#using gay as an umbrella term because i still have no idea what the fuck i am in terms of romantic attraction

[markeronacomputer]

Body Horror and Transformation Writing Prompt List For All You Freaks-But-Not-Sexual-Freaks

As a certified body horror fan, I wholeheartedly believe that there’s a horrific lack of body horror/transformation-but-not-in-a-kinky-way fics on AO3, so I made this to set things straight.

We got all kinds of possibilities: body horror for all you horrible freaks out there, and simple non-painful or disgusting transformations for all you significantly less freaky weirdos out there!

You can choose which to write by yourself if you’d like or maybe just use a random number generator.

Reblogs are much appreciated, and inspired fics even more! (I can’t promise that I’ll know anything about whatever fandom you decide to write for obviously but I’ll likely give it a shot as long as it was made using this list (and isn’t smut))

Body Horror Prompts

Wingfic (The good, old-fashioned, non-kinky transformation fic tag.)

Gothic (Werewolf, vampire, etc… you get the drill.)

Animal (Another good old-fashioned classic.)

Cyborg/Robot (Not as fleshy as the others but it is body horror still.)

Fantasy (This one’s pretty good because “fantasy” is actually just a really big umbrella term for absolutely anything as long as it’s not an animal that exists. “Fantasy” ain’t just dragons and unicorns.)

Alien/Eldritch Anatomy (Let’s say your character got abducted by aliens while they were asleep last night and they’ve come out all fucked up. Like that.)

Mutilated by a crazy person Human Centipede-style (Of course, though, this could result in a number of things. Please don’t make me read your own retelling of Human Centipede.)

Really fucked disease (This is fun because if it’s contagious it means potentially more than one character could be affected.

Mutilated by power (You know that one scene from Akira? Yeah, that. A character gets exposed to more weird magic than their body can handle and it starts to change them. Like how the Fantastic Four got their powers, depending on the adaptation.)

Transformation into species from one of your other fandoms (PLEASE someone make it Pokemon, the body horror potential there is impeccable)

Angelic/Demonic transformation (Which one is up to you… or maybe just flip a coin.)

AMOGUS (or something similar like changelings or such. Excuse me, I just left this here because I was out of ideas.)

Body Horror extra flavour spices for you to add if bored:

Mass Transformation (The same except whatever the prompt is happens to more characters than just one or two.)

Partial Transformation (They transform except not much.)

Slow Transformation (In case you feel like writing something a bit longer.)

Voluntary (Voluntary body horror sounds like something really fun, honestly.)

Involuntary but temporary (Like a werewolf, y’know?)

Roll more than once (Self-explanatory.)

Roll again on the opposite table

Transformation (aka the same thing but with no body horror) Prompts

Animal (like the above but instantaneous/oblivious/painless.)

Body Swap (Very fun, especially when different species are added to the mix.)

Gender Swap (If you’d like an idea of a nice twist to add to this, I’d suggest swapping sexual preference as well as gender. Straight men are still straight as women, and gay men are now lesbians. Very fun if only a select few characters have been affected.)

Ghost (May lean into body horror slightly depending on the method of death. Speaking of which, I’m a big fan of when ghosts get unique appearances/powers depending on the method of death, so maybe you could add that to spice it up?)

Trapped in a computer/other kind of machine (I think I read a creepypasta about this once. It was really fun.)

Reincarnated as a Different Species (That Time I Got Reincarnated As A Slime, So I’m A Spider So What?… I think there was this one anime where the main character got reincarnated as a vending machine. That’s how versatile this prompt is.)

Isekai into Another Fandom (Overlaps with the above heavily, but more specific.)

Video Game Logic World (You know the Jumanji sequels? That.)

Emergency Transformation (Like the TvTrope: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EmergencyTransformation)

Karmic Transformation (Like the TvTrope: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KarmicTransformation)

Two+ Characters, One Body (I REALLY love this trope because that baby can fit so many shenanigans in depending on how it’s taken.)

Empathic Transformation (This wasn’t worded really well but basically what if a character is transformed into what they see themselves as/transformed by another character into what the transformer sees them as. This could also cross over into body horror depending on how you take it.)

Transformation Extra Flavour Spices For If You’re Bored:

Mass Transformation (self-explanatory)

Voluntary

Involuntary but temporary (Again, like a werewolf)

Partial Transformation (Of course, this only works with about half of the listed prompts but it’s still good.)

Pokemon (PLEASE. OKAY I KNOW THAT’S SPECIFIC BUT POKEMON TRANSFORMATION FICS ARE ALWAYS A RIDE. IT CAN OVERLAP WITH ALL OF THE ABOVE IF YOU PLAY YOUR CARDS RIGHT: “GHOST” BEING PHANTUMP. “TRAPPED IN A COMPUTER” BEING PORYGON/ROTOM. I’D LOVE TO READ A FIC LIKE THIS. AND. AND. IF YOU’RE NOT INTERESTED IN WRITING A FULL-ON POKEMON STORY, JUST PUT IT IN ONE OF YOUR OTHER FANDOMS. LIKE, POKEMON AREN’T THINGS THAT EXIST THERE, NOT EVEN IN FICTION, SO EVERYONE’S WEIRDED THE FUCK OUT.)

Roll more than once (Self-explanatory.)

Roll again on the opposite table

And that’s all! I’ll try my best to read anything you guys may make with this list (that’s not smut, kinky or a retelling of Human Centipede) so go out and spread the word! (oh god people are definitely going to accuse this of being my fetish aren’t they)

#ao3 #writing #body horror #writing prompt list #prompt list

[spectre-does-stuff]

SDV sexuality + pronoun HCs because its 2am and I have somewhere to be in 6 hours but whats important than gay video game characters

I mean... They're all fruity in canon so... For spice I've decided to do this:

Alex: questioning. He never thought he liked boys... Till he met (male) farmer. Suddenly, all the thoughts he'd dismissed as jealousy over looks, appearance, whatever, might have been something a bit more. He doesn't know much about the queer community, but after meeting farmer, he's pretty sure he's a part of it. He/him

Elliott: Pomoromantic; aceflux. I feel like he's too fluid to want to label zer romantic orientation, but rejects the term queer due to an aesthetic preference. They don't experience sexual attraction usually but will on occasion, thus, aceflux. He/they/ze

Harvey: bisexual; receiptosexual. He just doesn't feel any kind of sexual attraction until they know it's reciprocated. He/they

Sam: Panromantic, cassexual. He feels what he feels, usually he just goes shrug emoji to the idea of sex. He/him

Sebastian: Omnisexual. He has a distinct preference for male/masc aligned genders, but still feels attraction to all, just in different ways. He/xe (also i still think xe're transmasc)

Shane: bi, asexual. He doesn't want to fuck, he's never wanted to fuck, he doesn't feel the need to fuck. He/him

Abigail: di-pan. Xeir gender identity as nonbinary is central to their attraction, and thus she experiences it in a diamoric way. They/she/zem

Emily: lesbian and demisexual. I just don't think they like boys, fuck the canon. They/it/zer

Haley: bi and proud of it. She probably has a pride flag somewhere on her room. She/her

Leah: queer and greysexual. Like Elliott, I feel like they're too fluid to label themself but she prefers queer over pomo. They/she/he

Maru: multisexual. She doesn't really know which label under that umbrella term she falls under, so she just says multisexual. She/her

Penny: sapphic. Don't really think she knows how she feels about boys, and she's anxious about mislabeling herself, so she sticks with sapphic. She/her

BONUS!!

