start listening?

stop saying shit like that. it affects ppl. correct your friends. Just give people the same respect you want to be given. it’s that simple. no matter their gender, sexuality, orientation, whatever. it should not be a hot button issue for me to say, hey maybe it’s a bad thing when we say ALL of “x group” is bad about anyone. but people seem to have blinders on right now.

right in front of me, people will say they hate all men and don’t trust them. do they not see me as a man, or do they simply not care? why do i have to tell people to have empathy( to acknowledge nuance.

it’s LITERALLY i’ve been bit by pitbulls so all pitbulls should be put down. this kind of logic has been used time and time again and it’s so old! it’s so tired! no one is benefiting from it.

be specific!! “i hate when men do x.”, “i hate the way cis men fetishize me” etc. figure it out. my god.

when you say stuff like, “it’s implied we aren’t talking about everyone” no it is fucking not. then i’m walking on eggshells around you.

#trans #trans masc #chatters #misandry #i’m #so #tired #so fucking tired #come at me and i’ll just block you #don’t waste my time

[fite-club]

Greg here. One thing I am struggling with lately is noticing how badly trans men are treated in the sex work industry. This isn’t to say it’s “transandrophobia”, just an odd specific issue I’ve run into while I’ve begun transition that’s been really disheartening.

Do you happen to find that there’s a lot of gay cis men, specifically, who treat even just the mere concept of trans men terribly? Saying awful things about their genetalia and such? I know trans women deal with this often from straight men, and what I find interesting is it really just depends either way I think. I’ve talked to trans women who still casually use grindr too and that’s wild to me because I always feel like I’d be breaching that space just bc of my junk; than again, I haven’t felt the “shift” obviously that a lot of trans men talk about. I still look like a cis woman.

Obviously in the case of the porn industry, it’s not fully reflective of society but in some ways can be. A lot of straight men seem to objectify trans women behind closed doors in worse ways they even do cis women — and both gay and straight men seem to just treat trans men like straight up unwanted garbage in the industry, which has been so disheartening as a sexworker for me lately. Maybe it’s something I just need to shake off, but it does sting to see so many gay men refer to your junk as a “turn off” and see very little trans men represented in the industry, bad representation or otherwise — just like… none at all lol — it kinda makes me feel like some mishapen peg that eventually won’t fit. I do wonder if there are any resources that discuss this very specific issue.

I do think, while just being the porn industry, it’s a massive industry more people take part in than they’d ever admit, so it definitely feels like it says something at least and was a glaring issue that was hard for me to not notice yesterday.

I think something that’s worth discussion too is how negatively cis gay men can treat trans men but how it’s often something brushed off as innocuous instead of verbally wounding and transphobic, and it definitely draws from a place of misogyny — (ie, a gay friend telling me once that dildos could never be like the “real thing” when I was what was ID’ed at the time, in very lesbian relationship l o l (i did chew him out for this—)) - of course, this doesn’t compare to a wide spread issue of violence unless it regards personal relationships and circumstances, but man, words can still fucking hurt and make you wanna take the highway right into “stay dysphoric and mask again” land, which is so lame dnjsnfje

you’re right in that there’s a problem with transphobia from cis gay men, but i want to make it clear that they aren’t more transphobic than any other group. it just stings more because of the whole “you’re marginalized too, shouldn’t you get it?” thing. but, cis people can be terribly transphobic despite being gay— there’s a good chance the transphobia comes from misogyny, as well as a sort of “stolen valor” they may feel as someone who had to deal with a lot of homophobia (particularly in regards to penises and anal sex). they may say “you girls just can’t understand”, but it goes right back atcha, buddy… our struggles are intertwined as LGBT people! they’ll never understand what we’ve been through, either.

i respect the personal preference for penis over pussy (i get it; me too) and in that sense i really don’t care how cis gay men feel about vaginas. the line gets drawn at transphobia and misogyny, but not being sexually attracted to trans people as a homosexual is not in of itself transphobic. like, that guy’s not wrong that dildos aren’t like “the real thing”, but that should be a neutral statement. it won’t react to stimuli or feel quite like a real penis, but on the other hand, it’s always hard and never goes soft unlike a real penis. so like, it’s the weird shit some guys say about it that’s the issue—that’s the shit that should NOT be brushed off.

quick aside about trans girls on grindr: it’s a misconception that it’s an app exclusively for cis gay men! you’ll find plenty of trans people on there, because we’re all looking for the same thing… BISEXUALS! the number one benefit of apps over irl places like gay bars/clubs is that you can disclose/gather information about each other immediately. so right off the bat they know you’re trans and you know they’re bi (and therefore neither of u are wasting your time flirting with someone who’s not into what you’ve got in your pants).

as for the trans guys in sex work thing… you’re talking to the wrong guy, because i’ve spent the past 5 or so years trying to enter that space but i’m stuck being lost and anxious. i don’t know which site to use (i think there are more men on justforfans?), i don’t know what hashtags to use, i don’t even know how i’d advertise my page once i made it. IT IS AN ISSUE!!! the market is so competitive that the trans guys i know who do cam/sex work do not want to share such information. and i get it, tbh! i’m not tryna mess with anyone’s bag! but good lord is there a void, yeah. if anyone has any resources about this PLEASE reach out.

a lot of it comes from how society treats trans men, though. i’m not gonna pretend like the hypersexualized trans women in media were good representation, but they were there on screen as love interests (and punching bags). there really was never any representation of trans men ever, and if there was, he sure as shit wasn’t portrayed as desirable in any way. can you think of a single transmasc love interest in media? no wonder we feel so unwanted and unlovable! it’s extremely hard to see yourself as hot when you’ve never been shown that it’s even possible for someone like you. not to mention our dysphoria makes us hypercritical of our appearance in ways other people don’t care about

like, on that note… trans men tend to have fat asses! and that’s AWESOME for us, because fat asses and thick thighs are GREAT! those things are loved, especially among queer men! but we might think it makes us look feminine, and see it as a flaw. you just gotta believe that you are hot just the way you are. i dated a cis bi man for a few years and he was, without a doubt, someone who had a total preference for trans men (without being fetishizing or chaser-y). he’d say “i’m just a gay guy who loves pussy” and it was the absolute truth. these men exist!! they are out there!!!

[littleoddwriter]

