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natsmagi · 7 months

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sorry for making yet another textpost but i came across that post saying they dislike transfem natsume because he "canonically hates being perceived as a girl and tries to erase all sorts of memories related to that" and also went on to shame genderbends of him aswell. So, as someone who not only draws genderbends of natsume but is myself someone who is nonbinary and hates being perceived as a woman, i thought id offer my two cents

first of all; i think its important to note that natsume does NOT hate his childhood. in fact, hes quite happy that he had such an unusual upbringing!

what natsume hates is being perceived as weak. thats why he was raised as a girl after all, it was his mother trying to protect him from evil spirits. he doesnt hate the whole "-chan" or "wearing dresses" thing because he has a hatred for womanhood, its because due to his upbringing hes now come to associate those things as being weak. he begs tsumugi to forget about it because that means tsumugi remembers natsume being weak, and natsume thinks tsumugi still referring to him as "natsume-chan" means he still sees natsume as weak. (iirc natsume did however once say that he is a little sad that he doesnt really know how to relate to young boys due to this in poltergeist, but i couldnt find the exact quote. either way that just adds to the complexity of natsumes relationship with his childhood, because while he is happy to be "abnormal" in that sense, it has left him lacking in some areas)

i have to ask though, should this conflict of his not be something we hope he overcomes? should we not want him to develop a healthy relationship with various gender expressions? should we not want natsume to overcome his belief that feminine things = weakness? i want natsume to reach a point where he can wear feminine clothing and not feel like some damsel in distress because of it. i want natsumes character to grow. i want him to develop a positive relationship with his gender because natsume DOES enjoy some more typically feminine things, like baking! he used to bake with his mom when he was little! and i want him to feel like he can indulge in that side of him without feeling insecure.....

i LOVE transmasc natsume, my primary hc for him is transmasc nonbinary after all, but with all these things considered, shouldnt people be allowed to headcanon him however they want? if they hear his story and negative relationship with femininity and how that resonates with them and they themselves are transfem, should they not be allowed to hc him as such too?

which brings me to my next point; my own personal relationship with gender and femininity. i was raised as a girl and i fucking DESPISED womanhood. i hated everything about it. i hated how i felt forced into a box i didnt want to be stuck in, and i hated how it felt like my whole life had already been planned out for me due to societal expectations, aswell as me needing to present a certain way. i was peak "tomboy" growing up, constantly wearing super baggy clothes and wouldnt even brush my hair alot of the time. but despite that i remained miserable. i frankly hated how i looked and would constantly dye my hair vibrant colors in an attempt to make me like myself a little more. it wasnt until i realized "wow, im actually not a girl at all" that i finally let go of believing i needed to look a certain way (and thus, defying it) and started to dress for myself. i started to dress in clothes that made me happy and feel pretty! alot of which leans feminine, but clothes doesnt have a gender, and how you dress doesnt define your gender either, but it can still be a bit scary yknow? especially since i dont want people to think of me as a girl, and drawing a bunch of femstars has really made me learn to love myself more in a funny way. i can put these characters in clothes i think are beautiful, i can explore the more feminine parts of me that i adore but dont want to express in public due to how i want others to perceive me, but it has also warmed me up to femininity even more. because femstars to me feels detached from the expectations of society because its not a real thing!! there are no canon femstars designs!!! i can do literally whatever the hell i want with it and its been so liberating to me!!

all this to say; i think it really sucks seeing the way this fandom treats transfem hcs and explicit genderbends, because like ive said before; they can truly be something so personal. you dont know why that person is drawing what theyre drawing, so its a little unwise to make assumptions based on ........ Well, whatever it may be. i know very well that women dressing the way society expects them to SUCKS, esp if you have personal ties to it, but you have to realize the issue isnt femininity, but misogyny.

#maybe ill delete this later idk but i just felt like i needed to say something #as i constantly see these things being spoken of yet never do these people actually reach out to femstarries #and ask Hey why are you doing this?#so instead they make bad faith assumptions and it really sucks.#and while im here;#trans hcs count as genderbends. Because you have changed the characters gender #*IF the org chara is a cisman and you make them a trans woman i should add #once again Stop treating trans and cis people as two separate things #if it was a cisbend itd be CALLED CISBEND #and the reason i tag genderbend is because i know some people dont like it #and thats valid!!! no one is forced to like this kind of stuff!!!#and some people who dont like genderbends might be new to enstars and dont know what femstars is #so should it not still be tagged for those people too?#should we not look out for the trans people who dont wish to see their favs be a different gender???#i dont get it. i really dont #this post probably wont even reach the right audience but wtv #nat rambles #nats enst posting

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heraldofzaun · 3 years

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This is a post I’ve been thinking about making for quite some time, especially due to looking at how my own personal depiction of Viktor differs from what seems to be the general fandom interpretation - especially after the LoR cards released and gave us a few canonical acolytes.

I won’t beat around the bush here: this is going to be about why I personally believe that associating the Glorious Evolution specifically with headcanons about Viktor or his acolytes being trans, or Viktor performing gender-affirming surgeries, or things in a similar vein is a poor decision, and why I don’t include this interpretation in my writings. This isn’t meant to discourage people from writing Viktor or his acolytes as trans, of course - my Viktor is agender, although he’s not aware of it, and it would be absurd to say that his followers have to be cis - but I think it’s important to look at the implications that come from writing Viktor as explicitly someone who helps people relieve and manage their dysphoria through his work with the GE.