Krobus: aro/ace, agender. We got ourselves a triple A-battery! It's commonly accepted that krobus is aro/ace (I think), but I'd like to add another A. Since gender is sort of a human social construct, I don't think krobus would really have one, making him agender. He/they

This is, of course, all lighthearted, and meant in good fun. Much love to my fellow homos <3 love y'all. Also, in the future when I write about them, I'll continue to use the pronouns from canon to avoid confusion, and just for my own ease

#stardew valley bachelors #stardew valley #lgbtq #headcanons #silly little thoughts #your daily dose of everyone's favorite pixelated pretty boys and girls #how do you do fellow sdv fans #hope you're well #stardew valley bachelorettes #sdv

[thebrokengate]

Why don’t blrs acknowledge that it would be kinda fucked up for Mike to have been gay or even bi and actually in love with Will this whole time. That’s using an abusive victim as a beard, and even if he’s a confused teen, that’s gaslighting on top of gaslighting on top of gaslighting. That would actually make him a villainous character: to tell an abusive victim he loves her nine times but actually be gay. I think back to lady bird, which had a girl whose first bf turned out to be gay. Which she found out because he was locking lips with another guy, btw. She ended up forgiving him, but that shit hurts! Gay people don’t get an excuse to fiddle with people’s feelings just because they’re scared. Mike and El are endgame.

Bruh, why don't Melvins acknowledge that Melvin is already unhealthy even if you disregard Mike's sexuality? Why don't they acknowledge that Mike is idolizing El as a superhero and not loving her as a complete person like she wants? Why don't they acknowledge that El feels that Mike thinks she's a monster? Why don't they acknowledge that they can't be themselves with each other? Why don't they acknowledge that they don't understand each other? And it's not like we're saying Mike doesn't care about her at all; those who use the term "beard" use it as a more umbrella term because, as far as I know, there's not really a better term out there as of right now to describe it. He cares about her, but doesn't love her romantically. A person's feelings are all over the place growing up and exploring their sexuality, it's not impossible for him to have confused his feelings from platonic to romantic at one point, but doesn't know how to explain himself in a way that doesn't hurt her. And, in the time period we're in as well in the show of small town 80s America, it's hard. It can still be hard now, because the world makes love complicated. You have no idea what it's truly like unless you've lived it and suffered homophobia from small minds around you, and clearly you haven't, anon.

#ask styx #byler

[sixsoulssnuffed]

who here's the gayest

They are staring directly at the direction of the disembodied voice. Unblinking. They do this for quite a while, before erupting into giggles.

*Sorry, sorry~ I couldn't resist.

*Serious answer? Depends on how we qualify this.

*I'm the only person here who is strictly homosexual. Everyone else but Huggy is some flavour of queer, but I'm the only one who fits the strict definition of gay.

*If we're using gay as an umbrella term and are defining this by how many letters we occupy, it'd...still be me.

*If we're talking on a gay magnitude scale? I'm going to say Foggy wins that one. He's got two, maybe even three boyfriends, and counting.

*Three?

*You better not also be being weird about Cru-

*Foggy, dear, come now.

*You forget I'm also aro. I would not do that.

*No, I'm referring to whoever tied that lovely looking ribbon around your wrist.

*It suits you quite we-

*HOW LONG WERE YOU WATCHING US-

*Foggy, please calm down.

*I'm simply making deductions here.

*You came back to the domain all red faced. Ribbons are not your usual style. Neither Reese nor Andy seemed like the type to give such a gift. So I figured you've found another lover.

*That's also why I said possibly three. Partially because I am making assumptions, even if confident ones, but mostly because I have no idea what gender said person might be.

Foggy...doesn't seem convinced by this explanation. But he's got no counter.

*Yeah. Okay.

*Well! This is from a friend, so it's still two.

*His name is Scar, and no matter how almost unbelievably adorkable he is, he's straight, and I respect that.

*So maybe mind your own fucking business and leave the deductions to-

*Okay dear, okay, okay.

*No need to get so defensive.

#ask #anon #plastic smile; ribbon #clouded sight; foggy

[kakashihasibs]

Out of curiosity, why do you feel like you’re aromantic? I only ask because I’ve been very seriously thinking that I’m aro, but I keep second guessing myself. I think it would help to hear why another person is aro, but I just don’t encounter a lot of people or bloggers who talk about it.

Feel free to ignore if you want, people irl and on this site are still really weird about aros, so I totally understand not wanting to get into it

Ooougha okay so i have thoughts™ and you are about to get them all good luck lol i get to how i feel in terms of being aro towards the end. I promise this is all building up to that even tho it'snot gonna seem like it at 1st x_x.

(tl;dr: it took me 5 years to feel like i loved my husband and I'm not even sure the love i feel is romantic or not bc it feels the same as how i feel for my friends but overall I'm not even sure what benefit there is for me, personally, to ID as aro bc what's even the purpose of labeling our sexualities, political or personal? (it's a mix of both)

There's, from what I've seen, really two purposes to labeling one's sexuality.

1) political coalition building. -> Hi i am a Gay man and you are a Lesbian we are not The Same but we have political interests that are The Same and we are more powerful and safer together let's have each other's backs. And when there's an issue that affects only you I'll still show up for you and when it's an issue that affects only me you'll still show up for me.

And

2) community and communication. -> hi i am a gay man and you are a man also interested in men (gay/bi) lets be in a community and/or relationship

(Please dont come at me these are both huge over simplifications! I'm build up my thought process to a more complex idea!)

Neither of these things are mutually exclusive, of course, and these are only sorta loose ideas I've seen some people express here and there.

I only note them bc people who focus on number 1, political coalition building, are more often (not always!) a little more down on "micro labels," whether they are exclusionist or not, bc it, they argue, in some way muddies the waters in terms of coalition building. If there's so many niche labels now and we're creating more and more niche labels then we're creating more and more divides and not focusing on keeping each other safe under the same umbrella.

I've also seen the argument that making more and more niche micro labels is related to individualism and commoditization under capitalism. Like "look you too can have ur own special flag and identity! Now buy all this merch to show it off! Give us money!!!"

Which, for both of these concerns, i am sympathetic to to an extent. (Except out right exclusionists, fuck them.)

People who focus more on number 2, community and communication, are generally, in my experience, much more in favor of micro labels. Say ur like me, I'm asexual but I'm also gay but maybe aromantic, but then where does the gay fit in? Oh geez idk. But wait! There's a sexuality that breaks being gay while also aroace down! I have a word(s) for myself! Which inarguably feels good. It makes me feel understood and normal. And now i can find other people who experience sexuality just like me. I can find a small community to feel at home in. Right?

---

i have laid out these two general ideas. The possible purposes i might have for naming/labeling/understand my sexuality.

I approach my sexuality from a political standpoint AND from a personal standpoint which I think most people do bc again they're are not mutually exclusive.

I am in some way not straight (and not cis but not talking about that right now). I have faced violence and discrimination for my sexuality. I want to name my sexuality in order to identify myself with a political movement. I name my sexuality so when I take political actions or make political demands, it is understood by others that i am doing so in solidarity with other people who have face similar oppression. I want to name my sexuality so i can better articulate the problems I face. So other can go to bat for me (and I will go to bat for them even if the issue isnt mine!)

For example, back in the day when ace ~discourse~ was much much worse, I was threatened with corrective rape (irl for the record) but instead of anyone standing in any sort of solidarity with me, i was told i was misappropriating corrective rape. (Which still just fucking blows my mind but besides the point.) This is why exclusionist can fuck off btw. Instead of anything productive they just were yaknow evil. Ugh anyway

I also faced discrimination at the doctors when asked my sexuality. I was honest and said asexual which lead down a whole rabbit hole of bullshit. The coalition building purpose would look like, "i have faced discrimination at the doctors for my sexuality and so have you so lets team up and support a bill that protects patient autonomy and rights"

And on the personal side i can talk to other asexuals who have faced the exact same problems i have. I can find empathy and understand in a way i might not from an allo cis gay guy (that's not dunking on any allo cis gay guy! For the record. We just have different experiences and very similar ones too!).

So you can see the benefit of either approach right? Maybe i just wanna call myself just queer or just gay or just ace and be done with. I have my coalition and maybe my community it still very broad but it is there.