Issues with Reader Fics

Okay, I'm probably going to be a bit controversial here. Yet, I'm asking you to hear us out, please. Fanfic writers, specifically those who write "x Reader" fics, please read this. My dear friend Jack has already made a post, where I and others have contributed our experiences and feelings towards certain issues with these fics. Those issues still prevail and therefore I've decided to make my own post, which is more of a PSA, I think. Anyway. You can and should read Jack's (@mlmxreader) post here, please. It is long, yes, but it is extremely important and will say a lot of things we will not talk about here again. Now, what this is mostly about is the tagging of those fics. Every single time, we (men and non-binary people) come across Reader fics and they're tagged with just "Reader", so, naturally we assume they'll be gender neutral then. Well, they basically never fucking are. Every time, in the first few sentences or in later paragraphs something like "baby girl, girlfriend, wife, she/her" will come up and it is frustrating, can be triggering (for trans people, like myself, especially because it can cause dysphoria), and is honestly just very excluding and rude. By doing that, you show us that you do not consider anyone but women to read those fics. Even though that isn't the case. Men who like men exist and we read fics. And we want to be able to read some that don't make us feel bad or excluded. We're not asking you to suddenly write Male!Reader fics. We're asking you to tag properly. If your reader is female, tag it as "Female!Reader" or "Fem!Reader". It doesn't take more than two seconds to do that. So, please for the love of everything good, take those two seconds and type in that one word, even the abbreviation is enough. But tag it! Please! Also, please, stop tagging "male reader" or "gender neutral reader" when it's a female reader. You won't get more notes from it. All it does is clog the tags and push down fics that are actually targeted towards those groups. So, don't do that, please, thank you. One thing I personally wanted to ask actually. Why do women read "Male!Reader" fics? This is a genuine question. Why do you, if you're a woman, read those fics? They aren't targeted at you, and frankly, I don't understand it. If I were cis and not dysphoric, I still wouldn't read "Fem!Reader" fics. They aren't for me, and I wouldn't be interested in it, even if those were the only fics for a certain character. So, if anyone could answer me this, genuinely, then I'd actually appreciate that a lot, I'm truly just curious, as I have noticed women reading my "Male!Reader" fics, too. Which is cool, as we've said, you may interact, as long as you're not creepy or fetishistic, but I still don't understand why you would read that in the first place. Now, onto what my two wonderful friends have said, when I asked them if they had anything to add to this issue, or perhaps overall, still: @iscariot-rising said, "It's just disrespectful for writers and readers alike to assume that everyone reading their fanfics is inherently female, to the point where for some it has become the standard that any fic has female reader - leading to writers not tagging their fics as female readers or mentioning in their descriptions that reader is female, instead only titeling it as "character x reader", before then three sentences in referring to reader as some sort of female term. This isn't just rude, it can also be triggering for people or make them dysphoric, if not just plain uncomfortable. Fandom spaces are something that is shared across all genders and sexualities and it is only courteous to respect this and tag your fics accordingly, since it doesn't take a long time and saves a lot of trouble for readers." And you know what? He is absolutely right and he should say it. You need to listen to us, please. @mlmxreader said a lot, too. For example, he's mentioned that there is a reluctance to even write Gender Neutral Reader fics, which is true. Even though it would be much easier, to be perfectly honest. Yet, people seem not to do it. Do y'all not want people of different genders to enjoy your fics without feeling excluded? He also said, "oh! yeah! there's also the whole thing about lingerie, too, like putting men in women's lingerie and talkin about panties and stuff, which comes off as extremely fetishising (when it's not written by mlm) as well as just... really gross bc like that stuff can trigger dysphoria and half the time it's not even tagged? Like it wouldn't be so bad if y'all tagged it; on top of that, there's also the whole fact that they assume that all mlm relationships revolve around sex and that that's all that matters. But then also using (m/n) standing for "male name" instead of (y/n), like, what the FUCK is up with that?? /gen" Again, he is absolutely right. Tag your shit, please. I know it can be tiring to pick out everything relevant, but trust me; you'll do a lot of people a big fucking favour when you tag your stuff properly. And frankly, I agree with him. I don't understand the whole '(m/n)' thing because if we're men, our names are automatically male because, well, we're male. It doesn't really make sense. That might just be a thing that personally bugs us, though, I honestly don't know. TLDR; Tag your fics properly, be respectful, don't assume everyone is female and therefore exclude everyone who isn't, just say (y/n)???, and yeah, that's basically it. Just be more considerate, please! That was it. I don't mean to personally attack anybody, but if you do feel attacked, that probably means that you're guilty of doing something I've listed here, and perhaps should consider changing that. I also wanna note that if you consider sending me threats or hate of any kind, I will delete it and not engage with it. If your first response to this post is something rude and hateful, you should take a step back and reconsider why you're about to do something so senseless. Does it help you in any way? No, it doesn't. So, what's the point, other than acting like a complete dick? Anyway, have a lovely morning/day/night; cheers!

#x reader #reader fanfiction #reader fic #reader insert #female reader #x female reader #x fem!reader #fic writing #fanfic writing #fanfic writer #this is genuine and comes from frustration rather than a place of hate #tag properly #same goes for content and trigger warnings #be more considerate #be mindful

[onlyfangz]

i know i’ve made text posts up to my ears on this, but trans men aren’t allowed to have external identities, and we aren’t allowed any type of gender presentation without it being criticized and forced out of us. we just aren’t.

the softboys had the safety of their identities ripped away by cis people taking it too far and applying softboy culture onto all trans men, and in turn caused a bunch of backlash from non-softboy trans men (specifically but not limited to tr*sc*m), and now softboys are seen as infantile, even when they’re not. at the same time all of this was happening, cis people started taking that culture and applying it to their fav cis characters, and then everybody decided because it was cis women applying the label to their soft fem cis male favs that it was cringey, and the cis girls cried sexism for shaming them of their interests, and trans softboys were pushed out of the conversation all together.

the fems have had their identities as trans men erased by cis people and other trans people alike, and spend their whole lives being reminded that if they’re not even going to try, they can’t expect any stranger to gender them correctly as if trying would even help. the same people who praise GNC cis men condemn GNC trans men because they don’t see us as men, they see us as women, and there’s nothing subversive about a woman dressing in womanly clothes. it’s so blatantly obvious, and yet everybody pretends like its’ not, especially when it’s pre-t trans men. there’s a difference between choosing to perform gender in a certain way, and being forced into a gender presentation by society. learn that difference, and listen to fem trans men when they speak.

the chaotic trans men, which probably isn’t the term for them but idk what is. the trans men who associate themselves with mess, and dirt, and cryptids, and “gross” animals, and androgyny, and well, chaos, are accused of stereotyping the rest of the transmasc community as being into that as well, when in fact it was cis people who can’t confront that no two trans men are the same and just because you see one subsection being really similar, everybody else isn’t automatically the same. they’re seen as cringey, or freaks. (much like the reaction to softboys, but i feel like the reception was different.)

the passing trans men, who don’t really tie themselves to extra identities listed but are still and always will be trans are told that their experiences don’t matter and that they’ve got access to some super extra special privilege that they use in the name of Evil, as if transphobia starts and ends with a stranger’s ability to tell that you’re trans. they’re held to impossibly high standards, higher than any cis person, woman or man, and if they slip, well isn’t that proof enough that they’re dangerous gender-traitors who were fated to be evil the moment they “decided” to be men? not to even start talking about the erasure of intersectionality some passing trans men still face, as if being a man lessens those struggles.

the hypermasc trans men, - and no, i did not say the toxically masculine trans men, they’re two different things, and the fact that i need to pre-emptively point that out is just a great way to start, - are seen as predators in their own community. are seen as traitors who uphold a gender binary. people get tunnel vision around hypermasc trans men and forget the goal of dismantling the patriarchy and the gender binary and all that jazz is giving people the option to present however they want, not forcing mascs (and fems, although not what im talking about here) into androgyny (which we’ve already discovered isn’t acceptable either) lest they be accused of sexism. the way bigots think of hypermasc trans men are that they’re actually women who have done the unforgiveable, they’ve actually became men, and therefore, should be forever scrutinized, because if we turn our backs for a second, they’re going to be raping and murdering our innocent little cis girls and forcing them to become men too.

i’m sure there’s so many other transmasc subsections and subcultures and presentations out there, but one by one, they’ve all been ripped away from us regardless of where you sit. if you’re closer to the fem side of trans masculinity, you’re a cringey straight girl in disguise, if you’re on the andro side of trans masculinity, you’re (again) cringey, a freak, who needs to stay away from polite queer society, and if you’re on the masc side of trans masculinity, you’re a dangerous predator that needs to be kept in line, bc otherwise you won’t be able to help yourself and become an evil dirty man for real. 

this isn’t my original thought, but to echo a reblogger from another text post of mine, these aren’t isolated incidents, or freak happenings, it’s a system at work, and that system believes that the only correct way to be a trans man is to not be one.