Firstly, no matter how you spin it: Viktor’s idea of the Glorious Evolution has always been painted in a negative light. I’ve done my work to portray it as idealistically as possible, but at the end of the day his goals have always been about removing (at the very least, negative) emotions from himself, as well as mechanizing himself and others.

“Desiring both to revolutionize his field and to eliminate the jealous human emotions which festered inside him, he engineered parts to replace and improve his own body... He saw himself as the patron and pioneer of Valoran's future, a future in which man would renounce his flesh in favor of superior hextech augmentations.” (Original lore.)

“He saw human involvement in any part of a process as a grossly inefficient aberration - a view that put him at odds with a great many of his fellow students and professors, who saw the very things Viktor sought to remove as the source of human ingenuity and creativity.” (New lore.)

“Jayce reported the incident [of Viktor creating a device that allowed someone to “effectively control” another person] to the college masters, and Viktor was censured for violating basic human dignity - though, in his eyes, his work would have saved many lives. He was expelled from the college, and retreated to his old laboratory in Zaun, disgusted by the narrow-minded perceptions of Piltover's inhabitants. Alone in the depths, Viktor sank into a deep depression, enduring a traumatic period of introspection for many weeks. He wrestled with the ethical dilemma he now faced, finding that, once again, human emotion and weakness had stood in his way. He had been trying to help, to enhance people beyond their natural capabilities to avoid error and save lives. Revelation came when he realized that he too had succumbed to such emotions, allowing his naive belief that good intentions could overcome ingrained prejudice to blind him to human failings. Viktor knew he could not expect others to follow where he did not go first, so, in secret, he operated on himself to remove those parts of his flesh and psyche that relied upon or were inhibited by emotion.” (New lore.)

This, when combined with how Viktor has also always been intended as a more villainous character - his visual design language, voice lines, and how he leans into the “evil Russian scientist” stereotype all confirm that - mean that from an out-of-universe standpoint, we’re meant to see his ideas as wrong and misguided. Multiple other champions have lines specifically about how he’s wrong - Ekko calls him “everything wrong with Zaun”, Camille (who is morally grey at best, and a cold-blooded killer at worst) calls his work “quaint”, implying that it doesn’t go far enough for her liking, and Heimerdinger makes the point that without humans, no one will be left to appreciate Viktor’s work. It doesn’t matter if Viktor has good intentions - the narrative tells us time and time again that his path leads to a very dark place, especially in new lore where he’s comfortable with violating free will for the sake of preventing death.

It seems obvious to me that a character who auto-amputates as a way to cope with overwhelming emotions, who decides that emotions themselves are a burden, who is repeatedly described as having an obsession with the Glorious Evolution regardless of lore, who is described as who you go to when you’re desperate in new lore... is clearly someone whose surgeries (at least of himself, where they are implied to be unnecessary - again, auto-amputation) and end goals are supposed to be read as a violation of human nature and dignity. Here we pivot to talking about trans issues in specific.

I’m of the firm belief that it’s not a good idea to associate gender-affirming surgeries, HRT, or any other thing used for transitioning with a character whose surgeries are supposed to be read as a violation of the human form. This plays directly into the anti-trans idea that transitioning is, well, a violation of the human form. It is not a good idea to write the man who cuts off his own limbs to poorly cope with his emotions as a patron of trans rights. It’s drawing a direct parallel between Viktor’s auto-amputations, which we are supposed to read as not only a very bad thing and the product of obsession, but arguably self-harm, with life-saving medical care.

(There’s also the issue that some people seem to assume that transhumanism is, in any way, inherently related to being trans - but that’s a whole other topic that I don’t feel very qualified to write on. I consider myself someone interested in transhumanist concepts, when applied appropriately (i.e. not ending up in eugenicist territory), but I am far from an expert on transhumanist thought. I think it’s enough to say that no, they’re not related. They’re just two things with the same prefix. Please don’t confuse the two.)

In my opinion, Viktor should not be seen as someone whose work is a direct benefit to trans individuals. (Again, not to say that Viktor can’t have followers who are trans. But please, please consider before making him the person that they go to for help with transitioning. The man doesn’t even have a medical degree, and his canonical work is described as being all about function over form. He’s not the surgeon you want.) I don’t think that Viktor’s gender identity, whatever it may be, should be associated with his obsession with the Glorious Evolution - or at the least, it shouldn’t be portrayed as a positive association. (In the sense of Viktor using the GE/his own surgeries as a positive affirmation of his gender... I’m struggling to precisely define this at the moment, apologies.) The GE is, textually, an unhealthy coping mechanism.

(There’s maybe something to be said for a Viktor who has disassociated himself so far from humanity that he no longer considers gender applicable to himself... but please, be careful if you write this. I’m speaking as someone who’s agender: I’m tired of my identity being used as shorthand for someone or something becoming or being nonhuman. I’m tired of people treating Blitzcrank being reskinned as a they/them pronoun user as something revolutionary, if they themselves don’t use those pronouns or aren’t nonbinary. I’m not going to pretend that I’m the arbiter of what people can and can’t write, but I’m tired of seeing myself - as an autistic and agender person - represented solely by unfeeling aliens and machines and whatever else, and being told that it’s good, actually, because any representation is good representation. I’d like for people to be more mindful in what they write and promote, but I think that this is becoming a tangent.)

