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roublardise · 3 years

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my "Crowley isn't attracted to women" take

for @spnprideweek - day 2 - mlm

cw: dicussion of homophobia & transphobia all in all I wanted to highlight how canon gay Crowley is bc I love him 💕 thank u spn for Crowley even tho he deserved better

in the last weeks I've realized there's a huuge consensus in the fandom for pansexual Crowley. if you're pan or not and wanna hc Crowley as pan, power to you! but what's bothering me is the non-discussion of it all. the way it seems obvious for everyone. whereas, to me, Crowley has been canonically gay all this time.....

disclaimer: I'm aware Mark Sheppard alledgely said he saw Crowley as pansexual, however I can't even take these words for canon without context. Especially not when a year later he'd say Crowley's sexuality didn't matter. The way Mark Sheppard talks about characters' sexuality is more a "why are people making a big deal let them be" than "the character doesn't care." Moreover, actors pov can't be taken as canon imo. Jensen Ackles thought Dean straight for so long when Dean's been bi all this time as well. Sometimes actors are biased by their own experiences & stereotypes!

disclaimer #2: on god I don't wanna start discourse lmao. I just wanna share my silly thoughts about a tv show & question the way Crowley's sexuality is written in this silly homophobic tv show. don't @ me about what's making you think Crowley is indisputably pansexual bc I assure you I already know your points

That being said, here's why I think Crowley is a bear, a gay man, a trans gay man actually, a homosexual, who isn't attracted to women & some food for thoughts about why the unquestioned consensus towards pan Crowley could have roots in both homophobia & panphobia.

I don't think we can think of Crowley as your usual demon. We know too much about Crowley's life as a human, and the numerous ways in which he acts un-demony, almost humanly after. Considering him simply like a demon with no concept of gender preference who would be pan “by default” wouldn’t be right with his character. But we also can't question his sexuality in the exact same way we would a human's.

It also can't be thought in the same way as angels': as once-humans demons do have a concept of gender. Crowley especially cares a lot about his gender presentation and the way he's addressed. Not only does he literally sell his soul for a bigger d*ck as a human ; as a demon he uses the same vessel where other demons are shown to move once they had to leave one ; and for the few hours Crowley's possessing a woman, he clearly states he should still be referred to as king.

This will all be used for homophobic & transphobic jokes in the show, but I'll get back to that later on. Gender does matter to Crowley's identity, and I think it could be extended to his sexuality.

I've seen numerous descriptions of it all saying Crowley's sexuality was "ambiguous" and I guess it is, as he never explicitly used any label. However "ambiguous" doesn't mean bi or pan. It doesn't mean anything besides the fact we can't draw a clear-cut conclusion of his sexuality.

Imo we can actually draw a clear-cut conclusion of Crowley's sexuality but yeh, I'm getting there.

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Let's take a look at canon events around Crowley & sexuality!

His character introduction is him enjoying making a homophobe man kiss him for a deal

It is rumoured that he was a demon's lover (Lilith's)

He heavily flirts with Bobby

He french kisses Bobby for a deal and takes a pic

He never kisses a woman on screen (tell me if I forgot anyone!)

He flirts with every single man he sees, and even more strongly when it's making the other uncomfortable

The other parent of Crowley's son is never mentioned nor even brought up

He has two orgies that we know of

He has sex with a demon who's possessing a woman (Lola) when he was addicted to human blood

He dates, has sex with, and asks Dean to rule Hell with him. He's in love with Dean

On late spn he drinks fruity drinks

He flirts with and implies he had sex with an angel (Naomi)

He flirts with Death (Billie)

He's into BDSM

I'm not gonna go into details with all the sexual stuff he says bc there's a lot.... But it's always about gay sex. (once again, if I'm forgetting smth pls tell me nicely)

Now, with all that I'd like to question specifically the elements people use to say Crowley is canonically attracted to women.

He has two orgies that we know of

There’s the one Crowley has while he’s himself possessing a woman ; iirc it’s a foursome with two other men and one woman. Crowley still counts as a King, as the show makes sure we know, admitedly this dialogue implies we should still think of him as a not-very-manly-man.

Honestly, if one is convinced Crowley is attracted to women based on this scene.. okay. Personally I don’t see it because the orgy is unplanned, it’s an opportunity Crowley takes. Is he even attracted to the two other men?? Who knows. We don’t even know if Crowley even touches the other woman, there’re so many ways to have group sex. Even if he did, having sex with one woman doesn’t make it impossible for him to be homosexual.

The second orgy is with Dean. Crowley describes it then: “We've done extraordinary things to triplets.” It’s interesting how before I went to check, I thought it was clear the triplets were women. But not at all! I’ve been tricked by heteronormativity myself. So this is up to interpretation. Even though the way the show doesn’t make sure we know the triplets were women is pretty telling (as I’ll talk about later).

It is rumoured that he was Lilith's lover

Well, this is a rumour. In this relationship Crowley would know Lilith as a demon possessing a woman, and Lilith would know Crowley as a demon possessing a man as well. Who's even to say they met in their vessels to sleep together. That's the kind of cases in which the ambiguity of Crowley human/demon situation makes it impossible to draw any kind of conclusion towards Crowley's attraction to women. Also if anything Lilith is clearly a lesbian lmao.