Or maybe i wanna figure out why it took 5 years to feel like i loved my husband. Or why maybe my love for my husband doesn't really feel any different than my love for friends? Should the love i feel for my husband even BE different from the love i feel for my friends? Am i actually even feeling love? We've been together for 12 years what different does it make now anyway?

I feel like I'm probably aro but i also feel like I'm not and I'm "only" asexual.

Things that affect aros affect nearly all of us. We're all impacted by amatonormativity. We all struggle with getting next of kin rights with our chosen family, just to name a couple things. Discussing and supporting aromantism will benefit us all.

But what about discussing someone who is ace aro and gay? Maybe? Idk? Does being aroacegay bring anything new to the table? Or is it just another flag to profit off of for some fucking corporation? I dont know!

For me, is there even any separation between being ace and aro and gay or is it just the same part of me being looked at through too many lenses?

And all of this is what i think and feel when i think or feel like I'm aro x_x which is to say bud i have no fucking clue lol.

All i really know is i will fight for anyone under the queer/lgbtq+ umbrella regardless if it impacts me and i hope and pray that when people like me need the same kind of support everyone else will also fight for us too.

I think I'm done now. Sorry u got this whole ass mess lol. x_x if you have any questions comments or concerns you can DM or anon me any of them :3 I'll happily address them

#rape mention #ask #anon #ben replies #idk how else to tag this x_x

[mishwanders]

Man! I love ocs! I have my boy Lloyd. Love how you represent Mat with dead crows, that’s badass! My oc, Lloyd represents a buck, he’s supposed to have a patch of a deer on his coat. :3 But I would love to hear more about your character(s) people have such amazing stories and ideas!

Same! I find that most of the things I read are OC stories versus reader stuff, even though it’s opposite with my writing - reader inserts primarily what I be writing at the moment lmao. OKAY BUT I NOW WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT LLOYD!! I love animal symbolism’s with characters and deers have always had my heart (literally have a tattoo of a deer skull on me lmao).

If you want to hear more about my characters - then you’re in for a ride! I still need to do some character intros for the others (already finished Sorina Spencer’s), but that’s for when I have the brain power to do so. I’m planning on doing a 5 part series that follows all four of my ocs and their involvement throughout the RE timeline to which they’ll all come together in the end to help bring about Miranda’s downfall, but that’s after I finish my reader insert stories ~

Anyway, for those who want to see info about my ocs, it’s under the cut so I don’t fill your feed with my nonsense lmao

ALRIGHT SO HERE WE GO!

Before we start here’s a fun fact about them: they’re all disabled in some way and queer. Sorina (bi) becomes an amputee, Matilda (pan/gender-fluid) is a cane user, Ricardo (gay) loses an eye, and Elena (bi/trans) gets infected with the mold/Cadou combo which exacerbates her auto immune disorders and chronic pain.

Sorina Spencer: one of my new ocs, doesn’t have a story done yet, and to be honest she came about because I really wanted to have a character play with the big dogs of the umbrella underworld and make it really game of thrones-escque with the politics of it. Just think Circi + Danny combined. She’s an absolute bitch who’s hungry for power and I love it for her.

Ricardo Santos: Like Sorina, doesn’t have a written story yet but that’s okay because it’s coming up. He’s a sweetheart when he wants to be - and really only Hunk gets to see that. Most of the other times he’s cool and calculated serving out his Justice/orders for Umbrella and Sorina. Really he came about because I wanted to put a character with Hunk for a while and I thought giving him a witchyman who also works for Umbrella would be an interesting one. Ricardo serves Santa Muerte and is constantly doing what he can to make sure Hunk gets out safely - even reaching out to those on the other side to do so. After Raccoon City though, he has new orders to take a look at the disappearance of souls in Romania.

Matilda Costache: Now Mat has a written story already called Phantom Sins that it’s in my Long Reads, BUT I’m repurposing them in this new story I’m planning out. Instead of being romantically involved with demon Leon and demon chris tho - Mat’s going to be in a relationship with Mother Miranda, which then leads to them being caught in the middle of it all and trying to decide whether they should betray the woman they love or not. I still really enjoy the fact that they’re two sides of the same coin and want to explore that more in this. I just really want to explore Mother Miranda in a relationship and see how that would change her attitude towards some things, so that’s why I’m throwing them together. Was originally gonna do Heisenberg but decided against it because those two are basically family to me and it just felt weird.

Elena Winters: my sweet girl and the first OC I ever made! I had a whole 50+ chapter story for her before but I scrapped it and am now repurposing her for this new story and returning to my original ideas I had for her. Basically she’s Ethan’s older sister and she gets dragged to go with him to Louisiana to find Mia and shit gets fucked. It’s how she meets Chris (during the not a hero DLC stuff) and has to come to terms with her infections now and how to use them to help others and keep her family safe. Sorina becomes a part of her life through Mia and is actually the one who gives the BSAA an anonymous tip about what was happening on the ranch. Consider the Winters family that woman’s redemption arc.

Which like, all of that to say - the ending of it (RE8) will be interesting because it’s going to be written from all of their points of view and what they’re doing on the ground along with the main characters to stop Mother Miranda.

If there’s any character you want me to talk about specifically let me know 🤣 there’s still so much I could talk about, you just don’t even know lmao

#mish rambles #just rambling about my ocs #oc: matilda costache #oc: sorina spencer #oc: ricardo luis santos #oc: elena winters

[edienotsedgwick]

Saw some cringe comments on a post on the indie sleaze Instagram account that pissed me off and I didn’t wanna start an argument so I thought I might as well ramble about it here. The music considered to be under this umbrella was some of the first music I remember forming core memories to as a child, so I feel as though I have a right to speak.

The post in question was asking the followers what artists of the present day give off the indie sleaze vibe and sure I don’t think musically or aesthetic wise a lot of the suggestions were quite there, (I think it’s a bit early before we see electroclash, bloghouse and the 2000s garage rock sound coming back - but I think it’s just around the corner tbh) there was this one reactionary asshole just replying to everyone with innocent suggestions of new artists saying they’re not indie sleaze because they’re “woke and PC and demonising heterosexuality and have blue hair pronouns and trauma”. Especially if the artists being suggested were LITERALLY just existing as LGBT+/queer. Like… even if there was nothing about politics in the music, and they were just existing as themselves.

And it got me thinking about how this person was so wrong… and that they’re literally rewriting history to try and suit their own narrative, and tbh it was bordering on saying “this artist is not indie sleaze because they’re openly a minority and are sometimes making music about it.”

When it comes to the “anti identity politics” bullshit this person stated in their revisionist history, it seems they must’ve forgotten that while the indie sleaze subculture wasn’t as a WHOLE inherently preaching social justice, it was still in fact a very friendly space for LGBT+ people and feminist artists who were very open about both those things. Probably more so than other subcultures in the 2000s. This was especially prominent in the electroclash subgenre which had a lot of their artists intersecting with the riot grrrl and queercore scenes. Like… did this person just forget that Lesbians On Ecstacy, Gravy Train, Chicks On Speed, CSS, Gossip and fucking PEACHES existed???? (This entire list of artists btw is a big fraction of my yassification playlist???) (Also DON’T GET ME STARTED on how many bloghouse artists either ended up making hyperpop music later in their career or ended up working with hyperpop artists… and we all know how gay AND trans positive that genre inherently is)

This era also def made some progress when it came to artists of colour too. Indie scenes in the past definitely lacked POC, especially in popular bands - but while indie sleaze was still mainly white dominated some POC artists definitely managed to get some spotlight which hadn’t really been seen in indie music before. You had Karen O (Yeah Yeah Yeahs), Natasha Khan (Bats For Lashes), Kele Okereke (Bloc Party) (AND HE’S GAY TOO), Santigold, M.I.A, Tahita Bulmer (New Young Pony Club), 3/4 of the members of TV On The Radio were black men. I feel like there would probably be less POC making any kind of indie bops now if it weren’t for these talented people laying the foundation.

