"I do not pass. I am never seen as a cis man in real life." Skill issue. "I simply do not benefit from cis male privilege, and cis women oppress me." Not true. You're seen as a man on here, are you not? I perceive you as a man. I think the most manlike thing about you, actually, is your toxic need to punch down on trans women. I will say, it is very feminine to be such a big fucking pussy and trying to avoid privilege sooo god damn hard so you might want to try cutting that out if you want to pass in the future.

SEND THESE TO MY DISCOURSE SIDEBLOG I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD: @political-faggotry

(also i apologize to my fob followers for this anon being so annoying)

I am done being patient with you lot. You're telling me, a transmasc nonbinary person, that me not having access to hormones is a skill issue. Me suffering from dysphoria is a fucking skill issue? You dipshits are so terminally online you can't even conceptualize a person who experiences any form of oppression outside of "these people were mean to me on Tumblr." Transmascs face actual violence in real life and not only do you deny it, you just call us misogynists for speaking out about it.

You people claim to perceive me as a man but actually you are doing exactly what every transphobe does. In your eyes, I am a woman when it is convenient to you and when you are able to weaponize misogyny against me, and I am suddenly a privileged male whenever I call you people out on it. Your crowd regularly spreads TERF rhetoric (not "terf rhetoric" as in anything i don't like, but terf rhetoric as in things terfs have actually said) by acting like people like me transition to gain male privilege.

It might be news to you that identifying as a man, instead of helping one escape misogyny, actually makes the misogyny worse. THAT'S WHY WE HAVE THE WORD TRANSANDROPHOBIA!!! TO FUCKING TALK ABOUT THAT!!! AN INTERSECTION BETWEEN TRANSPHOBIA AND MISOGYNY!!! DIRECTED TOWARDS TRANSMASCS!!!

I am tired of experiencing misogyny in real life and being called a misogynist by you guys for fucking talking about it.

Why the hell are you accusing me of punching down at trans women? None of this has anything to do with trans women. Trans women have discussions about transmisogyny and I fully support that! Not everything has to be about trans women all the time. Trans men are not some sort of footnote when talking about trans oppression. We are simply subject to more erasure and more invisibility than trans women, which means that WE NEED AWARENESS.

Plenty of trans women support the transandrophobia discussions. Ironically, the people most obsessed with denying that transmascs face oppression are other transmascs who have internalized transandrophobia to the point where they deny that it even exists. While that still sucks, being able to deny transandrophobia's existence while being a transmasc means that you come from a place of privilege.

I do not experience privilege over cis women, given that all other axes of oppression are the same. If you did a few minutes of research you would find many examples of trans men being mistreated and assaulted by cis women.

I EXPERIENCE MISOGYNY AND YOU'RE MAD AT ME FOR BEING A LITTLE TOO ANGRY ABOUT IT?

Round 1 of preliminaries, group 16

The first two places get a place on the bracket

Little reminder: there will be 2 more rounds of preliminaries, the losing blorbos of this poll still have 2 chances of getting in the official bracket

Propaganda under the cut

Parker (Leverage)

"Some of the weird things she says are so true. Like when she talks about past/present/future parker. Her joy at the things that she loves is so complete. Christmas every year! I too have the urge to stab people with forks when in uncomfortable social situations. And it was great when she made her security code to her…home…Sophie’s real name because it was representative of where trust stood in the team after the prison break. Oh! And her and Alec are total couple goals. (Thruple goals if you add in Elliot)"

Gudetama (Sanrio)

"A lazy egg who really doesn't want to do much of anything and would rather just go back to sleep"

Finn the Human (Adventure Time)

"finn is just a little guy doing his best and trying to help people! he's the only human in the show so he's just like us fr (the entire human race) and he starts off the series as a kid and grows up during it so he really goes through all the relatable ups and downs and friendships and relationships and mistakes and achievements that we all go through. he does a lot of idolising people and having to realise they're not what he told himself they were. sometimes he tries to distract himself from an existential crisis by running around yelling or stabbing things with a sword. relatable"

Rain O'Fire Frazier (Worm)

"Rain grew up in a conservative community that he didn't want to be part of, and rejected their regressive ideology in favor of surrounding himself with people who have gender vibes, mental health issues, and traumas of their own. Also, people give him all sorts of crap in the setting, and while he does fuck up sometimes, he's just a swell dude who's hoping to not get murdered by crazy people. Times being what they are, I think that that's something a lot of people can relate to."

Piper Mclean (Heroes of the Olympus)

"she's SO full of love!!! she loves everyone so strongly!! she has a complicated relationship with femininity, gender and beauty standards. she bullies her friends but would go down fighting for them if needed. she acts out to get her dad's attention. she believes in a balance between emotions and logic, and is not afraid to tell her friends if she thinks they're neglecting the emotional side of a problem."

Norma Khan (Dead End Paranormal Park)

"She is autistic and struggles with socialising (same) She has special interests that she will bring up at any opportunity. She can get overwhelemed and scared being in the world. Norma is also bisexual! She spends her time in a Pauline Phoneix theme park (one of her spins) and fighting demons and ghosts (another special interest). Vote Norma today!!"

"She goes through so many relatable experiences that I rarely see depicted and is just overall an excellent character. The third episode of the show has the most relatable depiction of anxiety I've ever seen (especially the intersection between social anxiety and autistic sensory overload). It's one of those episodes where each character has to face their worst fears, and with how those episodes usually go, I expected her to overcome her fears at the end of the episode and just not have them anymore. Instead, she overloads the villain by having too much fear for him to handle since she has to constantly face her greatest fears as part of her everyday life. The protagonist also acknowledges how much more severe her fear is compared to most other people, which is pretty validating. Her special interest is an actress who turns out to be a really shady person, and she has a lot of trouble processing this because it was so close to her heart. She even gets a musical number about it! I've never seen this particular experience depicted in fiction, but it's one that is sadly pretty relatable to me and probably a lot of other people on here. She also has a plot where she is rejected romantically by a straight friend, which is kinda nice to see (even if it's not nice for poor Norma) since even though this is a really common experience IRL I rarely see it explored in fiction. And she's just really funny and smart and a great character in general!"

What made you feel like using the term “butch” to describe yourself despite some of your obvious feminine qualities? (This is an absolutely genuine question coming from somebody who is trying their best to figure out “which box” they fit into).

I guess I’m having a hard time figuring out if I’m “butch enough” which I know sounds ridiculous. I know that there’s such a spectrum and not everybody is strictly “butch” or “femme” but I guess I feel called to butchhood. But I invalidate my own feelings by finding all the ways in which I’m “too feminine” for it.

I’m genderqueer as well so it can be hard for me to find the right balance between my masculine and feminine features that make me feel euphoric.

Hey anon, so this is a very good question, and one I really want to take some time with. As such, I will provide two answers. A short copout answer if you don't have the energy to read a lot, and a long answer.

Short answer, and I really hate when I have to pull out this answer but well...

It's no different than gender euphoria in of itself. Each person is different, and it is based off of well, vibes. It's things like how I can be beside my he/they nonbinary friend, let's call him C, in the exact same outfit as him, and all our friends are like "yup, Nomi looks butch, and C looks boy-adjacent". It's vibes, and there's no real easy way to explain it further than that.

Now lovely anon/reader, if you want something a little more... nuanced (and just as inconclusive), strap in. Pun fully intended.

So I've been mulling over this for a few hours already before typing, and of course my overly analytic ass started scripting this whole thing around exploring the history of butch and femme identities, the gender politics of the matter, the racial contexts, etc. before realizing that doesn't answer your question; how did I specifically, a trans-feminine two-spirit person, reach butch being where I felt the most at home in myself despite apparent feminine aspects of myself? Understanding the history, cultural implications, and other nuanced portions of "butch" as an identity was a huge part of how I got there, and so I'll briefly go over that, but it's also important to keep my copout answer in mind as well. You know yourself best. It's well, vibes.