He has sex with Lola when he was addicted to human blood

Same thing here, the relationship is one of demon/demon. Though we do now they do meet in their vessels to sleep together. Besides that, the sex happens while Crowley is at a low point. She's the one bringing him human blood, which makes the sex more of a transaction than anything. It does fit a very grey area of consent which would be fair to question.

We can't know for sure whether the demon possessing the woman was a woman as well, but let's say she was: 1/ Crowley having sex once or twice with a woman doesn't prevent him from being homosexual. 2/ What is he seeing if not a demon's true form? 3/ Wasn't he in a self-destructive mental state?

It's a stretch, imo, to assume Crowley was attracted to her.

He flirts with and had sex with Naomi / flirts with Billie

This one is so ridiculous to me bc Naomi is an angel and as a demon, Crowley sees her true form. We don't even know who was her vessel when they had sex.

The flirt thing is interesting however, bc iirc Naomi and Billie are the only "women" we see Crowley actually flirt with. During the orgies or the demon sex there's no flirt involved. It's interesting bc, as Cas would say: "Naomi's vessel is a woman. Naomi is an angel."

Same case for Billie who's a reaper then Death. Spn is pretty unclear about how the whole thing works but we know reapers are kind of angels. In any case, I won't go as far as saying Billie has any connection to gender.

Moreover, the way Crowley flirts with them is pretty light next to everything else Crowley says to men. It's pretty personal, I'm aware, but I do relate a lot with the way Crowley flirts with them VS how I flirt with men just because (and I'm a lesbian).

Anyway! Both Naomi and Billie are supernatural creatures, which brings the count of women Crowley flirts with to... zero.

-> What I take from all that is that Crowley is attracted to men for sure ; to angels and demons ; and doesn't care about the genitalia involved in the sex he has. We have nothing about the kind of relationships he had as a human. His gender presentation matters a lot to him. The only long-term commitment he has is with Dean. I wouldn't even say he had a committed relationship with Gavin's other parent bc we don't know anything about them.

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But what's my deal with homosexual Crowley? One can wonder, if Crowley doesn't care about bodies, doesn't that mean he can still be written as pan?

No! First because sexual attraction isn't about genitalia (even if transphobes would argue the contrary but they're transphobic so...). And second, well....

I would refer to this point as "how do I know Crowley isn't attracted to women? bc Dean is"

I'm convinced that if the show wanted to write Crowley as anything other than a gay man, it would have been way more obvious.

This is a show who wrote Dean catcalling a faceless woman on the street, for no other reason than to remind the viewers Dean was attracted to women & to balance it with the following homoerotic scene.

One could say spn doesn't have lots of women characters to begin with, but that's my point exactly: when spn wants to show attraction towards women, they do find women for people to be attracted to. Hell, they even give Gavin some girlfriend but never ever bring up the topic of Gavin's other parent. Even though an entire episode is dedicated to learning about Crowley's past.

What's important to understand Crowley's sexuality isn't the people he slept with ; it's the people he doesn't show interest in.

The absence of something is the presence of the thing, blablabla. It's a way to look at homosexuality that heteronormativity makes hard to see because, unconciously, we don't tend to question attraction towards the expected gender. One would ask for a 10 pages essay on why a character is gay, but one would need only a 2 sec kiss to assure a character's heterosexuality or attraction towards the expected gender.

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In Crowley's case, his attraction to men is a huge part of his character right from the beginning (thanks god, at least no one's questioning that). Spn as a show that hears what the fans are saying and twists writing accordingly, is perfectly aware of that. Yet rather than pushing women at him along the course of the show to remind everyone how Not Gay Crowley is - the opposite happens.

Yeh, Lola, Naomi, Billie, they all happen in the later seasons. But even then, the show somehow can't write Crowley as attracted to a human woman.

What happens then is: not only does Crowley fall for Dean ; he engages in some BDSM play with Lucifer : and he switches from drinking only the finest Scotch to fruity cocktails.

The BDSM thing as well as the drink thing are choices rooted in stereotypes, that's how spn is! But it does canonize Crowley's homosexuality. They're depriving him of his "masculinity" as the show goes on, because they purposely write him as homosexual. I don't think spn would have ever written a bi or pan character that way.

We learned a few days ago that Crowley died in a gutter. He died in a gutter for a bigger d*ck. I'm just gonna refer to Oscar Wilde & Mika on this : "some of us in the gutter are looking up at the stars."

The "referred to as king" scene isn't about Crowley being a demon and so not caring about gender - it's the opposite. Other demons are the ones poiting out Crowley's vessel. This is a transphobic joke. It's the demon edition of the "gay boy in a dress" transmisogynistic trope.

Viewers aren't supposed to be on Crowley's side ; we're supposed to be giggling with the other demons while Crowley is being emasculated. Crowley gets a woman vessel because he's a not-very-manly-man, because he's a trans man, because he's homosexual.

And I know that bc Dean is written as bi, and all they're doing is reaffirming the way he does like women while being extra subtle with his love for men.

Meanwhile Crowley is losing influence and power, loses his authority as he loses his throne in Hell, gets humiliated by Lucifer, until all his character revolves around is his love for Dean. The way Crowley is then protrayed as some lovesick ex who can't move on is, imo, a straight man fantasy. Crowley's love is both used as predatory and as a tool to validate Dean's Peak Masculinity.

