today i’m thinking about misogyny…

havin a gender crisis at the train station lol #epic

No your take on gay bars is wrong. Also gay men have a hook up culture whereas lesbians dont and require emotional connection.

lol.................... just walk away from me

started thinking about qpps again last night,,

can you pleeeeease post your dm sexuality/gender hcs on here.... 🥺 i don't have a twitter but i wanna know. it's like a pandora's box to me now i'm like scratching at the door. let me in

heres the link 2 the thread (mild spoilers btw) ill post a transcript under the cut for ppl who dont have twitter

first off i think laios relationship to sex is super removed for like 50 reasons without even getting into his actual sexuality

he grew up in a place with very repressed ideas about sex and has a lot of fear about asserting his presence in situations

his special interest takes precedent over any social interactions he has and the level of closeness he feels towards people

he has a hard time figuring out his feelings towards other people both bc hes autistic and bc he has freaky deviantart fetishes that make sex in his mind a very abstract concept <- this one is me projecting mostly

that aside, i feel like gender-wise hes attracted to ppl so infrequently it may as well be entirely case-by-case

the idea of him being gay appeals to me from the 'raised with traditional values he Does Not fit into/hasnt begun to question it yet' perspective, i lauve characters who put a lot of stock into performing a role thats expected of them and fail miserably for unknown (gay) reasons

from his perspective tho i dont think he would ever really label himself anything. hes going to pride parades in the shirt+shorts Ally Fit to clap for his friends

hes also 'cis by indifference' imo... i love tmasc laios hcs it just doesnt mesh w his personal history to me. i do think hes got some kind of therian gender thing going on (not trans or nb but a secret third thing) but i cant see him changing anything abt his appearance/pronouns to accommodate that post-canon. hes just doin his thang

falin is in a similar boat for gender. i LOOVE tfem falin but the village repression thing has been bugging at me so i dont think i subscribe to it anymore (canon purist sorry) BUT if u hold that hc i am clapping and cheering regardless

instead i was propagandised to a while back and i LOVEEE the idea that being fused w a male dragon and the residual traits she has after being revived have given her a type of gender euphoria she didnt realise she was missing. a little boygirl swagger if u will

sexuality-wise i also dont think she would care to label herself, shes a lesbian by virtue of only being interested in One woman and zero other people. without marcille i do think shes still exclusively attracted to women, and i like to imagine she might experiment around a bit during her travels post-canon (pre-relationship). hearing abt it might put marcille on the news though

marcille is very simple That is a transfem lesbian. she cant get pregnant, shes obsessed w being femme and all that combined w her half-tallman struggles to be seen as 'properly feminine' by elf standards reads very transfeminine to Me. also her bookboy crush REEKS of comphet its not subtle

i think a more comfortable marcy might have the space to experiment w being elf butch like her manga boys but thats mainly self indulgence for me. utena could have saved her

senshi is gay his whole thing is abt not being able to perform dwarven masculinity to a proper standard (soft hearted, not as strong or rugged as his peers) which is like gaycoding 101. also hes a bear. homosexuality be damned by boy can work a grill

adding onto this i rly think senshi got some type of euphoria from being an elf in the changeling chapters. he was feeling himself so much i think he was using it as an outlet to have fun being a little fem and fruity without needing to justify it. do u understand

i dont have any particular opinions abt him gender-wise beyond that. his bulge is an essential part of his character design but i also saw a transmasc senshi a couple days ago that made me nod my head thoughtfully so i could go either way

chilchuck is cis and bisexual this is just canon. not even just his old man crush on senshi altho i do think thats very funny but they put his ass on a cover themed like hes in a dating sim with all the men and women in the cast and then slapped it in front of a chapter called "bicorn". i simply cant pass up that kind of overt signaling. its so fucking funny what else is there to say truly

izu to ME is a transmasc aroace lesbian (this one has the least basis in canon i just know it to be true) shes a little genderfluid with it nd uses he/she i think. i like to imagine she consistently uses masculine personal pronouns to refer to herself either way tho (boku, ore)

i think izutsumis gender/sexuality is entirely secondary in priorities to her body dysphoria. she has a lot of learning and acceptance 2 do before that kind of self discovery is on the docket and in my mind eschewing gender on some level is part of that. get sillay

shuro is cishet but at least he feels bad about it. next

kabru is a transmasc bisexual this is also practically text. his whole thing of being treated like a doll by milsiril to put in pretty dresses, plus i think it would be pretty easy for him to stealth in the west since tallmen are seen as inherently more masculine than elves