I guess it comes time for me to defend my own depiction, then, since as I’ve mentioned above I do write Viktor as agender. I admit that I want to see aspects of myself in the characters that I like, but I also strive to be aware of the implications that these aspects may have. My Viktor’s gender identity has absolutely nothing to do with his idea of the Glorious Evolution - he has no dysphoria that he attempts to relieve through his surgeries, he does not see roboticization as a way to move past the gender binary... he doesn’t even realize that he’s not a cis man, because he hasn’t had the time or tools to introspect on that aspect of himself. (He’d be rather confused if you told him that people generally tend to feel as if they’re a certain gender - he’s just... himself.) I’ve written him in this way to try to make it clear that he has always felt this way about himself - that the GE has nothing to do with it - and that it has no influence on his actions as the Machine Herald.

There isn’t really a good way to wrap this up. Again, I am not saying that Viktor or his acolytes shouldn’t be written as trans, nor trying to stop people from writing that - only that their transness shouldn’t be directly associated with his idea of the Glorious Evolution. I think that we need to be mindful of what kinds of tropes that our depictions can fall into, and in this case a non-mindful depiction of Viktor as trans can seen as equating being trans to what’s easily read as self-harm/a violation of human nature. I doubt that anyone genuinely intends this association, but it can be made regardless, and so I prefer to keep the two concepts wholly separate in my depiction.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading. I’m willing to answer any questions that arise from this.

#headcanons | beneath the mask #//not really a headcanon post i think but like... it's something i've been thinking a lot about.#//i've been a fan of viktor for years so it's been interesting to see how perceptions of him have changed.#//and while i'm all for fan interpretations that allow you to relate to a character - and no stranger to them either - we need to be careful #//when writing things because otherwise we end up creating implications that we probably didn't intend.#//i don't know what to tag this as triggers-wise but i do mention the concepts of self-harm and transphobia #//so if that's upsetting to read about even very briefly i'd pass on this?

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milkshakedoe · 5 years

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le thoughts

something that bothers me about lesbian discourse i’ve seen, and a large part of why i’ve stopped really self-identifying as a “lesbian”, is how even among very well-meaning trans-positive groups or groups of lesbians who are trans themselves (at least online), a major problem always remains IMO not fully resolved: how to deal with closeted and questioning amab trans people, or people with nonstandard gender lacking the language to articulate it, without seeing them as Men in some degree.

it’s not that many don’t try, and i’m certain there are (and i know) very many lesbians who would (rightly) affirm in a heartbeat that such people are not "men”. but i’ve never seen a satisfying argument that really lays our anxieties to rest. as much as the idea that political lesbianism inherently supports transfems as a function of “centering women” or “the lesbian” may feel validating to transfems laboring to define themselves as clearly as possible as “not a man”, within the political framework often assumed by lesbian feminists i don't think this is a problem that ever can be really resolved.

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in popular discourse about oppression there is the idea that oppression is a sort of relationship of individual wrongdoing, the “responsibility” for which ultimately lies at the feet of individuals, even if those individuals are seen as a “structural” group. in this worldview it is “men” who, as a collective of responsible parties, for their own self-benefit and pleasure, commit violence against women and those who aren’t men.

it’s controversial perhaps, but contrary to what you may hear on this site, there is no ‘secret cheat code’ for women to liberate themselves from patriarchal society when it’s all around them. it’s good and necessary to understand that you don’t have to date men, but the truth is that regardless of whether or not you date men we live in a misogynist society and trying to separate from it by divesting ourselves from Men - even where we don’t explicitly call it “separatism” or even “divesting” - isn’t going to save us, and the idea that we can become more or less liberated or more or less revolutionary or what have you by refusing Men and relationships with Men on the basis that Men are the source of oppression by virtue of being “Men” rests on flawed assumptions about gender that cause problems for transfems, and all of us.

the idea that “men” simply oppress women out of a kind of individual self-interest that either they are individually born with, or is somehow transmitted to them by their social man-ness (or their “privilege” makes pursuing their interests inherently detrimental to others, to put it another way), is not really compatible with an understanding of transness that goes further than saying that trans people were “born this way”. although many people, especially trans feminists and lesbians, are aware by now that thinking of trans people as being “born” trans is as mistaken as saying people are “born gay”, those that (rightly!) try to help defend transfems from accusations of “male privilege” still tend to latch on to narratives that essentially say the same thing.

that is, even if we recognize that babies can’t have gender, we say that transfems at least had decided their gender more or less from the point where they could first make conscious social decisions, and as such must be seen as having always been girls or non-men. therefore, when transphobes yammer that all people in patriarchal society are subject to “socialization” which corresponds exactly to assigned gender and defines their gender, we can answer: no, transfems were subject to transfeminine socialization, which decisively qualifies them as always having been feminine.

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but the problem with this idea is that it takes “socialization” entirely at face value and ends up performing the same function: peoples’ gender largely isn’t decided by them; it was locked in once before a person’s social being really came to exist, and can’t change again. it denies the possibility that anyone who considers theirself to have been a “man” at any point in their life could ever be something different. it takes away trans peoples’ agency - and more importantly, it denies the possibility that patriarchal gender could ever really be transcended, since if cis peoples’ genders and interests too are basically locked in at toddlerhood if not at birth, then how can we ever envision doing away with it all?

so to be clear: it’s not “socialization” that makes peoples’ gender. if there is anything to be said about socialization, it is that gender is constituted not by socialization but by individual agency in response to that socialization, struggling against the conditions imposed upon them and what they've been told to accept.

but ultimately, the problem with all of our attempts to grapple with closeted and questioning people lies in the privilege framework itself. so long as we still take the idea of “privilege” seriously - that there are these identity categories to which people “belong” and which essentially determine their self-interests or the effect that pursuing their interests has on others (”mens’ privilege means that their benefit inherently comes at others’ cost”), which amounts to the same thing - then men can only be understood in such a way that ever being associated with men or seeing one’s self as a man (up to and including being attracted to and dating men, “gaining privilege” by becoming a “collaborator” of sorts) makes one inherently tainted with privilege and therefore wrongdoing for which one must be “held accountable”, that is, they must “pay for their crimes”.