Spn has been burying their gays all along, and Crowley was right there being punished for not only being in love with Dean but for not being attracted to women. For never being able to be a "normal" guy. For never being able to be seen as a "normal" guy. For checking every homophobic stereotypes in the books. Crowley as a human dies because he's a trans man. Crowley as a demon dies because he's homosexual.

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That's what leads me to be uncomfortable with the way the fandom seems to have a consensus towards pansexual Crowley. (Once again: idc about people's personal hc of Crowley as pan, I just want to think critically about the way no one thinks twice about it & accepts it as canon so easily. Hell, just bc I dared to ask what started the pan Crowley confirmation I got accused of erasing his pansexuality. All I did was ask a question.)

To me, it feels like erasing everything his character went through because he was gay. And it seems to be taken from a reasoning which is going to assume Crowley is attracted to women.

I mean: the reasoning would go "oh, Crowley clearly has a non-straight sexuality -> he's attracted to men -> he's pan" His attraction to women being accepted by default, without needing any backup. And when I look at the canon I see nothing implying he'd be attracted to women. Taking Crowley's attraction to women for granted is following an heteronormative thinking.

Being into people isn't all about who one sleeps with. It's about love. And when we look at what spn shows about Crowley's close relationships, the only meaningful one he got is with Dean. When Rowena wants payback for Crowley making her kill Oskar, she goes for his son.

And it's SO interesting to me because if angels can't be in love because they don't have a soul - can demons? as they're beings with a destroyed soul? And if so, how powerful of Crowley to still fall in love with Dean Winchester.... the power of gay love :) (Crowley 🤝 Cas)

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To conclude all this with some more stuff to think about if, like me, you love questioning everything:

While it's not wrong per se to hc Crowley as pan, it can be worth questioning what's making us so sure we collectively just vibe with it? To me there's a few things: - As I was saying: heteronormative bias - Crowley being a non-fully-human character - Crowley being masculine (despite the show's attempts to erase that) - Crowley being into BDSM - Crowley flirting and making sexual remarks in every context

These, unconsciously, gives a vibe of a character who's "outside" of the gender norm, not making big deal of their sexuality, not even questioning it. This creates this idea of "ambiguity" around Crowley's sexuality. The way Crowley particularly seems to be really chill about sex, is a demon (so what does he know about gender?), and heavily flirty, ... is what most people will link to pansexuality. That doesn't mean thinking of Crowley as pan is being problematic™ ; this means in western medias that's what fills the "pansexual character" imagery (like basically: the Jack Harkness type).

However, when we look at it like that, none of these elements are defining of pansexuality. None of them are excluding him from homosexuality. If not stereotypes.

That's where it gets personal ; but it does make me feel like the huge consensus towards a pansexual Crowley (when there is no clear-cut evidence of it) is erasing the complexity of homosexual experiences. As I said at the begining: I'm happy if pansexual people can relate to Crowley ; everone's free to headcanon. But saying Crowley is canonically pansexual is a stretch - and a take rooted in homophobic stereotypes.

Imo Crowley may have been created with all these traits pushing towards a pan reading of his character. However, as the show went, he was clearly written as a homosexual man. The changes in his portrayal took a turn to be specifically homophobic. He gets imagery that only strictly homosexual characters got (such as drinking fruity cocktails like Aaron. Meanwhile Dean, on the same scene, is allowed beer & whiskey.)

We're used to taking spn's homophobic rep and jokes to make it our own. Yet it seems, when it comes to Crowley, the fandom doesn't see it.

Sometimes people aren't attracted to the gender heteronormativity expects them to be attracted to.......... sometimes people are gay and it's not an umbrella term.

#crowley spn #spn crowley #crowley #trans crowley #spn meta #supernatural #spn #so..... i went off once again #homophobia #transphobia #i just kept adding stuff to it lmao and i would STILL have stuff to say but this is enough #long post #spnprideweek

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theunbinary · 5 years

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Sometimes the people I follow reblog from terfs and I don’t know how to tell them. I don’t want to embarrass anyone, you know? It’s easy to get tricked, as terfs (and swerfs and other radfems) don’t always come out and say “I hate trans women and other trans people (or sex workers or w/e)”. At least, not in their bigger posts that blow up and get spread everywhere. You have to be able to hear the dog whistles, which are only audible to other radfems, the people they’re targeting, and those who choose to be in the know. So instead of going into peoples asks and telling them, here are some things to be aware of when you’re about to reblog something ostensibly feminist. Be on the look out for the following:

1) Does the blogger use the word “male” when “men” would be sufficient? Do they use “female” when “women” would make just as much if not more sense? Terfs have a preoccupation with genitalia and biology and often refuse to acknowledge that trans women are women, referring to them as biologically male instead of women.

2) Is their idea of “biology” extremely reductive? Is their understanding of primary sexual characteristics, as well as chromosomes limited? Does this seem to be where their understanding of biological sex begins and ends with no regard for other components of biological sex? Do they still make the XX is female, XY is male argument and refuse to talk into account intersex people (or worse, treat intersex as a deformity)? If their qualification for what makes a person a “woman” or a “man” is limited to what they were born with between their legs or what their chromosomes are and they hold that above the many other things that make a person a woman or a man or nonbinary, they’re probably a terf.