(i also think changing genders is just more common for elves. theyre androgynous enough that it wouldnt be hard and like who in their right miiiiind would be the same gender for 500 years. dwarves too)

i think he started presenting as male socially in the west but didnt need to consider medical transition until he moved to a more mixed culture where other races might see him as a woman

i dont have to explain the bisexual part. have u seen him

namari is a butch bisexual this is just canon straight up. shes not transmasc but i think the default settings for dwarven women is like 4 years of T regardless. shes a hit at all the local cruising spots despite her renfaire nerdisms i know this

and just bc im thinking abt em kiki and kaka are identical and kiki is tfem :} theyre both attracted to women but kaka is a sub so i forgive him

THATS ALL 4 NOW theres a lot of characters so i cant have thoughts abt all of them at once but i hope this was good. im right about everything forever as per usual

Aita for not making any of my characters, that I have to crank out daily, pansexual/polysexual/omnisexual specifically and only making them bi?

🏳️‍🌈👶🏼 so i can recognize this later lmao also I'm not panphobic or anything, this isn't about the validity of the label, pan is fine.

So i (20snb bi) have a project I'm working on where I take all the characters from a specifc media I'm into and pair them up with each other to make every possible ship kid from every possible ship(excluding characters who are kids themselves or are related or something, that shit is gross). Basically taking every character and pairing them up with another and creating a kid I think they'd have. Its a big project with lots of characters and I'm easily over 400 at this point. I really enjoy this, even if I'm not even 25% complete.

However I set a schedule for myself that at least one ship kid needs to come out each day which, considering I draw them, color them and give them some development and some even have siblings, (The refs themselves easily take me an hour to an hour and a half) I have to make lots of them quickly to keep up with my daily grind. I've been doing this project for over a year and although it's stressful, I can get them out quickly with breaks for myself.

Their character sheets all have some pretty basic info like their name, gender, pronouns, personality and more but it also includes their sexuality/orientation. I have a pretty basic list of options for what their sexuality will be: straight, lesbian, gay, Enbian, bi, Aro, ace and aroace with a few random things like polyam, WLW and a good amount of the something-loving-something/juvelic terms. I did this because, well, there's not many entirely unique orientations outside of them and although I love mogai/xenogenders and complex identities, I dont want to potentially drag up discourse or bring problems to my budding art blog over it. Its just not worth it to me to turn something I really care about on its head, even if I like microlabels.

In this case, I'm using bi as an umbrella term as most of the other terms share the same definition with slight variations in wording or action but not much difference in practice. We all like everyone, it's basic stuff. However, apparently this is a problem.

I've gotten one or two anons asking me questions about my guides asking some kind stuff like is this lesbian ship kid a butch or femme or Is this picture of them now or just at the age you put on the ref and other harmless stuff. Then things got rude with some Nbphobia but thrice now I've gotten asks:

1. Asking snarkily if im a panphobe

2. insulting me for not specifically writing pan or Omni and just writing bi.

3. Saying that I "clearly dont care about pansexual representation." Then brought up how my primary oc is native american so i clearly care about representation but that oc used to be a sona and I'm native?? Its confusing. (And Lowkey racist shit to just assume any native character is a "diversity quota" character instead of just a person existing but I digress-)

Im not pan, im bi so ig these people assume I'm not cool with pan people which isnt true? I have nothing aginest them, they are just pretty similar and I dont feel like it matters if they are specfically bi or pan or poly or any other label. I don't go into details like that for any other sub-group, not even pronouns and I included combinations and some common Neopronouns. I understand the importance of representation but my project has less than 50 people looking at it every day, Im not netflix or something. I'm one guy on the most LGBT blogging site with a big project and very little audience, I'm not showing people who wouldn't already know what pan is that pansexuality exists.

This project isn't that deep considering the characters in question aren't human/dont have human characteristics.(no it's not hazbin/helluva) Also ive never spoken about lgbt discourse or stated anything remotely close to it beyond the guides just passively having characters who are an LGBT identity. I've not even mentioned all the potentional orientations they could have so I'm not sure where/why this came up in the first place. The most politcial things ive said are calling out a creator in my fandom who outed themselves as a transphobe and mentioning im pro-palestine. That's it.

I mean this is pretty low stakes, I can just block these people and be done with it and this some seriously online shit but I just wanna check.