Let's start with the barebones identity of butch. I think a good place to start is understanding that while all butches are masculine, not all mascs are butch. Same with femme vs. feminine. It's something you claim, you embody. It's well, an identity. For many, myself included, it's an inseparable part of ones gender identity to boot. And like all identities, it is often intersectional with other facets of your life. Gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, culture, etc. For me, Butch ties directly to my Two-Spirit identity. Part of being a Michif (Métis) Two-Spirit person is holding both the masculine and feminine at all times. While not necessarily a woman in the western sense, I feel woman-adjacent. My "feminine spirit" comes from feeling woman-adjacent, and honestly when around other Michif women, like a Michif woman (but that's a conversation for another day). My "masculine spirit" comes from being a butch Michif lesbian, amongst other things. If I had to describe how my gender "feels", Two-Spirit Butch feels honestly the most accurate, even if that doesn't fit into a Western queer lens that nicely. I may have, as you said anon, apparent feminine aspects to myself that counter my masculinity, but part of being Two-Spirit is holding those with love, honor, and compassion. Feminine spirit doesn't negate my queer masculinity, if anything it augments it. But, exploration of my Two-Spirit identity and how it relates to being butch likely won't be of much help to most of the non-indigenous readers.

Let's look at a more Western approach, because Butch is just that, a rather Western queer term. I do want to preface that as a trans-feminine person there are many within queer spaces that believe I do not have the right to claim butch for myself. To them I counter, bugger off terfs. I would also like to point out that while in a modern sense butch more or less refers to a masculine lesbian identity, that was not always the case. Butch for many many years was an identity to describe queer masculinity as a baseline, regardless of lesbian, gay, bisexual, etc. Especially in queer BIPOC communities. Butch becoming a lesbian-centric term is much newer within the queer lexicon (with some pointing to white queer culture stealing a term from BIPOC queer culture, but that is a topic I do not have the expertise to go into). While both butch itself, and queer masculinity as a whole have evolved since those times, I think keeping that historical context in mind is important.

To me, part of why I claimed "Butch" specifically is how it relates to non-conformity of expected womanhood. While I do not claim woman in the Western sense, during the early phases of transition, I began by identifying as a woman, and trying to abandon all of masculinity and what it came with. You can find a bit more of how that went in this post. I dove headfirst into femininity and hit my head on the floor of the pool so hard I ended up right back in dysphoria central, just a different kind. But, that exploration of womanhood and femininity were integral in why I claimed butch for myself. I don't think I ever would have claimed it had I not. One of the common factors with every AFAB butch I've met is a rejection of the expectations of womanhood that Western culture thrusts upon them. Personally, I don't think it would have been right for me to claim butch without having first explored Western femininity and it's expectations to the extent I had.

Eventually I finally admitted to myself that, while I knew for certain I wasn't a man, I didn't feel right as a feminine (Western) woman either. So, what was I? I felt more at home, more welcome, and more loved amongst queer women, lesbians especially, than I ever had with queer men. Hard androgyny and genderqueer (which btw I do not identify with genderqueer, not upset with you though) didn't feel right either. There were aspects of classical womanhood from a physical standpoint I knew were in line with myself after many years of HRT. Breasts, my waist line, my now feminine skin texture, my legs, honestly my entire estrogen-sculpted body. Hell, while I haven't gotten full vaginoplasty for medical reasons, I would if I could, Stone Top identity aside. I felt at home around women and lesbians, as a Michif woman/lesbian, but not in femininity. As described in the post I linked in the previous paragraph, the first true step was reclaiming masculinity, and making room for healthy queer masculinity separate from gender.

I want to bring up this exploration of the meaning behind the colours of the lesbian flag for a moment. For me, Butch and all it encompasses, is a part of all of these. Gender non-conformity I think is self explanatory. I am a walking defiance of gender norms and expectation at this point, and butchness as a whole is as well. Independence can mean many different things to different people, but I feel self sufficient as a butch. I feel competent. I feel secure. Mostly importantly though, it is an identity I feel independent in. For years and years I let my expression of gender and sexuality be defined by those around me. Past partners, friends, family, coworkers, etc. I could not claim butch until I took a step away from all of those. I stopped letting them dictate who I was, and let myself learn who I was independently. Community and butch is always going to be linked. Butch is a community-centric identity. When I tell someone in the queer community I'm butch, they know what it means. In a single word I can describe large swathes of my experience and how I relate to the world. But it also comes with community role and responsibilities. Butches and Femmes protect eachother. Butches provide safe masculinity in queer spaces that heals wounds for so many people, including other butches. Butches take up space in a room to ensure other non-butch women have space. We protect, we heal, we love. Butch love is so fucking unique and important to a community. Butch comes with a community meaning, but also community role and responsibility, and to me that is a big part of why I feel comfortable claiming it. Serenity and Peace is so many things. Both internal and external. I have peace within myself as a butch. I feel more peace with myself now than I did for so many years. When I finally said it outloud, said I was a butch lesbian, and people affirmed that, it was like a weight I never even knew existed was lifted. I've felt happier in my time openly being butch than I have in ages, and everyone around me as noticed it too. Friends, family, coworkers all comment on just how happy, confident, and at peace internally I've been. Love and Sex this is a doozy of a topic that I truthfully do not have the desire to explore right now. It is important, but I am not in the headspace for it. But butch love is unique in itself. As for sex, well. Please refer to the wild swathes of queer theory and discourse out there. As an off-hand example relating to myself though, see Stone Butch. Unique Relationships to Womanhood/Feminity. I explicitly wanted to link these together. As a Two-Spirit butch, and a trans-femme one at that, my relationship to womanhood and femininity is unique, complicated, and at times inexplicable. The fact that I can say I don't identify as a Western woman, but with other Michif woman I do feel like a woman, is one confusing way. The fact that butch being a gender identity to me is another. But one aspect I want to explore is this notion that masculine and feminine are antithetical to eachother, when I don't think they need to be. I'm not androgynous. I hold both masculine and feminine, not a middle thing. My masculinity is queer masculinity, and I genuinely think queer masculinity MUST be in some way shape or form partially feminine. There is a softness to queer masculinity. A vulnerability. A tenderness. Queer masculinity is often gentle, loving, soothing. All things associated with Western notions of femininity, not masculinity. But queer masculinity, non-Western masculinity, makes room for those things. You wouldn't look at a mother bear protecting her cubs and say "that's not motherly behaviour, that's not womanhood". My relationship to my feminine self is in relationship to my masculine self. They are tied, and being butch, being a soft butch at that, encompasses it.

I think finally a topic I've been dancing around, though alluded to multiple times, is that first copout answer. Vibes, and gender euphoria as a part of vibes. From the vibes standpoint, what I have to offer is this anecdotal piece. When I told my friends that I was mulling around with the idea of claiming butch, basically every single one went "... yeah? You didn't know that?" Off of vibes alone every single one of my queer friends already knew I was butch. From behaviour, to what I was most comfortable in fashion wise, to how I related to others, they all knew that my "vibes" were butch already, well before I had even remotely considered it. As for the other hard to define aspect... As a non-cis person yourself anon, you mentioned it already. Gender euphoria is a weirdly difficult to attain thing. I spent years on years of experimentation, exploration, and rumination trying to find my euphoria. Trying to find the spot I'm in now, where I find myself loving what's in the mirror every single day. Butch got me to the point that I legitimately look in my mirror and love what I see Every. Single. Day. I take selfies of myself because I love what I look like, even in just a hoodie in sweats, every day now. I put more casual care into how I look now, because I love myself, more than I ever did before. I take better care of my health. I have more self confidence. I'm happier and more stable emotionally. Hell, I'm a better friend, coworker, and community member now as a butch than I ever had capacity to be beforehand. It's not just me noticing that too. Near everyone in my life started making note of it anytime I took another step into fully claiming butch for myself. The biggest reason I feel right in claiming butch is that frankly, how can you look at secure, holistic, stable happiness like this and not say it's right.