#charlie.txt #it's late #this might not all make sense #but god am i tired of trans men being denied community bc they're not being trans men correctly #when regardless of how you're a trans man you're told you're doing it wrong anyway #trans posts #tw transandrophobia #tw rape mention #tw murder mention

[forestofbeginnings]

while I do agree with what you’re saying about character’s sexualities needing to be explored rather than being seen as the easy option, having “just a few” LGBTQ+ characters means every LGBTQ+ player is SEVERELY restricted in terms of who they can choose to be with, ESPECIALLY since those few LGBTQ+ characters run the risk of falling into harmful stereotypes to make it “obvious” that they are those characters. it leaves a LOT of room for separation rather than inclusion, for distance between players and characters bc the player may not think the other characters are worth getting to know when those characters arent the “few” LGBTQ+ ones. as much as it is important to have the detailed representation, as a member of the LGBTQ+ myself, I am equally happy with stories going in depth on character’s sexualities as I am with them just being completely normalised. video games are pleasant, peaceful escapes for people, and as much as it would be “realistic” for them to experience some kind of discrimination or self hatred, I personally prefer the idea that in the world of the game, everyone is just fine with it, as they should be. that leaves room for discussion on why the real world ISNT like that already, how we can HELP it become that way by assisting in the normalisation of it, etc. this is in no way a direct argument against you, it’s solely my standpoint on the whole LGBTQ+ marriage options. I just think it should be a fair game to everyone, and no player should feel their options are limited based on their own sexuality and having just a few characters in the game who match that, instead of it being equal for everyone, if that makes sense

That's a very good point, thank you for sending this to add to the conversation! I'll try my best to respond to all the good points you make.

(my reply is very long and under the cut and includes a lot of my Opinions of queer rep in video games so here we go)

I know you're probably talking about Fire Emblem when you're talking about the severely limited LGBT+ options. And it does suck, I'm pretty lucky that I fell hard for one of the few bisexual offerings in FE3H (looks fondly at Mercedes). But on the other hand...my primary experience with LGBT+ rep are Bioware games, where everyone has their own distinct identity. In Dragon Age Inquisition, out of the romance options there's 1 straight woman, 3 straight males (albeit two are limited to elves/humans), 1 pansexual male, 1 bisexual female, 1 gay male, and 1 lesbian. And most of the writing does not focus on their identities. In a majority of the romances, the most you get is a "sorry, not interested" from a character if you're not what they're into. The only route with clear focus on sexuality is for the gay man, which is fantastically written (and is written by a gay man about his personal experiences so take that as you will). All of the other LGBT+ characters’ stories don’t focus on their sexuality at all and don’t face discrimination for it. 

The game isn't perfect (the writing for the lesbian is bad in the base game, just straight up bad), but it's what I think of when I say "everyone has an identity." No matter who you play, not all options are open to you. Doesn't matter if you're straight or LGBT+, your options are limited. And honestly, despite the more limited options...the impact that games like Fire Emblem and Dragon Age gave me are still things I remember fondly as a bi/ace woman. I loved Mercedes' romance in FE3H because she was specifically bisexual like me. I was absolutely giddy when Josephine's romance (the bi option in DAI) did not include a sex scene, which meant she could be asexual like me. And to me, I don't get as much excitement playing SoS or SDV. The girls like me because I'm the player. That's it. It’s not because they’re bisexual with their own identity, it’s because I’m the player. And it just reminds me of that quote from The Incredibles like "if everyone is super, nobody will be." Everyone is ""bisexual"" and...

I think when you talk about people not being interested in learning about other, non-LGBT+ characters, that's more a flaw in farming sims in general? Because you can't really...befriend a romance option. You can't learn their full story unless you're romancing them. Which, again, isn't a thing in Fire Emblem or Dragon Age. You can A support anyone in FE and it only becomes romantic if you choose to S support them. In Dragon Age, you learn a character's full story and learn about them regardless of romance. I don't think people will be less interested in knowing other characters...it's just if you don't want to romance them...you can't really know them? So why befriend a character if you can’t just be friends?

But I do really want to touch on the point you make on how LGBT+ romance doesn't need to be realistic and can be idealized. I 100% agree. Making it not a big deal and not put under a microscope helps it become normal. It's actually the kind of rep I prefer. I don’t like when huge deals are made about LGBT+ characters because it just accentuates that they’re different and ‘the other,’ rather than just another person that happens to not be heterosexual.

But literally the only romance-based video game I've played where a realistic struggle of an LGBT+ person is focused on is Dragon Age Inquisition. With the gay route I mentioned and touched on with a non-romancable trans man. Sexuality is not really spoken about in FE3H. Some characters are just...bisexual. Nothing more to it. Mercedes certainly doesn't say anything about it. She can just be romanced by both men and women. It is barely spoken about in Dragon Age games aside from character preference and Dorian's romance. In Dragon Age 2, one bisexual romance option mentions his first experience with a man. Another option is hesitant to date a female because of cultural reasons. That's it.

I do get your point. We don't need to include the realities of the world in our video games. But also...we're allowed to still acknowledge sexuality in video games. I joke about my bi/ace-ness all the time. Even in a perfect world of a farming sim...I'm pretty sure a character can make wisecracks about liking both men and women...or only men/women. Being bisexual always means some kind of discovery that you like more than one gender. Has this love interest dated someone of the same or opposite gender before? Will they tell me off-hand that I'm the first girl they dated? Will they express interest in a character of the opposite gender but can be romanced by a same-sex player? Representation doesn't need to be a sanitized thing completely removed from reality. Even in a completely perfect world where there is no such thing as discrimination against the LGBT+ community, we’re still allowed to speak about our sexualities. It’s a part of who we are. 

When I say I want specific representation, I don't want a realistic depiction of the current-day struggles our community faces. I just want a character to say something that makes me know that they're like me. That they're specifically bisexual or specifically pansexual or so on. That they have their own preferences and are their own character and aren't blindly into me because I'm the player.

I do get why you want representation to be equal across the board. It is the easy option and a simple thing to do. But I want quality over quantity. I don’t want a character to marry me because I’m the player. I want a character to marry me because they’re bisexual or pansexual or a lesbian or asexual with romantic preferences or so on and so forth. And the reason why I’m so passionate about this and want farming sims to go towards this direction is because I’ve seen it done in other genres! It can work! 

Inclusion of LGBT+ romance options does not have to be at the sacrifice of the identities of bisexual and pansexual individuals. And now I get off my soap box and drink some water because I just got my 2nd COVID vaccination. 

#the curator speaks #warning: this is long but i did want to hit all your points! #and i do see your point and they are valid #but i really enjoyed your ask and even if you still disagree that's fine!

[zanathan-aisling]

ok i actually unfurled my “receipt” talons but this person is an incest apologist and you should fucking block them. shit under the cut

ok i went to check them bc i basically go to check *everyone* now (regaurdless of if their points are good or bad. like having a shit awful opinion is inherently suspicious -duh- but i’ve been around the rodeo enough to know that holding people i agree with to high standards is actually fucking reasonable bc without it you get the fucking ocean of incest wierdos who giggle and traipse through the transgender aisle at the supermarket) and like. one of the first things i *see* (without having to like. search.) is:

and like. this sets off alarms immediately bc this person is reacting this dramatically to a claim that like. not all, not most, but *some* kinks are “disgusting”. i’m pretty sure even legends of the “kink” world would still agree that, yes, *some* kinks are disgusting. its not that hot a take. And while i *get* that they’re trying to say that whatever kinks this person is alluding to in particular aren’t disgusting, WELL, UM, LETS JUST actually i took a look further down the blog at this point in the “””””investigation”””””” and like 

i already left commentary in the thing itself. like i do *get* it, the fact that stardew valley is trying to be inclusive by having all the romance options be available to everyone, or fucking fallout 4 is trying to be woke pogchamp by letting you “romance” as many people as you want, while simultaneously never fucking once giving lip service to the *existence* of us homos, is in fact actually fairly dehumanizing (though my reaction to such is based almost entirely in how much goodwill i have towards the developers, stardew valley dev yer ok and its not that big a deal, monster prom i hate your explanation that you used in marketing years ago when you just could’ve said that you won’t have any gender specific romance options and left it at that but yer Alright, fallout 4 die in a hole for literally giving the protagonist a requited happy suburban straight marriage and yet having tons of journos at the time praising you for being progressive and queer-friendly die die die die in a hole), but good fucking god OP of this not all stories centering solely around bi/pan/mspec women are doing that *for male gaze* and phrasing it like THAT is effectively repeating the “available to men” rhetoric that treats bi women like god damn grocery store zucchini FUCKING *ANYWAYS* BACK TO THE INCEST SHIT

ok so at this point i just search incest on the blog. its super easy as a way to vet people since theres a lot more people around in the same spaces i wind up in who are willing to offhandedly support *that* than some of the other pervert shit (probably because defending the fetishization of children or dogs is a angrier bees nest than even the bigger wierdos are willing to swing at lmao). 