Am I being an asshole for just writing bi instead of specifying their mspec label because I have to produce characters quickly and I don't see enough of a difference to warrant a change/specification that would ultimately slow and clog an already stressful and complex project?

I dont think I am but idk lol

What are these acronyms?

if i can be corny for a second i wanna talk about the greatest strengths of the 2003 tmnt series and why it speaks to me (esp as a queer person)

so i might have alluded to this before, but let me say it outright: each show is definitely a product of its time, and the ideals of whatever generation its from. whether talking about the humour, the story, the dialogue etc, its always important to remember that these shows will always come off in a way due to the generation theyre from. and thats not a bad thing! it just means its important to think about them from that perspective.

2003 is a show of my generation growing up, and a thing about that era that maybe some people younger than me wont understand is there is so much more language commonly available to describe yourself now than there was then. you can take this in any context; mental health, sexuality, gender identity, or even just the ability to describe your relationships with more (idk if this will be the right word) therapist language.

in 03 we have a family unit of splinter and his sons, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. we have a splinter who hasnt opened up to his sons about the trauma hes experienced, but not in a way of shutting them out, simply because it isnt their responsibility to know as they are teenagers. he tells them of the mutagen that created them, but not of his past with his master yoshi, who he calls father when by himself, but never around his sons which is just an interesting concept to think about.

(i do not intent this next sentence as ragging on the two shows after this when i say it, simply from a character standpoint) this is the splinter who completely doesnt make his problems his sons problems, but he also is very willing to tell them the truth when he knows they're ready. this is is the most idyllic version of splitner out of all of them, even when comparing to his mirage counterpart (who hes the most based on) due to that splinter raising them to be ninja specifically to make them fight shredder. this one is just their father who loves them and wants to keep them safe the best way he can, and he was never a human in the first place to even know how to be that. so this whole family dynamic starts with him, and the way he raised his sons reflects his parenting.

so, the setting and year this show is made is 2003. something very relatable here is how there isnt a lot of language for the personality quirks of the turtles. there's so much evidence here for mikey having adhd, his brothers will say things like "why doesnt mikey have to help?" and the answer is "well, he'd be bored. and whats worse, mikey not helping or mikey being bored?" its this beautiful moment of, "hey, we know its not fair, but thats how mikey is, and its better for everyone if we just respect that thats how he is" mikey cant keep his hands off stuff, they know this they dont yell at him for behaving that way, they just stop him. this coding feels the most specific, but like i said. its 2003. we dont have the words to describe what this is yet, and if we do its not common knowledge.

another example is in the classic episode where raphael meets casey jones. raphael is sparring with mikey, and he lashes out and nearly kills mikey. everyone reacts to this by getting him to stop, and no one is more upset than raphael himself. they all tell him to go get some air, which he does. theres no moment of any of them screaming at him for losing his temper, its very clear that they all know he's going to do that himself. and he does go get some air. they all know thats what he needs. he goes and meets casey jones, another hot head, and raph has to help coach this hot head on his anger. when he comes back at the end of the episode after having let out that aggression, he apologizes and no one is upset with him. there's a very clear understanding among his family that he cannot help it, but the best thing they can do is give him his space when he needs it. watching this from a 2023 perspective (20 years later) im sure we could analyze this as a few things going on with raph, my mind comes to autism but at the end of the day it doesnt matter why he behaves like this, the point is that he does and the best thing his family does is just...help him. which they do. and they never hold it against him.

when leo is going through his ptsd arc hes at his closest to raph as a character, the show draws a lot of parallels (like having him go let out some aggression with casey) and we get to see the dynamic in reverse. in "i, monster" (the rat king episode) leo is losing it, taking on rat king alone and not wanting to let up. raphael is actively holding his brothers back when they say "we shouldnt leave him to fight alone", raphael says "if leo gets in trouble i'm the first one in there, but right now it looks like leo's got more than one monster to work out of his system" raph doesn't exactly know what leos going through, but he recognizes it. he knows he needs to fight alone, so raph lets him. its only when the building collapses and leo is no longer in a safe position that he says "leo lets go", which leo wordlessly agrees with and actually listens.

this is what i think is the best part of these guys, the unconditional understanding they have for the way they are. we still have our "raphs a big hot head" "mikeys annoying" jokes, but they feel like genuine good natured sibling ribbing because they know each other on that level.

