I feel like a lot of people's idea of why transmasc erasure happens is taken in bad faith ('the queer community needs an underclass' 'we're still women to everyone so we barely even exist' among some takes that are genuinely transmisogynist, what the fuck guys) so I'm just gonna put forth my theory on why we don't see more.

For a lot of people, especially in the queer community, men = privileged. This isn't an off the wall concept, male privilege is very real and very well documented. An effort needs to be made to platform more women, and this includes trans women. And that’s good! But then the oppositional sexism starts seeping in. Trans women are women. Trans men are men. Women are disenfranchised and should be uplifted and have the spotlight on them more. Therefore, men, including trans men, do not need to be platformed or given extra attention, because they have male privilege.

But that's like...kinda missing the forest for the trees, right? Or missing the trees for the forest, maybe? Yes, a trans man is a man, but an out trans man is 1) NOT going to benefit from male privilege the same way a cis man is going to and 2) is STILL disenfranchised, on the basis of being visibly queer. Something that is true for a trans woman does not necessarily mean the opposite must be true for a trans man, man and woman are not opposites, and neither are their places in society- this isn't even touching on how often nb people are arbitrarily shoved into gendered boxed in order to either be 'woman (disenfranchised' or 'man (privileged)' which I should not have to say at this point is not how this works.

Lemme be clear here- I'm not pointing fingers or implicating ANYONE here, I think the reason we see less and hear from and about transmascs within the queer community COMES from a good place! The intentions are good! But as with most things the issue sorts comes down to treating this as a binary issue, when it really shouldn't be! That's all.

I'm not an expert and I don't exist in people's heads, this could be it, I could be completely off base, I dunno, I just learned about oppositional sexism and it's given me some insights, so. Idk

Wait wdym? Do you think fic is bad?

i'm getting canceled tonight i guess.

if you actually did a good a faith interpretation of my post you know it's not really ABOUT fanfiction at all, i actually write fanfiction myself. i'm not sharing here because it's overwhelmingly bad fic that i write exclusively as wish-fulfilment or for self-projection, but at least i'm self-aware about it. i am ALSO one of the people who reads ze Books™️, although most of the academic material i consume are nonfiction, so this whole thing is particularly annoying to me. the crux of the matter is that, if you're a little younger you might've missed it, but this website was a hotbed of scalding takes like 'dante's divine comedy is literally fanfiction', 'something something is literally fanfiction' when the thing in question barely counts as a transformative work and, in fact, it weakens the definition of transformative work in itself to try to apply it to literally anything that exhibits an ounce of intertextuality. plenty of takes that are... true, but require some nuance, focused on the idea of transformative fandom as a place defined by its presence of overwhelmingly female and disproportionately queer (occasionally, though disputedly, nonwhite) content creators and the ways in which transformative fan content could be interpreted as a space of defiance to cisheteropatriarchy in the way it permeates traditional media. a third, less common but still relevant take was the focus on how certain fandoms such as trek and doctor who have a long history of involvement in real-world civil rights issues and progressive politics. so this kind of take has been the dominant view on tumblr and transformative fandom for a good decade now, perhaps longer, and the people with this kind of takes can sometimes be a little... obnoxious. and the majority of people on transformative fandom (regardless of wether or not the fandom is disproportionately composed of nonwhite individuals or not, by sheer virtue of american demographics and this site`s heaily skewed userbase, the majority will still be white) are white, and like any other space dominated by white people, fandom has often been a vehicle for white supremacy. "Stitch Media Mix" talks about this in-depth. the discourse on fandom racism and ways in which transformative fandom as a whole contribute to racialized stereotypes, hierarchies, and deeper problems within online culture has led to a lot of people with grievances with fandom, many of whom are women of color, to develop an entire online identity built around the concept of being "critical of fandom", which is a very weird thing to do with fandom is literally billions of people, not a unified demographic, and that being critical of something can mean a WIDE amount of things; which in turn has led to a lot of people insulating themselves completely from any criticism of fandom as being inherently in bad faith, which a weird thing to do when literally ANY sphere of society should be open to criticism. people taking critiques of media they consume and taking critiques of their own critiques as personal attacks are abound here and make everything worse. so a fairly recent (mid2018ish, definitely post the insanity of reylo discourse but before sarah z blew up in popularity) trend has been that people in these communities isolate more and more and the general discourse has effetively resulted in people with differing takes in fanfiction specifically but fandom as a Whole (which is, again very weird to say because fandom is not 'a Whole' because there's no unifying element to different fandoms) only interacting with each other in hostile ways. and increasingly, in my personal sphere, a lot of people are positioning themselves in the "fandom critical" (AGAIN, WEIRD THING TO SAY, WHAT DOES IT EVEN MEAN, PLEASE USE WORDS WITH PRECISION) sphere, and I tend to take that "side" myself, but i specifically do not think framing this as a team A or team B thing is useful. this culture war was in the buildup.