3) Do they use the terms “gender critical” or “gender abolitionist”? Do they talk about dismantling the concept of gender altogether? Do they claim everyone is nonbinary? Terfs and other radfems like to pretend they’re on the side of nonbinary and genderqueer folks by being “critical” of gender and claiming it would be a good thing if the concept of gender was done away with completely, ignoring (or just not caring about) the fact that gender identity is very important to many people. They would seek to define people based on physical sex (and only their reductive view of physical sex) rather than what each individual decides is their gender, effectively erasing trans people.

4) Does their url have the word “terf” in it? Probably a terf. Does their blog have the word “pussy” in it? Better check their blog tbh. These ones are kind of obvious.

5) Do they talk about “men” as if they’re all the root of every problem women face without any regard for intersectionality? Do they seem to forget that trans men, gay men, black men, disabled men, Hispanic men, and every other kind of man that isn’t an able-bodied, neurotypical, cisgender, heterosexual, white man even exist? When this is mentioned, do they ignore it? Do they ignore class and racial oppression? Are they capable of tracing back every issue women today face to the patriarchy?

6) Are they quoting Andrea Dworkin, Janice Raymond, Mary Daly, Germaine Greer, Shelia Jeffreys, or Cathy Brennan to name a few? These are very famous trans exclusionary radical feminists. If the quotes sounds like something these women would say you might want to do some research on the women they’re quoting and spreading around before you reblog.

7) Do they push the idea of political lesbianism, the idea that women need to self-segregate from all men and sound either exclusively date women or refrain from having relationships with any man whatsoever? Do they push the idea that all men (again, disregarding intersectionality and family bonds) are dangerous predators mooching off the women in their lives? Do they state or imply that women should be “critical” of the relationships they enter into with men, especially in the romantic or sexual area? Do they seem to imply that all heterosexual relationships are inferior or inherently abusive and/or unbalanced in favor of the man?

The trouble with terfs is that they’re sneaky. They can talk about things that seem to make sense on the surface and issues that do affect women, but underneath there is a current of hatred and exclusion. They’re not easy to spot unless you know what you’re looking for and even then their talking points can and do spread *because* they talk about injustices that women face, often in ways that disguises their true feelings and motives. While I will never say that women can’t and shouldn’t talk about the pressures and oppression they face under the patriarchy and how that system is upheld, I ask you, please, pay attention to who’s saying these things. If someone encourages you to be critical of someone else’s gender or who they’re dating, this isn’t the kind of person who has everyone’s best interest at heart. Someone who wants you to be distrustful of all men, who makes you question whether or not your happy relationships are hurting other people, and who makes you feel bad for your gender or sexuality is not someone who’s looking out for you. Terfs are damaging to all trans people, but trans women especially.

Please, think before you reblog. If something looks a little fishy - perhaps a little too aggressive or reductive or too focused on biology, please do your research before you reblog.

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feminismforlesbians · 7 years

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I mostly see accounts of people who were terfs in their youth and changed their mind. What made you go the other way?

@bluegone

I’m finally back at my laptop.

(I had this huge essay going in reply to this and then realized that absolutely no one would read of all it and started from scratch).

I’d have to agree with some of the people who commented on this through replies or reblogs while I was away—-I have never seen someone who was a “terf in their youth” shift entire ideologies into liberal feminism. You’ll see a lot of people apologize profusely for being a transphobic cis gay before opening their eyes to tumblr dot com and becoming an instant trans inclusionist. That means that as young 14, 15, 16 year olds (their youth) they had never heard of gender identity vs sex or else didn’t know that attraction based on sex, which was their natural attraction, was a bad thing. It doesn’t mean they were “terfs”. It means they were young gay or bisexual kids who hadn’t ever been exposed to gender theory before and now have subscribed fully to it, apologies for the past crime of feeling sex-based attraction always ready to be offered up. They didn’t change their minds from one ideology to another; they simply subscribed to one without comparison to anything else.

I actually fully engaged in one movement, then consciously made the decision to subscribe to a different one.

I’ve been on this hellsite for a very long time. I’m 21 now and I was either 14 or just newly 15 when I first ~made an account. The mainstream “LGBT and feminist movement” on here is liberal trans-inclusive ace-inclusive feminism. It’s large, it’s the default, it’s the social justice community you participate in unless 1) you know there’s a different one you value and you find it or 2) you find a different one through the mainstream and value it (a la me). This mainstream collective has enjoyed trends such as monosexual privilege, gender bang pt 1, mogaii, split attraction model, gender bang pt 2, “q*eer”, and others. I was involved in all aforementioned and the others in between. I believed myself to be bisexual when I first started, because I knew I was attracted to girls and I assumed I was attracted to guys. The monosexual privilege, mogaii, and split attraction model trends all did fantastic jobs of reinforcing this internalized heterosexism but also created a substantial amount of internalized lesbophobia. Gender bang pt 1 and the split attraction model together also created some short-lived but intense body sex dysphoria (wherein I would find myself browsing through packers and binders and shutting my eyes while using the restroom, despite still knowing myself to be a woman) because between the pressure to hyperdefine every aspect of my attraction and to deconstruct my gender, I went through the extra identity crisis that was never needed. This is all a very compressed version of the experience, and is more of a background for the events that started the momentum to my switch in ideologies.