and to go back to the fact that this show is set in 2003, there's something so specific about the way mikey constantly makes references to liking women's clothing, to being fine with feminine language, and to being open about being the pretty turtle who "has that effect on minds of men" speaks to me as a queer person. this could easily be intended as homophobic jokes and probably is, because again.... its the mid 2000s, thats very much what media was like, thats what the jokes were. especially with the girly screams mikey does being one of the first jokes of this nature.

but theres something that happens in season 4, where an alien is attacking mikey, and donnie rushes in and says "hey, thats my sibling" that sticks out. and it happens again in fast forward. when talking to the dark turtles leo says "you and your brothers" "me and my siblings"

because of the way this family unit just understands each other without ever having a conversation about things, it feels like its not a joke. theres some kind of affirmation happening here. even if it seems like i could be reading into it too much, its specific! and it keeps happening!

and by the end of the show, when mikey says he wants to be maid of honour, even if that line in the media itself was intended to be a joke, no one in their family treats it like one. of course mikey is the maid of honour, he asked to be one! the only real offence taken is when april says bride's maid, to which he is offended because hes so much more important than that!

so from a story standpoint, this show doesnt have the intricate complexities and butting heads of latter iterations, there isnt much relationship growth to be had (in fact once we get to around season 5 the flanderization of the characters kind of begins and it loses some of the more complexities) but thats because its just not the focus of the story! the story is more about what they go through together, and thats fine! thats what our shows kind of were at the time. not saying there isnt any relationship growth, but its very much not the focus because these turtles? they already understand each other in a healthy way.

so to me, these guys are kind of the most wholesome family unit

in that post abt the gender unicorn graphic, in the comments the idea of the “split attraction model” is brought up and you say you dont want to litigate that. however, im really curious what your opinion is bc i have some ideas abt it too. i feel like its sort of an incomplete analysis? like, people feel different ways about others and that cant really be flattened into like two modes of attraction. but i personally would call myself aromantic and bisexual so obviously i have some level of investment of the idea. anyways i just ask because in general i find your analysis and opinions compelling

thank you! re: this graphic

My issue with splitting “physical attraction” and “emotional attraction” is that it does the same naturalising trick that the chromosomes-as-the-symbol-of-sex does - by splitting the emotional from the physical, this implies that physical attraction is natural, without emotion, and by the same token that emotion can exist completely detached from the physical body of the person you emotionally desire. Like I just don’t think this is true! For example, the idea of “casual sex,” ie sex that is devoid of emotion/emotional investment, is a social construction, it is a sexual act that is being contrasted against societal norms of “serious sex” or “invested sex” or whatever you want to call it - sex that is being done in the context of a monogamous, married relationship, or an otherwise exclusive long-term one. the base social unit of much of western society is the nuclear family, and the nuclear family is “ideally” produced by monogamous, cis-heterosexual, racially homogeneous reproductive sex. That is the norm by which all other sexual behaviour and activity is judged by.

and to be clear I’m not using “emotional” in an idealistic or moral sense, I am not using it as a shorthand for romantic feelings, I am purposefully using the language the graphic is using - I mean any emotion. Like just to be super clear, I’m not suggesting that people who have casual sex all secretly love the people they fuck, or that sex has to always be a serious emotional endeavour, or that people who do not feel sexual attraction to the people they have romantic feelings for are secretly lying, but that I don’t think sex is something that can be devoid of emotionality entirely. Like I think we are engaging in this Cartesian body/mind dualism where the physical acts we perform are somehow wholly separate from our emotional states. Pleasure has an emotional component to it, I don’t know how to articulate my experiences with pleasure that do not involve some level of emotionality, and emotionality has a physical character to it. Like in fact I think this graphic is treating emotions as ideal states - it reminds me of like old misogynistic psychological theory that described rationality as an absence of emotion, that to engage in rationality is to move away from emotion. It treats rationality as “out there,” objective, natural, detached from social influence, and emotion as “in here,” in our hearts, ruled by the social. And this distinction is made on the idea that the social world is detached from the physical world, which is pure idealism.

this is not a dismissal or denial of anyone who feels a disconnect between their sexual and romantic desires, such as asexual or aromantic people - while I am neither of those things, I have experienced intense physical desire for the person I’m fucking while actively dissociating during sex as a result of dysphoria/heteronormativity/etc etc. by the same token I have also felt emotionally compelled to be physically attracted to someone without actually feeling physical desire. These are both emotional states that were in conflict with my physical desires, or rather my physical desires as I understood them at the time. our ability to interpret and understand our desires is itself social! otherwise heteronormativity wouldn’t be a thing. We don’t have unmediated, unemotional access to physical desire, which I think this graphic is arguing, intentionally or not.