last week a post by a user i follow recently became popular. the post itself was a critique that i.. do not necessarily agree with. it was ultimately about the idea of easily-consumable popular media being seen as an acceptable form of exclusive media engagement by people in the "pro-fandom" sphere, and how the insidiousness of this line of thinking has to do with how capitalist media production is designed to spread, and how fandom AS A TREND, not specifically any individuals or any fanworks, can empower capitalism. the post specifically did NOT use the kindest possible words, but that was what they were trying to say. howelljenkins also has really good takes on the subject, albeit from a different angle.

anyway because this is a circular culture war, the result was as follows: 1) a bunch of pro-fandom types refuse to actually make a charitable reading of the post and insist the user in question hates fandom and thinks people under capitalism shouldn't have things that are Fun, and should Only Read Theory and keep sending anon hate to several blogs in the opposing sphere, therefore proving the point that fandom sometimes prevent people from being able to engage critically with things; 2) a bunch of anti-fandom types who defined their entire identity on hating fandom being like "haha look at these cringe people" instead of trying to understand why a demographic overwhelmingly composed of marginalized people would feel strongly to posts that use inflammatory language against an interest of theirs, thereby proving the point that most criticism of fandom is divorced from actual fan content and is vaguely defined. the reason this is a culture war that actually deserves attention (unlike most fandom culture wars, which are just really granular ship wars made into social justice issues for clout) is that, for the most part, both of these groups are mostly people with college degrees, many of whom will contirbute to academia in the coming years. fan studies is a relevant field. these discussions have repercussions in wider media criticism trends, and this is why i can't really stand it or just passively ignoring it the way i do with most other inconsequential discourse. like it's genuinely upsetting seeing almost every single tumblr user, most of whom should know better, patting themselves in the back for their inability to read things in a way that doesn't feed into preexisting cultural hostilities in fan spaces.

How to put this-

What are the ethics of using queer coded characters and themes in a narrative that has no explicitly queer characters?

Welp, that question can be asked of many stories in media. Like, a metric shit ton. A lot. But since Lore Olympus is the flavour of the week (month? year?) for my brain, that's what I'll be applying this question to. And right away, asap, I'm talking critically about Lore Olympus. Critically as in taking a subject and thinking about what themes are in it and what those themes mean to me as a reader, not critically as in badmouthing it. Also, I'm no expert and I've only read my favourite chapters fifty million times, the other chapters maybe three times. So there's stuff I could have missed, please feel free to correct me. Also also I will be using the word queer a lot because that's what I am and what I'm talking about.

Just wanted to make that crystal queer.

Alrighty, queer-coded characters in Lore Olympus. Hello Eros, nice to be talking about you again. He's a fan favourite for some pretty good reasons. Compelling romantic sideplot, clear adversary to the asshat, and he's just plain fun. There can be plenty of heavy content when he's around, but he's also the guy that lightens the mood. Some of the faces he makes-fucking priceless. And hoo boy does he come off as the gay best friend. Romantic advice, shopping trips, make overs, the squeeing, those are some very old tropes. But he's not the gay best friend. Or at least, so vaguely bi/pan/etc that it can be written off as none of the above. The only hint we get that he's not straight is that orgy mentioned waaay back in the beginning. After that we get his backstory with Psyche and no mention of other interests since. The gay best friend trope was made when hollywood and equivalents stopped being quite so nasty to the LGBTQ+ community, but not quite to the point of queer positivity. It took signifiers that were used maliciously in the past (feminine aspects and interests) and put a humerous spin on them. Ah look, it's a guy that can expertly apply make up, how funny and nonthreatening he is. Maybe it was that funny and nonthreatening bit that the author was going for. Both Persephone and the readers just endured some pretty awful shit, so here's a new person for her support system that isn't threatening at all and brings along some lighter atmosphere. Super flamboyant and never shown to be sexually attracted to her-that's perfect, in you go.