The tumultuous gender and sexuality crises that I personally experienced as a result of these trends lasted from about the ages 14 to 18; I didn’t start to drift away from the libfem community until I was 20. It was not the personal crises that made me leave, and it’s not my crying about them, about my individual woe-is-me tale that makes me a “terf”. It’s the foundation, though, and that’s why it’s worth mentioning. So you are aware I am not talking out of my ass when I describe things in the libfem community, like language used, priorities made, or the effects on young and/or gay people. I’m not talking out of my ass because I was fully subscribed to it for years; enthusiastically and wholeheartedly. It was my community.

By the time I was about 18-19 I had finally just let myself be a girl and the sex dysphoria had dissipated along with the frantic attempts to gender-trend myself so that I could make my sexuality “make sense”; I knew I was attracted to girls and though I assumed I must have been attracted to guys, I couldn’t describe how and gender-trending seemed to be the answer. I let that go, the gender-trending part, and then I was just a “cis” bisexual girl. I was okay with that; I accepted that trans people were The Most Oppressed. I knew (and still know) that trans people are deserving of safety, and health care, and that dysphoria can be life threatening. I was content with the standards that trans people came first. Trans women are women and trans men are men, check your cis privilege, and so on.

And then somewhat of a trio of things of happened in quick succession: there was finally that “duh…I’m a lesbian” moment, a wave of gender theory craze that I call gender bang pt 2, and then I got involved in the ace diskhorse. When I finally let myself be a lesbian it was like…learning to fly. For about two seconds. I just felt free from the discomfort and frustration and pain I’d put myself through trying to convince myself I was attracted to men when I really just wasn’t. And then I came out as a lesbian on here, on this hellsite, and I got people telling me, immediately, that that was great as long as I wasn’t One Of Those Lesbians. The terfy ones. Suddenly it became imperative that every time I talked about women I said and trans women. It was with my own internal freedom to be attracted only to women that I finally saw that the reverse was true in this community I was a part of. I was friends with straight women, bisexual women, pansexual women, q*eer women, q*eer nonbinary people, and many trans people. And they were all attracted to men. And what I watched was how normalized and encouraged attraction to men was—how the “thirst” for men was being called empowering and sexy and “q*eer”. Maybe it is empowering and sexy (it’s certainly not “q*eer”), but not when attraction women was either hush hushed or practically infantilized. Attraction to men was loud and suggestive and sexual and humorous and encouraged; attraction to women was…not. This I noticed first. Men and women. And then I noticed something else. It was okay to connect men to penises. It was assumed, by nearly every person around me, that when one “thirsted for that dick” they were talking about a man and that was okay. If someone said “I really want to fuck her”, without even citing whether “cis” or trans, the entire community was on alert. If someone were to say “I would eat her out”, there would be goddamn riots in the name of transphobia. This was where I started think that it was kind of fucked up that people could be “transphobic” in talking about men and penises have it celebrated as feminist, and then utterly destroyed for talking about women and vulvas. This was where I started to wonder why it was okay for my straight female friend to talk about her thirst for men using explicit details involving dick, but it wasn’t okay for me, a lesbian, to have a sexual attraction to vulvas. This was where I started to want to ask questions about sex-based attraction (but I didn’t, because you don’t ask questions in libfem communities. You just accept, validate, and welcome everybody and shut your goddamn mouth if you don’t.)

This overlapped with the gender bang pt 2, which was a reinforcement of the gender theory that had been prevailing for a while but was more significant to me at the time. While I was now starting to wonder why people attracted to men could specify male genitalia in their attraction and lesbians weren’t permitted to do the same for women, there was beginning a larger push to pretend like biological sex didn’t exist at all. There was a push for people to believe that only gender, a concept of personal identity, factored into attraction. It was a push that made it so a woman was only a woman because she said so, and to speak of biological sex was to be transphobic. It was a push that deconstructed my womanhood and my sexuality in one blow. It was a push that further amplified discussions of “dick”, except now where my lack of participation in such talks would have been unnoticeable, it was a “red flag”. It was upsetting. It wasn’t trans people that were upsetting to me, or trans women, or trans “validity”. I wasn’t angry about the fact that trans people existed, I didn’t wish them ill or dead. I was angry that my femaleness, my womanhood, the part of who I was for which this movement claimed to stand for—feminism—was now the enemy. It was being erased. I was angry that my sexuality, which I had had barely a breath to revel in, which I had had denied to me through all this other genderist bullshit, was now treated as a “risk factor” for being a transphobe—the ultimate evil. I couldn’t say any of this, though, I couldn’t ask any questions, I couldn’t differ even slightly in opinion, or disagree with something or have some fucking boundaries, because this is the libfem circles we are talking about. So, instead, I just buried my thoughts because part of me felt that maybe I was evil for thinking that way.