so having complicated, contradictory, disconnected, or otherwise ‘non-normative’ relationships to our emotional states vis a vis physical desire is obviously very real, and the reason they are real is because physical desire is also socially mediated and constructed. What and who we find attractive, why types of bodies, physical and character traits, etc are attractive to us are all part of (joker voice) society.

now, idk how you easily communicate this in graphic format. perhaps these things are unsuited to the medium of easily digestible graphics, or perhaps I’m limited in my imagination. either way I don’t think bifurcating emotional-desire-as-social and physical-desire-as-natural is particularly helpful

People seemed to really like my fanon v canon rant so here’s another rant about the concept of Cybertronian gender and language 

Pronouns aren’t limited to he/she/they, and I’m not just talking about Neo and non-mainstream pronouns. Words like “you” and “our” are also pronouns, so the next time you hear someone say “i dOnT uSe pRoNoUnS” yes you do. Literally yes you do(excluding people who are referred to only by name, I’m talking specifically about homophobes and bigots but I digress)

The English language, along with most earth languages, have unique words that can only apply to that language. Of course you can translate as close as possible, but some words are exclusive to that language and you can’t accurately translate them. I speak English and Spanish(specifically Argentinian) and there are many words that I can’t translate into English. My father’s from Argentina so he taught me, and even he can’t translate a few words because they simply aren’t words in the English dictionary.

Now when we talk about Cybertronian, it is a fictional language that directly translates into English. Each letter has a symbol that represents that letter so people can directly translate it. It doesn’t have its own structure or grammar, it is just a silly easter egg. 

(Also there’s two main versions of cybertronian I could find but they both follow the same format of what is basically a decoding game) 

It’s obvious they have their own language, but it’s presented to us in a format we can understand, but if we’re thinking of cybertronions as a real species than it would not directly translate and just like any other earth language.

Quick but important detail: cybertronions don’t reproduce. They call us organic for a reason. They can’t do the squinty and dirty because they don’t have things to do it with, therefore don’t have a true concept of gender identity or sexual orientation. The only reason they’re referred to as “he,” “she,” or “they” in media is because it’s translated into English, the same way languages don’t always translate accurately.

There are transgender characters but they are for the viewer if anything, and Cybertronian gender is so much more complex if anything at all. A good theory is that humans introduced the concept of gender, but I don’t think that’s the case. Some people might like slimmer frames which just happen to be a characteristic of women. Some want bulkier bodys and to not be as slim, like a stereotypical male. Words like “he” and “she” are translated into words that refer to physical characteristics rather than mental. There’s also instances of this not happening like when Swerve mistakes Nautica for a man despite her having colored lips and a slim body(traits which normally apply to AFAB people)

At the end of the day, Cybertronions are something to dissect with their culture being so vague due to language barriers and Rodimus being British apparently(different areas have different accents, Rodimus is just compared to having a British accent. Don’t think too deep into it)

also if your curious here’s the two languages sorry that ones transparent lmao

Oke thanks for coming to my ted talk I love you drink wawa and eat please I beg of you

Cyrus borg for the ask game?

Sexuality: i dont think ive ever extensively thought abt this but i feel like hes gay + arospec

Gender: cis but hes cunty so its ok

Ship: one of those old man yaoi ones i dont have a preference theyre all fine to me. Even the overlord one actually that ones really funny lets pick that one

Brotp: him and zane is very funny to me. Me and my freak son in law. Also i like to ponder his theoretical friendship with julien+dyer a lot. He will try his best to make them understand that making an AI is effectively creating a life.... no you cannot control its will....guys please stop abandoning your robots they have feelings........

Notp: idgaf

Headcanon: him and dyer were college roommates :P they stopped talking after dyer went off the radar but borg helped with a lot of early PE development in terms of the coding (and it was the basis for his later digiverse project)

General opinion: i like him! Hes a very neat guy and i always appreciate his appearances. It will be very sad when the revolution comes and i have to eat the rich (cyrus borg(

ohhhhh my god girl i don't careeeee

Tiktok is a cesspool of ableism against narcissists and usually I shake my head and roll my eyes, but i just saw a Tiktok comment that made my blood boil.

