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#its directed solely at cis people
scaridea · 1 year
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being a transman in lgbtq spaces is a nightmare.
I have male privilege because im a man but also i cant say i experience transandrophobia because that doesnt exist and its just misogyny but also i cant say i experience transmisogyny/misogyny because thats for women only and im not a woman and actually because im a man i dont even face that much bigotry so i should be quiet and not talk about my experiences but also transmen are dominating trans spaces while also not facing that much transphobia because we're invisible.
im very tired.
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genderkoolaid · 1 month
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something ive noticed as a very effeminate trans masc that dresses pretty androgynous & has been on hrt for many years is that the status of being a "dangerous man" can and will be placed on you (ime most often by cis white women) whenever expressing any kind of negative feelings. if i told friends of mine - even queer ones - that something they did hurt my feelings or made me upset, i was suddenly a dangerous man or a (man)ipulator or whatever - even if i didn't raise my voice. the very fact that i am unhappy combined with my proximity to manhood makes me a supposed threat in their eyes.
a couple years ago i had a group of cis girl friends. they would constantly pull me into women's bathrooms n such so i wouldn't be left behind saying its fine its fine bc im one of the girls (gender neutral) but then as soon as i was upset about something i was suddenly a dangerous man who needed to stay out of women's spaces,,,, despite the fact that of the 4 of us, the girl who joined after me was the one spreading this shit around my friend group so... how was i encroaching on womens spaces if i was there before her and i was invited in? luckily one of my friends told me that the other two were plotting to kick me out of my friend group on the sole basis of my proximity to manhood so i at least knew why they were suddenly treating me like shit
its just.. i cant understand why people dont think trans mascs and trans men are discriminated against when they literally said it was my "toxic man energy" that made them want me out WHILE ALSO being the ones convincing me to go into womens spaces bc they wanted to go somewhere and didnt wanna have to leave me behind & like i said im extremely effeminate and faggy and also NONBINARY so i dont understand what "man energy" they were talking about other than the fact that im on testosterone and thinking testosterone = man is just transphobic no matter how you try to twist it
but my taking testosterone was never a problem or made me evil or scary when they wanted me to go with them into women-only (&nonbinary too i guess unless youre amab (and they can tell) or been on testosterone for too long) spaces, it was only a problem when they wanted 1. a reason to criticise me relentlessly, borderline bullying or 2. a reason to dismiss any of my concerns or criticisms of their treatment of me
all of that, to me, is transandrophobia point blank. i dont know what else you could call it other than transphobia, but transphobia doesn't address any of the very blatant and obvious connection of how my transness affects their perception of my proximity to manhood and how that affected the situation
God that sucks. I'm sorry you went through that.
You make a very good point. This is why I don't want to define transandrophobia/ATM as just transphobia and misogyny directed at transmascs. I still think transunity theory is a really valuable way of looking at transphobia & its important to me that we are vocal about how masculine tropes are weaponized against trans people by cis people on the regular because of how we are positioned in relation to gender. Too many people think the that the only thing wrong with saying trans people have "dangerous male energy" is that its misgendering. So trans people who choose to associate themselves with manhood are left in the trash by the people who should know best how much being made out to be a Dangerous Male Invader hurts!
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genericpuff · 1 month
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(disclaimer, this is coming from a heartstopper fan! i love heartstopper this is not hate!!)
i think at least part of the annoyance with heartstopper isn't just that isn't a light fluffy ya series, it's also that its another example of how the queer media that gets the most mainstream attention tends to be this kind of light fluffy ya stuff that focuses on two conventially attractive queer boys or men and it also tends to be written by people who aren't queer men on top of that, so not only can it feel very samey but it can feel like other queer people are relegated to side characters in the stories of cis gay men. and as someone who loves heartstopper i get that on some level.
btw by "written by people who aren't queer men" NOT saying that isn't not written by queer people. alice oseman is genderfluid and aroace, becky albertalli is bisexual, etc. and while i think the point is still valid there is a misogyny element in that a lot of the focus is put on things that are written by women or people they perceive as women while tumblr darlings like good omens and ofmd (written by presumably straight men) don't get the same treatment.
nah y'know what, that's fair, I can get how frustrating it can be for a lot of popular queer stories to feel samey, I've definitely gotten BL-fatigue in the past on platforms like WT and Tapas because many of them ARE the same and feel like they're just piggybacking off trends for the sake of clout (and this is a problem in the heterocis romance stories too, don't get me fucking started on how dark romance has turned into torture porn where vulnerable women are constantly being victimized by rich powerful men and we're just supposed to root for that ??), but it's one of those things where like, what might be seen as just more corny shit could very well be the revelation another person needs that they're gay / trans / etc. that the story helped them realize. there's just a point where i see these arguments against cheesy popular queer stories that teeter dangerously close to being queerphobic and, as you said, misogynist, simply because "it was written by someone who i perceive as a woman so that makes it BAD!"
and I didn't mention it in the original post because I didn't want to @ OP in any way but in the comment section they literally said "i dont think heartstopper itself is all that bad but it has pretty much aimed the direction of all mainstream gay comics towards wholesomeness instead of anything more interesting so i want to destroy heartstopper to destroy heartstopper clones" and that gives me massive ick because it implies their sole reasoning for including it was "chill and happy queer stories bad, if a character doesn't suffer enough then they're not interesting"?? why can't LGBTQ+ audiences have more 'vanilla' stories that aren't all sad and angsty all the time? are we not entitled to the same corny romcom vanilla shit that the heterocis are entitled to? why do LGBTQ+ characters - and by extension, people - have to suffer to qualify as being 'interesting'? You're already interesting, you're you! like i'm sorry, are we trying to scare people straight??? 😭 shit, that's even a plot point that's touched on in Heartstopper itself where Nick is questioning his sexuality and he starts googling shit and it's just ALL the terrifying news stories of queer kids being ostracized / bullied / murdered / etc. and as much as it's important to be aware of the ongoing issues so we can keep fighting for our rights, we ALSO need to find balance and remember to celebrate the stories that AREN'T that because we need something to be hopeful for, something we can find peace in. I don't think Heartstopper is some deeply profound piece of work, but it also doesn't seem like it's trying to be? It's a low stakes celebration of the LGBTQ+ experience that's very warm and comforting, especially for those who are the same ages as the main characters who are often being persuaded by the grown-ups around them that it's a death sentence to be gay / trans / etc.
and it's not like we HAVEN'T had popular pieces of queer representative media that explored things outside of cheesy BL, like are we forgetting about Nimona which explored both the gay and genderfluid experience in a very accessible and fun way while still being mature and not pandering to its audience over how society has made monsters out of queer people?