There's a lot more I want to say here, but I've already been at this for nearly three hours, and that's on top of the two hours I spent just thinking on the matter to boot. I hope I was able to answer your question at least partially anon, and that it helps you with your own gender expression/identity journey. I think the only other thing I want to say is that it's okay if what you identify with now changes. It doesn't invalidate what you feel now, just like how you are now doesn't invalidate what you felt was right for your say, 5 years ago. Human experience and identity evolves, it grows, it changes. If you feel right with butch now, excellent. If you end up realizing that it was just a stepping stone in discovering your unique patch of gender euphoria, that is just as excellent. Rootin' for ya anon 💕

can i ask you to share your favorite essays on medieval lit/arthurian legends? i wanted to read something that shows me different ways to interpret things, like i've been reading some bible lore essays recently (like ones that can deepen my knowledge on specific subjects/there's a book about cannibalism and how it's really keen to the figure of Jesus) and i really wanted to see if there was something similar for arthurian stuff, i'm sure there is but personally i wouldn't know where to start, sorry if my english was bad i hope you understood, thank you in advance for your answer, have a good day :)

hiiii <3 so obviously this all depends on your personal interests but as you are interested in cannibalism in Christianity I can imagine we have similar interests hehe :)

Here are some of my all time favourite academic essays ! I like them because they are thought-provoking to me and often involve applying (post)modern critical lenses to medieval literature!

The Ends of Excitement in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Mark Miller: examines the intersection of horror and eroticism in SGATGK and the notion of 'climax'.

Gawain and the nick of time: Fame, History, and the Untimely by Richard Godden: on temporality and intertextuality in SGATGK

From Lancelot to Galahad: The Stakes of Filiation by Emmanuelle Baumgartner : chapter in a book - really interesting reading of the introduction of the character of Galahad and how it works on both an intra- and extra-diegetic level within the Vulgate Cycle.

Feminine Knots and the Other by Geraldine Heng: a reading of the relationships between women in SGATGK. Heng is also the author of Empire of Magic (book on the trauma of the crusades and how it inflects romance) and The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages and Enchanted Ground (a book chapter but very difficult to get a hold of, examines the role of women within chivalric ideology)

Guinevere's Politics in Malory's Morte Darthur by Kenneth Hodges: very interesting analysis of Guinevere's political machinations in Malory.

Kenough is Enough

So I don’t typically post long essays about movies, but I saw the Barbie movie earlier today with a friend and I have so many thoughts that I feel like I need to share.

Now first off, I don’t want to knock anyone for enjoying it. I think that the general population finding joy in expressing femininity and appreciating a movie about women, by women, for women is a wonderful thing and it’s been great to watch. However, the response to the movie has been so overwhelmingly positive from progressive critics that I feel the need to voice some dissent. It’s a fine movie. I don’t hate it. But there were a few things about that got under my skin as a transmasc gnc person with my own relationship with femininity and feminism.

Essentially, I think that the Barbie movie presents a very simplistic view of what it means to be a woman and what feminism is. A white skinny cishet woman’s understanding of intersectional feminism. The plot and its themes focus heavily on sisterhood and how damaging the patriarchy is without fully exploring why it exists or how it actually functions. To be honest, I was with the movie for the most part until the plot reached its “resolution” and all of the smaller issues sort of coalesced.

The Barbie movie frames the patriarchy as an individual choice that every man makes rather than a nuanced system of control that coexists alongside multiple other systems of control based around race, religion, sexuality, etc. The Kens’ downturn into “mind control” and stereotypical misogynist behavior happens like a switch was flipped in their brains. Even worse, the movie even places some of the blame on the Barbies by initially depicting them as neglectful, which precipitates the Kens’ desire to take total control. It’s a very warped view of dynamics between men and women that is not only absolutist in its presentation of gender but also negligent of the centuries of history that preceded the current state of the patriarchy.

The plot isn’t resolved through mutual understanding but rather pitting men against one another and then taking their power by force. There is no questioning of why a woman needs to be beautiful, and instead simply saying every woman is beautiful in her own way. It’s a very narrow view of femininity that leaves little room for women who don’t conform to expectations of gender presentation or people who feel no connection to gender at all.

The Barbie Movie simplifies feminism into a digestible promotion of its titular product by equating Barbie with femininity and disposing with any nuance that might make the plot more complicated than it needs to be to leave most people satisfied. But for the people like me who aren’t, it just feels hollow and isolating.

The reason that transandrophobia is a real, systemic oppression is because both transphobia and misogyny are forces of systemic oppression that greatly affect the lives of transmascs. Misandry need not exist for transandrophobia to; what I call transandrophobia is the intersection of transphobia and misogyny that affects transmascs, as well as anyone perceived to be transmasc or transmasc-adjacent.

I would also argue that transandrophobia usually refers to the way that a combination of transphobia and misogyny are used to speak over transmascs, take away our autonomy, and treat us like objects who don't have opinions on everything that affects us. It's the way that some of us, usually those of us who primarily date cis women, try to be "one of the good ones." It's the way that everyone is immediately suspicious of us being incels, especially if we aren't attracted to women.

It's the way that we are constantly forced into the role of a woman: how we're expected to put up with forcefem "jokes," detransition "jokes," corrective rape "jokes," and other such "jokes." If we don't let people walk all over us, calling us feminine terms, reminding us of our place, that's toxic masculinity. We can't have any relationship to womanhood, either, or else we're creepy men invading women's spaces. But if we reject womanhood entirely, if we exist as men who only love other men; then we're basically the same as MGTOW guys! /s

The difference between us and MRAs is that MRAs are straight, white, and usually able bodied and neurotypical. Meanwhile, transmasc-centered feminists tend to be neurodivergent and/or disabled gay trans men, and there seems to be a good mix of different ethnicities and cultural backgrounds speaking up. The MRA comparison doesn't work because when MRAs don't want to take women seriously, it is from a place of misogyny and often straight privilege. Gay trans men that don't worship cis women in every way are just guys who are tired of being forced to be women. There is a big difference here.

A lot of this new discourse is very much "gay men are more likely than straight men to be misogynists because they don't even like women!" repackaged, except it's not even repackaged. You just added "trans" to the beginning of everything! I don't know why I have to explain to queer discourse Tumblr in the year 2023 that not being attracted to women when you're a man doesn't inherently contribute to misogyny and patriarchy.

Gay trans men aren't making a choice to leave the Good Pure Women's Team and join the Horrible Evil Incel Faggots. Kill the radfem in your brain that believes that queer male identity and sexuality is inherently oppressive. Kill the homophobe in your brain that believes gay men need a woman in their lives to prevent them from going off the deep end. Kill the biphobe in your brain that believes that the only moral thing for an m-spec man to do is to date a good pure woman.

Transitioning is not a calculated choice for the vast majority of transmascs. I do not owe any cis woman the rest of my life spent in emotional pain due to dysphoria in order to make her happy that I'm not one of Those People. No one owes anyone else suppression of their personal identity and desires for gender expression in order to serve someone else's political framework. If your social or political framework does not include someone's identity, that is a problem with your framework, not their identity.