Keep in mind that this was on a cluster B safe post, and someone manages to think its okay to blame abuse on NARCISSISM. I am a person with BPD and NPD, im not going to get personal in my life because this is the internet and not everyone needs to know what ive fucking been through, but i know for damn sure that "narc abuse" is not a fucking thing and generalizes narcissists to be abusers and dangerous people. Sure, you can get abused by a narcissist, but you can also get abused by literary ANYONE, this is why you dont see people say "im suffering from blonde abuse" or "im recovering from christian abuse" because nobody in their fucking right mind would use someones appearance, race, mental health, religon, physical ability, gender, sexuality, ETC as a excuse to label and generalize a group of people to describe abuse. I had a ex girlfriend who would abuse me and she had BPD, I have a mother who also emotionally and verbally abuses me and shes schizophrenic. You dont see me say "im recovering from borderline abuse" or "im suffering from schizophrenic abuse" because that generalizes people with BPD and schizophrenia to be abusers. Do you see the fucking problem here yet? Oh but when its narcissists, or people with "scary mental disorders" like ASPD, then its suddenly okay to label us as scary abusers or dangerous people? Some of You claim to be advocates for mental health but when it comes to us then you suddenly give up because we're "too much for you to waste your time on" or that we're "Hopeless" and "Helpless" if you so called "Empaths", egotypicals, and neurotypicals actually gave a fucking shit about us, you would understand that we've also been hurt, we've been treated like shit and neglected by the world, we bite because we are scared, we are constantly in a battle of self hate and fake ego, we are insecure, we depend on attention and success to survive, we are neglected children at our core. if you really gave a shit about mental health and our well being, i wouldn't be here thinking "wow man i should really rid myself because the world views me as nothing but a monster so therefore i should off myself!" "but you've also hurt people!" I know, I am aware, I've already taken that accountabilty and MAJOR steps into becoming into a better person and have recovered greatly these past months and you dont know or understand me more than the people ive hurt personally, you dont get a say in what happens because thats NOT your ground to stand on and say whatever YOU think and ive had people disrespect that. I am FORTUNATE to even be loved and cared for still by the person ive hurt, and even I myself dont feel like I deserve that such mercy, I am forever grateful but It also makes me truly sad, not for myself, but for the person I love the most. I genuinely cried writing this, this is more so a vent but I hope someone sees this and atleast understand me on a true empathic level, instead of a perception. I hope i dont regret posting this, because this is the most youre gonna see me vulnerable for a LONG time.

egg discourse rambling below the cut. tl;dr: it's dumb. feels like another excuse for people to label transfems as an acceptable harassment target yet agaim (as if they needed it).

the egg discourse stuff is so dumb. What is the principal issue? People are upset other people are joking about calling a third set of other people eggs, as in possibly trans? i cant understand why youre upset about that.

like i get people having bad experienced with friend groups making egg/trans jokes and that making them uncomfortable. that's fair. however, it's not an argument for anything. That could just as easily be a "your friends sound like they dont consider your feelings" situation. Friend groups can be shitty. My former friend group in college made jokes about me being ugly at my expense, to the point where i cut off ties multiple times with them. My current friendgroups dont do that because we respect eachothers voundaries and feelings!

But also. like you live in this society too right?

The one where people are told their Gender/Sex, if not outright forced to conform to societal expectations of their AGAB? The one where gender labels are decided before a person is even properly born?

The same one where it's an insanely common issue ronsay people that ARE expressing transgender personalities are considered either "girls that are a bit dumb and misled", or sexual deviants and criminals that are fit to be executed? The one where a nonbinary school child was beaten to death a few months ago among countless other trans-related deaths?

...And what do you exactly think happens when egg jokes are made? do you think us trans girls are in our little pervert covens, performing rituals to turn cis men into women because we joke about feminizing them?

some of yall should consider unlearning your superiority complex regarding drugs for real. you can talk about the issues with drugs from production to trade, addiction and social consequences without demonising individual drug users. if you want to be supportive of homeless, mentally ill, prostituted, traumatised and otherwise marginalised women - who obviously are not all on drugs but might be at a higher risk - you cant go around and scream about how evil they are for struggling with addiction and substance abuse.

a lot of people with substance abuse issues have started young and often have a family history of drug and alcohol abuse. and if this is the case for you and you didnt develop addiction - congratulations, good for you. if you could just turn addiction on and off, a lot of people would be a lot happier, but fact is that most people with addiction will relapse even if they try going sober, and guilt just makes it more difficult to stop.