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(and even then I'm sure there are folks who would argue "actually, here are the issues with Nimona" , and that's fine tbh, we can like media and appreciate what it brings to the table while also discussing what it lacks in, such as what we're doing now with Heartstopper! progress is a never-ending journey!!)
and also okay, not me trying to be argumentative in the slightest BUT I don't really get the argument that 'other queer people' are being sidelined for the main characters? unless there's something I'm missing here lol (I will apologize for that because it's admittedly been a while since I've re-read Heartstopper so I should probably go do that to refresh myself on it). like i say that in the sense that Heartstopper is clearly meant to be about two gay male teenagers. just like how Nimona is about a shapeshifter who is not a girl or a boy (they're Nimona!) and a gay man who are both trying to change the system that's other'd them for years for the better. that is the story Heartstopper is trying to tell and it achieves that. it also has a trans character plotline that I could see people arguing feels sidelined but I think there's a massive difference between 'sidelining' and just having a B plot ? my honest take with that is not every piece of representative media is going to be able to cover every single topic, it's just not doable for one piece of media to be a monolith for everything, the same as how one person can't be a monolith for an entire community of people. BUT that doesn't mean works like Heartstopper and Nimona can't inspire others to also lend their voices into the medium and create that representation that's needed. That's why we need ✨variety✨ and Heartstopper is part of that variety by offering a more vanilla cutesy story full of good vibes for people who want that sort of thing.
IDK, I think there's just a lot of nuance that's being missed in that poll, and in the difference between Heartstopper inspiring more people to write happy cozy BL stories vs. implying that it's had an actual negative influence on modern art and media in the same way that series like Homestuck and LO have to the point that people think it needs to be destroyed, like wtf LOL Like they're not even comparable IMO and a lot of the arguments I see people making about why it is just feel a little backwards, and those arguments obfuscate the real issue which is just "popular thing is popular and people like to piggyback off popular shit". That's a fact for basically any niche and genre, these trends come and go. Even if the whole cutesy BL trend passes one day (which it will) it'll be replaced by something else that people will also inevitably find samey and boring after a while. This is not a concept that's unique to LGBTQ+ media, it's universal.
Balance is important and I think finding that balance is as much a responsibility on the shoulders of the consumer as it is on the creator. And I don't think Heartstopper deserves to be put into the same camp as stories like LO which literally straightwashes its canonically queer characters and gives those queer identities to nothingburger characters who are easy to shoo out of the plot to make way for the heterocis ones (while still parading itself around like it's actually 'queer rep' which... it really isn't.) Like all three of the comics in that poll are vastly different, serving different audiences, with different goals and intentions. It's comparing apples to oranges to pineapples.
The worst Heartstopper has to offer is just a low stakes plot that might not appeal to everyone or feel 'samey' which yeah, valid, but in the grander sense of whether or not it's had a negative effect on queer media just for being... cheesy? And inspiring other people to write stories like it? I don't get the argument, it feels like it's severely missing the point of what we're fighting for here - to live happy little unbothered lives - but that's just me ╮( ̄ω ̄;)╭ I'm definitely not trying to be a dick about it in any way and I don't want anyone to think I'm not open to the opposing points here, I do agree with you on the oversaturation of samey BL stories, but it just rose some massive red flags to see Heartstopper next to frigging Homestuck and Lore Olympus LOL
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gothhabiba · 1 year
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Neither the fact that Black cis woman athletes may be forced to take hormones or else be barred from competing, nor the fact that something that could be termed gender dysphoria is common amongst cis women (worth noting that said experience is distinct from "gender dysphoria" as medical or pathological diagnosis or category imposed on trans people who navigate medical transition), nor the fact that non-trans-women may be mistaken for trans women at various points in their daily lives, makes me eager to abandon "transmisogyny" (qua "a form of marginalisation analysed as combining aspects of transphobia and misogyny to yield something 'greater than the sum of its parts,' experienced specifically by trans women and transfeminine people") as an analytical term—not because I am yielding to the orthodoxy of whatever version of queer politics, but because I believe it to be a useful model for explaining or understanding reality.
"No one else is ever mistaken for a member of the marginalised in-group designated by this term or experiences anything that could reasonably be considered overlapping with their experiences" is just not a standard that terms or models for understanding and theorising marginalisation are usually held to. And when you consider that the experiences of trans women do not consist solely of the three things above named (with a difference—since they are barred from competing even if they're taking hormones), but also include the aforementioned sorting into a pathologised category to be normalised into a specific idea of "femininity" through the biomedical institutions of capital*; social and economic exclusion, precarity, or disposability especially as related to accusations of aggression, predation, or invasion; patterns of misogynist abuse founded on the vulnerability created by said precarity—that some of these things cannot be "mistakenly" applied to cis women and that it is the combination of these things that is being referred to—
—and when you consider trans women's marginalisation as arising from or otherwise being put to a specific purpose (a readily social ostracisable or 'acceptable' group at which to levy the excesses of abuse otherwise directed at cis women, in the same way that the houseless and impoverished create a pool of excess labour to keep workers down, is an example of a hypothesis I've seen forwarded)—
—it becomes clear that "transmisogyny" is a useful analytical shorthand, that the effects it describes are not solely reducible to analysis that could apply to cis women or to trans men, and that there is no sense to abandoning or redefining it (e.g., to include trans men since they are on the receiving end of both transphobia and misogyny).
*If any given combination of hormonal and surgical intervention were available anywhere, for free, via an informed consent model, I would not have a problem. Here I'm referring to medical gatekeeping whereby you can only get specific interventions of a specific type in a specific order and only by talking to a psychiatrist and only if said psychiatrist diagnoses you with "gender dysphoria" and they'll only do that if you present them with a specific version of normative heterosexual femininity &c. &c.
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graytheory · 9 months
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I am copy-pasting and adding content to this from a very long reblog chain discussion I had on my main account. I feel like it deserves its own post as a discussion about feminism and who feminism is for.
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I think there's going to be some natural growing pains in the coming years as feminists on an individual basis and feminism as a whole confronts what it is truly about. (not that feminism is a single movement or identity anyway, there are already multiple flavors of feminism!)