Gay trans men are not predators. Putting "trans" in front of your homophobia doesn't make it less homophobic.

talked to a coworker very briefly about this so i wanted to express my feelings because i literally refused to go as far as “misogyny affects men too” (i think talking about certain subjects that aren’t inherently positive is unprofessional and uncomfortable for others in the workplace) but like yeah, misogyny affects men too. it affects everyone. misogyny is pretty directly correlated with bio essentialism, and where i see this most commonly esp recently is that “women good men bad”. BUT, but but but, this also means “women good = women fragile and need protecting” and “women good = women polite and let us abuse / make them uncomfortable”. amongst like so many other things. when we believe women are less, we also believe that men are more and hold them to an unrealistic standard. this creates a space where women are always in danger and men have no space to express themselves in any way, and this is where even misandry comes into play because misandry isn’t oppression, it’s prejudice. (and if misogyny is directly correlated to bio essentialism then so is misandry, which will also affect everybody.)

so there’s a difference of being a TARGET of misogyny and being affected by it. women and feminine people will always be the target and where we are now, that targeted misogyny is way more likely to be life-threatening and physically dangerous. however, while misandry isn’t always directly dangerous it can lead to dangerous outcomes (high suicide rates, mental health issues, etc etc) and they both affect one another through bio essentialism.

this is also why intersections and words to describe them are SO important. misogyny is going to look different for trans women, misandry is going to look different for transmascs. sometimes they’ll experience both (evil men coming to invade our bathrooms is both an example of trans misogyny and misandry, given the wording, but that does not mean that trans misogyny = misandry. they can both simply coexist at certain moments) black men are going to face an intersection of racism and misandry at given moments, as are black women with misogyny. it’s important that we have these words and acknowledge that they exist so that everyone has a space to talk about what they experience, so we can better understand how we need to evolve and fix these issues.

i usually need someone to give me a tl;dr or however they spell it because i have a hard time understanding large concepts so basically mine is that:

many issues such as misogyny and misandry and the intersections between them and other phobias/prejudices shares many things with bio essentialism and therefore can affect, but not target, everyone. this means that more than anything we need to listen when people describe their struggles, so we can better the safety and respect within our communities. um. thank u for coming to my ted talk please let me know if u have questions or if i said something stupid

Cis Yet Not Cis: The possible intersection of GNC identities and being trans/nonbinary, and misconceptions about GNC people

Introduction

I think the best way to introduce this post is to simply present a variety of often-conflicting quotes from LGBTQ people about "gender nonconforming" people(like butch women and femboys):

"Femboys can take off being a femboy at any time, unlike trans people."

"The character expressed gender euphoria at being perceived as masculine, so they have to be transmasc, not just GNC"

(a butch woman speaking) "My initial reaction to getting called cis is to cringe... cis is viewed as the opposite of trans, so it implies I'm comfortable with conforming to my gender"

(a trans woman speaking) "What is the material difference between me and my HRT femboy friends?"

"If you take away lesbianism from being butch, then all you have left is dressing differently."

"GNC people are not queer, queer is only if your identity or sexuality differs, and GNC people are cis"

"Nobody is assigned femboy at birth- they're essentially trans."

"Theres a long history of some butch women getting dysphoria for not being masc enough, sometimes going on HRT or getting top surgery."

"Femboy is only an aesthetic descriptor, it has nothing to do with identity"

“We never see him dress masculine, he's ALWAYS dressing fem, so how can he just be GNC?”

These quotes, and many others, reflect varied, conflicting perceptions of gender nonconforming people among even some trans people. So I suspect that a significant percentage of LGBTQ people have a flawed understanding of GNC people, and so I wanted to make this post. I think most of you basically get it but since I see some weird statements every now and then so i figure it may be helpful to convey this breadth a bit better, and that may help solidify it for some people.

(Also, to clarify a definition: I'm using "gender nonconforming" here to mean "someone who's gender expression doesnt match society's conception of their gender identity", ie butch women, femboys, tomboys, etc. As far as I can tell, this is a relatively recent definition for GNC. It has been heavily adopted as the primary definition in many LGBTQ circles(probably because of the vacuum it fills), but theres still people who use the term as an umbrella term for trans+nb+etc(which seemed to be the meaning before the recent shift) or people who use it to mean something like genderfuck, so I felt I should clarify.)

Expression and Breadth

A source of the disparity in the quotes above is that GNC identities involve something like a spectrum. For example, for male-identifying cis femboys, you could lay out a demonstrative spectrum something loosely like:

1)A femboy who is arguably gender conforming outside of the fact that he enjoys the aesthetics of dressing fem. It has no emotional importance to him, he can "take it off" at any time, and his conception of identifying male has not changed much.

2)A femboy who is only modestly attached to being a boy(demi?), but doesnt identify as being a woman nor feels a particular pull towards nonbinary conceptions either. Feminine gender expression is important to him(cant "take it off" without emotional harm), much moreso than what gender he identifies as. His conception of male identity is loose.

3)A femboy who's combination of feminine gender expression and identifying as male is important to him. His conception of male identity has changed a lot from what was given to him by society.

4)A femboy who is very similar to 3), but has a much stronger need to be feminine and be perceived that way, going so far as to go on hrt to feel expressed and fulfilled. His conception of male identity has changed drastically from what was given to him.

These are just loose examples(multi-attribute things dont map cleanly to a linear spectrum anyway, the point is to just demonstrate some things), and of course there are those in between each point. I also suspect a significant % of femboys are somewhere between 2 and 3- feminine expression is important to them, theyve opened up their concept of male identity a lot but are also kind of winging it(which is fine) and are more attached to femininity than male identity, and just have some movement towards certain values in reaction to things like gender restrictions and toxic masculinity.

You can of course construct this sort of demonstrative spectrum for other gnc identities like tomboys, men who identify as gnc but not feminine, gnc people who specifically value a mix(tbh a lot of femboys are like this), etc.

This illuminates a few things especially when viewed alongside conceptions of being trans. For example, theres a difference between:

-simply having "gender expression" without it having emotional importance to you

-gender expression being indirectly important to perception as a gender identity(like being seen as masculine as a vehicle to being seen as a man)

-gender expression being important as perception of a more specific gender identity(like being seen as a masc woman, not just a woman, not just masc, and certainly not a masc man or a feminine woman- the whole picture is key)

Part of why I bring that up is because some people seem to think that expression is only a tool to reinforce/convey identity, rather than sometimes an inseparable part of what's important to someone. (Also, just to mention: gender expression isnt just clothing.)

Another thing the demonstrative spectrum points to is breadth. The quotes at the top of this post pretty much all focus on a subset of this breadth of gnc people. Because of that, that makes some of the quotes flat out wrong(because they only imagined that identity as a specific thing- or are just stupid) and others just sound odd when you dont realize the part of the range they're talking about. Most GNC identities are fundamentally quite broad, partially because they point to a "mismatch" between identity and expression, but expression serves multiple different purposes as mentioned, and thus these identities are naturally broad.

Labels and Conceptions

Now, imagine the above spectrum, but broaden it from "cis male-identifying femboys" to "cis men". Now you have some gender-conforming men at the start of the list. Or do the same with a list for women, from gender-conforming women to butch women.

Having those side by side in the same list brings us to the next question: Do the gender nonconforming people have the same conception of their gender as the gender conforming people? Do they have the same "gender identity"? Is a butch woman the same "gender identity" she was assigned? Is identifying as a woman the same for a gender-conforming woman as for every butch woman who deeply needs to be perceived as masculine? Obviously, there’s some relation, but what counts as “the same gender identity”?

Before I continue on this, theres often some assumptions that go into "Trans" and "cis", such as:

-Being trans means having explored what gender means to you, having worked through discomfort with whats assigned to you and restrictions, and having thought about what resonates with you

-Being trans means gender divergence has a special importance to you

-Cis is thus often positioned as the opposite of these- hasnt thought about gender, hasnt self-realized, hasnt worked through discomfort on restrictions etc

-Gnc people are cis, and therefore etc etc

Again, like that quote above from a butch woman: "My initial reaction to getting called cis is to cringe... cis is viewed as the opposite of trans, so it implies I'm comfortable with conforming to my gender."