And honestly, seeing a man that's in a relationship with a woman whose also in touch with his emotions and feminine side, that's pretty great. But it comes in a narrative completely without queer characters. When I first saw him I was pretty sure he was a stereotype. Now that I know he isn't, I feel mixed. Straight dudes should be able to be soft. But a story with so many characters, that talks seriously about their complicated inner lives, with all these romantic relationships, all that with no queer representation? Ehhhhhhh-

Getting to the endpoint a little early there, so onto the other queer coded characters. Most notable are Athena and Artemis. Athena is very androgynous in her design. And Artemis has a very telling moment with Persephone in which she tries to push the conversation away from the danger zone of her personal feelings. A loud, embarrassed exclamation that she isn't attracted to anyone? Yeah I've seen that one before. And here's where I'd like to think somewhat positively, because this is going somewhere. It might just be a similar line as Persephone, being torn about her membership with the eternal maidens. Or Lore Olympus Artemis may very well be a lesbian or asexual as her mythic counterpart has been. There's a lot of potential in her storyline.

Heck, there's a lot of potential all over this story. Greek mythology is filled to the brim with LGBTQ+ people. Skip Zeus and Apollo, because fuck those guys. We've got Achilles and Patroclus as the most well-known, but to be fair the mortals don't heavily feature in this one. Athena was bi, Hermes was bi, Dionysus isn't born yet but again, super bi. Aphrodite and Poseidon are both in open relationships within the story, and oh hey bi the way in the myths. Just saying, the greeks were very very gay.

But even if they weren't. Guess what. When you write a story of your very own, you can make your characters be anything. Case and point with Hera. This is a very, very different version of Hera. Sure, she can be capricious and act on a whim. But this isn't the same goddess that committed cruelties against women that Zeus forced himself on. At least to our knowledge. Nerp, this author has reinterpreted her to be a very sympathetic woman, and that's without changing what she went through. Hera was always someone that endured a lot of crap from her husband, but I didn't feel bad for her when I read her stories in class because hey, she was a vindictive shrew. By changing the patriarchal perspective that has some pretty strong opinions on women scorned, to the perspective of a woman author sympathetic to the woman character who is constantly shit on by everyone around her, the author has improved on the original subject material. Change, it's a good thing.

Ok, queer themes. Again I'd like to make a point right away, and the point here is the themes I'm about to talk about don't just affect queer people. These are lived experiences for many. But being kept naive of an outside world, being unable to explore your sexuality, people trying to override you when you tell them what's best for you and your body, are all things that deeply affect the queer community. There's a very good reason this fandom has so many LGBTQ+ members. Many moments in this story are affirming to us, and that's a good thing. This story also has a lot to say about gender roles. Persephone is the most recent of women that people are looking to use for their own selfish advancement. Hera has a very powerful line about sacrificing her power and potential to make Zeus feel comfortable and happy. And boy is that a line that fits millions of women and afabs throughout history. Making people comfortable by keeping a part of yourself shoved down, whether it's your ability in a field of work or your identity. Or maybe your disability. Or your religion. Your background. Lore Olympus hits pretty hard with a very real feeling of sacrificing bits of yourself to make what people see more palatable, easier for them to deal with. Hera and Persephone have breakdowns over these forced versions of themselves, the facade that's too much to keep up.

These problems don't exist in a bubble. They are problems that weave through many different subcultures and peoples. And unfortunately, some affected people can be excluded when such problems are addressed. I don't think the author decided to be exclusive on purpose. The kindest interpretation is that this simply isn't something that affected her directly, so she either didn't think to include it or didn't feel comfortable writing from a pov she doesn't share. The less kind interpretation is that she wanted to appeal to as broad a demographic as possible, and decided this was the way to do it. I'm not inclined to think that way of her, because she's showed herself to be very empathetic and thoughtful with pretty much every other aspect. But when we become so close with a piece of media, a story that touches us so deeply, one that strives to be realistic in themes like abuse and trauma, the question comes up. What about us? Do we exist? Are our problems seen? The end result of a narrative using queer-coded characters and themes without explicitly being queer is a disconnect. A feeling of separation from a story and characters that I otherwise feel very close to. A worry that these problems are only seen by, only affecting, heterosexual and cisgendered peoples. And I realize this would be hard to cover for someone who hasn't written queer characters in this story yet, someone who may or may not be LGBTQ+ themselves. But even so, even though there would be mistakes and bad faith critics and all else, I would rather she try. I would rather be seen.