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when we see gender and oppression this way, yet try to understand transfemininity in a way that doesn’t give credence to “male privilege”, we run into irresolvable problems: we end up having to define all transfems as effectively always having been feminine as long as they were conscious, which may be the case for some - but thinking this is how it always works makes cis society seem inevitable and impossible to dismantle in the end. and because the privileged must always be “held accountable” for their privilege we have to say that, well it’s unfortunate but good feminists must treat “men” as inherently guilty of the sins of being men until they can prove otherwise that they are not really men. because if we try not to see people who call themselves men in this way, then the entire framework of resistance to patriarchy built on privilege starts to break down.

paradoxically, in defining privilege as a relationship of individual wrongdoing flowing from the social category to which one allegedly belongs, “privilege” sees people not really as people, but as mere representations of abstract categories: individual “men” become really mere physical appendages of the abstract category of Men, and become individually defined as oppressors, while non-men in turn likewise become defined as personifications of their position within gendered oppression. but there is a way out of this mess. i find it more useful and compelling to see people first as individuals who are potentially involved in structural dynamics but not inevitably so. while abstract social structures really do exist, and often dominate us, compel our actions, and structure our spontaneous consciousness (our understanding of the world before any analysis), again, it is our individual agency struggling up against the conditions imposed upon us that defines who we are, and defines our structural relationship to the world in turn.

furthermore, punishment is the logic of capitalism. as the Soviet legal scholar Evgeny Pashukanis wrote, the idea of equivalent punishment to an equivalent “crime” can only arise in the context of capitalism and the commodity fetish. capitalism is a society where we relate to other people first and foremost as owners of commodities and where we obtain almost everything we need to live and enjoy life through buying and selling. in capitalism, the underlying logic of commodities - the logic of value, where two objects are socially held to be equal in trade regardless of their concrete properties that actually make them useful to humans - comes to seem like the primary natural property of all commodities. and because commodity owners always interact first through the comparison of their commodities, and not through a direct social relationship, it comes to seem as though all human relationships are really properties of commodities themselves which can be exchanged: the legal commodity of “rights”, or “dignity” as David Graeber might put it.

the logic of punishment knows no concept of healing and problem-solving, only a very simple math equation: so long as the offender has not served their sentence and “paid their debt”, justice remains unserved, and so the sin of privilege which makes one harmful regardless of one’s intent must always linger with those who were supposedly tainted by it. even if we can define all transfems who’ve realized their gender as having been always women, we find ourselves failing on a collective basis to help those who still lack the language or confidence to articulate themselves.

we can do away with all of this horrible nonsense. if we are really to do justice to transfems in a way that doesn’t frame us as in some sense "privileged” or “men” or a natural aberration within cis society or see cis society as inevitable, we can and urgently need to abandon notions of privilege and punishment.

#q #trans #critecon #theory

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tooangrymustinternet · 5 years

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For my cisgender friends, followers, and allies:

This is a long post. It's long because what I need you all to understand is complicated and nuanced, so it cannot be summarized in a short post if I want you to actually understand. Please bear with me, and please read the whole thing if you can, as I will consider that an act of love, allyship, and/or community. (Skip the glossary if you don't need it of course.) ____________________ Glossary of Terms in this Post

♡ Binarism (noun) - This is a specific form of sexism and transphobia that elevates binary genders (men and women) above all others. As of this posting, binarism is currently so pervasive that most people don't realize they are participating in it.

♡ Binary [genders] (adj) - This term refers to men and to women, regardless of cis or trans.

♡ Cis/Cisgender (adj) - Cis is a shortening of cisgender (sometimes written as cis gender). Cisgender people are people whose gender identity, sex assigned at birth, gender presentation, and chosen/performed gender role all line up in one neat little package. Mainstream western culture likes to pretend that all people are cisgender.

♡ Nonbinary (adj) - This term refers to the entire category of people who are not strictly 100% men or 100% women. Sometimes it refers to people who are somewhere between the two; sometimes it refers to people who are totally off of that spectrum and have genders entirely separate from it; there are a lot of possibilities, but the bottom line is that this is a category of genders which intersects with the word "transgender" like a Venn diagram.

♡ Segender (adj) - This term refers to someone whose gender is not recognized within their own culture. It is not a specific gender, but rather describes the state of a person's gender just like "cisgender" and "transgender" are not specific genders. In Western cultures, many people of nonbinary genders are segender. Other cultures are more likely to recognize one or more nonbinary gender.

♡ Sexism (noun) - prejudice, stereotyping, and/or discrimination in thought or action, on the basis of either sex or gender. Sexism is, as most people reading this know, highly pervasive. Our society is actively working to correct this.

♡ Trans/Transgender (adj) - Trans is a shortening of transgender (sometimes written as trans gender). Transgender people are people whose gender identities do not match the gender assigned to them at birth. This is a loose term; there are people who technically fit this definition but do not identify as cis or trans.

♡ Transphobia (noun) - a form of sexism which raises cis people and/or harms trans people. Transphobia is pervasive, but as of this posting, it is finally being talked about a lot more so things finally have a chance to start getting better. ____________________ PART ONE: Pervasiveness of Binarism

Binarism is pervasive in our culture. The idea that everyone is either a man or a woman is simultaneously false, and something our culture has steeped itself in. From binary check boxes on dating apps and doctor intake forms, to binary restrooms, to phrases like "Ladies and gentlemen," or "boys and girls," the concept that other people exist too has been purged from our cultural collection of colloquialisms, constructs, and more.