For a lot of gnc people(i dont know what %, of course, and have biased assumptions based on the communities im exposed to), their conception of their gender identity is about as shifted from their AGAB's gender conception as a nonbinary gender. But the fact that they use the same label(and probably still have some type of conceptual connection with their AGAB) obfuscates this shift, it obfuscates that they mayve gone through introspection etc. Questioning, exploring and understanding your gender identity doesnt just mean going from two identities with visibly different labels, but also includes going between two identities that have the same label(woman->(butch)woman)

Reconstructing a house can involve as much work and decisionmaking as moving into a new house. The ship of theseus, except gender. Virtually no boy is assigned a conception of manhood that can include being a femboy, nor needing to be perceived as feminine. That is a fundamental change they made/something they discovered while self-investigating, and those different needs demonstrate the differences. If a GNC person cant "just take off" being GNC because it makes them dysphoric/upset/deprives them of gender euphoric feelings, that points to the change and the pursuit of that different conception, and is hardly different from, say, nonbinary genders. Just as there are nonbinary fems who are close to indistinguishable in behavior/needs from very fem women but in a nonbinary identity, theres the same for male-identifying fems.

The "Nobody is assigned femboy at birth" quote initially took me aback because it sounds silly to even say, and while the phrasing could perhaps be better there's definitely a point: Nobody gets assigned very GNC conceptions, they dont start with that, even if you put clothing aside.

Of course, this doesnt mean all GNC people have a different conception of their gender than genderconforming people- again, the demonstrative spectrum before. Some GNC men still harbor toxic masculinity. You cant usually tell from outside signals what a person has thought about with their identity or what their needs are- this is true for every group. And sometimes change is not consciously thought out. But in any case I do think a considerable % of, for example, “cis” femboys basically reshape what being male identifying means to them and are essentially a form of nonbinary/genderqueer.

In general on this topic, I think this comic from https://somethingaboutlemonscomic.tumblr.com/post/678523447463313408/4x10-4x11-4x12-last-update-chapter is relevant:

Conclusion

Ultimately, my main points are:

1)i think some people need a bit more understanding that “gnc” and gnc terms like femboy are pretty broad categories and include some people who have extremely similar needs to trans people, as well as people who are just average cis people with different fashion, and everyone in between.

2)Cis and trans have multiple meanings that are positional/relative- see nonbinary people who hesitate to use trans depending on context, because they associate it with "having gone through a lot of things binary trans people are associated with going through". Similarly, GNC people can have an awkwardness with being called trans even if they have in mind everything i've said about being called cis. Being called trans is assumed to be like girl->boy/enby, rather than girl->genderqueer alteration of girl. Both terms can be perceived as off.

3)Gender identity changes can keep the same label, which can mask the degree of change inside those gender conceptions

This post may come across as like “many gnc people should count as nb and/or as trans”, and maybe, but honestly I don't care much about that, those words are fairly contextual and multi-purpose anyway and have moved so much over the years. That’s only perpendicular to my points of trying to convey GNC people more accurately and move past some assumptions.

In any case, if the fact that i'm walking near that claim is Wrong and Concerning im totally open to criticisms of my thought process etc, and i absolutely dont intend to conflate, say, “gnc people who just dress different but its not related to their feelings/self-conception/etc” with trans people or nonbinary people let alone the degree of their struggles/oppression, which is part of why its necessary to convey that gnc people are a range.

Like Shel said in https://cohost.org/shel/post/1221440-some-wisdom-about-be , people tend to get very confident in their specific experience of lgbtq communities etc, and similarly can get overly confident in what an average person is like. So I just caution you to be aware of the limitations of your own circles and small data sets. Like if youre about to say something like “all the people I know are <>” then you should probably immediately tread with caution because it seems to me that gender groups are usually considerably heterogeneous in many ways.

A few clarifications and misc comments:

-I definitely understand that cis GNC people have privileges that usually help them avoid some problems trans people face. Like being able to avoid a higher amount of bioessentialist ire, less likely that medical gatekeeping prevents them fulfilling their needs, etc. I dont mean to downplay that. But I do want people to understand things like that butch women have faced intense hatred for a long time, and some of the most violent hateful fascist comments I have ever seen on the internet have been directed at femboys- these things point to important dynamics of how right wing hatred works.

-I used the terms butch/femboy predominantly in this post because I felt like they quickly convey the degree of GNC i'm talking about, but I dont mean for them to monopolize conceptions of GNC. Talking about GNC people is always messy compared to, say, talking about agender people. With "agender", afaik(correct me if I'm wrong!) almost noone who would be classified as agender dislikes the term and also it is very clearly about them specifically- it is both sufficiently broad and specific. In contrast, "GNC" is pretty vague, "Femboy" doesnt cover all very gnc men(such as ones who dont consider their expression to be fem), and "Butch" has very particular connections with lesbianism, etc. Terminology is currently avoidably sloppy for describing GNC people, no way to avoid it.

-As alluded to at a few points, you dont have to be male identifying to be a femboy, although thats usually who uses the label. An accurate, inclusive definition of femboy would be "someone with a very feminine gender expression but still aligned with a mix of masculinity in some way(ie usually, identifying as male)". Somewhat similarly, butches are definitely not exclusively women, I was just focusing on that subsection of butches for the purposes of this post.

-Theres simply a huge overlap between the experiences of, say, fem trans women and fem gnc men and fem enbies.(and the same for the masc inverse) Theres a tendency to see a set of experiences and go "Oh! Same identity as mine!!!!" and not see whats shared across different identities rather than is particular to a single identity. Seriously the experience overlap is fucking enormous.

-The positioning of 2) in that spectrum is partially arbitrary but thats what you get when you try to map 4+ things to a 2 dimensional spectrum

-"Genderqueer" can be used to convey the meaning of "having a 'queer' version of your cis gender", but its has a ton of meanings and is very often used to just mean "nonbinary/trans", so its pretty impractical to try to use it to mean specifically that concept

-I focused on cis gnc people to make my points and comparisons more clear(isolating the focus to GNCness), but a lot of what I said is relevant to understanding trans gnc people, who are extremely based

prompt: jack/hannibal along the axis of gender

i've always been interested in what people thought of Hannibal before they suspected him of being the ripper. like. all of his aesthetic, his sensibilities, his sort of soft-spoken elegance plus awkward geekiness under the surface

anyway what if jack fell in love with him

hear me out

not like "fell in love with him" in a cheating way, obviously jack and bella are very stable and we can pretend that jack is mature enough to tell bella about these new feelings. obviously that's a little out of character for jack but bear with me

the point is

from jack's perspective, he reached out to dr. lecter on recommendation from alana, but then... then he meets this guy who has got to be one of the funkiest little dudes jack crawford has ever met

hannibal lecter is so profoundly odd, and he's soooo unashamed to be his weird self

he's a host. he's a chef. he's fuddy duddy and wears three piece suits. he jokes with jack and seems to understand and empathize with jack fundamentally

he keeps inviting jack over for five course dinners

jack's either been treated as or treated himself as a workhorse his whole life, between the navy and then the FBI, always a civil servant. hannibal treats him like someone who deserves nice things.

mostly i'm thinking about jack feeling attracted to the fantasy of hannibal being his like. male housewife. the perfect intersection of maleness and traditional feminine gender roles - aka the perfect complement to jack's existing marriage where bella is both femaleness but also jack's equal in every aspect

also jack thinking that. like. he knows that hannibal does this same song and dance for other people too. but he can't shake the feeling that something about this, something about hannibal's treatment of jack in particular, is special, and intentional, and maybe hannibal does want something more

anyway this is just a silly ramble considering where they actually end up but. it'd be cute i think. for hannibal to be totally blindsided by jack's perception of him. and at first be sort of offended, or amused, because it's such an inaccurate perception, clouded by social biases. and it's funny that the head of the BAU could be so fundamentally wrong

but on the other hand

maybe jack introduces hannibal to other people in the office or something

guiding dr. lecter around with a hand on his arm or brushing against the small of his back

chivalrous and proper and most importantly of all, gentle

idk how often hannibal gets to have gentleness from other men

from anyone, really, but especially from other men

maybe there's a part of him that kind of likes it

at the intersection of fuckass bob posting and girlestappen posting: what hairstyles do you picture girlestappen having? -> obsessed with the au and finding different ways to visualize and rotate it around in my head

this ask made me do a cartwheel in my room. i'm being so serious.

charles starts with longer hair, kind of like a '60s Jane Birkin look, and then she lets max cut it for her and her bangs get a little fucked and everything goes way too short. the goal was a classic french bob... the execution was more manic pixie.

max has long hair that she can't really be bothered to deal with initially. after they get closer, she lets charles put it in two braids to keep it out of the way while she's killing and eating people <3

max's haircut actually plays super heavily into my characterization of her over the course of this fic (her relationship to her dad, how he views and treats her, her performance of femininity, etc.) but i don't want to spoil everything so... i will close my mouth. the important thing to note is that she ends up with short hair. maybe even a buzzcut... very quintessential butch.