And right around then I stumbled into the ace diskhorse. Yes, that one area within liberal feminism where there is the slightest variety—I say slightest because in fact, if you openly suggest ace exclusion as a libfem, you will be decimated just as you would for criticizing genderism. However, I say variety, because there are a decent amount of libfems who are ace exclusionists but subscribe to literally everything else in libfem rhetoric. That’s where I found myself, on another tiny blog, lurking curiously in these trans-inclusive gender-not-sex q*eer ace-exclusive posts. (Mind, I am ace exclusive. But that’s not what makes me a terf. Just an aphobe, apparently). This was where I learned that, hey, it was possible to not agree with every single little thing that the tumblr mainstream declared “valid”. I had never strayed away from the mainstream because I didn’t know of any other circle except, you know, terfs, which were obviously evil—so why would I have ever bothered to look at a so-called terf’s blog or in a “terfy” tag? I hadn’t. I hadn’t ever seen anything but the tumblr mainstream all very forcefully agreeing with each other, supported by kawaii banners and not much else. Yet here was the tiny ace-exclusive corner, where people actually discussed like, concepts, and constructs, and facts, and histories, and actual manifestations of oppressions. I saw people actually asking goddamn questions.

A few times, I would see an ace-inclusive libfem telling an ace-exclusive libfem that they were evil fucking aphobes that were “just as bad as terfs”. Privately, I would think, no, no I’m not like a terf. Terfs are evil! They want to kill trans women and are total fetishists! I don’t want to kill anyone, I know trans people. Just because I think maybe being female matters and that maybe it’s okay to be attracted to sex, does not mean I’m a terf.

So it was all happening in congruence: I was a lesbian finally free from her own internalized lesbophobia, looking to embrace and revel in my sexuality after hating it for so long, as the community I trusted told me that it was wrong to desire vulva but empowering to suck dick. I was starting to look up and outside and thinking about asking questions just as I discovered that questions could be asked. I was thinking.

I can identify a moment that could be called the catalyst.

I was perusing my ace-exclusionist corner, and an ace-exclusionist libfem had made a post about asexuality that a “terf” had dared agree with. There was no mention of trans people or sex or gender on either end and still the libfem said:

“go get hit by a truck and die, terf”

It was so brutally violent and since the “terf” had said nothing that was trans or gender or sex related, I thought that this must mean that terfs are so universally evil they’re worthy of fucking death threats just for commenting on a post. And then I worried the thoughts I’d been having, the anger about devaluing my sex and sexuality in the name of trans activism, were terfy. And so I clicked on that terf’s blog, to see how maliciously cruel and hateful these terfs were so that I could reaffirm my previous loyalty to trans-inclusive feminism.

Except what happened was that I clicked on that terf’s blog and she wasn’t the spawn of Satan. I clicked on people she reblogged from and people they reblogged from and soon found myself lurking in honest-to-God terf circles. It wasn’t violent. It wasn’t evil. No one was asking for the rapes and murders of trans women. No one was fetishizing women. There were black terfs and brown terfs and disabled terfs and lesbian terfs and bisexual terfs and young terfs and older terfs. These terfs weren’t at all the kawaiied pasteled hivemind that libfem was. They actually talked about things; they explored, explained, and support ideas, history, facts, and values. It was invigorating. They didn’t all agree all the time all at once and no one was threatening lives for having a different perspective. Their commonality? In the most basic definition, these trans exclusive radical feminists believed in sex-based oppression, in sex-based attraction, and in the prioritization of women in feminism. Obviously there’s much more to it than that; that’s what made it so fascinating, this movement that had a foundation and entire layers of analyses and arguments and facts and history and convictions.

I lurked and I lurked and I lurked and then I said fuck it, and I made a blog. I believe that gender is a social construct, that biological sex is fact, that sex-based oppression exists; I don’t want trans people dead, I don’t think trans people don’t deserve health care, I don’t think trans people don’t deserve safety. There’s more, but those are the baselines.

So I guess now I’m a terf that switched sides. And apparently deserving of things like getting hit by a truck and dying. Comes with the territory when you decide to be part of a movement that asks questions and doesn’t deny reality.

#terf #feminism #trans activism

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the-ghost-of-jason-todd · 6 years

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On Identity Politics

honestly one of the biggest reasons people use to justify questioning someone else’s label and redefining it FOR them is “what if they’re wrong and they decide down the line that they’re x instead of y?”

i’m talking the “maybe you’re not non-binary like you think, maybe you’re just dealing with internalized homophobia” stuff, we’ve all seen some version of it.

“maybe you’re not a non-dysphoric trans person, maybe you’re actually just cis but you hate gender roles”

“maybe you’re not actually ace, maybe you’re just not ready to come to terms with your sexuality”

“maybe you’re not bisexual, maybe you just don’t want to let go of compulsory heterosexuality”

on the surface that kind of sentiment sounds caring and sympathetic, but it’s actually really insidious because it doesn’t often mean “i care about you and i just want you to know yourself” like people assume it does. it really means something closer to “i don’t want people who are questioning/who’re going to change their mind to be in my space because i feel like it cheapens the label and cuts down my credibility” or, sometimes: “i don’t think x is a valid label to choose and i think i can convince people who are ‘confused’ to come to my side, which will make us stronger as a whole”

that fear response sitting casually behind gatekeeping behaviors is there in almost every thread i see where there are themes of _____ vs _____. like, TERF rhetoric? radfems (often lesbians) are afraid that trans women dilute or pervert femininity, specifically feminine sexuality. truscum? trans people are afraid that resources will go to people who ‘don’t need them’ and not to people who desperately do. biphobia/acephobia? (often) gays/lesbians are afraid that other gays/lesbians don’t want to admit their sexuality and that behavior adds to homophobia.