The two main directions I see as people try to approach this from are "Feminism is for Women" and "Feminism is for Females".
But it's way, way more complicated than that, because the things feminism is trying to address go beyond someone's gender or their sex. Feminism tries to address things like how the patriarchy treats femininity in general, how the patriarchy treats people perceived as women, how it treats people who are female, how it treats relationships and what "the family" should look like, intersections of patriarchy and capitalism, patriarchy and other forms of oppression like race and sexuality, how things like global warming affect vulnerable populations, and more.
Feminism is a movement trying to address fundamental aspects of our society on so many levels.
So.... who is feminism for?
Is feminism only for cis women?
Is feminism for all women, both trans and cis?
Is feminism only for people who identify as women or as feminine-aligned genders, such as demigirls, transfemmes, etc, regardless of birth sex, but not for people with masculine genders?
Is feminism only for afab people who identify as women or nonbinary, but not for transmascs or trans men?
Is feminism for all afab people, regardless of identity, but not for amab people?
Is feminism for anyone who identifies as a marginalized gender?
Is feminism for everyone except cis men?
Is feminism for everybody?
(Yes, the link is to bell hooks' Feminism is for Everybody)
As you can see, there's a pretty big debate going on over who feminism is for, who feminists should focus on, who feminism serves, and who feminism is supposed to primarily benefit.
Radical feminists have their own ideas, trans feminists have other ideas, it's a mess at the moment.
Personally, I think feminism is for everybody.
I think it's important for individual feminists to focus on what's most important to them, and form coalitions to focus on those issues while remaining allies with one another. We can't eat an elephant alone.
I have my own personal flavor of feminism that is based on my early life experiences as a young woman, and my experiences now as a transmasc nonbinary butch approaching my 40's, as well as my interest in socialism and environmentalism. My feminism focuses on:
Trans issues within feminism and is specifically focused on the needs of afab trans people within feminism. Afab trans people suffer greatly from an intersection of misogyny and transphobia.
I also focus on reproductive rights. Afab trans people share a lot of medical misogyny with cis women, for example, so we all need to be allies of each other.
I'm also really interested in reproductive justice from an environmental point of view: everyone deserves a safe, clean planet to raise their children on.
I also focus on how feminism can combat toxic masculinity and make the world a better place for masculine people, too.
And yes, I think there's absolutely a place for feminists who want to solely focus on cis women... but I also want them to be aware and happy with the fact that their efforts are going to help trans women and trans men and even cis men!
I think focusing on how the patriarchy treats everyone like garbage is a pretty big task, and it's ok if we each find our own niche.
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Who has more Schrodinger's Gender?
(aka who is simultaneously trans masc, trans fem, AND nonbinary)
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PROPAGANDA
Hunter (The Owl House)
Popularly headcanoned as transfem and transmasc by the fandom bc her character arc is very trans
He’s a pretty good character and I like him, I get indescribable gender vibes off of him, and also he’s a child soldier, which sucks for him.
The fandom is very divided on whether Hunter is transmasc or transfem or just nonbinary (I say divided in the lighthearted way! There’s no actual discourse haha.) Hunter’s entire plotline is him choosing to be his own person, soooo… yeah
Oh poor thing has been THROUGH it. I have seen so so many trans headcanons for him either way. Something Something being made solely to be exactly what your creator wants and always failing no matter what and eventually breaking free and taking your identity into your own hands to finally be someone you're happy being
sad traumatized child soldier who is very awkward, passionate about wild magic, and can teleport
Trust me they're both transmasc and transfem. Very cringe <3
He is headcanoned popularly as both transmasc and transfem. I have seen so SO many people headcanon them as transfem. I personally headcanon him as transmasc but ALSO I CAN SEE IT!!! ITS THERE!!!!
Everyone agrees that Hunter is trans as hell. Is he a trans woman? Is he a trans man? Is he nonbinary? Who knows?! He's just got that gender swag and I love him.
*points at the massive stacks of transfemme!Hunter and transmasc!Hunter fanworks* He's a clone, he's a Bad Boi, he's a huge nerd, he's canon bi, he likes women that can kick his ass, he's autistic af, I could go on (I'm going with he/him because that's what used in the show)
sometimes he is silly sometimes she is serious. that's just how the world is
Hunter is a Grimwalker, a clone of the emperor's brother who died hundreds of years ago. Hunter is raised in the emperor's castle, being told exactly who he is supposed to be. Once he escapes that abusive environment, he is allowed more space to explore who he actually is. He discovers new interests, but says he misses knowing who he is supposed to be. After spending some more time in safety and comfort of those around him, he eventually says, "even if I'm not who I'm supposed to be, I like who I am right now." I believe this can be seen as trans coding, he is discovering more about his identity and who he actually is, not just what other people want him to be. Many people see him as possibly being both transmasc, or undiscovered transfem. I believe it is also possible, being a grimwalker, he was made as a girl, but changed either due to his own wishes or the wishes of the emperor, opening more interpretation on his identity.
raised in a cult. a former child soldier. clone of a 1600s equivalent of a manic pixie dream boy. his first and best friend is a bird.
His arc of discovering that he doesnt want the path he was born into (or rather created as) resonates a lot with trans viewers [like me:)].
even though we know for (almost) certain he was born amab a solid 1/3 the fandom still thinks hes ftm, and another 1/3 thinks hes mtf, then theres the people who think hes cis. and then theres me and like 2 other people who think hes intersex but forcibly afab and then transitioned ftm.
just a tired little grimwalker whos been through a lot!! they deserve many good things and in the finale do get them :) i can personally see them as either transmasc or transfem and love seeing both interpretations!!
I don't have much to say here but he's both simultaneously an out trans guy and an egg trans girl idk what to tell ya. thats just what he is
People have trans Hunter headcanons in literally every direction. I'm personally partial to transfem Hunter but I adore all the trans headcanons people have for them
Ienzo (Kingdom Hearts)
Look at him. Look at his beautiful eyelashes. He's shorter than all the men around him. He specializes in illusions and disguises. Gender? Hardly know 'er
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dep-priv · 1 month
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A closer look to Transandrophobia
TL;DR: I think that it is GOOD as trans mascs to talk about our specific struggles that we face when taking, choosing and talking about masculinity and transness BUT I think there should be more nuance and careful as to how we approach the topic as not to fall into misogynistic patterns and other pitfalls. 