(i wrote this in my notes app the day i came up with this au, basically it's charles' first impression of max's hair)

Her hair is long, but not intentionally. More like she forgot to cut it—or simply didn’t want to—and this was the byproduct. Charles’ mother would kill her if she ever came home looking like that. Charles thinks that’s why she likes it.

(i've got vast pinterest boards dedicated to both of these girls, but here are a few visuals of what their haircuts might look like)

(anyways, bonus snippet below the cut, featuring a tender moment between max and charles where they're talking about haircuts...)

“My mom is the only person who’s ever cut my hair.” Charles says, fingers tracing the bite marks on Max’s torso. “I think I’d let you do it, though—”

“Really?” Max’s eyes are twice their usual size, staring down at Charles with an indiscernible expression. 

“Yeah, I mean, if you wanted…” She trails off, focus pulled by the way Max sits up on her forearms, taking Charles and her body with her. 

There’s a painful silence, and Charles doesn’t know if she’s messed up or said something wrong. She can’t always tell, with Max. There’s a part of her that knows it’ll never get easier. 

“You’d let me?” Max’s voice registers barely above a whisper, heavy exhales pushing the pout of her lips out further. Charles nods, staring up at Max unblinking, words all caught in her throat like she’s forgotten her English entirely. Max reaches down to draw them out herself.

Her mouth is hot, wet, and open. Max kisses like she wants to eat Charles alive, and Charles knows that she could, but doesn’t. It makes her whole body burn whenever she thinks about it. 

:/

The comments under this post suck. I love how there's one cis woman arguing her ass off on how privileged trans men are, and the trans women she's supposedly being an ally to are telling her "Uh, no."

This is on the r/asktransgender subreddit.

(ID under the cut)

[Image ID:

Image number 1:

"Furthermore, there don't seem to be many places that just allow women (both cis and trans). So trans women don't really seem to have any purely women's spaces. The reason I think that could be a problem is because while cis men have power over both cis and trans women, there are cases where (by virtue of being trans) trans men do not have power over cis women. But trans men always have power over trans women. So how can a space that includes trans men be considered a safe space for trans women?

I think trans men need safe spaces too. They certainly don't have as much privilege as cis men. Maybe the best spaces for this would be "trans spaces", so the people within them would be protected from cis people? (who have power over trans people. I was also thinking women's spaces should just be framed as "spaces where there are no male identified individuals" to be more inclusive to genderqueer and non binary individuals.

What does asktg think about this issue? Does anyone know of any feminists who have written about this? I was thinking it might be of interest to transgender intersectional feminists. Is there a good sub for this? (Preferably within the trans sub hub, but their might be some discussion in feminist sub, though those are HARD to come by on reddit).

EDIT: To clarify, I was talking about safe spaces where women can share their experiences as women without fear of being silenced by male voices. Just look at discussions about that cat calling video. The experience is literally on film and a lot of men are still invalidating her experience. I'm not talking about bathrooms or OB/GYNs."

Image 2: A comment under the Reddit post

"As a cis woman I actually disagree - trans men do have power over cis women. I get that cis women have cis privilege over trans men, but trans men still have male privilege over cis women. For example, they don't have to negotiate the line between being "sufficiently feminine" and appearing to be "not serious" or "too passive."

Honestly I've had experiences with trans men that are extra infuriating because sometimes when a trans man refuses to acknowledge his male privilege, people in "gender minority" spaces will be more tolerant of the behavior than they are of similar behavior from cis men because "they've experienced sexism too" or something. Obviously this isn't a universal behavior among trans men, but IMHO trans men who don't acknowledge they have power or try to mitigate it are far more dangerous than cis men who do.

So sure, "gender minority" spaces are great, but I also really REALLY want spaces that don't allow men, including trans men. I am not a TERF and also strongly want all women's spaces to be friendly to trans women. But like... I want women's space. For women."

Image number 3: another comment under the post

"Okay, I see where they're coming with framing it as "gender minority issues". Like, don't get me wrong, trans men need safe spaces too. But the issue isn't that they sometimes have the power to be oppressors, it's more that they always have the power to be oppressors to trans women."

Another person, with the "retaking puberty; hoping to get an F this time" flair, responds to this comment, quoting "But the issue isn't that they sometimes [...] it's more that they always" from the comment above:

"Where I'm from, we call that stereotyping.

I'm sure the experiences of trans men vary just as greatly as the experiences of trans women, and as such I'm also sure there are plenty of FTMs who feel pretty powerless and certainly don't have the power to oppress anyone.

Applying an attribute like "has the power to be an oppressor" to a whole group of people based on their membership in a given demographic strikes me as a bit reckless, maybe dangerous. At the very least, it's certainly not kind.

That doesn't really answer the original question about safe spaces, but I think it's important to keep in mind."

The commenter, who has a "cis/genderqueer partner of trans lady" flair responds, quoting the "Where I'm from, we call that stereotyping." from the comment above: "#notalltransmen"

End. ID]

Some people seem to think they aren’t canon, but I will simply state that they’re missing the point that they don’t need to explicitly say it.

“”The themes speak for themselves, and make it clear what the intent is. In this actual mini-essay I will actually talk a bit about why focusing on ships being “canon” is wasting the potential of queer representation, in particular reference to Lycoris Recoil.

Lycoris flowers represent a lot of different things, most famous is that red variants symbolize death and final goodbyes. However, of that same species are also a pink variant which symbolize love, passion, and … ahem “feminine beauty”.

There are also yellow and blue variants in other species of Lycoris plants. Yellow represents cheerfulness, courage, and cherishing what you have. While blue represents being calm and dependable, but also freedom.

It hardly gets more on the nose and it’s clear how these apply to the characters and the themes of their arcs. And how the story overall is at the intersection between love and death.

Plus there are literally multiple homages to pieces of media where the characters have been thought of as gay in the story or by audiences. In particular the scene in Stand By Me where the characters kick each other, which the animators made the deliberate choice of copying the overall mannerisms of to draw a direct parallel.

The story is about a hell of a lot more than just a romance, and that is a good thing! I don’t need every piece of representation to be about just romance. And you’d also have to be joking me if you don’t see them using the term “partner” even after retiring from being Lycorises to describe their relationship, as being tongue in cheek about how there is so much media where the characters are obviously but not explicitly queer. Throughout the show they are constantly making references to other ambiguously queer media, and using common language that is unclear about the exact nature of their relationship. Like, everyone wants their confirmed representation I get it, but could we also not call the show doing the most on the nose and tongue-in-cheek queer coding of their main characters “queer baiting”.