This means that the number of segender genders here is pretty darn high. It also means that binarism is one of the most common forms of transphobia. And that, my dear friends and community members who have decided to read this essay, is the first main point I need you to understand or the rest of what I have to say in this won't make sense. Binarism is a specific form of erasure and bias related so strongly to transphobia and sexism that a lot of people refer to it as a subset of those things. It is the erasure of the existence of nonbinary people like me to the point of not being able to safely use dating apps or public restrooms because they don't exist for us. And that's just the built environment; I haven't even begun to touch on being treated with respect by the people we interact with, in a culture where strangers will almost certainly never get our genders right.

Right now, as I write this, I can't handle talking about how afraid I am of gender-based violence and murder or the very real reasons I have for those fears, so I am going to skip that part.

I don't think I know how to describe the sheer depth and breadth of binarism people like me deal with on a daily basis, so I ask that you consider that it is similar to any other form of sexism in that it happens All The Time. Every time I want to use the bathroom at work, I have to walk to a different building because the restrooms are segregated and none of the ones for people like me are available in my building. Exactly once in my life, a stranger assumed the correct gender for me. The rest of the time, it's a day-long mix of Sirs and Ma'ams from well-meaning people who I know are trying to be polite despite their massive failures at it. There's a lot more, but I want to move on to my next point. Just know that binarism hurts me and others like me several times per day. That's just life for people like me in western cultures. Sucks to be segender in that sense. ____________________ PART TWO: On Being Silent

I work 2 jobs, both in academia. I commute with a mixture of car, bus, train, and walking on most days. This means I run into a lot of people. Almost every time I do, gender comes up in a bad way due to the pervasive nature of binarism. When this happens, I have a variety of choices.

Do I correct and educate the person? Do I stay silent? Do I just sort of laugh and make a joke about it in what is often a vain hope that they'll realize it's actually a softened callout? The answer varies dramatically in terms of the situation, my mood, and my energy level.

I often stay silent with these one on one encounters simply because I don't have the energy to deal with it. Yet, every time I do that, I find myself kicking myself for it mentally for hours after the encounter. Why? I have had some variation of this conversation countless times:

Me: **attempts to educate**

Person: "My friend is trans and I said this in front of them, and they didn't mind, so I don't get what your problem is."

Me: "Your trans friend said this was okay?"

Person: "No, but they didn't say anything, so they don't have a problem with it."

Trans people often say nothing. Some of us have these education conversations several times per day, some of us opt to never have them. Different people find different things stressful, so some trans or nonbinary people are more likely to ask strangers to change transphobic or binarist behavior than people they know well, while others are more likely to have that conversation with friends than with strangers. But in just about all cases, it takes energy. That energy is not always there, and it's not uncommon for someone to have already reached their quota for these kinds of conversations for the day before you do or say something transphobic or binarist in front of them without even realizing it.

Someone staying silent in front of you does not mean that what you did is acceptable. ____________________ PART THREE: On Speaking Up

Everyone is different, but I know that for me, I'm far more likely to speak up in a group setting than I am in a one on one setting. This is for a variety reasons that go well beyond the simple fact that it is also simply less frightening and stressful to me personally. These other reasons culminate in the end result of a lot less work for myself and others like me.

If someone does something transphobic or binarist and I stay silent, as I have shown above, I know they will think that I think their action is just fine and may even use my silence to justify their actions to others when called out later on the same thing. This is (obviously) damaging to the entire goal of reducing the ambient levels of transphobia and binarism, but it becomes far more so when this happens in a group setting. An entire group relearns the wrong cultural lesson when transphobia and binarism go unchecked. Instead, I say something, and that way the entire group can learn together. Because it is absolutely a learning process.

This goes well in spaces where accountability and intentional reduction of social harms is part of the norm. In these spaces, things like "hey that was kinda racist," or "could you change this so it is not transphobic" are met with thanks for the opportunity to self-correct, discussion for the sake of learning, and apologies. These discussions allow everyone in the group to learn the same lesson together and support each other in this learning process. I like this because it allows me to learn from others' mistakes as well as my own instead of continuing to make the same mistakes over and over again. I also like this because it's a LOT more efficient at reducing those ambient levels of transphobia and binarism I was talking about than talking to one person at a time.

I keep having the same exact education conversations over and over again on a nearly daily basis, so I am absolutely certain that these group conversations help a lot more people learn the same lesson than me putting the same amount of energy into a private conversation and only helping one person learn how to stop being an accidental asshole. Besides, then I can stop watching the faces of the other trans people in any given group fall in marginalized silence. It breaks my heart to watch that.

But anyway, this only works in these groups where people want to do better and care more about accountability in terms of how their actions impact others than they do about appearing to be perfect. In other spaces, it causes a shit show. ____________________ PART FOUR: My Request

So, if you have made it this far, you finally have the context for what I request:

If I or someone else lets you know that something you did or said was transphobic or binarist and asks you to make a change, please keep in mind that speaking up at all is often a fearful thing for us. We are afraid of physical and verbal violence, of losing social capital, of being told we are being dramatic or otherwise not being taken seriously, of losing your friendship, and more. If we thought you didn't want to learn or do better, we wouldn't bother. In that sense, it's a compliment, even though it feels uncomfortable if you aren't accustomed to accountability culture (and sometimes even then). Those of us who are accustomed to accountability-oriented spaces can forget that this isn't the assumption a lot of people have.