On one hand I understand the grievances inherited with begin a trans masculine person and having a cis woman try to enact transphobic abuse against you, especially if done behind the veil of femininity (seen as submissive) and you begin a masculine person (seen as inherently violent): Most of the transphobia I faced was exactly like that, try to use femininity as an excuse to abuse me, sometimes even as something to try and control me with, a monstrous masculine "other-me" that could only be tamed if I could try to be more, well, woman-y. I was just begin openly me: which is masculine. 
It's also important to point out that a lot of the blogs to first coined the term we're POC trans men, that was no coincidence, a lot of femininity, a white one to be more specific was used against MOC, it was a way to keep control over them as an insidiously evolved form of racism, that pointed at gender roles, instead of race. That’s why trans men of color we’re the first to point out the problem on certain spaces, we already knew the tactic, in this case a form of transphobia that was camouflaged to pass around more progressive circles but especially targeted trans men. 
Although I understand the issue transandrophia tries to point out (Which is transphobia but just directed at trans mascs specifically.) I also cannot get 100% behind the term because yes, we talk a lot about cis women doing the harm, again, due to deeply ingrained gender roles that even the oppressed now feels the need to correct to another oppressed group. I've also seen the glaring empty spot for cis men in the discussion, we already take them for granted to be transphobic, almost as if the abuse we get from women is worst due to already having it taken for granted that they we're going to ally with us. In a way its giving cis men more of a leeway, perpetuating the cycle of patriarchal control into the micro cosmos that is progressive spaces. We should hold other men accountable, god, we should, we all bark but no bite.
There is an inherent danger on this discussion which is again to fall into the same patterns of old; as masculine people thinking we are owed something from our feminine contra parts, companions, friends, family, etc. And the resentment begin solely that a debt not paid, instead of the actual harm which is transphobia.
The danger is attracting actual misogynist trans mascs to use the term as not a way to describe a particular instance of transphobia but to use it as leverage towards fems and not any fems, trans women would be the first affected by this, instead of the cis women (and by this I mean a group of them, not cis women as a whole, god no.) that want to perpetuate gender roles for their own gain. Younger trans mascs, trans men in particular, could fall into these bad faith actors, we already seen it with transmedicalism and of things created by POC that then are coined by white people for wildly different means. 
My conclusion is: The point is to break these cycles of abuse, we should talk about our issues, of course! But we also we should be on the lookout as not to recent our fem counterparts, cis, trans, in the middle, damn even more feminine leaning trans mascs. Just because of a few decided to use their gender as a way to enact harm towards you, that doesn’t mean it’s a rule of thumb: It might surprise you how trans positive some people turn out to be but also how misogynistic some trans mascs turn out to be.
It’s all about looking into ourselves and confront our own bias, to heal our own traumas, as much as that means a bruised ego to keep in check as not to grieve for a subconscious privilege that was promised but loosed from the patriarchy but for the actual harm that is done: Abuse, transphobia and denial of our basic right of begin ourselves. 
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bluudpop · 6 months
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was looking thru ur art earlier and I think its so funny that while you have trans manlet gil, i headcanon trans manlet roderich. they r simply mlm (manlet4manlet)
yes...................... good.......... trans manlet headcanon gang............. hehehehehehehehehehehe rubs hands together evilly >:)
also finally fun opportunity to talk about this because we do need more trans manlet bitches up here right?
watch me go on a fucjing tangent are u ready
first off with trans manlet gilbert: im projecting bros. but also?? i just find it super fucking funny. gilbert, with his personality, would absolutely HATE being shorter than other people AND not being cis, so i'm putting him through the torture chambers with this one - but i also think he'd be an absolute menace about it, y'know??
another thing is, i just like making every variation of prussia a tiny little shit in my brain (julia, teutonic order, nekotalia, etc.)
now i want to talk about trans manlet roderich because this one's interesting - i love this idea but i think gilbert would be transphobic about it which, in my brain, is funny as fuck (not condoning transphobia, this is for the sole purpose of how they mix like oil and water sometimes) because also in my silly little mind, this is caused by gilbert having internalised homo/transphobia........... and seeing how pruaus is like giving either of us crack, how the fuck would pruaus happen here???? enemies to mf lovers baby!!!!! along woth internalised homo/transphobia, i think gil would do this to try getting over any feelings he has for roderich which yeah. awful coping mechanism, GREAT GOING M8 👏👏👏
here r my thoughts but gil fucks off:
it makes sense. like rod is the kind of guy youll see and think, "oh, maybe? is he?" or, you'd just get confused about his gender (which im gonna be real actually slaps, its so funny when they're like "oh shit is that a dude or a girl.......... o_o"). but i also feel like he'd face so much transphobia which could explain why he wouldn't go outside often (evident by his lack of direction & introversion, imo. unless it was stated somewhere but shut up im braining) and probably wont until after he fully transitions which, fair enough.
anyways thats my spiel on the trans manlets
tl;dr im a sadist
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a-wolf-at-the-door · 5 months
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I've been thinking about the No-Thing. Obviously, in the process of unbecoming a No-Thing, it stopped being. Despite no longer being, it does still exist, otherwise it wouldn't be able to know that it is a No-Thing.
In that case, if one would be able to step into the Void and survive, how would they perceive the No-Thing? Would it be a visible No-Thing? Would it be a feeling? A sound? In what perceivable way does the No-Thing exist? Not necessarily for the human perception systems. We are quite limited in those.
OR is the No-Thing's perception of itself so skewed with suffering and change that it no longer perceives itself as a thing that IS? Could it be that the No-Thing still is, but can't conceive the notion of its being?
I miss Rose :( she was in far less pain than the No-Thing.
Hope your week is going well, and that your weekend gets you very well-rested.
First off thanks for your well wishes and I hope your week is going well too!
I’m so glad you’re thinking about this, I have spent many hours wondering about exactly this question. I have four answers for your one question. They take the form of bad news, good news, a twist, and a promise. The twist is an essay tbh, get ready for a long read!
The bad news: I don’t have a satisfying answer to what the No-Thing is and how the No-Thing would hypothetically be perceived. This is partly because it’s a counterfactual hypothetical: the No-Thing isn’t. Is. There isn’t anyone else doing the perceiving, and if anyone else were to enter the Void they’d be either killed or No-Thing-ified too, excepting those with a Void ship, but my understanding was that part of the way the Void ship worked was by preventing external perception anyway… The other reasons I don’t have a satisfying answer: answering might involve a little bit of spoiler-ing that I don’t want to do, and also, though I pretend otherwise, I can’t entirely wrap my head around the concept of unbeing either! I’m trying to convey not only that which cannot be conveyed but also that which cannot be comprehended, and to get across the truly incomprehensible I can’t cheat and comprehend it!