The creators have clearly purposefully evoked when not just directly referencing other media where the characters have been queer coded, or queer audiences have resonated with the experiences of the characters. This isn’t subtext that went nowhere, this is a deliberate choice to code the leads as queer by reclaiming things and phrases that have been used as subtext. And then, this is the important part, actually reframing the context to emphasize when they are doing it. See no further than the picture below this. “Partner” has a long and storied history of being used ambiguously, because how we use it slots between purely romantic and purely platonic, and can mean either depending on ... that’s right the context. Now let’s imagine you’re a restaurant employee, two women come in and order drinks. When one of them gets up to pick up their drinks and brags about the other woman being her “partner”, and reiterates the point. Now what sort of meaning can we imply from that context? Because if it was a straight couple, nobody would for a moment doubt that partner is in a romantic context.

Like c’mon people, they aren’t hiding it, but they don’t have to look directly into the camera saying they’re a couple for it to be obvious they aren’t “just besties”. Also I don’t even have time for going to go over how all the official art that’s come out since, and the fan art by the creators hasn’t been at all shy about showing them being more intimate than you’d expect from “just friends”.

Or that the season ended with them vacationing in Hawaii of all places. Or that the whole show had a rather open ending clearly hoping for more seasons, and this probably isn’t the end of their story together. Or that one of the original writers who was behind the entire idea for the show, and was a lead writer for the screen play has publicly stated on twitter he’d love to make them official, and told fans asking if the show would end up being a yuri show to “stay tuned for future stories“

Update: and behold, literally new art and products just got released of them literally in wedding dresses together. It’s more than obvious what exactly their intentions are with these characters. So please, please, understand that queer baiting is not just when a relationship you wanted doesn’t happen on screen. Queer people don’t only start existing once they’re in a fully intimate relationship. And queer people not ending up together at the end of what will probably be the first of multiple seasons is not the same as queer baiting. Especially not when the creators have clearly taken a lot of time and effort to consistently code them both as queer, in high effort and direct references to other media. (In a country like Japan where acceptance of queer people is certainly rising, but is also let’s be frank, far from in a good place and there are clear pressures to not show genuinely good representation for fear of upsetting a bunch of weirdos from the publisher’s perspective) (Yes I know the new Gundam show has lesbians in it, that’s also one of the biggest, most profitable, and longest enduring cross-media franchises in Japan, which is in a lot safer position to risk alienating bigots in their audience than a fully original animated show that didn’t get manga or light-novel deals until after the show was already being released and doing well. And an update since this was posted: the publishers of Gundam literally tried to retcon their queerness. This is my point, if you are expecting a country that hasn’t even legalized gay marriage yet to give you explicit queerness consistently you are barking up the wrong tree. They’ll literally try to walk it back if they think they can make more money off of retconning an explicit gay marriage out, you can’t rely on profit-driven corporations to actually care about making and keeping explicit queer relationships in their media just because it’s the right thing to do)

Marie Le Moigne

My work is not limited to a single medium. Indeed, I exploit as much photography, typography, writing, video, painting. Sometimes the mediums intersect, challenge each other, mix. Between document and photographs, between literature and visual language,experiment with the photographic and filmic image to give matter to language.

“I WRITE THE IMAGE, I PRINT, I SUPERPOSE, ON PRINT. THE TEXT IS A MATERIAL. 

I WORK ON THE TEXTURE OF THE IMAGE THROUGH THE GRAIN OF THE PHOTOGRAPHIC FILM AND VIDEOGRAPHY. MY WORK IS A KIND OF DIARY THAT TRAVELS TIME. IT IS A TIMELESS, UNCERTAIN, AND SUSPENDED SPACE, LIKE THE WHITE SPACE 

BETWEEN WORDS, LIKE BREATHING, LIKE SILENCE. »

My universe feeds on contemplation a bit like Arthur Rimbaud, on modern and contemporary literature and the environment. My photographic, pictorial and literary creations testify to a sensitive look at uncertain temporal spaces, between dream and reality.

“THE QUESTION OF TRUTH WAS ERADICATED AT THE MOMENT

WHERE THE IMAGE FORMED ANOTHER REALITY. MY REALITY.

ANOTHER TRUTH THAT I REINVENT AS I GO. I WRITE MY PHOTOGRAPHY, I LIVE IT, I SEE IT.

IT IS NOT A MEMORY, IT IS AN IMPRINT, A WRITING MADE OF COLORED OR MONOCHROMIC GRAINS. SHE REPRESENTS WHAT I CANNOT WRITE. »

“Searching, exchanging, questioning, activating production and process modes and spaces lead me and motivate me to learn by doing.” So many verbs that were incentives during my studies and which today are therefore actualized in my artistic practice. I remember always wanting to photograph: to see through. Through the lens, as a kind of protection of my soul, of my privacy. And yet... And yet, I offer my body, fragments of me to sensitive film. I try to transfer my sensitivity to paper. I often photographed what I could not write. And vice versa. Societal issues revolving around women, the body, memory or the environment cross my fields of questioning. I like varied techniques and mediums, for example, I often work on the links that literature and writing can have with images.

[ IDENTITY, FEMININITY ] Through a search for identity mixed with the tumult of the world: images of the body written, naked, without pageantry. The body and the world are both separated and linked. I wonder about the poetic links uniting between the human being and nature. The means and materials accumulate, undergo the assaults of nature and the body, meanwhile, undergoes the scratches of time 

and its writing.

[ MATERIAL ] I use raw, organic and bodily matter as writing. Write a moment, instants, poetry, prose, words, sounds on the same material. The gestures of the painter and the writer at the same time are transcribed in encrypted works with variable readings. Materiality is indeed omnipresent in my work. Through the texture of the image, she relates the natural state of the landscape and the body in transition.

[ LANGUAGE & WRITING ] Create a new language, one that questions its essence. What is the language shared between a body and its environment? What trace does it leave behind and in nature? Images of singular fragility emerge from this research, they bathe in a refined, silent atmosphere. We dive into a universe on the border between dream and reality, in a dialogue between the landscape and the body.

(1/2) Yeah absolutely, I get what you mean with Ava just being blissed out by Beatrice. I guess I phrased it wrong, not necessarily about directly comparing B to a bro, but it's more like, I wonder if Ava - in the same way that Beatrice is allowed to explore her identity - if Ava allows herself be introspective and examine her own attraction and ~types, so to speak. But maybe it's not needed?

(2/2) Like is Ava in the gog so on the other side of identity acceptance that she can just be ~present with B and isn't really hung up on a needing to further explore herself within the relationship? Like that natural freedom she has to her helps her make peace with concepts comes to her much faster and more naturally than B? (Also thank u for ur time u legend)

ok i'm not Entirely sure what this is getting at but just to clarify a few things that i think it's asking:

1 ava's experience of/with queerness is profoundly different than bea's. i don't think that ava's ever struggled with being queer any more than she's struggled with not having the access to experience everything she wants. for ava, desire is so integral to her ability to experience what life is ('i want to live') without systemic, more than any, limitations, & so it makes sense that queerness would just be a part of how to fully access pleasure & want & love & safety. (there's so much more in here about how if ava had been given care & access then being disabled wouldn't have taken away any huge degree of pleasure from her life, but that's for another day! whew.) bea's experience with queerness is one of fear, of it being 'a flaw,' one that made her feel not valued, not worthy. so even just within their characters, i don't think that ava's exploration of queerness is internal so much as it is just... getting to feel the things that come along with love, especially queer love. bea's is allowing herself to be who she is, in whatever way that may be or look at the time. also, ava is white, & bea is Asian, & there's cultural & systemic harms that come along with intersections of identity (including ava's disability too, of course). so i think ava's queerness is an external exploration, in a way, & bea's is just like. letting herself feel anything at all, & then working for that to be positive.