if i have to see one more feminist comparing drug use to watching porn i will go feral. porn is harmful to the people in it and women as a group, drugs are primarily self harm. which is an issue but not a moral failure. a lot of porn consumption is literally getting off on violence, the product is the harm done to others, meanwhile buying drugs - like many other products under capitalism - is supporting a system that sadly exploits the most vulnerable without enacting or even engaging with violence yourself. and additionally, a lot of women exploited by the sex industry are on drugs. now what? they are the same as porn consumers? fuck off.

of course it is unethical to buy drugs when it directly supports gang violence, and i understand that someone whose home and people they know have been destroyed by drug use or the drug trade doesnt have the patience for drug users, but its also extremely oversimplified to think these issues will be solved if people just stopped buying drugs. 

blaming drug users for gang members raping and murdering women as a feminist is fucking wild. a woman smoking a joint is responsible for a gang member sexually assaulting another woman? like okay. people also dont need chocolate or coffee which is produced under infamously exploitative conditions with no regard for human rights, should people stop buying that also, or is it more useful to the workers to establish fair trade and urge governments to force corporations to adhere to human and workers rights? what good is it to coca farmers to demonise drug users when gang violence is a result of systemic destabilisation of governments and poverty in production countries as well as the war on drugs, which is directly supported by the demonisation and stigmatisation of addicts?

and dont get me started on gendered aspects of gang violence and how masculinity and machismo play into it. if gangs dont sell drugs, they go more into human and sex trafficking, weapons, and other shit, as long as corruption and poverty are not alleviated. the local drug dealer is also just trying to get by and make cash in a rigged system.

in my humble opinion, legalisation of production, trade and consumption would help both the regions where its produced and the people affected and exploited in the drug trade as well as addicts because a fair trade, workers rights and unions and so on could be established, and money saved on persecuting drug dealers and users could go into rehabilitation programs, and taxes could be used to support everyone involved. resources wasted on the war on drugs could be used to fight remaining gang activity. and so on!

drug use in dedicated places and moderation just like alcohol is not the issue, the issues are one: the production and trade, which is illegalised and criminalised and because of this in the hands of brutal gangs (while other products under capitalism are in the hands of unregulated corporations who care as much about human rights and dignity as gangs do); and two: addiction and other consequences of substance abuse like lowered inhibitions and the link to domestic abuse and other violence, which is also not helped when drug users are stigmatised and buying drugs is criminalised.

i completely understand if you personally take issue and voice criticism of buying drugs especially towards privileged westerners as someone from a country of production, all im asking is some more nuance and as a feminist, compassion with women who have substance abuse issues. no need to coddle anyones feelings, but most addicts - especially women - already feel bad about struggling with addiction and frankly dont need women telling them what a terrible person they are for it, or be told they are just like people who get off on sexual violence.

What do you think gay men are attracted to in men that they can’t be attracted to in women?

It can’t be anything about femininity or masculinity obviously. That’s both sexist, and cultural so can’t be what drives men-only attraction.

It can’t be anything about stated identity because someone could lie just as easily as they could tell the truth in such a statement, and it makes no sense because homosexuality and heterosexuality exists in other species with no stated identities. It’s not like other animals without gender are all pan.

Saying idk it’s the vibes or some indescribable trait men have that women can’t but “I can’t explain” is a nonanswer.

Soooooooo what is it? Or do you think any sexuality but bi/pan is just cultural performance or an identity rather than an inborn orientation?

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first off i hate this ask and i think youre a freak. in any other world i wouldve blocked you for this but unfortunately for both of us i actually like this type of philosophy. dont send this shit to anyone else though

i dont think its right to compare human sexuality to the same thing in animals, to get that out of the way. im sure until a certain point it comes from the same biological impulses, but human beings have way more complicated social structures and reasons for coupling that just do not exist in other animals. our social behaviours are what make us unique in the animal kingdom and that definitely extends to gender and sexuality. so theres that

people love to tout 'gender is a social construct' around like its a criticism in and of itself, which i think betrays a misunderstanding about social constructs in general. theyre the foundations we build language on to better understand each other, and affected by a whole host of cultural and historical factors. just because theyre subjective and complicated doesnt mean they arent real. in terms of the effect they have on peoples lives they may be the most real thing that exists

for example, 'kindness' is a social construct. the definition and ways it is enacted differ greatly across personal and cultural lines. but no one would ever suggest a world where kindness doesnt exist or loses meaning, because its an essential part of the way we interact with each other (in the same way i dont really see a world where gender entirely ceases to exist, mainly just one where people have more fun with it. im not a psychic though so who knows)