So yeah, basically to end my pointless infodump - indie sleaze - while I can criticise elements of it as I can with most 2000s subcultures, (the 2000s and it’s idea of everything being apolitical, egalitarian, and post identity politics to an extent did rub off on all the media and as such I can acknowledge that general attitude ageing weirdly now in the wake of a lot of us realising our core social issues never went away) is actually a lot more progressive than people remembered it to be. Especially in terms of its inclusivity of minorities which this person seems to think just didn’t exist openly and proudly in its past. If there’s a comeback and more minorities make music in any style under the indie sleaze umbrella (electroclash, bloghouse, 00s style garage rock), it’ll won’t be all too different from how it was because it’s the same music, same messy grimy aesthetic with smudged eyeliner and American Apparel disco pants - just more diversity and the newest iPhones instead of iPod nanos (I will forever be mad that iPod nanos aren’t still a thing though!)

#edie TxT #over + under #indie sleaze #lmao this was a mini essay I was not expecting to get so passionate

[angrysnakes]

i'm entirely in favor of the term lesbian continuing to be freely shared between bi women and lesbians as an umbrella term much in the same way that gay is used colloquially for gay men and bi men (and for people who experience same gender attraction in general), but lesbian as an identity meaning sapphic people who aren't attracted to men is. literally fine. and to imply that this definition of lesbianism is bad because it "excludes nonbinary/multigender people" is:

1. just pointedly not true to reality seeing as a lot of nonbinary and multigender people identify as lesbians because of (not in spite of, but because of) the way lesbian is presently defined.

2. transphobic because the idea that all nonbinary people should be included in the definition of lesbianism as though we are a third gender with a universal expression and relationship to gender which inherently dulls our ability to be men or women is literally just not in any capacity true (and with lesbianism always - even if it's only implicitly - prioritizing relationships between women even when it's used as an umbrella term, i don't think it should be that surprising that a significant number of nonbinary people and especially nonbinary men do not want people who ID as lesbians and are aware of their identity as someone who is not a woman expressing interest in them because they are. you know. not women).

3. much closer to terf rhetoric than you seem to be aware of. the idea that trans/nonbinary men aren't Real Men is terf rhetoric. verbatim. terfs want you to include trans men in the definition of lesbianism. that is extremely fucking useful to their "trans men are just misguided [women/lesbians]" talking point. this isn't to say there wasn't a historical overlap between trans men, lesbians, and bi/pan women - there was - but to imply that the eventual creation of new terminology to differentiate those experiences was a bad thing is... ridiculous and disingenuous when there are and always have been bi women who want spaces where they can specifically celebrate their attraction to both men and women and transmascs who identify that way for reasons other than a complex relationship with lesbianism.

also - whether its intentional or not - what you're implying is that exclusivity is bad, but only when lesbians do it. every single term lgbtqia+ people use is exclusive in some capacity because they aren't intended to cover every person's experience, they are meant to bring together people with a shared experience. gay and trans are exclusive terms that are not meant to encompass the experience of person. bi and pan are exclusive terms that are not meant to encompass the experience of every lgbtqia+ person. aro and ace are exclusive terms that are not meant to encompass the experience of every lgbtqia+ person. and all of these are fine! gay people wanting to find other people who experience same-gender attraction and trans people wanting to find other people who experience dysphoria and/or euphoria is fine. that doesn't in and of itself degrade the broader lgbtqia+ community or negate the fact that people other than gay and trans people can experience discrimination on the basis of sexuality and gender. the same can be said of bi, pan, aro, and ace people wanting to find people who share their particular experiences. and, likewise, sapphic people who don't experience attraction to men wanting a term that brings them together with other people who have that experience is fine. lesbian indicating lack of attraction towards men is fine. there is still community between sapphic people/wlw which is not negated by lesbians having a term that describes their experience. and you personally not identifying with its definition doesn't mean anything other than it not being a good term to describe your personal experiences.

I'm going to look at this anon as good faith because it seems like you're genuinely wanting a discussion, but it really feels like you're putting words in my mouth here. I'll address each numbered point

1. This isn't true because I've had NB and multigender lesbians message me or comment that they feel excluded from this definition and also feel unsafe talking about their gender because of it. This seems like a case of survivorship bias.

2. I never said that all nonbinary people should be included in the lesbian definition, at least not as a baseline definition, specifically mspec lesbian would/could work differently. Rather its regarding gender as "men vs non-men" treats nonbinary as a third gender because its putting us all in a "non-men" category.

3. Absolutely nowhere do I imply trans and NB men aren't real men. I fail to see how me saying that gender is complex with fuzzy lines and overlapping experiences is saying they aren't real men, and tbh I find it quite insulting. TERFs want trans and NB men to be included as lesbians because they see gender as very black and white with distinct borders between Man and Woman. They don't see lesbian as anything more than Vaginas That Want Sex With Other Vaginas.

And, bi, pan, ace, aro, trans, etc having definitions is not exclusionary. They aren't meant to push out people based on arbitrary standards of what a "true" bi/ace/trans/whatever person is. They don't need to include Every Single Person and that isn't exclusion. The point isn't that lesbian includes every single person, it's that it has an innumerable amount of experiences that cannot be easily defined and no one can decide for another person. Someone saying their lesbianism is a lack of attraction towards men is fine. There are multiple ways for someone to define their sexuality. One bisexual may define it as attraction to two or more genders, another may say its attraction to the same or similar genders. One pansexual could say it's attraction to all genders while another describes it as attraction regardless of gender. There are many ways to be the same label

[kellylor]

Ok, so, here's a lot of thoughts about queer identity have been rattling around in my head for the past..18 months or so.

My big work project last year involved, among other things, helping design a form for collecting demographic information from the public, to be submitted to my employer, a US government agency. We want to collect race, ethnicity, gender identity, and sexual orientation information in order to be able to look for patterns of discrimination in certain financial transactions. There's a lot of poorly-designed government forms out there, and part of my role in the project was making sure the layout and instructions for the form were clear. There was a whole working group that made recommendations for language and format on the gender and sexual orientation questions, and the label we ended up with for sexual orientation was "LGBTQIA+". Which is fine, I guess, and very government form-y. It mostly did fine in the usability testing that I ran (though a distinct subgroup of older participants who spoke English as a second language didn't know what it meant until I listed out the words).

But while we were working on the layout of the form, I had a whole series of conversations with the other designer on the project about the impossibility of truly representing someone's identity as a series of discrete checkboxes on a form. Especially because things like racial and ethnic groups are fucking conceptual messes made up based on bad ideas, there are no truly good ways to neatly capture that as data. The sex and gender identity situation is less, uh, fully fictional, but still complex and messy precisely because they ARE rooted in real biology and real lived experience. Because biology actually dgaf about anyone's neat conceptual boxes, bodies will still exist the way they exist and people are gonna feel and behave the way they feel and behave, with a huge range of variation and exceptions to rules.

You have to just pick something as flexible as you can make it, try to be as consistent as possible about it, and know the limitations inherent in the data. For our purposes it's mostly not a big problem to not capture a full, nuanced picture of a specific individual, because the goal of the data is to be able to identify broad statistical trends. And ultimately what we want to learn from the form is "are you at risk of discrimination based on your identity?" and try to give people options that they recognize well enough to self-report. But also, because it is government data, there is a lot of pressure to be granular, to offer extremely precise subcategories. And sometimes that can be a really important goal, because we've seen things like the way lumping "Asian-American and Pacific Islander" into one category fails to show how, for example, people of Indian descent in the US have significantly different experiences than Cambodians or Pacific Islanders. But it's also impossible to do in a truly accurate way that will give everyone good options for self-identification. There are just so many niche experiences and only so much room on a printed page. Also so many unanswerable questions like, Are Brazilians Hispanic? Fuck if I know! The way racists treat people from Latin America is both shitty and ideologically incoherent, I don't know how to put that on a form.