2 listen... ava isn't on love island lmao.

she liked JC, maybe even loved him in a way, & then Fell IN LOVE with bea. even if she did have 'types' (which is like... beyond a little laugh, kind of weird in most cases), i really just do not fuck with the idea that masc of center women, especially butches & dykes, are in the same category as cis men. butches & dykes are like... god tier (so are femmes, y'all know i love u!). but like, even if ava DID have types, bea with short hair & a good pair of pants isn't anywhere close to JC in any categorization?? maybe if ava was like hmm soft butches?? hot.... bea, tasha cloud.... awesome. but bea & a boy. no. i think ava's 'type' is just people who show her patience & kindness & are funny & smart. beyond that, she's just glad she's hot & they're hot

3 there are so many ways — infinite ways!!!! — to be butch! & they're all beautiful & they're all hard to come to! i think i write abt bea's queerness bc a) i love writing abt being butch bc i love being butch lol; b) being butch is abt private decisions you have to make, all the fucking time! how do u want ppl to read you as a woman/dfab person who isn't a trans man but like... doesn't feel like a CIS WOMAN? do u feel safe to be masc? what does androgyny & masculinity look like TO YOU? butchness for me is actually so fucking soft, & wonderful. i don't picture (or write) bea as a stone or hard butch; there's a comfortable breath of an in-between there: cottons & linens & soft hair & clean skin, a big bed, a little mascara, the very rare suit but not often, & only for events. it's on purpose, bc i think ppl often have a p reductive view of masculinity & butchness, & femininity & femmeness, & all the gentleness that exists in being a dyke kind of gets lost. it's just... not femme. there are so, so many ways to be soft butch especially. & those are all decisions that have to be made all the time. like it is constant &, while having a partner who is truly just along for the ride is helpful, my wife being supportive of me hasn't made those decisions on my behalf. i have to make them, every day, every time i get dressed, every time i put on a watch or shoes, even just to like... go to the store. it rly is smth u are constantly figuring out, even without like hyper-homophobic parents fucking you up as a kiddo. so yeah, i think, if ava wants to try anything w appearance, bea wouldn't care at all, she would be just as happy. but like... the essence of being a dyke isn't abt appearance so much as it is everything, & aesthetic is just a way to reflect who you are. & i know i've written this, very clearly lol, but bea's queerness (& ava's, & anyone's) has absolutely nothing to do with who they date, or marry, or love, or fuck. being queer is a politic, an expression, a way of existing. being a dyke is those things in spades, with a very, very special orientation toward liberation throughout history.

4 w my life partner, & my friends, all i care about is that they're happy. like legit. are ur material needs met? do you feel loved by me? -- if those are both good strong yeses, then like... we are good. i cannot imagine loving my partner less if she wanted to do literally anything aesthetically other than maybe like... a giant face tattoo or something lol. but exploring expression? i would never feel less than proud or brave. do i have favorite stuff? of course! do i think my friends sometimes make decisions that are not the cutest possible? of course! so do it! bc i want to! bc i want to try. & so yeah, i don't think ava would ever think less of bea, & i don't think bea would ever think less of ava. it's not like, a lack of care abt being physically attracted to someone, it's like... u love that person, & their body is gorgeous. ava's disabled, too, so u know there is profound care that bea shows & has to grow into as that changes & shifts too!

anyway i still don't know what this was rly asking lol but... butches/dykes should not be in the same category as cis men at all ever lol; ava & bea are just horny & in love. rules of thumb

Could you talk more about Gwyndolin Dark Souls? What's his(?) deal, and the boobs?

Uhh I suppose Gwyndolin is a secret boss from Dark Souls 1. He is an illusionst who set up the Anor Londo area of the series in it's current form, which imitates the grandiosity it had in it's prime. In truth, most of what you see are part of a grand illusion meant to guide a chosen undead along a path to a chosen end - to succeed Lord Gwyn as the kindling of the First Flame, prolonging the age of light.

A recurring theme in the series is the idea that this world you inhabit is decaying, and clinging on to the embers of a better and more prosperous era. Anor Londo is probably the most obvious reflection of this - presenting itself as though it is still in a golden era, but actually a dark, empty city maintained by the one remaining god in it. And that god is Gwyndolin. Gwyndolin is a son of Lord Gwyn, raised as a daughter because of his affinity for the moon's power in his magic. (The moon being feminine is a well-established thing in both fantasy and real life.) This makes him a literal "Male Daughter;" the literal meaning of "Otokonoko" which is that kind of male crossdresser archetype you see in Japanese media sometimes. I don't THINK he's ever referred to as an Otokonoko explicitly in the Japanese text, but it seems like a logical association, in my mind. I won't delve to deeply into what that means here, but suffice it to say that - although I don't think literally being raised female is actually that much of a thing - that sort of "Crossdresser Lifestyler" concept IS a thing over there, and is not just an anime thing. I see a lot of people asserting that characters like this are just trans characters portrayed incorrectly, but I feel like that is a total misread and disregard for this other concept in favour of western norms.

(Note that although I occasionally see people insisting on feminine pronouns, the game games themselves have never used these though they occasionally use neutral terms and more feminine descriptors like "Goddess." This makes sense, characters like this often use female descriptors paired with male pronouns.)

In any case, there are a number of things which directly tie in to this identity. His affinity for illusions is cool. I feel like it's relatively common on the rare intersections between "Otokonoko/femboy/trap/whatever" and "Fantasy Setting," but I've only really seen that like twice. But, for example, you can see this association as well in Chrono Trigger's Flea

(...Come to think of it, one of my college textbooks was literally called The Illusion of Life. Is there something innate about this connection? Pfft) But it's pretty logical. The crossdressing character has illusions, and among other things it would make him look more feminine. In Dark Souls 3, you can return to Anor Londo. Gwyndolin has been devoured by Aldrich and can be seen in his boss fight. But if you return to his room from the original Dark Souls, you can find this:

It changes your animations to those of the other gender. That's actually such a brilliant thing to add to this game, and implies he needed some help along the way. It's also near-useless to you, but, yeah.

As for the boobs, I think his armor just has boobs. An outfit like that is a lot less uhh, required, to have anatomy under the clothes than you may expect. I can tell you that from experience, haha.

A character wearing it I pulled off of an Oceanhero search ...I have no idea why he has snakes for feet. Like, that's not a Lord thing. I don't think it's ever explained why he's like that. Strange. Maybe they're illusory snakes? Maybe he's like Flea and just looks like whatever he wants too. Aaand, yeah

my butch-ness is so complicated. i mean so is my femme-ness. i think the way i carry myself when i'm comfortable, home, with my fags, i think it drips in butch. my voice lowers, body language loosens up. i want to take care of people, fix things, cook the meals, mend the clothes. do the handiwork. make the lace.

i think. maybe. a lot of the things i enjoy doing, find love in, are seen as stereotypically feminine things; oh, it's a woman's work to care for those things. a woman crochets, a woman patches the pants. but the way i do it, the way i feel when i do it - i don't feel like a woman. or a man, for that matter. i feel butch.

i think maybe it's further complicated by the way i look. oh, i like a skirt, i sew them, i feel good in one when pants are just too itchy-complicated-restricting. i wear my hair long and braided. i have a chest the slouching doesn't hide. and i slouch anyways. i shave the sides of my head to a prickly-velcro-stubble, and it catches the longer strands... i stand with my feet far apart, turn the long skirts with emphasis in my hip. i dance everywhere to feel the fabric move.

where's the intersection between how it's comfortable to exist in a body and how it's comfortable to be seen? i want them to mistake me for her man. i feel trapped in a paradox of femininity - i know how i read, like a failed woman, a girl who's a bit too odd to really be a woman at all. mannerisms afflicted of nervousness, too femme to be butch and too strange to be really femme, and forget being a man. (which i am, sometimes, a man. in equal measure to being a woman. and mostly i am nothing in terms of gender; i'm just here. but i think people see nothing at all.)

there's comfort in my partners, my women, my friends - i know they see me. i know they get it. it's just a struggle, balancing who i am with how i'm seen. would t help? top surgery? surely it would. but it pushes me further into the category of failing to be woman. which isn't something i was trying to be anyways, but maybe it hurts to be seen as failing all the time. i wish other people's gaze didn't hurt so much.