i don’t have much to say about this one i just think the way the person frames their laughing about all this is fucking weird. the screenshots kinda confusing (also terrible quality sorry) but everything about “tumblr is the funniest etc etc” is screenshots, and unless i’m *completely* misunderstanding the order of operations here Beaky is the transmasc exclusionist (??? exclusionist against what. excluding transmascs???? are they a trans masc who excludes???? what) and the pink anime girl bitch is the “trans lesbian (why are you bringing up the persons orientation unless yer taking this as some sorta attack on trans women thinkingemoji) who did incest roleplay with her partner” . its framed fucking weird and also yeah sure “calling for the death of a trans lesbian” is when someone says that a proudly, shamelessly incest glorifier should be put on a “block/kill list” (noteworthy thing that totally isn’t a turn of phrase born out of frustration with this shit- ALSO I SHOULD ADD THAT I HAVE NO CLUE WHO ANY OF THE INVOLVED ARE SO WHILE I OBVIOUSLY CONDEMN THE BROTHERFUCKER I DO *NOT* NECESSARILY ENDORSE THE OTHER PERSON LMAO) 

ok now these are actually just acting like being against the fetishization of incest is puritanical

AND LIKE WHAT IN THE GOD DAMN IS THIS, THE OP GOES AT LENGTH TO SAY THAT THE CALLED OUT PERSON *APPROVES OF “ADULT, CONSENTING” INCEST* AND THE REPLY CGFORESKIN IS AGREEING WITH IS TALKING ABOUT THIS BEING MORE ‘FRAMING ALL TRANS WOMEN AS PEDOPHILES’ SLANDER. i don’t even know if the OP of that is operating in good faith or not but the fact that they’re all perfectly fine with completely skipping over incest is cartoonish. and given the rest of this shit i’m not giving them the benefit of the doubt. 

honestly just doing this because between here and my nsfw twitter experience theres way, way, WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY too many people in “progressive, trustworthy, we’re all a bunch of solidarity-loving queer folkz” spheres that seem way too comfortable cozying up to fetishes that like- kinda are actually inherently bad. 

#incest tw #doo nought spread this plz its barely legible

[vampish-glamour]

Ok firstly, I stg this isn't a shitpost.

I'm a cis woman, butch as fuck, but still very much cis. I mean I've had issues with internalized misogyny and body dysmorphia, but never dysphoria (I think)

I really want to yodel. (This isn't a shitpost) But online, people have told me (mostly via a sideways, the music youtuber, video) that only people with high testosterone (aka men) can yodel. This is upsetting to me, as I've wanted to learn how for a while. (Again I know this is stupid as fuck but it isn't a joke or a shitpost)

Would it be a stupid decision for me to (either temporarily or what have you) try HRT or something similar in order to increase the testosterone in my body so that I can yodel? Or would I be potentially hurting myself?

I have no qualms with looking/sounding like a man, btw.

I know this sounds weird and extreme but it's something that's really bothered me for about a year now and I need some advice from people who understand what transgenderism actually is. If I were to ask the mogai crowd, they'd tell me to do it anyway bc they don't believe in gender. I figured you could help me with some advice or point me in the direction of someone who could give me some. (Please no terfs, radfems, or transphobes)

Sorry again, this is so weird to talk about, and I don't know who to go to lol

Hi! First of all, please don’t put down your interests!!! Yodelling is hella cool. And I’m pretty sure I’ve heard women do it.

I just searched it up, here’s a video of a little girl yodelling, and killing it!

Here’s Jewel,

a 12 year old girl,

A mom annoying her kid (the ending’s adorable omg),

Three women,

And I’m sure there’s much more out there! I just searched up “women yodelling” and these were fun to listen to!

Point is, clearly women are able to yodel. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were different techniques for men and women, since men and women have different voices. Maybe try specifically looking for female yodelling techniques, and if you’re looking for coaches—people who are either women themselves or know how to teach women. Right now you might be looking at sources made for/by males, which would make the techniques not applicable to females. In the same way techniques for females wouldn’t be applicable to males.

As for going on testosterone, I would say it’s not a good idea. Because it wouldn’t just be making you sound like a man, and being butch and looking like a man vs being on testosterone which makes you look like a man are very different things. One is being gnc and is about presentation, the other is taking hormones that physically change your body.

You have to keep in mind that testosterone is going to cause bottom growth, male pattern baldness, and facial hair (probably more, these are off the top of my head). I’ve heard trans men say that they experienced acne and increased sweating when they went on T, as well as oilier and rougher skin. I’m not sure of the effects on breasts, I think they may decrease in size? Either way, these side effects aren’t going to be taken well by a cis woman. It’s why detransitioners describe actually giving themselves gender dysphoria, because they experience physical changes that their brain knows shouldn’t be happening. And many of the changes aren’t temporary, which leaves long lasting effects on their mental health.

I would strongly recommend against going on T for something like this. Especially because from what it looks like, women can absolutely yodel without going on testosterone.

I’ll tag @kiss-the-cis and @myragewillendworlds because they have good sources on dysphoria and such, and might be able to give better information than I can if they wish. And you can also look through the sources on their blogs if you want to learn more!

And good luck with yodelling! it seems like a really cool thing to learn! 😄💕

#asks #anon #no need to apologize for sending this!

[aphroditeslesbian]

hi

I was also raised 7th day Adventist and I’m a closeted lesbian. I don’t hate my religion..because I personally didn’t have a bad experience with it in my childhood, but it clashes a lot with my beliefs and well parts of my identity. I’m feeling a bit helpless because this religion has been a big part of my life, a lot of strong women I look up to in my life are sda, and my local sda community is very wholesome. And by now you can sense my reluctance in letting it go. I’ve been coping by thinking I should find a gay-friendly sda church once I move out.. if I ever get married. What’s your journey been like? 🪴

Hey! I don't meet a lot of sda online, it's interesting to hear a different perspective. I'm gonna go into everything, bc my experiences with sda really shaped me, and yeah, it's been a wild, not so fun ride.

Basically I was baptized catholic as an infant, but my family isn't practicing catholic. My mom is very religious, and wanted me to have a good education... In Brazil, we have very poor public education in primary and secondary school, and the best schools are the private ones... Which are also religious schools. So I wound up studying in a sda school from kindergarten to highschool graduation.

So from a young age (4 yo) I was raised on my school's religious beliefs. I was really involved, and my childhood best friend was also sda, she lived a couple floors down from me and we'd hang out often, and her family would bring me to church on Saturdays (there was a sda church across the street from the apartments we lived in). I was the staple Christian child, I prayed every night and every morning, apart from all the prayer at school ofc. At 8yo they did a talk at school about the importance of baptism, and I asked my parents to allow me to be baptized as sda. My mom surprisingly didn't want me to be baptized again, not so young, but my dad said I should do what I wanted, so I was baptized again at the school's church. Literally the school had an auditorium for our weekly religion-related classes, which we called "chapel", and was basically like going to church – but mandatory, as it was during school time. This specific school also had a church built on the side, so yeah.