The good news: You get to decide how to imagine it! Each reader probably has a different understanding of what it must be like for the No-Thing in the Void. Our imagination of unbeing is informed by our individual experiences of being, of embodiment, of identity. I know I move through the world of being very differently than many in my circles, partly due to big Identity Labels™ (cis woman, queer, short, thin, young, white, Latina, neurodivergent, etc. and oops! Now you know a lot more about me!) and partly due to non-Identity Label™ experiences, traumatic and restorative and neutral alike.
The twist: I lied a little, or told a half-truth. Definitely true thing: I believe that stories are always collaborations between writer and reader. Writers provide the scaffolding and readers fill it in and make it particular. We can try all we like to evoke a certain experience, but everyone brings their own background and experiences and lens to the story, so no two people ever really read the same story. And so with that, I think it’s the author’s responsibility to let go. The words on the page are published and the rest of the work is up to the reader to determine and decipher however they may.
But.
I am feeling a little irresponsible.
So I’m gonna tell you more about what inspired the way I write the Void. This isn’t technically a direct answer, nor is it meant to be the sole interpretation of the Void. If you don’t like it, you can always ignore it! Anything I say about these fics is pretty much “fan interpretation” unless it’s in the body of the fic. Here, I’m not really the all-knowing author, I’m just someone who gets to read ahead before everyone else. (because I wrote it lol)
So. How and why do I write the Void (and the No-Thing) the way I do?
The easy answer would be to point to some literary influences. I drew on some elements from DW canon. I love The Magnus Archives podcast and The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater (who is just generally a huge influence on my writing style, I adore her and her work). I consume a lot of speculative fiction and poetry and interesting science writing.
But the real deep-rooted influence of my imagining of the Void is rooted in my mental health challenges. I want to first couch this by saying I’m in a really good place right now and have been for a while. I’ve done a LOT of therapy and I’m on the right medications and I’m making a ton of progress taking care of myself, but I have at points in my life suffered from intense depression, anxiety, and complex trauma. I also have ADHD (but I don’t like saying I “suffer from” that one because it’s so intrinsic to who I am). I’m about to talk about these mental health things in a bit more depth so if you’re not comfy reading about them skip ahead to the promise!
Ok.
I have always struggled with embodiment. Not so much with my specific body—I have a lot of privilege as a thin cis woman and I want to acknowledge that—but with the idea of being in a body to begin with. I blame some of that on the Catholic Church teaching me that the body and all its earthly desires are bad things, and some of it on growing up surrounded by people with a lot of internalized fatphobia, and some of it on growing up intellectually gifted in a society that has a bedrock belief in Cartesian dualism (mind and body are separate, mind is superior to body, mind is pure and godly and must be cultivated, body is impure and animalistic and must be controlled/repressed). My thoughts have always been so fast (thanks ADHD) that I often felt like my body was a limitation.
I have long been very antagonistic towards embodiment and am only recently (past few years) beginning to truly unpack and heal from that. For a very long time the narrative in my head was like this: I am a mind and my mind is clever and creative and quick and capable of so much. My body is an inconvenience. Taking care of it takes time away from the extraordinary things my mind can do. Why does my body betray me by needing sleep, needing food and water, needing bathroom breaks and tooth-brushing and medicine and moisturizer? Why can’t I write as fast as I think? Why can’t I just be a cloud of disembodied thought?
A lot of egotism, a lot of shame. The two often go hand in hand.
These thoughts go back as far as I can remember. I learned to type really fast because I have memories of being a toddler watching my mom typing away and being jealous because handwriting was too slow for me to get my stories out.
I was also a pretty morbid kid. Like seriously, I would read the obituaries in the newspaper and search specifically for young deaths. I don’t know where this came from—I have been very lucky and have still not lost many people close to me, and at that time I hadn’t really lost anyone close to me at all. But I thought a lot about death.
I wasn’t a very good Catholic. I scored highly in religion class because I scored highly in almost every class, and I could believe that Jesus had really existed and done all that stuff the Bible said, but my faith broke down when I thought about death. Hell was terrifying. Purgatory was still beyond my comprehension. My real issue was with Heaven. It sounded interminably boring.
Before anything else, I am and have always been a writer. And as a writer I know that plot relies on conflict. So a reality where everything is perfect all the time and everyone is happy and nothing bad ever happens? Couldn’t get behind it.
As I started losing my faith, my thoughts turned more towards oblivion. (Cue early-2010s TFiOS-era poetic depression). The idea of winking out into nothing terrified me, consumed my thoughts, kept me up at night. What would death be like? Nothing. And what would Nothing be like?
So you see, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about unbeing. And I’ve spent an awful lot of time ignoring the realities of my being, dissociating from my body because I felt limited by it, ashamed of it, detached from it, betrayed by it. (In reality, I was the one doing the betraying.)
Writing Rose/the No-Thing in the Void has been an exercise in paying attention to my being. Trying to capture absence means I have to better understand presence. And it’s made me a hell of a lot more aware of reality.
Because depression lies to you and tells you that you are nothing, that you know nothing, that you feel nothing. Anxiety lies to you and tells you that you are everything everywhere all at once, that you know and can predict every possible outcome, that you are hyperaware of all that’s happening. The No-Thing is both of these and more and less. Like depression, the Void robs Rose of identity, memory, connection, but also like depression, it does so imperfectly. She is not unsalvageable because no one is ever unsalvageable. Like anxiety, the Void gives her a hyperawareness and detachment, a series of images she can’t quite connect and comprehend, an inner monologue she cannot silence. But also like anxiety, it doesn’t actually bring anything into clear focus or control.
Rose’s journey back towards embodiment is coming, and I’m really excited to write it. Partly for her, and a lot for me. It’s going to mirror some of the lessons I’ve learned as I get more comfortable with the fact that being human means being embodied, that I am on the same team as my body, that it sends messages to me and I choose to listen or ignore them, that it never betrays me but that I can choose whether or not to betray it. Her return will also show more of Bad Wolf as a disability. (Disclaimer: I don’t generally disclose the specifics but I have a few conditions that can be classed as disabilities, though they are the sort that can be managed thanks to modern medicine, my parents’ health insurance [thanks Obama!], and a lot of luck and privilege, so with the exception of rogue flare-ups, they don’t usually have disabling effects on my day-to-day life.)