So there's always a lot of tension between the weird messy reality that exists, and the urge to turn it all into clean, oversimplified categorical boxes. And LGBTQIA+, and any other variation of the alphabet soup, always strikes me as a term fundamentally starting from a position of atomized categorical boxes, straining under the weight of reality. The first time I ever heard an "official" term, suitable for use on something like a government form, that was not just "gay", it was "LGBT", and I encountered it in the context of trying to raise the profile of trans people, because just sticking them under the umbrella of "gay" sure elides a lot of differences between cis and trans experiences. But then you know, there keep being more specific identities that get pointed out, and that have to be added, because like, you have to put everyone in the right little subgroup in order to decide whether they count or not. I mean, the number of times I have seen the notes on a post talking about some iteration of LGBTQetc as an umbrella term turn into arguments about what some of the specific letters mean is...the same as the number of posts I've read talking about the terms. People who are ostensibly on the same side of trying to support a community, however you want to label it, still cannot get over arguing about the damn label. Because the alphabet soup is at its core a disaggregated approach masquerading as a flexible umbrella term, and you can't get way from that tension!

Queer, though. Queer is deliberately not trying to sublabel everyone. You don't need to fit into anyone else's defined boxes. Again, there is a time and place for understanding and discussing the differences in experiences among different people, but for me, in terms of community, the place I want to start from is building solidarity. And we all have an extremely important thing in common: we are the enemies of heteronormativity. The people most invested in perpetuating heteronormativity fully regard us all as their enemies, regardless of whichever slot they've decided to put us into! I have questioned a lot, over the years, as an ace woman who has only ever dated men, whether I get to "count" as queer, but that has bothered me less over time as a) I have come to understand queer identity as being as much about political solidarity as about my personal characteristics and b) I have learned that asking "am I queer enough to count?" is an extremely queer-ass experience. For myself at least, asking, "Does my experience conform to heteronormative expectations?" Is much easier to answer (definitely not, to extent I have experienced ace-related backlash or oppression in my own life it's all originated in de-legitimizing queer sex broadly, or in pressure to make conventional romantic life choices), and much more clarifying than reading a bunch of arguments about whether the A in LGBTQIA stands for "ally" or "asexual".

So, that's why I have tried to be more definite in thinking of myself as queer, and why I specifically prefer "queer" as a label. And also why trans rights absolutely do not threaten my rights as a cis woman, celebrating kinky sex is not acephobic, and kink belongs at pride.

#queer as in fuck you #I know a lot of people hate the idea of government demographic forms #but ftr: the discrimination happens face-to-face without any formal data collection #but the regulators charged with enforcing anti-discrimination laws can only detect it if they have the data #we mostly went with the census standards for race and ethnicity but I wouldn't call it a good solution just the simplest for now

[rebelwheelsnycpoetry]

The Eraser Pt 2 (Love Is About The Soul)

THE ERASER PT 2 (LOVE IS ABOUT THE SOUL) by RebelwheelsNYC / Michele Sommerstein

They, so hell bent on having me choose, and why? the ignorance, the audacity of these, strangers, declaring my supposed “confusion”? boldly declaring my labels as if they knew better than I? As if I am merely indecisive, the assumptions in plethora, oozing The greedy nympho, with STDs, VDs, emotionally incapable of love, monogamy & destined to cheat! and some do cheat, but for fuck's sake, it's not “a bisexual thing” and some choose polyamory, but this is not some fixed setting (and as if other sexualities do not also choose it?) Why is it in 2021, still, I can't say the word Bisexual, without the same tired stereotypes Like they hear the word and they already “know” what's up and no, I don't want to fuck your girlfriend while you watch (and some do but don't assume) like we're all clones, mass-manufactured in some factory in Hoboken dedicated to heterosexual male consumption As if my sexuality only existed for attention As if it was not legit on its own For I am perpetually being told “All you need is a good man to set you straight” “All you need is a good woman to set you gay” and if I fall in love with someone who is non-binary then what box will they try to shove me in then?

The community pointing & wagging their finger as if I am not fully out of the closet as if I am still hiding (by choice and shame!) and yes, bisexuality can be a stepping stone for some before they realize that they're gay, but that does not make it a default passing phase.

“if you're with a man, you can pass as straight!” Privilege! True… (while your sexuality is erased) (it's also really assuming our gender expression which for me varies day to day)

For fucks sake, is it really that complicated to comprehend? That who I am with, who I love is regardless of, gender and sex that for me love is about the soul that for me love, is about the soul and thus there is no need to choose who decided that we all must be monosexual or invalid? Is loving freely not part of liberation?! Why should we aim for less?

And so sometimes, yes when it's overload and stressed Queer, my label because I am weird and wonderfully so (though I know this word was meant originally as a slur) Queer and because I love the idea of an umbrella term with room for us all in this big fat glorious rainbow among other reasons I've mentioned in other poems but also Queer, my label because too often, I lack the spoons to take on the weight of ableism as a proud but sometimes tired disabled woman and then have the same, damn, conversation drenched & dripping in biphobia, over and over and over again, like I should just make a damn pamphlet and hand that out instead versus just saying “Oh, I'm Queer” and people go “Okay” & done.

This poem was taken from the zine Rebelwheels NYC: A Call For Healing And Rebellion. Please check it out.

#poetry #poem #disabled poet #disability #disabled #ableism #self care #disabled and queer #queer poems #queer #bisexuality #biphobic

[tepehkwi]

Help. Some girl posted a stuff about trans girls nog being allowed to play bc ""hormonally and biology said they were stronger" (total bullshit) on her tiktok

and now I'm fighting with that girl and others. I told her that transphobia is rooted in colonialism, and I gave an example of two-spirit people and native Americans, and girlie said she was native American but she never heard of it. She asked "Which tribe uses that term" I answered "Oijbwe." I'm not listening to someone who takes the ideology of a culture that claims to not exist, or if you mention another tribe, girlie managed to say "But they made the women stay at home and the males go hunting".

I fucking can't with the transphobia and oh lord, idk what to say. I need to find more science arguments to win over that transphobe bitch (the girl in the video was white and the other she said she was native american so idk )

hi! i'm sorry this is kinda late. hope this answer can still help.

"science" arguments aren't necessarily going to "win over" anything, in my opinion. something everyone needs to understand is that most indigenous gender was understood as socially constructed, as role-based. unfortunately terfs/gcs and other reactionaries really don't care about that, they would rather use colonizer enlightenment era phrenology-esque bullshit to discredit indigenous knowledge, indigenous history, and the progressions/evolution of our traditions throughout history. especially when, as you mentioned, this transphobe is claiming that "see? ojibwe culture is still patriarchal" like unfortunately i just don't think that these people can really be reasoned with.

"two-spirit" was specifically intended to be pan-indigenous. and most comprehensive explainers talk about the coining of the term as a broad english-word umbrella under which ojibwe* labels like wiŋkte/wiŋkta, short for wiŋyankehca (*i also know the dakota/lakota use wiŋkte as well, or at least i know of dakota and lakota individuals who use it) and ikwekaazowag/ininiikaazowag can fall under

The term Two-Spirit originated in 1990 by Myra Laramee (Cree) at the Third Annual Inter-tribal Native American, First Nations, Gay and Lesbian American Conference in Winnipeg. It is a translation of “niizh manidoowag” or “two spirits” in the Anishinaabe language. (source)

but people like the woman you're describing in your ask are the kinds of people who aren't going to take this sort of thing seriously. they're going to disbelieve actual science, because they are committed to pseudoscience. i don't personally respect most of the social sciences but they are still more correct than pseudoscience about sex/sexuality and gender, and unfortunately people like this aren't going to believe anything that the social sciences put forth to discredit their pseudoscience arguments either. transphobes like her will use anyone serving as a disruption of their echo chamber to either point out or make up contradictions or other facts they can misconstrue as logical flaws.