During my early childhood through preteen years I had no issues with the school's teachings and sda ideology. It was all I had ever known, my family encouraged religion and we'd also sometimes (rarely) go to catholic church. I honestly didn't even realize people could not believe in god until I was 12/13.

I had never really heard much about being gay, or being anti gay during primary school - I may have forgotten having ever heard it from teachers. I only heard about homophobia from peers, and so I knew that being gay was a bad, evil, gross thing.

When I was around 11/12 we moved to a smaller town, and I started at a smaller Adventist school. I was the only one in my small newly found friend group who was baptized, and moving was very traumatic for me, so I started becoming less active in church. I became severely depressed because of the move and other stuff at home, and turned to the internet for a distraction.

I first heard about atheism from a youtuber, and he was known for his controversial takes (he's pretty nasty, it's only gotten worse with time but anyway). I guess a mixture of depression, becoming a teen, having my rebellious phase, I started researching into it.

My religion teacher (we had "religion" classes, but they should really have been called "7th Day Adventism classes") was much harsher than the one I had at my first school. This was around the time that Twilight was a big deal, and I read those books sooo many times for comfort, I got into Harry Potter etc. Not long after I moved to this school, we had a religion class about how Harry Potter was inspired by the devil. My books were often confiscated during class, even if I had already finished my assignments and was reading quietly, even if they were just on my desk. Being super depressed and introverted, with very few friends, books were my refuge. Having the teachers look down on them and literally say they were devilish and evil really started to shift my view of the religion. I knew these were good books, I loved them. So how could they be evil?

I have a very strong memory of praying and praying once and begging Jesus and god to help me, to give me a sign, because I was terrified of losing my religion, of losing god. All I had learned my whole life was that god is good, god is love etc. How come god wasn't helping me, my family, through some of the worst times? How come I was alone?

At around 12/13 my cousin came out to me as bi, and soon after another cousin came out as gay. I barely fully understood what that meant, and the internet was again where I researched about it. I realized I liked girls at the time, but I never understood you could even be married to a woman, as a woman. Even though I knew I liked and was attracted to girls, I never let myself think too much on it. The school was pretty obvious about how marriage is between a man and a woman, our "sex talk" was a class with our religion teacher. Bio talk was split, the boys left the room so we could learn about female anatomy and stuff, and then the boys had the room, etc. Our religious teacher was very adamant about how one shouldn't have sex before marriage, and marriage was between a man and a woman so...

Honestly the basework they laid was to erase homosexuality. I didn't even grasp that I could be anything but attracted to girls, I didn't realize I could do anything about it.

And then in highschool, I guess bc we were old enough, they finally started being outspoken about their hatred of gay people. There would be snide comments from the Portuguese/Lit teacher, a disgusting talk from the History teacher about how gay men's sexual activity leads to anal incontinence, the Religion teacher saying it was wrong, comparing it to criminality, the school's vice principal giving us a lecture and making sure to hammer in the worst thing anyone could turn out to be was homosexual.

At this point I thought I was okay with my same sex attraction, I thought these things weren't getting under my skin. But then I learned about being trans, and I came to the conclusion that since I was into girls, I couldn't be a woman. I identified as trans from around 15-19. That was internalized misogyny and homophobia, that was me actually letting all the snide little comments settle deep in me, and shape who I was.

Anyway, at around 14 I was done. School was teaching us that bastard kids aren't blessed by god (me and my siblings are all "bastards" as my parents were never married). They told us couples who lived together and we're never married were not blessed by god, and implied they were bound to have issues for their sin.

I was a teenager living in a broken home, my father was emotionally abusive to me and my mother, and honestly at the end of the day I had to choose if I wanted to believe in a god who was supposedly love itself, yet didn't protect me and my young siblings and my mom... Or not believe in god at all.

Leaving the church and coming to terms with not believing in god was one of the toughest times in my life. My depression was in the gutter, I was self harming, I was struggling. I remember thinking of my cousins, whom I was very close with growing up, and knowing they were good people, so how could god not love then? I remember thinking of myself, of all I had done for the church, for god, and wondering how could god not accept me.

For me, the church was poison. I only saw hypocrisy, I saw people who judged each other, who cared more about their own concepts of right and wrong than being mindful of others. I saw my teachers who preached being kind, but ridiculed and laughed at other religions and those who believed them. When I was questioning religion, I always had sooo many questions for my religion teacher and so often she just told me that some questions were too big for us to understand, that only god could fully comprehend himself.

I'm proud to have come out the other side, but I won't lie. The community that church represents does seem so lovely and welcoming. I wanted to be a part of something, and church offered that.

But at the end of the day, there's no space for me, a lesbian, in there. They don't believe gay marriage is okay, they don't condone our "lifestyle". They think this is a choice we're making, and a bad one at that.

The childhood friend I mentioned earlier, who I used to go to church with, actually came out as a lesbian a couple years ago as well. Her sda family is giving her a really hard time. She's left the church, last I heard.

Honestly, my advice would be to find other community. Find community with other lesbians, people who can accept you unconditionally, who can offer you support without small print. That's what I'm trying to do.

I personally am against christianity for a lot of other reasons besides my very negative experiences. Maybe that's not you, and in that case I guess finding a church that is LGB friendly can be the answer. I couldn't judge anyone for choosing to stay, because like I said I really understand how nice it can feel, how it's like you belong in this community, how it can feel like the church is family.

But I really suggest deep soulsearching, because in my experience all they ever did for me was suck all my energy, all my devotion, and spit me out when I was never going to be the heterosexual good girl they expected me to be.

Sorry for the super long answer, I hope this helps some? If you wanna talk more in private you can hit me up through DMs, I'm very willing to listen and talk about it.

#anti religion #sda #august rants #homophobia #lesbophobia #misogyny

[vvampirebat]

hello! feel free to ignore this message if you don't feel like educating someone lmao but i genuinely dont understand how that post is a terf dogwhistle....facing misogyny and sexualisation as a child was quite damaging to me at least and i think many girls went through some sort of a "not like the other girls" phase bc femininity is forced down girls' throats all the time

oh wow oops, this from a while ago but i’m gonna answer it cause i’ve thought about that post since then & i think generally a lot of people aren’t necessarily aware of how terf rhetoric operates and how to identify it

the post that i reblogged calling that post a terf dogwhistle described the op as specifically a crypto-terf which is really important in this context, because the way that crypto-terfs work is through posting and spreading terf-adjacent/compatible posts while maintaining the guise of plausible deniability

for the most part, they’re not going to post/spread anything explicitly transmisogynistic, instead making sweeping statements about “men” or “males”, which to people in the know, includes OR even refers specifically to trans women, which is why often these posts spill out of terf circles

terfs know that lgb (& honestly sometimes trans masc) folks are often not going to be immediately receptive to blatant transmisogyny, but by maintaining an internet presence which slowly filters in terf-sympathetic talking points, they can slowly plant the seeds that can eventually lead towards terf radicalization if you’ve aready fallen into terf-adjacent circles

the original post was about the trauma of approaching puberty as a [cis] woman, and moving from a relatively genderless existence as a child towards increasing sexualization & objectification

and like, obviously this experience is traumatic! i experienced it as a transmasculine person who presented very feminine for most of my teenage years, and had a very complicated relationship to sex and my sexuality from a young age, in no small part because of my perception of myself as a “woman”

these kinds of posts would not circulate if they didn’t resonate with people, and a sympathetic reading of the situation would be that a cis woman made a personal post about her own experience of girlhood/womanhood which got circulated too widely and taken out of context/was never meant to encompass every experience of womanhood (ex. trans womanhood, women of color who never got to experience an ungendered/desxualized childhood, etc etc). obviously no post could ever apply to every woman in the world

i think what made many people suspicious of the post was that it began with “being a girl and hitting puberty is so traumatic”, which like yeah, okay. true in a lot of ways, but a pretty sweeping blanket statement about girlhood. but okay, maybe she did just make a post for her personal blog where she didn’t think too hard about wording and meant to be reflecting on her own experience which plenty of other cis women resonate with. i’m honestly not even arguing that that post is inaccurate, or that she’s responsible for considering every fact of every woman’s experiences in one post