The promise: Rose will return. Can I promise she’ll be in less pain? No. But can I promise she’ll come back and grapple with her new challenges and do it all with characteristic aplomb? Yes.
Ok that’s all! Hope you enjoyed the essay that didn’t really answer your question lol, now go forth and imagine!
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corvidcall · 7 months
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the way people act like the people youre sexually attracted to is some sort of praxis is really annoying for a lot of reasons! because like, yeah, when people say that a whole marginalized group isnt hot, its usually informed by some sort of bigotry, either implicit or explicit. are black women not hot, or have you just decided that every black woman looks and acts the same, and that anything outside of eurocentric beauty standards is "ugly"? would you actually hate dating a fat man, or have you just made a lot of assumptions about what kind of person they must be because of their body, and decided that was at odds with your own interests? you say you wouldnt date a trans woman because you "dont like men" and you're "not interested in penises", but youre just assuming that every trans woman is just a cis man in a dress, which is absolutely not true! OBVIOUSLY prejudice influences peoples attraction
but also like... you cant frame it as a direct expression of someones morals. some parts of what you're attracted to will change throughout your life, but a lot of it is baked in and cant really be changed, even if you might want it to! i mean, thats why conversion therapy demonstrably doesnt work. if youre a person who is really into. idk. vore or bdsm or redheads. even if you decide that actually thats immoral to be into, you're not really gonna be able to stop being attracted to it because sexual attraction isn't really something you get to sit down and CHOOSE. if youre not into anthro animals, theres no amount of sitting down and working on yourself that will convince you to start getting a boner at furry porn.
and then theres the obvious other problem, that being attracted to certain qualities or traits or demographics doesnt even mean that you actually have their best intetests at heart? racists date POC. fatphobes date fat people. misogynists date women all the fucking time!!!!!
i think your tastes are heavily influenced by your environment and your values, obviously, but you cant act like its a pure expression of your values. personally, as a fat person, i dont like people saying that not being attracted to my body is solely because of prejudice you need to unlearn. being attracted to my body isn't homework! it's not vegetables! it's not a thing you need to start doing because its Good For You whether or not you enjoy it! if you dont like my body, thats fine. the thing thats fatphobic is if you TELL ME that you think all fat people are unattractive, even though nobody asked what you thought, and we were talking about me specifically and not all fat people en masse. you can find me unattractive without being a fatphobe. the problem lies in using your lack of attraction to me as an explanation for why youre a fatphobe, or using it as a criticism of me personally. like you not being attracted to me is something i need to change about myself
anyway the actual point i wanted to make was that the worst part of this kind of rhetoric is that it makes it really hard to hornypost without people acting like im advocating for specific actions people MUST take about their own bodies :/ I'll be like "i think transfems with deep voices and who dont really pass well are incredibly sexy" and people will crawl out of the woodwork to be like "oh you think its WRONG for transfems to pass?? you think it's IMMORAL for them to do voice training? you think none of them should EVER get FFS or laser hair removal?????" like... no! i never said any of that shit! just because i think something is hot doesnt mean i think its wrong and bad to not do it. not everyone should make all their decisions based on what i think is hot. no one should, in fact. just because i think its cute when people have crooked teeth doesn't mean i want to criminalize braces. doesnt even mean that i dont think people who have straight teeth are hot. please just let me be horny in peace 😭😭😭
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macgyvermedical · 2 years
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I feel like US television producers/writers are really missing out on something by not setting a TV show on an actual hospital med-surg unit with nurses as the main characters.
I'm talking about a scrubs-meets-superstore type of dramedy:
Half the nurses have (a) particular room(s) they won't go into because they watched someone die bad(TM) in it. One nurse is milking this and it makes it impossible to do the assignment chart.
Two of the nurses on night shift are having an affair. It's been going on for two years, exclusively at work, they've definitely had sex at work multiple times, both are married. Beyond the occasional casual mention and visual gag of them making out in the supply closet, it virtually never comes up. That's their business.
The hospital is scrubs-level normal hospital looking. There's at least one ceiling tile missing. The wall paper is 50 years old and has nicotine stains. It's certainly not whatever fancy-ass hospital House works at.
In a striking reversal of all other hospital shows ever, none of the residents and only about half of the attendings have names. They only show up about five minutes a day anyway. In theory they're real people but we know literally nothing about them.
Someone is screaming. Constantly. Every episode. Sometimes it's for help. Sometimes it's for lettuce. Usually it's just a patient with dementia masturbating really loudly.
There's an old nurse(TM) named Celeste or something. She is 78. Probably. She has a bad hip and a three strike rule when it comes to alarms. As in- if you're A+Ox4 and you are the direct cause of the beeping, she will reset the alarm for you exactly twice. If you mess it up a third time you get to beep until the end of her shift. It's not like its bothering her.
Celeste has the worst pottymouth of anyone you've ever met.
There's one token cis male nurse who exists solely for the female gaze.
There's another male nurse and he's trans. Everyone knows it except the one Extremely Christian(TM) nurse, and they all make gender-y jokes at that nurse's expense.
There's one nurse who's super power is to extremely accurately predict the amount of urine in someone's bladder.
Black Humor. Black Humor everywhere....
An entire episode devoted to the ethicality of cramming uneaten patient food when you're starving and you've got 6 hours left in a shift where you know you're not going to get your government mandated break.
An entire run about one nurse's extremely long dry spell of being totally unable to successfully insert an IV.
An entire episode dedicated to trying to scare the nursing supervisor with patient situations, only for the situations to pale in comparison to everything else the nursing supervisor has had to deal with so far that night.
Visual gag of every call light going off simultaneously at 6:55.
Someone pooped in front of the nursing station. Again.
Someone pulled off their telemetry monitor. Again.
Everyone looking at the monitor at the nurse's station trying to figure out if it's really V-Tach or just artifact from the bed vibrating.
An episode devoted to administration expressing their needs for the nurses to have better customer service, followed by a series of impossible situations in which "better customer service" would actually kill someone.
Psychogenic Seizure Girl(TM) is back.
Every single patient on one nurse's assignment is a full-code gomer.
Multiple gags of what actually happened (patient asked nurse what part of africa she was from before attempting to hit her with a dignicare bag and quoting bible verses) and what it said in the chart (patient used racially and religiously-charged language during assault with medical equipment).