and i could also go on about dealing with potential pretendians vs. people using their indigenous heritage as an excuse to 'speak for' us all... but at the end of the day, people like this MIGHT listen to reason if you're able to do a bit of digging? i'm afraid i'm not the best person to ask about where to source articles.

i also have really mixed feelings about people using twospirit (also other nonwestern cultural genders and/or intersex people) as a device for disproving transphobic arguments. twospirit is, despite being a combo of english words, a placeholder for concepts that are utterly un-translateable into english or any western idea. it has to do with gender and sexuality and sex, or all at once, or one more than others, etc... and the thing is, the history of third-gender or twospirit people who can't be categorized by colonial standards of sex/gender is mostly irrelevant to the argument that needs to be made and needs to be focused on, which is trans liberation.

even if transgender people were a recent phenomena, the point of this shouldn't be to find all these historical examples to prove legitimacy. i mean, i'm therian, earthgender, and a furry as well as being ndn. and therian and otherkin, noun-gender labels, and other stuff like this doesn't really have a ~robust history~ except in online communities. but we still exist. and we still deal with a lot of judgement. and my ~weird~ xenogender labels are still descriptors of a non-cisgender identity, i'm still a trans person through a western lens whether i identify outwardly with the centuries-old menôkênâwa ketti-onôkênâwa two-spirited concept belonging to my culture or as the 21st century inventions of earthgender and skygender. history is not end-all be-all, here.

the entire point is that gender variance is oppressed, and we who don't conform are in need of liberation, and we are demanding it now. on the basis of bodily autonomy and rights to self-determine one's own gender identity and sexuality, this is what needs to be argued more, in my opinion.

this might be a little too much ranting on my part but idk... like, sometimes trying to debate these people stokes their fire :(

#ndn tag #twospirit

[supertinytins]

Bruh my mum keeps talking to me about a boy in my neighbourhood, stuff like "you could walk up to school with him" and "I heard he's returning to do A levels next year." And i mean, he's a decent guy and all, but like

Mother. Your daughter is gay. Not a day goes by where she doesnt think about women.

#is this a thing that all parents do or does she suspect that i might not be as heterosexual as she thought? #using gay as an umbrella term because i still have no idea what the fuck i am in terms of romantic attraction #all i know is women pretty #tinins says stuff

[olderthannetfic]

Hi! I know you're one of the older fans on Tumblr & I wanted to ask you about the anti movement. I'm 19 & when I see people talking about the ages of anti fans, they're often within the 14-25 age range & I have no idea why. I also feel it's a little unfair to say that younger fans tend to be antis, though it is understandable since I've also made mistakes when I didn't know things. Why do you think most antis are younger fans? What should younger fans who aren't antis do to be more involved?

Hee! I’m 40, which, tbh, actually isn’t that old for Tumblr (though it’s certainly old compared to the common perception of tumblr), so sure, I can probably answer this. I guess there are two questions here: 1. Is it true and 2. why, if so?

1. Experience suggests that antis do tend to be young... but it does not follow that young people tend to be antis. (You’d have to know the proportion of antis relative to the overall population of fandom, which we don’t. I think the majority of people of any age tend to want to read fic in peace and not be roped into endless wank.) I definitely see some ringleaders who are older and good at manipulating fandom trends for their own ends too.

2. Why would this be the case?

When I was in college, we used to joke about all the freshman year Marxists. It’s an eternal phenomenon: people who don’t have much experience learn a new thing and are on fire to change the world using the one tool in their toolbox. (To a man with a hammer, yadda yadda.) There’s no passion like the passion of the newly converted, and young people tend to have a lot more energy and often a lot more free time to yell on social media. Antis may be one expression of this among people currently in that age bracket. It’s not like people my age didn’t do other annoying-ass things when we were that age. You just don’t see it because it was 20 years ago, a lot of it was never online, and all the websites/platforms from then have been systematically destroyed. (Often by yahoo. Fuck yahoo.)

The other half of the reason, in my opinion, is that there have been concerted efforts to sway lefty/socially liberal people in specific--often TERFy--ways. It’s somewhat reminiscent of the right wing radicalization of gamer guys.

People are susceptible to it because their lives suck and because they don’t know enough history or have enough confidence to form their own opinions and stand up for them. Sure, some people are going to go hardcore for anti views no matter how much they know, but a lot of people are just being swept along with the tide because something sounds superficially pro-gay or pro-protecting kids or whatever.

I cannot emphasize enough that the things that make someone ripe for the alt right are the same things that make them ripe for cults and for various kinds of toxic fandom shit: it’s usually the smart, sensitive overthinkers who don’t have enough close actual friends and who aren’t in a good place in their lives.

---

So what can you do?

You can try to make fewer more significant friendships and make sure your support system isn’t people you only know because you currently share a fandom. Most of my offline friends are people I found through fandom meetups, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for making fandom your life and only hanging out with fandom people, but we’re just regular friends who have dinner parties and shit (well, when it’s not the plaguetimes). Most of the time, we don’t share specific ships or fandoms. It’s vitally important to have a real support network that can’t be ripped away by social media wank.

The next thing we can all do is publicly stand up for what we believe in and not cave to pressure just because someone yelled “think of the children”. It’s important to be clear about the real history and logic behind these things, whether it’s the history of censorship that inspires people to support AO3′s extremely permissive policies or the fact that ‘queer’ was a fully reclaimed umbrella term in the 90s.

It’s okay if we don’t all agree. What’s not okay is appeals to emotion and ignoring science. A lot of anti bullshit is like “Rape fantasies are an abnormal red flag”, and this goes against every damn thing we know about human sexuality.

Part of this is examining our own stances for illogic and hypocrisy. If thought crimes aren’t real, then all of them aren’t real. I see way too many “Okay, but that one gross kink though!” comments from people who claim to be on my side, and this is very silly.

Possibly the biggest thing, though, is that we as a planet need to start being savvier about shitty social media and how it’s destroying our mental health. I don’t have a good overall solution, and obviously, I’m still on tumblr, but we all really need to cut down the amount of time we’re on sites like Facebook and Twitter and probably tumblr too. The more it has an algorithm and the less it has moderation, the more it’s a problem. Individual discords and spaces that can have moderation are better. It’s fine if some of them are 100% antis. The point is to have multiple spaces with rules that suit different groups.

A thing you can do is make your own spaces: be the owner of a discord for your ship, not just a passive participant at the mercy of shitty mods in an existing one. Run a fic exchange with rules you think are sensible and be firm when people try to scream about problematique things you don’t agree are a problem. One of the most pernicious anti problems is mods breaking the rules of their own spaces (usually a “no kinkshaming” one) to cave to social pressure from the loudest, most assholish set of people in the server. They don’t know how many people quietly disapprove and quietly leave their fandoms because they only fear the loud harassers, not the silent toll of caving to them.

Honestly, the climate of fear is the big issue more than a bit of yelling: I routinely meet 20-somethings who live in fear of being canceled and shunned. You can help this by... not being like that with your friends. If they’re friends with a canceled person, don’t ask them to drop the canceled person or face the same fate. If you disagree about some fandom hot take, talk about it calmly and don’t act like the friendship will be over in 5 seconds and you’ll use all your knowledge of them against them in a public callout because they didn’t instantly agree.

Basically, have some self confidence and don’t be fucking terrified all the time... which can be a tall order and probably explains the age thing also.