MY skepticism about that post comes from

a) the knowledge of how crypto-terfs utilize plausible deniability

b) the fact that the first time i saw that posts was on a self-identified terf’s blog when i was checking to see if a different post was posted by a terf (it was), and so i knew it was circulating in terf circles and related directly to ideas they have about womanhood

c) the op of the post screenshotting the tags of a bunch of transmasc people relating their own similar experiences from a trans perspective, which she captioned with something along the lines of “go to therapy”

that was mostly what rang alarms bells for me, since terf’s position on trans men tends to be that they’re women wrestling with internalized misogyny

yeah, there were people also making inappropriate assumptions that the op was a closeted trans man because of her discomfort of being objectified & sexualized as a woman, which like. is definitely not what that post was about and a form of projection and ignores the fact that being a woman in this world genuinely does suck in a lot of ways, BUT a lot of the tags she screenshotted were straight up just trans men/transmascs relaying their own experiences of dysphoria once reaching puberty which is like. when many trans people’s dysphoria intensifies or begins

so like yeah, cis women do have complicated relationships to gender, do have the right to talk about their experience and trauma as women, and on its surface that post isn’t a 100% indicator that the op is a terf, but there’s a broader context and i think it’s important to familiarize yourself with how terfs operate and recruit because otherwise you’re leaving yourself vulnerable to absorbing their ideas

#i didn’t get a notification for this wtf..anyway hope u see this

[maxbernini]

Hi! Did you get my ask about teenage sex scenes in media? Just checking 😅

hi!!! i did, but i started summer school this week so i’ve had zero energy sorry. i’ll answer what you addressed here. putting it under a read more; warning for discussions of sex + sexualization of teens and underage actors + fetishization of mlm. also it’s long but it’s the last time i wanna talk about this topic publicly bc i don’t like it & it usually derails into discourse :))

the thing about sex scenes for me is that it’s like, what’s the point? what do they represent? usually it’s to show a change in relationship, or for characterization purposes (e.g.: someone using sex as a coping method) and that’s all peachy, because i’m not anti-sex scenes in media!! i love all the ways sex is used in sebastián lelio’s film disobedience for example. but that involves adults. when a sex scene involves teenagers, it’s usually because it’s on a show about and for teenagers as well, so the paradigms automatically shift too. it can still be about showing a change in relationship, but, as with most things on teen shows, it’s also a chance to educate an impressionable audience, whereas a sex scene on a show like the americans or killing eve or whatever isn’t typically used as a medium to discuss consent, you know? and regardless of how dark and edgy some remakes can be, the entire point of skam as a show has always been to educate and entertain. obviously it fails in that regard when it comes to things like noorhelm, but julie andem very clearly interviewed norwegian teens for a reason. and i think once you view teen shows through that educate-entertain lens, a lot of things fall apart.

for example: cheryl and toni’s sex scene in riverdale. the actresses are both adults who look like adults so it’s easy to forget that the characters aren’t. if the characters were adults, i'd think it was a fun example of two women exploring their sex lives. but they're not, and it's also not a scene about consent, boundaries, trust. it's pretty much like every other riverdale sex scene, which is to say: it's titillating and fan servicey and very much supposed to be sexy rather than realistic. and again, because the actresses don't look like actual teens (whereas 90% of the skam casts do, because they are), you forget what it is you're watching. but when you do interrogate it, it's like...why is this happening? why are we watching two teen girls act out a bdsm fantasy in a club basement? (and when shows like euphoria have to cast adults to play teens because of the amount of nudity, then what does that say about how we approach teenage sexualization?)

so, re: sex scenes in skam. i think david and matteo's is a good example of one. what's the point of it? well, their relationship develops further, and you see a cis gay man and a trans man navigate sex for the first time. it's not gratuitous, it’s intimate and loving without being voyeuristic and overly sexualizing. and i think it's important for teens - especially gay and trans teens - to see that!! to normalize their desires + relationships, and show what healthy, consensual sex looks like. on the flip side, you have the mayla sex scene and the sobbe cyber sex scene, which attracted a lot more discourse than davenzi's. most of that has to do with the cast's ages, but tbh you have to be blind not to see a difference in the latter two vs druck’s. read this post + my tags + the convo with a friend in the notes for how i specifically feel about the mayla sex scene and why i'd happily fight david hourregue if i saw him in the street. 

did misogyny and lesbophobia play a part in the different reactions to the mayla sex scene and the sobbe ones? yeah. obviously we view men and women’s bodies differently (e.g.: cis men can be topless and nobody bats an eye, but cis/trans women obviously cannot do the same), and fandoms generally view wlw and mlm differently too: mlm ships are always more popular, not always for good reasons - which sex scene resulted in adult women creating moaning compilations? - but they also don't attract conversations about the male gaze, which only applies to women, especially women in wlw relationships. there was always going to be more discourse about the mayla one even if flavie hadn't been 17 (and for what it's worth, if the mayla sex scene had been adult women playing adult characters, i wouldn't have found it to be male gazey or unrealistic or bad.)

yet i don’t think people being less discourse-y about the sobbe one makes the mayla one automatically okay in response. both scenes featured a minor (!!). neither needed to be that graphic; you can argue that the sobbe cyber sex scene doesn't need to exist at all lmao. i actually think it was important for lola's arc to show her finally engaging in happy, healthy, consensual sex, but the morning scene accomplishes that. i wish it was something like crisana's (which is mostly implied because of spain's laws), or like, a pre-sex conversation where they discuss it, and then it cuts to black / the morning scene. 

tl;dr: normalizing healthy, consensual sex between teens is good. hyper-sexualizing them is bad. adults in fandoms should stop crossing lines. david hourregue and the wtfock team should choke.

#long post #ask #anon

[tvxcue]

hey idk if u hc sam as a trans woman or if that's another blog i'm following but i don't really have a big blog so i have selected you to be my holy mouthpiece so feel honored, i guess. there's not a lot of tma ppl in this fandom like that's just a fact it's mostly cis lesbians, transmascs, and tme nonbinary people or any combination of the aforementioned. and i think it's great to hc sam as a bunch of genders and sexualities but. this is the key thing. sam is originally a cis man in the show with female love interests. many trans people, specifically trans women, find it transphobic to hc a cis man as a trans woman bc, whether or not it is intended, assigns masculinity to trans women or implies that trans women are just feminine men. not that it's wrong for trans women to be masculine, it's just. i'm not wording this correctly. the same goes for genderbending, it implies female is the opposite of male and ignores all the other genders. i can't say whether or not this is a huge issue bc i'm tme but i want transfems to feel safe in this fandom

i'd like a response if that's alright with u. i know it's A Lot to respond to. again, i'm not sure if it was u or a mutual of yours but i've just seen a lot of trans girl sam posting and calling saileen lesbians in general. for the record, i don't think sam is cishet and i don't think its wrong for ppl to project hcs of their identities on characters but the amount of tme ppl i've seen do this to sam in particular just bothers me

im going to group your asks!