A family member accidentally hit the code button.
A family member purposefully hit the code button but the patient was just in a lil pain.
A die good(TM) vs die bad(TM) episode that encourages viewers to be specific about what they want to happen when it's their turn to go.
A visual gag about 18 family members crammed into a room, all silently watching the nurse. Their heads move in unison. The tension is palpable.
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honeybunchesobees · 1 year
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Hey woah i'm doin fic requests!
Hi im beez i'm also boogiedowntown on ao3. I write little wack ass life is strange stories! I figure i'd let people request if they actually enjoy what i write.
Ground rules, tho:
I write solely on ao3
Just roll up and DM me for requests, if you don't like the askbox. either or is fine.
Request can be any rating, porn, not porn, fluff, angst, violence, i do it all baybee
Begging you to be specific with ur request you cannae just say "chenrich yeah?" and expect me to know what to do
Esp if you headcanon something specific, just let me know what fandom, ship, any relevant headcanons, and at least a small bit of plot direction. (However how much control over it you want is up to you
This is entirely life is strange (the first one, BTS and True Colors. Sorry LiS 2 homies I haven't played it and I won't be anytime soon so...) however depending on the fandom and what exactly you want, i could be open to crossovers. its case by case
I'm good with romantic, platonic, and familial dynamics. Literally anything.
Pleeeeaaaaseeee be patient with me yall. i'm not being payed and like. i'm one guy. it'll get done in a timely manner but dont expect next day shipping.
If you want a specific title mention it otherwise ill come up with one myself
tell me whether or not you want me to officially gift it to you on ao3 or not!
Shit i'm not gonna do:
Incest. Dude. I'm not gonna write incest. Seek help if you want that.
Non Con/Rape. Depends. If it's referenced but now explicitly shown, and not romanticized, I will mention it. But i'm not going to write a full on nonconsensual sex scene.
Bestilality. I'm not gonna write a character fucking an animal??? goes without saying but you know how the internet be.
Cis character with a “Girl Penis” or “Boy Pussy”. Obviously trans people are fine, pre op, non op, post op. (#1 trans alex chen lover here) but as a trans guy those terms are so fucking icky and festisy to me. Specify what you want genitalia called if you want me to write a trans character.
Pedophilia. Fuck off and die if you want that.
thats about it!
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the adventure ones for emil?
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True Name. What is their name's meaning, origin, etc?
He is my self insert and my middle name is Emiliene. So Emil. It means 'Rival' though which is fun. Baudelaire however means 'short sword' and is a direct reference to the fact they're a family of royal guards.
Portal. What is a crossover you've done/thought about for this character?
Flamechasers au,,,, Emil takes the place of Griseo(albeit he's still an adult), as "Preserver". The AU is obviously very sad.
Softly. Describe one of their dreams, good or bad (with proper warnings).
Emil has mostly nightmares. His most common one is being in a replica of his family home, but its pitch black and he's stumbling through the dark hearing his sisters' screams but no matter how hard he tries to find them, he can't.
Metamorphosis. Has this character evolved/changed since you first conceptualized them?
Well he started solely as a self insert and now he has his own traits and personality outside of me! So there's that :D
Treasure. What is something they like/love?
Alcohol.. Writing... Poppies.
Home. Describe their relationship with someone in their family, friend group, with a QPP, a romantic interest, etc.
His relationship with Laure is so wholesome. His lesbian best friend who went "hmm i don't think you're straight or cis" only for him to go "whaaaat? fake..." before taking an arrow for her lmao. Absolute best friends!
Role Model. Did you take inspiration from another character when creating them?
yeah bitch ME
Laughter. What is their sense of humor, or lack thereof? (Bonus: What does their laugh sound like?)
Gallows humour fr.. His jokes can be a bit dark cause he pulls from his trauma or life.. His giggle is very cute, breathy.
Flashback. Describe one of their memories, good or bad (with proper warnings).
Laying in the poppy field near his house, Mitch braiding poppies into his hair while Alexis runs around the field collecting the "best" flowers for them.
Core. How is their true nature different from (or similar to) how they are portrayed to others?
Emil often loses track of himself. He's not sure who he is at times. It makes a "true nature" and a "portrayed nature" very difficult to distinguish. He's different with every person he talks to, sometimes.
Origin Story. Are they a completely original character, a fan character, or something else?
I mean he's a genshin oc but he's fully his own dude in some medias so..
Plot. How do/would they fit into the overall plot of their source?
He's honestly more of a side character for the Fontaine storyline.. His family would be somewhat important/mentioned in the storyline and you'd meet Emil elsewhere and connect him and his story to the side quest in Fontaine.
Quest. What is a personal goal, duty, etc of theirs?
His duty is to protect the people of Teyvat. Whether that be against themselves or against Gods. He's a defender.
Wanderer. Describe an aspect of their world/setting they interact with.
Some treasure hoarders in Liyue will mention a "dark haired stern faced man" in a certain side quest ^^
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thesmutgoddess · 2 years
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ok i see where you're coming from but i still disagree. i believe that radical feminism is the movement with the most nuance when it comes to women's liberation, even if it has some flaws that should be adressed and criticised. and i believe that you can be a trans inclusionary radical feminist because traditional women's issues like abuse, sexual violence and the sex trade also affect trans women while abortion bans affect trans men as well. gender is an oppressive system that affects everyone, but especially trans people that struggle with dysphoria and its absurd to deny that and exclude them from feminism.
also i was in some marxist feminist circles but in my experience at least, they usually fail to adress the depths of our oppression and make feminist issues seem to be rather a class issue than what it truly is, sex based oppression. capitalism obviously plays a huge role in upholding the patriarchy but misogyny existed way before capitalism. i don't know if i'm a radfem or not but i don't like how people misinterpret the movement when it's really complex and provides a deep analysis of the patriarchy. i think you should read catherine mackinnon if you haven't already, she makes some great points, especially about porn and the sex trade
I think we're basically heading toward the same place from different directions. My biggest issue with radical feminist ideology is some of their core beliefs lead to bioessentialist thinking but I agree with many of your points.
I agree with your assertion that trans-women suffer from the same oppressive system as ciswomen. They may not suffer the exactly same way but neither do any two cis women.
I agree that capitalism is not the root of all female suffrage which is why I say leanings w/o fully aligning with the entire ideology. That said I simply don't think you can disconnect the role class and race and the thousand other outliers that factor into sourcing the root of oppression.