note that all of these tie in to our opression. if there was no misogyny there would be no reason to have TERFs. it’s a defensive mechanism: the persistent worry that someone unsavory will get into a safe space is a fair thing to devote time to (a little time--basing your whole platform on exclusion like a TERF is a whole different issue). our survival sometimes hinges on being able to weed out threats, to protect ourselves. we have a history of police raids and active shooters in queer spaces, of COURSE we worry about that.

but the persistent worry that, for instance, someone who says they’re a lesbian is actually a trans man, or that someone who says they’re a woman is *gasp* amab, OR EVEN that someone who claims to be trans is actually just cis but with huge hangups about their body--it’s not a worry that’s really defensible. TERF logic is not defensible. it’s all built on dividing lines that just don’t exist.

now, i’ll be the first to admit: sometimes you can help people out by talking about big trends. pointing out internalized homophobia is not the problem here. neither is talking about your personal journey from non-binary to cis lesbian! but the thing is, queer identity isn’t a ‘big trend’ kind of thing, and you can’t apply your own journey to anyone else. people don’t choose to be queer on a whim because someone told them to (and if they do, they grow out of it pretty fucking fast, it’s not generally desireable to get spit on daily). queer identities and labels are incredibly personal things. each one is different. and the secret ingredient, chemical X if you will, is the fact that paradigms are fluid as hell. identities are fluid, hell PEOPLE are fluid.

LGBTQ+ identifiers, unlike other identifiers like race, can apply to anyone at any time by design. generally speaking, gender and sexuality are applied at birth. we’re assigned a gender based on one physical trait (genitalia) and are then expected to fit into the corresponding social role, which includes a hetero sexuality where you’re supposed to marry the opposite sex and make 2.5 babies. the fact that genetics hands you a mixed bag of random traits and SOCIAL NORMS sort you into one category versus another means that deviation from the ‘norm’ can be undertaken or realized by ANYONE. you can’t wake up one day and say that you’re black now, lily-white genetics be damned, but gender and sexuality? they only persist so long as you’re willing to play along. for cishet people, that’s forever. they have no serious complaints. for queer people, it’s obviously a different story.

what does that have to do with identity politics? well, it means that anyone who deviates can pick up just about any label. some labels are tied to specific cultures (hijra, two-spirit) and some are tied to specific circumstances (transfem/transmasc) but FOR THE MOST PART, it’s about how you, an individual, personally relate to gender and sexuality. and the kicker? there is nothing set in stone! definitions change, people change, people learn new things, the closet exists, and you can’t worry about what everyone else is doing. when someone else does some deep thinking and decides that they’re non-binary instead of transfem, it literally has nothing to do with you! it can’t have anything to do with you because it’s an IDENTITY that isn’t yours, and the only reason you have an instinctive fear about people changing their minds is that deviation itself is terrifying.

when the entire world questions you at every turn, you WANT to dig your heels in and define XYZ by carving it into a rock. it’s a defensive position. the cishet world won’t take us seriously unless we’re united and normalized, right? they have to UNDERSTAND US as a prerequisite for ACCEPTING US and we really need the cishets to accept us so we stop dying. every time someone else deviates the same way as you, you feel validated, and you feel more strength in numbers in a world where you are EXTREMELY marginalized. but you need to watch yourself because someone doing it differently shouldn’t INVALIDATE you. you might have an urge to call someone out on being fake or a liar or whatever, but that’s just blatantly not how it works because you can’t fake being human. that’s all queer is, man. it’s being human in a way that society doesn’t like.

check yourself before you wreck yourself--be firm in your own journey. realize that there is no one else exactly like you. remember that no matter what we do, the cishet world isn’t going to welcome us with open arms, and an artificial divide between dysphoric and non-dysphoric won’t make the difference between acceptance and persecution. neither will cis woman vs trans woman. neither will ‘real’ identity vs ‘fake’ identity, especially not when real and fake are your own personal opinions.

we’re all deviants, yo. bottom line. queer isn’t a monolith, but neither is it an excel chart where The Community checks a box when you’re doing it “right” because it’s the “right” way that we’re all deviating from. queer identity is more like a giant mess of a venn diagram that sometimes doesn’t even make sense, and that’s a good thing! it actually makes us stronger in the face of oppression when we don’t have just One Approved Voice that they can silence. i think it’s hella cool that a thousand and one different identities exist because the more queer people there are the less solid ground the queerphobes have to stand on. and also, just as a general rule: if you enjoy calling people fake, you’re emulating our oppressors, and that ain’t cool.

TL;DR: remember that queer is deviation from the norm. there is no way to deviate “correctly” and you need to let go of the idea that anyone else’s journey invalidates your own. labels are self-defined for a reason.

#26th #March #2018 #March 26th 2018 #queer politics #transgender politics #long post #sorry i had just one more rant in me #queer solidarity #these posts are juuuust barely squeaking by in the 'consistency' department #i could have probably made this into two posts really but i'm tired and i need to stop ranting #also i'm trying to cut down on tag essays where i just tack on things that could have gone into the post itself #eh #anyway

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mykidsgay · 7 years

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Defining: Transphobia

By Alaina Monts

Welcome to another installment of our “Defining” series, where we unpack various terms and identities. Do you have a word that needs defining? Let us know!