#fandom meta #loganelfreeces

[flightlessnightingale]

On Lesbianism

I’ll state it at the top here, because many have not understood my stance. The purpose of this essay is not to say that Lesbian cannot mean “Female homosexual.” Rather, my objective is to show that Lesbian means more than that single definition suggests. Female Homosexuals are lesbians, unless they personally do not want to use that label. Now, on with the show: Lesbianism is not about gatekeeping, and I don’t want to have to keep convincing people that the movement popularized by someone who wrote a book full of lies and hate speech then immediately worked with Ronald Reagan is a bad movement. In the early ’70s, groups of what would now be called “gender critical” feminists threatened violence against many trans women who dared exist in women’s and lesbian spaces. For example, trans woman Beth Elliott, who was at the 1973 West Coast Lesbian Feminist Conference to perform with her lesbian band, was ridiculed onstage and had her existence protested. In 1979, radical feminist Janice Raymond, a professor at the University of Massachusetts, wrote the defining work of the TERF movement, “Transsexual Empire: The Making of the Shemale,” in which she argued that “transsexualism” should be “morally mandating it out of existence”—mainly by restricting access to transition care (a political position shared by the Trump administration). Soon after she wrote another paper, published for the government-funded, National Center for Healthcare Technology — and the Reagan administration cut off Medicare and private health insurance coverage for transition-related care.

Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminism is a fundamentally unsustainable ideology. Lesbianism is a fundamentally sustainable existence.

There used to be a lesbian bar or queer bar or gay bar in practically every small town — sometimes one of each. After surviving constant police raids, these queer spaces began closing even Before the AIDS epidemic. Because TERFs would take them over, kick out transfems and their friends. Suddenly, there weren’t enough local patrons to keep the bars open, because the majority had been kicked out. With America’s lack of public transportation, not enough people were coming from out of town either.

TERFs, even beyond that, were a fundamental part of the state apparatus that let AIDS kill millions.

For those who don’t know, Lesbian, from the time of Sappho of Lesbos to the about 1970′s, referred to someone who rejects the patriarchal hierarchy. It was not only a sexuality, but almost akin to a gender spectrum.

That changed in the 1970′s when TERFs co-opted 2nd Wave feminism, working with Ronald fucking Reagan to ban insurance for trans healthcare.

TERFs took over the narrative, the bars, the movement, and changed Lesbian from the most revolutionary and integral queer communal identity of 2 fucking THOUSAND years, from “Someone who rejects the patriarchal hierarchy” to “A woman with a vagina who’s sexually attracted to other women with vaginas”

How does this fit into the bi lesbian debate? As I said, Lesbian is more of a Gender Spectrum than anything else, it was used much in the same way that we use queer or genderqueer today.

And it’s intersectional too.

See, if you were to try to ascribe a rigid, biological, or localized model of an identity across multiple cultures, it will fail. It will exclude people who should not be excluded. ESPECIALLY Intersex people. That’s why “Two Spirit” isn’t something rigid- it is an umbrella term for the identities within over a dozen different cultures. In the next two sections, I have excerpts on Two-Spirit and Butch identity, to give a better idea of the linguistics of queer culture: This section on Two-Spirit comes from wikipedia, as it has the most links to further sources, I have linked all sources directly, though you can also access them from the Wikipedia page’s bibliography: Two-Spirit is a pan-Indian, umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe Native people who fulfill a traditional ceremonial and social role that does not correlate to the western binary. [1] [2] [3] Created at the 1990 Indigenous lesbian and gay international gathering in Winnipeg, it was "specifically chosen to distinguish and distance Native American/First Nations people from non-Native peoples." [4] Criticism of Two-Spirit arises from 2 major points, 1. That it can exasperate the erasure of the traditional terms and identities of specific cultures.           a. Notice how this parallels criticisms of Gay being used as the umbrella           term for queer culture in general. 2. That it implies adherence to the Western binary; that Natives believe these individuals are "both male and female" [4]          a. Again, you’ll notice that this parallels my criticisms of the TERF definition of Lesbian, that tying LGBT+ identities to a rigid western gender binary does a disservice to LGBT+ people,—especially across cultures. “Two Spirit" wasn’t intended to be interchangeable with "LGBT Native American" or "Gay Indian"; [2] nor was it meant to replace traditional terms in Indigenous languages.  Rather, it was created to serve as a pan-Indian unifier. [1] [2] [4] —The term and identity of two-spirit "does not make sense" unless it is contextualized within a Native American or First Nations framework and traditional cultural understanding. [3] [10] [11] The ceremonial roles intended to be under the modern umbrella of two-spirit can vary widely, even among the Indigenous people who accept the English-language term. No one Native American/First Nations' culture's gender or sexuality categories apply to all, or even a majority of, these cultures. [4] [8] Butch: At the turn of the 20th century, the word “butch” meant “tough kid” or referred to a men’s haircut. It surfaced as a term used among women who identified as lesbians in the 1940s, but historians and scholars have struggled to identify exactly how or when it entered the queer lexicon. However it happened, "Butch” has come to mean a “lesbian of masculine appearance or behavior.” (I have heard that, though the words originate from French, Femme & Butch came into Lesbian culture from Latina lesbian culture, and if I find a good source for that I will share. If I had to guess, there may be some wonderful history to find of it in New Orleans—or somewhere similar.) Before “butch” became a term used by lesbians, there were other terms in the 1920s that described masculinity among queer women. According to the historian Lillian Faderman,“bull dagger” and “bull dyke” came out of the Black lesbian subculture of Harlem, where there were “mama” and “papa” relationships that looked like butch-femme partnerships. Performer Gladys Bentley epitomized this style with her men’s hats, ties and jackets. Women in same-sex relationships at this time didn’t yet use the word “lesbian” to describe themselves. Prison slang introduced the terms “daddy,” “husband,” and “top sargeant” into the working class lesbian subculture of the 1930s.  This lesbian history happened alongside Trans history, and often intersected, just as the Harlem renaissance had music at the forefront of black and lesbian (and trans!) culture, so too can trans musicians, actresses, and more be found all across history, and all across the US. Some of the earliest known trans musicians are Billy Tipton and Willmer “Little Ax” Broadnax—Both transmasculine musicians who hold an important place in not just queer history, but music history.

Lesbian isn’t rigid & biological, it’s social and personal, built up of community and self-determination.

And it has been for millennia.

So when people say that nonbinary lesbians aren’t lesbian, or asexual lesboromantics aren’t lesbian, or bisexual lesbians aren’t lesbian, it’s not if those things are technically true within the framework — It’s that those statements are working off a fundamentally claustrophobic, regressive, reductionist, Incorrect definition You’ll notice that whilst I have been able to give citations for TERFs, for Butch, and especially for Two-Spirit, there is little to say for Lesbianism. The chief reason for this is that lesbian history has been quite effectively erased-but it is not forgotten, and the anthropological work to recover what was lost is still ongoing. One of the primary issues is that so many who know or remember the history have so much trauma connected to "Lesbian” that they feel unable to reclaim it. Despite this trauma, just like the anthropological work, reclamation is ongoing.

Since Sappho, lesbian was someone who rejects the patriarchal hierarchy. For centuries, esbian wasn’t just a sexuality, it was intersectional community, kin to a gender spectrum, like today’s “queer”. When TERFs co-opted 2nd Wave feminism, they redefined Lesbian to “woman w/ a vag attracted to other women w/ vags”. So when you say “bi lesbians aren’t lesbian” it’s not whether that’s true within the framework, it’s that you’re working off a claustrophobic, regressive, and reductionist definition.

I want Feminism, Queerness, Lesbianism, to be fucking sustainable.

I wanna see happy trans and lesbian and queer kids in a green and blue fucking world some day.

I want them to be able to grow old in a world we made good.

#Lesbian #Trans #Transgender #Queer #Queer positivity #Queer history #Police brutality #Gay #Linguistics #Sappho #History #Femme #Butch #R #TERF #Terf friendly haha jk fuck tERFS

[roublardise]

ok so hear me out. it's about dean co & sam being oversupportive. and also comphet.

it's very drafty bc it's a shitpost check out my ao3 for better writing <3

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Dean hasn’t felt closeted in a very long time. He never truly was, he just avoided talking about it and confronting Sam to the fact he was fucking men. Which was common decency. Switching the stories so they were about women was a move he started doing when Sam assumed Dean was talking about a woman. He just didn’t correct him - not wanting to go into That and let alone with Sam.