Take feedback to heart, and if the conversation starts publicly and you're able to keep it there, please do so as an act of allyship. Transparency and accountability are acts of allyship when it comes to these things because they become agents of cultural shift.

Thanks for reading my essay, I hope it makes sense. Again, questions are welcome in the comments.

#allyship #enby #binarism #transphobia #sexism #Oct 2019

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elibasila · 4 years

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2: everything can be transformed into something else

playing a lil dress up, characterizing through costumes or clothes

Background -

When I was little, around the ages of toddler to 12 I was always into a good ole pretend fashion show with whoever was willing, which was usually my brothers, cousins, childhood friend and some other random kids who’d come over to our house. Any chance there was to play around with clothing in a silly and fun way was immediately taken advantage of, and I loved it. Honestly, I still love it and I wish I could partake in those times again.

But, I feel if I did the same thing now it would be a lot more judgmental, especially if I did it with adults like myself (even young adults). Kids are usually a lot more experimental and less caring about how it actually looks, they’re a lot less judgmental (with most things) compared to adults/elders/teens. Kids don’t care about the overall composition/aesthetics, or if this goes with that, they just want to do whatever they feel like and have some fun. It feels like it would be too serious now, and people (including myself, which I’ll get to later) make the stakes really high when playing dress up nowadays. Everything in fashion/clothing has to perfect and it has to be clean, gorgeous and make sense, which is really annoying cause I feel that shouldn’t be the primary objective (or the only objective) with fashion at all.

I’m talking specifically about playing dress up and fashion because I believe it’s important, both for adults and kids, to play with expression. Which to me was something I was discouraged to do as a kid, and even now as an adult. This aspect of how I was raised was really damaging to how I navigated myself before and now, as expression meant something deeper than it had to be.

Expression was identity to a lot of people I was raised by, and that was subconsciously passed down to me, which has caused me a lot of grief in my life. Just to be clear, expression does not equal identity, they are two separate things (and they don’t even have to relate to one another) and I think people’s obsession with trying to find any correlation between those things hurts both trans and cis people and has consequently created a double standard. What I’ve noticed through my own experience is that trans people’s expression is a lot more scrutinized/enforced than cis people. Cis people have the inherent privilege to be able to express however they want, and still be taken seriously as a man/woman, or even be respected as gender non-conforming (most of the time, and there are exceptions/intersections). However, with trans people therein exists an odd double standard; once you transition/once you're out you should dedicate your effort to look like a man/woman. If you don’t do this you're now either faking your trans identity and/or you’re asking to get misgendered and you shouldn't get mad if people misgender cause you're not dressed like a man/woman.

On the flip side there’s the issue of toxic masculinity and the hard boundaries of the binary both affecting trans and cis people. People within the binary I think are already pressured to adhere to it, and a good example I can think of is when cis-straight men police themselves and other cis-straight men into enforcing extremely strict, and most of the time arbitrary, ideals/standards. And the ‘consequence’ of not adhering to these rules is the person being perceived and labelled as gay/effeminate (which is inherently both homophobic and misogynistic) and treated as less than ‘a man’.

With these relationships (between expression and identity, and how they’re used negatively) in mind while moving within this practice as a trans person who expresses ‘differently’ (or who wants to express differently) than how they identify. I want to also question if there is actually a way to express differently, what that would mean especially in relation to an identity (i.e. do they even have to relate at all, does your identity have any impact on how you express, why). How does queerness come into the equation of identity and expression, and how does that relate to trans people specifically? The correlation between sexual identities, gender identities and expression and how they interact with each other, if at all?

Practice -

Create something resembling a human out of my own clothes, almost close to recreating myself but it’s not me I’m recreating. I want to create an entirely different person or character through clothes and my body.

Observations Made/Notes - may include photos and/or videos

I think my initial urge while I was choosing which clothes to put together was trying to figure out a type or arch type (like for example I couldn’t stop thinking of the Spice Girls: Baby Spice, Scary Spice, Posh Spice, etc), and even though it was helpful for me at the time to help me chose, I wish I was able to input my own free thought into this practice

When faced with the beginning I found it extremely hard to pick and chose as I was so indecisive that I needed to have a baseline for what I wanted to do, i think the above mentioned scenario helped me.

I was overloaded with options so much so that it took me close to an hour of deciding of what to wear

not too far off from when I’m dressing myself in reality

yeah I definitely could’ve gone heavier on the experimentation

At first I was hoping to wear my binder underneath all this so I could flatten my chest (as thats one area where I feel strong dysphoria) but I just decided not to, and I don’t really know why

I think I didn’t because I was 1, tired 2, convinced myself that having boobs or even the appearance of boobs doesn’t make me a girl, and that I’m still a guy even when I have breasts 3, i think it was one of those apathetic days that I was having

It did briefly however make me think of my upcoming top surgery again

What was the gender of the person I was creating, did they’re expression relate at all to their ‘personhood’: I decided that all these characters were genderless to me, but still all had extremely distinct expressions/mannerisms

Being a genderless being, being a person, how they would interact with other people and what world they resided in

how were those clothes making me act, did those clothes have an affect on my behavior while wearing them/thinking about them: yeah a little bit

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chal-converts-archive · 7 years

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Non-Binary Halacha? A possible methodology

This is something I’ve been meaning to write about for a while, but thanks to @anglophileslytherin – our conversation reminded me of this!