okay so i think i understand what you mean and i think this interview with jen richards (a trans actress) words what you’re trying to say about associating cis men with trans women and why that’s transmisogynistic. i agree that it’s problematic to associate cis men with trans women and there needs to be more awareness of the transphobia embedded in that, especially when people are headcanoning a character that is canonically a cis man and played by a man as a woman or a lesbian. from what i’ve seen, though, a lot of the people who do primarily headcanon sam as transfem/a lesbian are very much thinking of her as a trans woman/lesbian and don’t associate her with canon sam gender/sexuality wise. im also tme so im not really in a position to say if this is okay or not, but i don’t think they’re doing it in bad faith and i also think it’s important that we seriously discuss the harm these headcanons might be doing. it’s obviously not very possible to have a sam stan tumblr wide discussion, but if anyone wants to reply/reblog with a comment/anything else, please feel free to do so. 

i do think people need to be careful when discussing experiences that aren’t their own in order to be considerate to the people those experiences belong to, especially when you’re talking about an oppressed group and, like you pointed out, most of the people in the fandom are tme so when we talk abt trans women or transfem headcanons we need to understand that we are speaking as outsiders, even if we’re not cis.

i think in the last few months a lot of people in the spn fandom started to discuss gender in a very flexible way (which is also where you get the jender stuff and the “your [x] is gnc af” posts) and so that led to a lot of new interpretations of the characters, especially in regards to their genders and analyzing them through a lens that forced them outside of where they exist as cis in canon (like all the posts abt how gender troubles was required reading for spn).

i can’t speak for every sam stan but ik when i first got back into the fandom last year, the primary camps i saw for sam’s gender/sexuality were lesbian (usually in the context of samruby) or cishet and i, personally, as a lesbian sam stan, preferred lesbian sam hcs so that was the primary stuff i engaged with outside of what i posted. also the posts abt sam being all of the letters in lgbt really became a part of sam stans’ engagement with sam’s gender/sexuality, which led to more lesbian hcs and a lot of interpretations of trans as transfem.

and the lgbt all at once thing is part of the reason it happens with sam most often out of the spn characters, bc from my experience a lot of dean/cas (as individuals and a ship) stans view their being masc/men as an important part of their characters and relationship so trans headcanons tend to lean in that direction rather than transfem.

im genuinely not sure if it was me or not, my primary gender/sexuality headcanon for sam is nonbinary bisexual, but i’ve reblogged transfem and lesbian sam stuff and ik i’ve called sam my wife and stuff like that, so you might be right that it was me.

#transphobia tw #transmisogyny tw #i think i said everything i wanted to say and hopefully i worded it okay #anonymous #ask

[fite-club]

Greg here, sorry for the long one here, you gotta almost feel sorry for them by this point bc I bet often their need to feel oppression over trans women stems from an insecurity they refuse to address. It only took me about a week to address mine and come to terms with it to clear unfair bias’ — I can’t imagine making a whole blog dedicated to transandrophobia now. I do agree with the sentiment that trans men do experience erasure in media (which probably doesn’t help for learning about yourself and whatnot)(not to mention most trans woman rep is Very Bad—) but I think it’s a tedious thing to talk about because it’s not necessarily like that’s experiencing violence from misogyny, which feels like a more direct problem from oppression that trans women face. I had to kinda face the fact that a lot of the violence I have faced was due to “being a woman” and I can’t necessarily say it would be the same when I transition because that’s a personal “only time will tell” situation. And as you’ve said before, the violence a trans man can face is due to being trans, not a man. A trans woman faces violence both for being trans and for being a woman, ie making transmisogyny a more direct threat and needing a distinguishing word from transphobia. I’ve seen trans men on here say too “but people see trans men as women making it the same thing!!” But they fail to realize this only occurs if you happen to be someone who doesn’t “pass” really at all and as someone who is afraid of eventually “not passing” idk man I’m not really expecting people to harass me the same way if I start to “look more like a man”— I have already been confirmed by multiple trans men in my life that people DO treat you differently, whether thats a scary prospect or not—

And it’s wild to me now because I’m certain a term like “anti transmasculinity” is moreso the words they’re looking for in regard’s specifically to the whole “girls who make themselves ugly ugly men” rhetoric straight guys are all about, but transphobia has always been more about direct and violent oppressive forces, not just insecurities and psychological gender expectation tedium.

yeah i’m just gonna post this. i’ve speculated that a lot of the insistence on transandrophobia being a thing (and misogyny not being the thing inherent to transphobia regarding trans men) comes from dysphoria. y’know, i get it! you don’t want to have to grapple with the fact that the issues you face are not because you are seen as a man. but does it not make one feel more dysphoric to hear over and over again that trans men don’t and will never pass…? that’s why i don’t understand the resistance to hearing out the trans men who explain our experiences with male privilege post-transition as passing men. we would know, we went through it, we experienced the shift ourselves, and most importantly we aren’t implying that everyone is in our exact position with our exact experiences. your last paragraph here says it all

[mllemouse]

Tw Idk gender confusion???? I am throwing this here to the void bc I've been talking to myself literally all day and really very often for the last few weeks and maybe if I write it it will becomeore cohesive. On mobile, can't put in a jump so just be forewarned of a deluge.

Tw cancer and surgery and imagined gore!!!

Okay so. J tells me they're non-binary, that's very cool to me, but embarrassing after I told them I go by my first initial online bc I'm an easy Google, thinking they were a basic straight boy. (Also, the main reason I even liked them was bc in their profile they are beautiful and a lil feminine and I am just oblivious as fuck!!) I started going by an initial like 8-10 years ago and since have slowly been changing up my name where possible as I come across a new place it's stored.

Tbh I originally consciously chose an initial bc I just didn't want people immediately judging me as a woman. It infiltrated my personal life some, there are people who just call me L, my ex referred to me as L in all his notes, my mum addresses postcards and packages to me as L, and it's given me a lot of delight! The idea that people don't know my gender, or that they know and choose to continue using the initial has always left me just chuffed. I knew a couple other people that came out and switched to an initial as their name everywhere, but like didn't connect it to myself until J asked about it specifically bc they had a hunch I was also nb. (Honestly, my opening profile line is 'be the love child of Tilda Swinton and Frances McDormand you wish to see in the world' and then the whole profile is me in my glasses and nerd clothes... It's uh, not a stretch now that I look at it.)

I quickly did some refreshing on definitions and language, which punted me straight back to middle school when I hit puberty and started feeling so! Deeply! Uncomfortable! In my body. I used to stand in front of my mirror in my undies and stare in horror at what was happening. I had been wearing a bra since grade 5 out of shame in the girl's changing room for gym, that was less of an issue (I literally threw out those bras when I went to college bc they just got ratty, not bc I grew out of them!), but I watched my hips develop and envisioned having them sawed back down so they could be narrow again. I also got my period in middle school and have loathed it ever since. I wished I was a boy but only for the ease of keeping my body; I didn't want to dress different or change my interests. I wasn't raised in away that dictated male or female activities/interests or even clothing -- except I hated that my brother was allowed to go topless in public whereas I could only do so in a backyard -- yet gender noncomformity, while always accepted, was just not that actively encouraged. Educators told us what to expect during puberty but never that we should tell someone if we were so distraught over it.

I didn't really get much in the way of boobs but I used a tensor bandage as a binder through middle and high school (not even knowing what that was, I just wanted to be flat and saw Gwyneth Paltrow do it in Shakespeare in Love!), I remember sneaking it into my bags for college, but I don't have specific memories of using it then. I was kind of happy with them at figure skating bc I ended up being like the only girl who didn't need a bra or padding in her dresses, my mum just sewed a triple layer of fabric in the front for warmth and I was good to go. I was deeply ashamed of my hips and thighs however, and we got in fights over my skirts all the time.

By the end of high school I was fantasizing about plastic surgery and a hysterectomy. At one point I wished cancer upon myself so I would have an excuse for a mastectomy and hysterectomy. My mum actually got cervical cancer and I was, I'm so sad to admit, slightly jealous.