He had figured Sam didn’t know for quite some time and he wondered, sometimes, how his brother would react. He’d love for him to shrug it off and say “okay. I think the vampires are in this cabin.” Though it would feel anticlimactic, and maybe wrong? Isn’t coming out supposed to be this whole thing…. It was this whole thing about his gender, with a lot of people, and now he was so tired.

So tired he ended up thinking that, hell, Sam was a smart boy, he could connect the dots. So then Dean just stopped trying to conceal it, and after Benny and Crowley - what was there to add?

A lot, apparently.

.

Dean is only two sips into his coffee when Sam barges in the kitchen, socked feet sliding on the floor and almost making him trip. He does slow down once he crosses the doorway and tries to keep a composure - he takes a few breaths, probably tells himself to be cool.

“With such a rush, you better tell me you’re engaged.”

Sam looks down, then left and right. “Where’s Cas?”

Okay - it’s getting weird. Dean drinks some more and lays back in his chair, giving all the little attention he has to Sam. “Playing harp. What’s with you?”

“Do you…” Sam stops with a sigh. He slightly leans on his side when he starts next. “Eileen is saying…”.

“She better be pregnant.”

Sam rolls his eyes and walks up to the table. He sits in front of Dean and joins his hands in front of him. Dean is starting to think someone died. But then Sam, finally, explains in a rush:

“You and Cas are together like dating-together?”

Dean doesn’t reply right away, simply because… what? “Yeh.”

“Oh.”

Sam looks down again - anywhere but Dean. Might as well go all the way into awkward territory.

“Dude it’s been like, months.” More than that, truly.

“So you…” Sam doesn’t finish this sentence either, but Dean can get the idea.

He shrugs. “Yeh.”

And he expects some speech about acceptance or maybe more questions of why Dean never said anything. And he doesn’t want to have to say he did say stuff, but Sam is apparently unable to perceive it. Does he know Eileen is bi? It’s too early, his coffee is cold, and Dean regrets ever leaving his bed - Cas was right, there was no point.

However Sam only clears his throat, says “okay,” and leaves.

Younger Dean was wrong - it’s not anticlimactic, this short reply is all he ever needed.

.

So it’s not a big deal and Dean never thought it even was something Sam didn’t know - so nothing changes. And Dean doesn’t think much about it.

Except he can’t catch a break, can he?

.

He had time to finish his coffee this time, and he’s just reading in the library when Sam calmly walks to stand in front of him.

“Let me finish my chapter,” Dean says without looking up.

“It’s.. quite important.”

Dean finishes the sentence he was in and drops a finger under the line before staring at Sam. “What?” Sam only puts a gift - wrapped with a ribbon and all - onto his book. Dean frowns. “What’s that? It’s not my birthday.”

“Can’t I give you something just because?”

“You can, but it’s weird.”

“Just open it.”

Dean puts on a show of looking annoyed as he puts the wrapping away, but his façade gives up to a genuine confusion as he notices some fabric, purple and blue standing out until Dean unfolds it to reveal magenta. Oh god no.

He must look confused more than mortified, because Sam tries to explain his train of thought. “It’s hm- the bi flag. Bisexual flag.”

Dean can’t figure what to say. He closes his book and runs a hand on his face. This may be his most uncomfortable coming out.

“Dude-”

“You don’t have to say anything, I know you don’t like the whole.. talking. I just wanted to show that… you can be proud, you know? You don’t have to hide who you love. It’s good with me, and I’m sure it’s good with anyone, and if it’s about dad-”

“Sammy shut up for two seconds.”

Dean gestures for his brother to sit on another sofa in front of him, and he waits for Sam to be settled and perfectly silent before leaning forward. It’s worse than telling Jack about sex.

“I’m not bi”, he states.

“You know, it’s a process, right? Maybe you’re not there yet, I shouldn’t have pushed-”

“I’m gay,” he continues, ignoring Sam.

“Oh sure, it’s fine if you’d rather use this umbrella term.”

Dean is one minute away from praying to Cas to erase this conversation from his memory.

“Are you messing with me or something here? I like dudes.”

“Yeh, I got that-”

“I don’t like women.”

“Oh.”

“Yeh, oh.”

Sam isn’t meeting his eyes, instead staring at the fabric that Dean doesn't know what to do of. Sam’s probably gonna sit with his shame for a few days. It’s not worth making a big deal out of that, but Dean can’t bring himself to say it’s nothing either. It’s still something. The mistake is understandable, in a way. To Sam, Dean had way more stories with women that he actually did. And with Cassie and Lisa, well, Sam never had to know how Dean felt exactly about them. For a brief moment guilt twists into Dean’s guts - that maybe he should have talked about it with Sam… Maybe that’s how this works. But why? It’s not his business.

Dean sighs loudly and opens his book again. “We done here?” He doesn’t mean to dismiss him while looking pissed, but he is genuinely annoyed.

Sam mumbles "yeh, sorry" as he stands up, walking quickly out of the room.

“And, hey, Sammy?” He waits for Sam to meet his gaze. He throws the package back to Sam who catches it but clearly isn't sure what Dean wants him to make of it. Keeping it makes no sense, but throwing it away is too bad. So... "Give that to Eileen."

#spn fic #my stuff #spn #gay dean winchester #dean winchester #supernatural #implied trans dean as usual #spn takes

[illuminati-by-nature]

I have many thoughts and not yet enough sleep.  My opinions on It have shifted slightly after just a couple fitful hours of rest (thanks, cat) so they may change more.  I feel like clarification is still sorely needed, though I can understand that both after a 7 hour session, and 7 hours of watching, that things can be muddled.  The language was vague and exceedingly confusing at the tender hour of 3:30am or whatever.

I’ve been trying to think of how odd some of these dynamics are on a more metal level?  Also, yanno, the state of the disk horse.  I’m still very tired so let’s put it under the cut.

Matt seemed determined to not make any moves to initiate anything beyond friendship as a DM, and I fully get the reasoning of that in terms of the game.  From a narrative standpoint, it becomes strange, because this left Essek in a position of having essentially no autonomy, which doesn’t really make sense in the telling of a story.  Essek had an entire life, a detailed and complicated backstory, wrought with intrigue and conflict.  He has never been a passive person, so it is strange and frustrating to see him so passive in what feel like very key moments of character development.

Of course the discourse is off and running.  I’m leery of doing anything that gets me adjacent to it, but it is so fucking aggravating to see people so completely unempathetic towards the distress and feelings of confusion and loss and lack of clarity that so many other fans in the community are feeling.  It isn’t wrong to be upset.  It isn’t wrong to want something more explicit.  I wonder if any of this could have anything to do with a generational divide?  I’m older.  I’ve seen eons of change in terms of LGBTQ+ rights and representation over the course of a couple decades.  Am I happy that it’s more accessible now?  That it’s more commonplace now?  Absolutely.  But I have been doing this for a long time, and I still want more.  It’s better, and it can still be better, and it should be, and that’s what we all should strive for.  

And hell, I’m tired as hell, so I’ll go ahead and be more directly incendiary.  It feels really weird and reaching to call this aroace representation when one of the characters is explicitly not that, and the other is heavily implied to not be that, and neither of the players are.  And much for the same reasons, it’s difficult to throw this under the QP umbrella too.   There was SO much about the finale that I absolutely loved, and I am so excited to talk about that when my mind is done reeling.  I still have no idea what to think about the state of shadowgast.  While I tend to dislike Word of God as it’s too often abused to handwave away gay content, it’s really just a matter of clarifying confusing wording.  So much work went into building this relationship, so many signs were there, so much growth happened in a long and incredibly believable way.  I can’t and won’t speak for every shipper, but I do know that for a lot of us it was never about a huge romantic gesture or overture or big damn kiss.  Just an answer.  Yes or no?  It is really not too much to ask.

#cr #cr meta #critical role #critical role meta #critrole #critrole meta #shadowgast #my shit