I believe that the source of oppression is an imbalance of power and Marxist theory gets much closer to my understanding of it then radical feminism. I will even concede that the general physical disparity between men and women is a factor in that imbalance but it isn't the only factor.
I do not believe that women's biological "burden of the reproductive process" is the innate source of female oppression as many radfems believe. I think it is a factor but not the root causation. Especially since female subjugation extends well beyond her ability to reproduce.
All this is to say I do not think biology is the sole root of misogyny and human beings, as ever evolving creatures with a complex compacity for language, knowledge and learning, have the ability to move beyond it.
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daniela--anna · 22 days
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🪞THE FRAGMENT OF A MIRROR
A professor concluded his lesson with the usual words:
"Are there any questions?".
A student asked him: "Professor, what is the meaning of life?".
Someone among those present who were preparing to leave laughed.
The professor looked at the student for a long time, asking with his gaze if it was a serious question.
He understood that he was.
«I will answer you.», He told him.
He took his wallet out of his trouser pocket and took out a small round mirror, no bigger than a coin.
Then he said: «I was a child during the war.
One day, on the road, I saw a shattered mirror.
I kept the largest fragment.
There he is.
I started playing with it and was enchanted by the possibility of directing the reflected light into dark corners where the sun never shone: deep holes, crevasses, closets.
I kept the small mirror.
As I became a man, I ended up understanding that it wasn't just a child's game, but a metaphor for what I could do in life.
I too am a fragment of a mirror that I do not know in its entirety.
With what I have, however, I can send light, truth, understanding, knowledge, goodness, tenderness into the dark recesses of men's hearts and change something in someone.
Maybe other people will see and do the same.
In this for me lies the meaning of life."
~Anonymous~
"He has explained to you, O man, what is good.
And what does Yah require of you
if not to practice justice, to love loyalty
and to walk modestly with your God?"
"Fear the true God, and keep his commandments. For this is the whole obligation of man."
(Micah 6:8/Ecclesiastes 12:13)
🪞IL FRAMMENTO DI UNO SPECCHIO
Un professore concluse la sua lezione con le parole di rito:
«Ci sono domande?».
Uno studente gli chiese: «Professore, qual è il significato della vita?».
Qualcuno, tra i presenti che si apprestavano a uscire, rise.
Il professore guardò a lungo lo studente, chiedendo con lo sguardo se fosse una domanda seria. Comprese che lo era.
«Le risponderò.», gli disse.
Estrasse il portafoglio dalla tasca dei pantaloni, ne tirò fuori uno specchietto rotondo, non più grande di una moneta. Poi disse: «Ero bambino durante la guerra. Un giorno, sulla strada, vidi uno specchio andato in frantumi. Ne conservai il frammento più grande. Eccolo. Cominciai a giocarci e mi lasciai incantare dalla possibilità di dirigere la luce riflessa negli angoli bui dove il sole non brillava mai: buche profonde, crepacci, ripostigli.
Conservai il piccolo specchio.
Diventando uomo finii per capire che non era soltanto il gioco di un bambino, ma la metafora di quello che avrei potuto fare nella vita.
Anch’io sono il frammento di uno specchio che non conosco nella sua interezza.
Con quello che ho, però, posso mandare la luce, la verità, la comprensione, la conoscenza, la bontà, la tenerezza nei bui recessi del cuore degli uomini e cambiare qualcosa in qualcuno.
Forse altre persone vedranno e faranno altrettanto. In questo per me sta il significato della vita.»
~Anonimo ~
"Egli ti ha spiegato, o uomo, ciò che è bene.
E che cosa richiede da te Yah
se non di praticare la giustizia, di amare la lealtà
e di camminare con modestia insieme al tuo Dio?"
"Temi il vero Dio e osserva i suoi comandamenti. Poiché questo è l’intero obbligo dell’uomo”.
(Michea 6:8/Ecclesiaste 12:13)
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rosatherad · 3 months
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rosa is pondering gender again
Incoming thoughts that are likely disjointed
Gender is complicated. It feels unknowable. I look inside myself and I don't know what I'm feeling, or if I'm feeling any way at all, or if either are remotely close to what I "should" be feeling.
I ask myself, "what is a woman?" women are strongly associated with femininity, and many women express their identity / feel validated by the feminine. But what is feminine is determined by culture, not a constant thing. And, I know for certain that there are women who remove themselves from femininity entirely, therefore womanhood is determined by something else. So if it's not femininity... what is it? The same goes for when I ask, "what is a man?" (a miserable pile of secrets?)
I look at the well-known options for gender identity. You've got male and female (cis or trans doesnt matter, same thing), then like... bigender for both at once, demigender for I think partially one and partially another (commonly "nonbinary"), genderfluid for if it varies, agender for nil, and the ever-mysterious nonbinary for "something else."
Okay... but like, what is the "something else?" I remember, we went on and on affirming that there's more than two genders, but in the present day I still see two genders with different coloured sprinkles on top. Maybe even two-and-a-half genders. It feels like the queer community in my field of view is solely focused on boys, girls, something in-between, or neither. It frustrates me, because that can't be it. I know that gender identity is vast and complex, there's no way there can be just four categories. But I don't see anyone talk about anything else. I rarely see people who id as nonbinary who also don't align with masculine or feminine. I don't think I've ever seen an agender person in my life before either.
Maybe the cause of my internal conflict is because my gender is something isolated from this commonly accepted interpretation of gender as a whole. I don't know.
I don't know what I am. I'm me. Am I supposed to have even a hint of a feeling of what direction my gender lies in? Is it supposed to-
Maybe I am agender. Funny, I feel as if a label for my experience- a great disconnect from gender like an endless chasm- betrays just how much nothing there is. "agender," "voidgender," you try to convey that there's nothing there and yet the labels look and act the same as all the others! At least with asexuality, I feel comfortable with it because I believe my lack of sexual attraction doesn't contradict itself as its own sexual identity.
Maybe it's the difference between a box being empty and the box not existing at all. My box of sexual identity is empty, it's got some stickers on it though. Ask me to pull out my box of gender identity... What box? There's no box here.
But then, if I just say to other queers "oh I have no gender, it's all made up to me," what they HEAR is "I think sex and gender are the same thing and anyone who says otherwise is sick in the head" just like the c*nservatives who ignorantly declare that they have no pronouns
I feel a bit less stressed after writing all this but I'm not much less confused
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