Content Warning: This post includes discussion of violence against trans people.

Define It

Transphobia is the hatred of transgender people. Transphobia is typically accompanied by the belief that trans people don't deserve respect or rights. Choosing to marginalize someone because they are transgender is a form of transphobic violence.

Explain It

While transphobia's root word, phobia, implies fear, transphobia has little to do with fear and everything to do with hate. To be transphobic is to believe that there is something inherently wrong with being transgender, and that trans people are lesser than cisgender people. Transphobia relies on the belief that a person's gender should match the sex they were assigned at birth. It ignores the way that both gender and sex are constantly constructed and performed every day, and instead implies that these are static, pre-determined qualities.

One of the most prevalent types of transphobia in Western cultures is transmisogyny: the specific hatred and disgust directed at transgender women. Transmisogyny is also perhaps one of the most dangerous types of transphobia as well; it's one of the reasons why many trans women are overwhelmingly poor, homeless, have statistically short life spans, and face fear of violence and death more than trans men and cis people do.

Transphobia is violent, and sometimes that violence is overt and easy to spot. For example, there have been over 20 murders of transgender people in 2017 so far. All of these people were killed because they were transgender. The Stonewall Riot—considered by many to be the first major moment in the LGBTQIA rights movement—was started because transgender women of color were reacting to the transphobic violence of the NYPD.

Physical violence isn't the only way a person can be transphobic. Purposefully using the wrong pronouns to talk about someone is an act of transphobia. Legislation banning people from using the bathrooms that match their gender is transphobia. Whether or not you physically harm someone, creating an environment where trans people don't feel safe and protected is a form of transphobia.

Sometimes it's not as easy to spot transphobia because, unfortunately, it's so prevalent in Western culture. Transphobia goes hand in hand with cissexism; an assumption that all people are the gender they "appear" to be. When you assume that a person with breasts is a woman or a person with an Adam's apple is a man, you're perpetuating cissexism and transphobia. This sort of everyday transphobia is harder to combat because it seems to be everywhere—think of how many television shows still use a man in a dress as a gag. When popular culture does things like this, they perpetuate the idea that trans people are pretending or playing a role, instead of living their truth. These seemingly harmless jokes lead to the ostracization and death of many trans people.

We combat transphobia by making people feel welcome. No one should be making assumptions about people's genders, or jokes about how someone dresses or sounds. We need to encourage lawmakers to pass legislation that keeps the most vulnerable protected, instead of endangering their lives even more. To quote the TSA, "If you see something, say something." Don't let friends and family members get away with casual transphobia—ally yourself with trans folks by correcting cis people who mess up.

Debunk It

Transphobia is rational.

It is not. Unless we are intimate with a person, there is no logical need for us to know what someone's genitalia or reproductive organs look like. Transphobia, more than anything, is nosy. It's a desire to know what a person's junk looks like in order to determine something you consider essential about that person. Genitalia doesn't tell us anything essential about a person, so needing to know about someone's genitalia before deciding whether or not you can respect them and treat them like human beings is irrational.

Transphobia keeps people safe.

Part of the way people rationalize transphobia is by arguing that it keeps people safe. This is inherently false. A pervasive myth right now is that transphobia, especially transphobic legislation, will protect (cisgender) people from sexual assault. But statistically, all these laws do are put transgender people in more danger. There is no proof that forcing a trans person to disclose their status will keep anyone safer. There is proof, however, that forced disclosure will put transgender people in danger. A quick news search will show you that most trans people who've experienced violence at the hands of a cis person dealt with it after the cis person found out that they were trans—sometimes even when this information was voluntarily shared. People who think their transphobia will keep them safe are kidding themselves.

LGB people can't be transphobic.

Transphobia is not just something heterosexual people do; cisgender LGB folks can be transphobic. Cis LGB folks often equate a person’s gender to their genitalia, and will say things like "I'm a gold star lesbian, I've never seen a penis!" as if women only can have vaginas or "I'm gay, I wouldn't even know what to do with a vagina!" as if men can only have penises. The cis LGB community even perpetuates transphobia with casual comments like "bisexual people are attracted to men and women," ignoring a wide range of nonbinary transgender identities. Cis LGB people also sometimes appropriate language that becomes a slur when it's used by those who don't identify as trans.

Only trans women and men experience transphobia.

The fact that there's so little discussion about nonbinary genders is, in and of itself, a form of transphobia. The constant erasure of those who don't identify as a binary gender (i.e. male or female) is transphobic violence. While trans women and men often experience violence because their gender appears "wrong" to some people, nonbinary trans folks often experience violence because their genders are unreadable. Being able to place bodies into categories of man or woman is a large part of how our societies have decided to organize themselves. When people don't fit into either category, they become unrecognizable, dangerous, and susceptible to violence.

Finally, for a discussion of what homophobia is, check out Defining: Homophobia!

Be sure to check out the rest of The Defining Series right here!

***

Click here to read about our brilliant contributors!

#my kid is gay #my kid is trans #my kid is transgender #defining #transphobia #lgbt #lgbtq #lgbtqia

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