I came to Tumblr and found the fitblr community quickly after quitting skating and dealing with mono, feeling a need to get back into something competitive. I quickly came to loathe not only my own but other women's bodies through the inspirational photos. I loved the men's bodies, and operated with a goal of getting my body fat low enough (like, aimed for a men's recommended percentage, my period could go to hell) while building muscle that I would maybe narrow my hips and shrink my breasts, while having visibly muscular abs and arms.

I'm not sure if it's a net positive thing that I crashed on my shoulder and haven't been able to fully return to the training I wanted to? After the crash I really tried to treat myself better. The body positive movement was telling me to vehemently love all of my body (nevermind it's almost solely geared towards able bodied cis women), and I tried. And I got distracted: moved away, fell in love, discovered I am probably autistic, made some significant life goals. So by the time I was settled here and feeling like I could experiment more, I channeled that entirely through clothing rather than change my body. First dictated by what's comfy (we don't do a synthetic fibre or picky knits on this body), then by how I wanted to present myself to the world: obv, Tilda Swinton in a suit. By this point I have forgotten middle school, high school, and college.

And basically, though I was somewhat consciously changing my name to an initial and intentionally dressing predominantly masculine (but like blazers and trousers and oxfords aren't... Gendered??) as a rejection of toxic patriarchy and capitalism, I ended up not even thinking it could be a gender thing until J did a double take on my name. I have thought about it occasionally over the years and honestly just never thought I was uncomfortable enough to even say I may be non-binary, let alone do anything about it. trans? I can't feel like I hold any ownership over the word. Which now seems... Insane. How did I rationalize wishing violence upon my body and putting it through truly damaging physical duress for nearly two decades in pursuit of obscuring the stuff that made me female. And don't get me wrong, I love a good dress, I tolerate skirts, sometimes I wear heels bc I like to be tall and feel powerful, and I like my face and my long hair, and sometimes I wear makeup because I think I look pretty even though it makes me want to claw my face off. (And have realised that a LOT of the way I have styled myself in the past was purely self objectification for men and not actually what I enjoyed.) I just... ???? Is that not trans enough? I still don't know!!

Anyway to end on a positive, shout-out to my mum who just doesn't give a fuck abt what I do, as she quickly changed her correspondence to me to exclusively my initial, and has always shopped in the men's section with me, and is currently making me a historically accurate 18th century men's outfit so I can really be the boyish chaos I want to see in the world. Tilda and Frances' love child indeed.

#honestly feel free to respond but pls dont reblog? idk why youd want to reblog this but you never know #and im not claiming any identity yet! just trying to make space for the possibilities

[gettin-bi-bi-bi]

1. A lot of times on lgbtq media, I’ll see things that include all wlw but will be labeled as for lesbians. Like “lesbian term”, “this song for lesbians”, or they’ll be posts or media talking about “lesbian only” experiences that could apply to all wlw. What bugs me is that bc lesbian has a very strict definition, I really don’t feel included in these. Whereas “gay” is an umbrella term and I often feel like I wouldn’t have these problems as a bi man cause I feel like gay covers me.

2. Lesbians of course have their own things, but I’m only talking about stuff that def includes all wlw but is called “lesbian”. Like “lesbian” couples that may have a bi women in them. I feel like there’s this split between communities bc any time I see a bi girl use the term lesbian(not as a label; for anything else) there gets so much crap thrown. While I know bi men prob feel that same sometimes, gay is such a universal term that I don’t see it as much. Idk if that’s invasive of me to feel

disclaimer: I was typing and typing and.... this kinds turned into a rant so. Take it or leave it, I don’t know how much sense I’m making. You know, up until ~50-60 years ago the word “lesbian” just meant every woman who had sex with women. That 100% included women who also had sex with men. (Note that at the time those labels were about sex acts and not about an identity based on attraction.) So many lesbians back then were what we would now call bisexual or pansexual.

However, lesbian separatists and “political lesbians” (basically the OG radfems) decided that a true lesbian should not have anything to do with men. And thus they started to exclude bisexuals from lesbian spaces and terminology and we were forced to make our own community. Which we did.

Now in the last couple years, especially on tumblr, there’s been this attempt to “reunite” lesbians and bisexual women into a shared community called “wlw” or “sapphic”. Unfortunately there’s still lesbian separatists. And that’s how you get entire campaigns on tungle dot hell where people recycle radfem rhetoric to tell bi women we aren’t “allowed to use butch/femme because those are just for lesbians” and other historic revisionism like that.

Most of the time I see people use “wlw” or “sapphic” it's bi/pan women who make that effort. And I notice a development in which the same thing happens to wlw/sapphic as it did to “lesbian” back in ye olden days: bisexuals are being told to keep their mouths shut about their male partners because “this is wlw safe space and this shouldn’t be about Straight Things” and as a result many think that “sapphic” is just a synonym for “lesbian”.

And note that this is all something that happens in relatively niche online communities like tumblr. When we’re looking at mainstream media then it’s a whole other piece of cake because mainstream media, especially when created by and for cisgender heterosexuals, just doesn’t fucking care about these distinctions. Sometimes it’s “just” ignorance and not even malicous - they just really don’t know the difference. Sometimes (often times!) it’s textbook bisexual erasure.

Personally, I totally get how you feel. I don’t feel connected to the “lesbian community” at all. I have a couple of lesbian friends but I don’t engage in any lesbian community events (even though Berlin has plenty to offer). I don’t feel like I have anything to add there and frankly, I don’t feel like I can openly talk about the fact I am bisexual and dating a man.

Even terms like “wlw” and “sapphic” - even though I do use and appreciate the sentiment behind them - don’t really give me a sense of community or belonging. Maybe that’s also a generational thing. I also don’t feel like I have one type of attraction that’s sapphic and then another type of attraction that’s [insert adjective] for men (and another again for enbys?) - all of my attractions are bisexual so I don’t feel comfortable describing my attraction to women as “sapphic” bc it implies that it’s something different than my attraction to other genders. But again, that’s just my personal feelings. I don’t mind those terms and I don’t mind if someone would use those as umbrella terms for me or as identity labels for themselves - go for it. I just don’t feel any significant connection to them personally.

I’m also a petty asshole though so if some event or media or whatever is advertised as “lesbian* .... party / movie night / pride / book club” then I’m just like, well, I’m not a lesbian so that’s not for me, guess they’ll be missing out on getting to know me. And I get even more pissy when they add in small print “*also welcome to bisexuals” because if you wanna make an event for lesbians and bi women then why not advertise it as that? Putting us in parantheses or small-print is at best tone-deaf and at worst an expression of how little they value us.

Many lesbians aren’t actively biphobic and would never want to exclude us and would actually genuinely welcome us. So, don’t take this as me slagging off all lesbians. However... many, especially the younger ones, are still incredibly oblivious to the history of their own label (because radfems work very hard at erasung that history so it doesn’t include bi and trans women) as well as ignorant about the struggles that bisexual women have to face in particular both in mainstream society as well as within the LGBTQIA+ community. They often don’t realise how alienating it is for us to always only being an after-thought at best. Which is kinda hilarious given that they often (rightfully!) voice the same criticism when everything is made about cis gay men and lesbians are just the after-thought.

So long story short: I get it. It sucks. That being said, bisexual men also face a lot of issues and biphobia affects them in some specific gendered ways that are also pretty shitty. They really don’t have it better or easier then other bisexuals when it comes down to biphobia.

Now, you can either say “fuck it, lesbian stuff is for me, too” and ignore all the separatism and basically reclaim your rightful place in this community. Or you can stick to the bi community and seek out media/events that are explicitly for all the queers.

Maddie

#I may have said this before but I'll put it here again: #I feel a stronger connection and can relate better to gay men than to lesbians #*shrug emoji* #Anonymous