similarly, sexuality in humans is another social construct. i think the driving biological forces behind it are very real, but the labels people attach to those impulses are subjective attempts to express their inner world to the people around them if that makes sense. and those same biological impulses are ALSO subject to social ideas of gender, because those ideas are established at birth and reinforced over a persons entire lifetime

to use myself as an example, im a gay trans man. ive identified as other things in the past, because i was trying to pick apart feelings i had and express them to others in an attempt to find community. my identity might change as i get older and experience new things, or it might not. i identify as gay because im not attracted to the social concept of women, and someone i would otherwise be attracted to might lose all appeal after i find out they fall under that concept (this has happened before w transfems pre and post coming out lol)

of course, the real REAL answer to this is that trying to give queer identities rigid and objective definitions is a fools errand, and also lame as fuck. someone might identify as gay and be more attracted to general masculinity than men as a social category, maybe they fool around with a couple of butch women without considering themself any less gay. two otherwise identical people might be a butch lesbian and a gay trans man without either of those identities coming into conflict. they might even be the same person at different times of the week

the labels people choose to use are communication tools, not objective signifiers. if you dont understand them, they probably arent talking to you

social constructs are everything. we as humans have the unique ability to interpret our own messy desires and impulses into words that other people can use to form an idea of someone else in their mind. its how we build connections, and of course it isnt perfect because trying to squeeze someones entire personal history and the centuries of context that defined it into a handful of syllables is going to leave some room for error. but its all we have, yknow? so we keep trying. and i think thats much more human than any imposed objective 'truth' could ever be

tldr we live in a society dipshit. get with it

i have a q which might be controversial and also im not entirely sure how to word, so forgive me. i dont consider “transandrophobia” to be a useful term since androphobia is obviously not a thing that exists; additionally, i know that transmisogyny is the term used for the specific oppression faced by trans women and is the intersection of transphobia and misogyny. my question is - do transmasc ppl also experience oppression that is an intersection of transphobia and misogyny? i have to assume they do, at least in some ways, and so what would that be called? is that also transmisogyny? how do we define that?

ok, i get why people on here sometimes define transmisogyny just as "the intersection of transphobia and misogyny" (not just you—i have seen this phrasing a lot) but i think it's a bit oversimplified and misleading and kind of based on very distant third- and fourth-hand readings of crenshaw. one thing the term 'transmisogyny' is useful for pointing out is that transfeminine people are culturally marked specifically b/c of the directionality of their gender, ie, specifically for 'becoming' women or 'choosing' womanhood. it's this that disrupts the idea that women are a) immutably distinct from men and b) specifically distinct in that they are inferior. the cultural read of transfemininity isn't just that it transgresses the border between men and women, but that it specifically does so to claim womanhood. that's construed as inherently a threat to a logic of male supremacy.

i don't think it's that helpful to haggle over 'who experiences misogyny' and as many people have said before me, to some extent it's really a pointless question because misogyny is the root of the entire patriarchal gender system we all exist in. like yeah of course transmascs also live and operate in this context. and ofc we can be and often are misgendered and perceived as women who 'want' to be men or whatever. but what the term transmisogyny points to is the specific position of being marginalised for transfemininity: for being women & claiming womanhood. obviously this is not a guiding principle in the cultural construction of the figure of the transmasc because well, that's not the directionality of our gender transgression.

i am frankly so sceptical of the idea that transmascs 'need' a special term that somehow combines transphobia + misogyny in some different way because i think this idea belies a misunderstanding of what transmisogyny conveys and how it functions (for example, transmisogyny is very useful for picking apart the ways transfems are seen as both sexual objects and sexual deviants, & how this depends on misogyny that specifically is punishing, again, the idea of gender transgression that goes in the direction of identification & expression of womanhood—transmascs can ofc be sexualised or w/e but again this is a different cultural and discursive construction because we are not being punished for gender transgression in the direction of womanhood, but rather in the direction of 'abandoning' it for manhood, which is then still assumed superior and desirable). again i think a lot of this comes from kind of a superficial understanding of intersectionality and what that framework can achieve. transmisogyny is not just stacking transphobia + misogyny on top of one another like two different sheets of paper; transmisogyny functions in specific and describable ways and arises, again, not just from hatred of gender transgression but from the specific cultural construction & directionality of transfemininity.