What follows below is a long discussion of some ideas I had for how we might approach addressing halachic issues and inclusion in rituals for non-binary folks. The discussion contains:

The rationale for my departure from the six sex categories.

An argument that non-binaryness ought to be considered a new phenomenon, that we might have more flexibility in this process.

An assessment of the different varieties of non-binaryness and the resulting conflicting access needs. I propose we resolve this issue by suggesting we actually create three different approaches in order to make space for everyone.

An assessment of the different categories of gendered rules and rituals, and an argument that each requires a somewhat different approach.

So I think one of the difficulties in resolving gendered issues with regards to non-binary folks isn’t just that Judaism is structured in a very binary way, but that there’s a general lack of understanding amongst most folks about what non-binary even is and what it means to be non-binary.

Many people have pointed to the six sex categories listed in the Talmud as a starting point, while others have pointed out that these are mostly analyses aimed at fitting intersex and modified transfeminine bodies into the existing binary structure.

Personally, as exciting as the idea of the six genders initially was – and while I think they may yet still offer some inspiration, language, or precedent – I think starting from there builds our case on a faulty foundation. I see two major problems.

First, seamlessly applying this to non-binary folks ignores our responsibility to tread lightly when it comes to how people have historically treated and addressed intersex folks, especially within the trans community. Too many perisex trans folks have used intersex existence rhetorically without stopping to consider the impact that will have on intersex folks, trans and non-trans identified alike. The argument seems to often go: Intersex people exist, therefore the sex binary is a lie; gender is based on the sex binary and therefore the gender binary is also a lie.

While this isn’t entirely incorrect, it is my belief that we [perisex trans folks] need to stop basing our fight for validity on other identities, as this is dehumanizing and gross. Obviously, intersex trans folks are more than welcome to draw the comparison should they find it appropriate to do so, and I think we would do well to center intersex trans voices regarding how physical transition and non-binary genders do and don’t relate to intersex experiences and identities in order to learn how to better advocate for all of us.

While the appropriation of intersexuality is a long-standing intracommunity problem that is only tangentially related to this discussion, I open with it because I think it is our responsibility as perisex non-binary Jews entering this discussion to not replicate those same problems here if at all possible. Again, if intersex Jews (and regarding saris adam, transfeminine folks) want to look to these categories, that’s a completely different situation.

Instead of basing my analysis on these sex categories, then, I will proceed from the assumption of a completely separate ontological grounding. I realize this makes non-binaryness seem historically new, which in a sense it very much is not. There have always been and always will be people who could be classified as non-binary. However, our modern linguistic and sociological understanding of gender is new enough that our attitude towards modern non-binaryness must be thought of as new as well.

There’s no shame in something being new – in fact, there is great freedom in it. By considering non-binary folks a new phenomenon, we are not bound by historical precedent in the same way, which allows us much greater leeway to define ourselves instead of being defined by the cis men of antiquity. Furthermore, I don’t think this undermines our validity; everything was new once. Halacha had to adapt to the existence of changing social norms and technology, and this is no different.

[For anyone still hung up on the idea that G-d created Adam and Eve, and therefore intended an exclusive gender and sex binary, I would ask you this – do you really believe that such a thing is beyond G-d’s creativity? I have a lot more to say about all of this, but will leave it to another writing for now.]

—–

The second problem I see with these classifications is that the dialogue around them mostly seems to be about how to fit these folks into the existing binary gender roles. Regardless of how these ancient categories fit or don’t fit into our modern concepts of gender and non-binaryness, I think it’s important to recognize that this methodology doesn’t work for a lot of non-binary people.

Before I continue, I think it’s important to explain why this is, because it also informs my argument for what methodology we should use. I also want to discuss some other methodological philosophies underlying what I recommend as an approach. In order to do all of this, we need to consider what “non-binary” even is and begin to break down this umbrella term.

“Non-binary” generally refers to everyone whose gender experiences and identities fall outside strictly “man” or “woman.” However, the details of that experience not only vary widely based on individual experiences, but diverge widely between approaches to non-binary existence. In my experiences as a non-binary person and advocate/activist, I have seen probably hundreds of different genders. I don’t think it’s reasonable to try and come up with rules for each individual identity, nor do I think a one-size-fits-all approach works here either.

Instead, I propose that halachic approaches to non-binary folks utilize broad categories of non-binary genders based on their relationship to the binary genders. Ergo, while we are still collapsing many unique and colorful genders into broad swaths, by doing so relationally it will hopefully both simplify things while also providing individual rubrics for non-binary folks to apply to their gender situation as they understand it. I realize I will need to generalize a lot here out of necessity; please account for a certain margin of error accordingly.

The first main divide within the umbrella that is “non-binary” is between the people who consider themselves to have a gender or genders, and those who do not. Those who do not identify with any gender will generally have a different relationship to gendered rites and rituals than those of us who do. Ultimately, while those of us who have gender(s) tend to prefer to have specially-designated rites and rituals of our own, those who do not identify with any gender often seem to prefer to create as neutral of a space as possible, because to do otherwise is to inappropriately apply gendered norms – even non-binary ones – to them. Neither approach is wrong; rather, it seems like these are competing needs and the obvious third path to me to meet both needs is to simply use a different rubric for agender, genderless, neutrois, etc. folks than for other non-binary people.

The second major split is between the remaining people with non-binary genders is between the people whose genders are based in some form or another on the binary genders, and those whose gender is entirely independent of both. Those in the former category tend to find solace in taking what already exists and figuring out how it applies to their situation, while the latter tend to find this very painful, preferring to create entirely anew. Again, I don’t think either approach is inherently wrong, but rather that it’s important recognize conflicting access needs which can both be addressed by creating separate rubrics for each.

Ultimately, then, I think there actually needs to be three separate analyses of gendered halacha in order to address each group’s access needs: neutralization, application, and creation.

For ease of communication, I’m going to broadly refer to these groups as follows: genderless-spectrum, binary-based spectrum, and xenogenders, and I’ll refer to the people in these groups as agenders, bigenders/androgynes/demigenders, and genderqueers, respectively. While this is certainly far from agreed-upon terminology within the non-binary community as a whole, I will use it here for clarity.

—–

Another area of methodology is to analyze the different categories of gendered rites and rituals. While each example is unique and requires an equally unique halachic analysis, as there is so much to address, it is worth creating a strategy for how to approach each type of problem.

In general, gendered rituals tend to fall into one of the following categories: corporeal, sexuality, legal, and tradition.

Corporeal rituals assume a sex binary and are based on a very basic colloquial understanding of physical sex. The primary examples that come to mind are niddah and brit milah.

Sexuality rules assume a cis-hetero default, and are generally rooted in the intentional separation of men and women in order to promote modesty, monogamy, and privacy and prevent adultery. Examples would include the mechitza, shomer negiah, kisui rosh, kol ishah, and tznius.

Legal rulings are typically Torah-based, or at least based in the Oral Law, commentaries, and subsequent halachic rulings, and are binding. While the first two are typically quite legalistic in nature, this category is separated to specifically to address religious law that is gendered in nature, but not intrinsically tied to physical sex or heterosexual norms. Examples would include beged ish/ishah, dress norms not attached to modesty such as the level of formality, and male religious exclusivity such as only men counting for a minyan, only men being allowed to be called up to read Torah, only men being allowed to have the title of rabbi (and thus the associated authority), and only men reciting Kaddish. For women, Rosh Chodesh may be thought of as being in this category.

Traditions, on the other hand, are similar to the legal category, except that they are not binding to the same degree. This would include more male religious exclusivity (traditionally only men wear tallit, tzitzit, and kippot, only men lay tefillin, only men are restricted by the time-bound commandments, etc.) and most women’s duties or rules whose enforcement typically falls to women under traditional gender roles. Examples of the latter would include kindling the lights of Shabbat, baking the challah, keeping the kitchen kashered and ensuring that all food prepared for the family is kosher, family purity, and raising children according to Jewish law and norms. (*Note: I am well aware that many of these duties are binding on all Jews; the less-binding aspect I am referring to specifically is the gendered dimension of who performs it.) Additionally, I would think that most, if not all of the binary and male-centric language in the liturgy belongs in this fourth category. Hebrew as an aggressively binary-gendered language probably does as well.

[I recognize that I may have mixed up whether some of these things are based in halacha or minhag; please excuse my ignorance on this, and I absolutely welcome kind, respectful corrections!]

I have separated these rules and traditions out into these categories because each presents different challenges for effectively weaving non-binary people into the fabric Jewish religious tradition in a meaningful and halachically sound manner.

Corporeal laws and rituals assume that all bodies fall into one category or the other, and therefore in order to effectively analyze them, we must bluntly discuss trans bodies and non-cisnormative body maps. Furthermore, any meaningful analysis will not just challenge the sex binary, but to actually dig much deeper to understand the rationale that undergirds these to begin with in order to get to the true spirit of the rule. Only by understanding the true character of the law or ritual will we be able to understand how to creatively apply it to the three classes of non-binary folks. Although it probably goes without saying, any analysis of laws that have been inscribed on the body necessarily must include or at least consider both binary trans folks and intersex folks as well.

Sexuality rules, on the other hand, impact not just non-binary folks, but everyone across the whole LGBTQ+ spectrum. While the solutions for some groups will be relatively simple (binary trans folks should follow the laws that pertain to their true gender, for example), working out how to apply them in a sensible way to queer and non-binary folks will be a bit more of a challenge. How do you apply rules of separation in a meaningful way to people whose preference is for the very people they are being sorted with, or whose preferences are not gender-based at all? While this initial question must be addressed, any legitimate discussion of it must also include a conversation about how (or if) this separation works when it is no longer binary and for a group that is very small, even if you include all three subcategories. I think a lot of people are going to have to do a lot of soul-searching about their own cissexism and heterosexism in this discussion, because it inevitably impacts cis het folks as well as the broader LGBTQ+ community.

The legal issues present a challenge on the axis of gender roles that have been enshrined in halacha. Although feminists have been doing quite a bit of work on these issues for a very long time, most have approached it from a very cis, het, and binary perspective. While a fair treatment of these issues will necessarily explore this work deeply in order to take it into account, I genuinely believe that a non-binary perspective could significantly help women’s cause as well. Ideally, non-binaries, women, and male allies will work together towards ensuring equal engagement, access, and respect.

And finally, the traditions. Although technically the most easily “fixable,” from what I have seen these are often the most intractable issues, because they are matters of community choice, not the force of law. A shift on this front must therefore include a shift in perspective and an overall cultural shift in the treatment of and attitude towards queer and non-binary folks. However, I do think that this category offers the most promise for creative solutions and for devising new things as well.

—–

Now, having laid all that out, I think an example of this type of analysis in practice is in order. However, as this is already quite long, I hope to write another piece that applies this method to an example of each category of problem. Let me know if you would like to be tagged into that post.

#really really long post #chal is non-binary #and a nerd #anglophileslytherin i hope it's okay i tagged you #let me know if you want to be untagged!

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