#that she still uses to prop up her arguments about trans people
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while im (takes a deep breath to hold back my rage) sympathetic to the fans of Those Wizard Books who're taking a death of the author approach so long as they're not supporting the series financially or actively promoting it and are sticking to fan communities, I really, *really* wish people would put away their merch. Because when I see someone in public with merch from it, I always have to wonder if I'm safe around them as a trans person, if my trans friends are safe. And that's a sucky feeling to have, especially when talking to people who otherwise seems perfectly fine and nice!!! A lot of HP fans are just, people!!! Who maybe don't know what the big deal is, or have chosen to deal with the problem by doubling down to spite the author!! But even when I know for a fact they're totally safe or even trans themselves, I don't want to be constantly reminded of the series whose author is an incredibly rich and powerful person whose whole agenda for the past several years has been to push back against the rights of people like me, and who people like my own god damn mother is more willing to listen to about trans people than her own nonbinary child.
I know it's irrational to feel surges of rage at the mere mention of a popular multimedia franchises, but while I know not every trans person is bothered by it, I also know that a lot of trans people and even allies *are* bothered by it. Just... begging for some understanding, and for people to just PLEASE dial back their fandom-ing in public spaces, especially mostly queer spaces. You don't know how much difference it might make in the comfort and feeling of safety for the trans people around you
#maybe this matters less in the US#or like anywhere else in the world#but in the UK............. please holy shit terfs are a bigger force here than anywhere else#PLEASE stop openly showing support for the multimedia franchise that made the one with the most mainstream influence insanely rich#that she still uses to prop up her arguments about trans people#do you know that she's claimed the fact that people still like her wizard books means that shows people support her beliefs?#do you know that she's compared queer people to the villains of her books?#do you know how much she hates us? how much she hates our transfemme sisters especially?#im just a short afab nonbinary weirdo#i'm not seen as a threat by anyone#i can't imagine how trans women must be dealing with this#vent post#technically#ugh#sorry this has been on my mind for a while and i'm in a weird mood rn#don't come at me for this just block me if you're going to be bothered enough by this#because if you do bother me i'll just block you first lmao#edit: not that not being seen as a threat is necessarily a good thing because in the case of us afab enbies we're mostly just dismissed#there's a lot of us but it also feels like we're so invisible outside our own communities#we're just assumed as queer women most of the time especially those of my generation who haven't had any opportunity to medically transitio#except the lucky few who were able to get a diagnosis relatively early in life#or had the money to turn to private healthcare#trans men who don't pass too#moodle rambles
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people are literally so chronically online. back when I was still stealth about being a trans dude but open about being queer I literally had people always telling me how lucky I was to be sooo privileged as a white cis queer dude even after I explained to them that I'd been phsycially assaulted for it so bad I almost ended up with permanent brain damage. how is that privilege. having a form of privilege doesn't automatically make you immune to bigotry. yes, me being white gives me privilege. yes, me being perceived as a cis dude can give me privilege. but im still just as likely to be hatecrimed. I've still almost been killed over being queer. like they don't cancel out this isn't math class yall
I am so sorry (and infuriated) to hear that. I think there’s a time and place for intra-community conversations about privilege, when people actually have something substantive to say. I get chills listening to Sylvia Rivera’s “y’all better quiet down” speech, where despite all the sacrifices she had made for gay liberation the crowd still booed and treated her presence as a liability. What’s different is when people with their own privilege and weird guilt about it use other people’s struggling as a prop to tear people down. I have seen people in petty internet squabbles straight up say, “what would Marsha P Johnson think of this? She’d call you out.” Marsha P Johnson will never get a chance to weigh in on whatever the tumblr discourse de jour happens to be, because she was murdered. Because she had real fucking problems, and people who only know enough about her to namedrop her in arguments will use her memory to ventriloquize their own asinine takes. I am willing to have a serious conversation about my own privilege and how it impacts my worldview if it’s done in good faith, but not in cases where people with just as much privilege as me, if not more, want nothing more than to win an argument.
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Re: Elliot Page and the Visibility of Trans Men in Media
I’ve seen a fair amount of confusion regarding his coming out, arguably more so than any other prominent celebrity coming out as trans. I think it boils down to the fact that with there is a startling lack of visibility for trans men in media and in society in general. Some would argue that it’s due to trans men going stealth, or that their identities are rarely brought up because of how “easier” it is for them to blend in. Frankly, a lot of this rhetoric doesn’t help to address the problem. I think Elliot’s coming out will mean a great deal going forward because in my mind aside from Chaz Bono (who was at best famous for his family as opposed to his own identity), there really hasn’t been a major star with a career this successful doing this. I mean, as a massive cinephile and connoisseur of queer films and media, there are probably this many films out there with prominent transmasc characters:
Boys Don’t Cry (1999): While a trailblazing and brilliantly-made film, the fact remains that being transmale was so poorly-discussed at the time (transwomen were more visible in media then too, with films like The World According to Garp and Dog Day Afternoon), that most people viewed Brandon Teena as a lesbian than a trans man. The film treats him as male and is fairly respectful, but it still deadnames him at the end (after a fairly depressing conclusion) and used a real-life hatecrime to call attention to something rather than an earnest attempt to understand it.
Southern Comfort (2001): A documentary about the last year in the life of Robert Eads, a trans man with terminal breast cancer. Very sad, very moving and honest, but sadly extremely little seen. Find this if you can.
Predestination (2014): A sci-fi time traveling film which I won’t reveal too much about because the labyrinthian narrative is rather unique and clever; it features a transmale character as one of the two leads (the other being Ethan Hawke) and actually makes (without spoiling) a fairly compelling “fantastical” argument about how gender dysphoria manifests itself in a linear timeline of one’s life, which I found interesting. Unfortunately, the fact that the character is trans is largely used for plot reasons as opposed to an exploration of identity. Probably the most visible trans male character in a major film in the past decade though, so props.
Strange Circus (2001): Sion Sono and gender issues seem to go hand in hand. He’s addressed them in numerous films (such as Love Exposure, Noriko’s Dinner Table, and more recently The Forest of Love) and here I can’t really reveal how a trans male character fits into it (used as a very corny plot revelation) but needless to say a character is shown to be transmale in an archetypally irritating way that does nothing for the plot. Also a fairly-little seen movie even in Sono’s eclectic catalogue.
3 Generations (2016): Fairly banal and borderline-unwatchable platitude fest about a trans male teen’s struggle to get on hormones, told not from his point of view but from that of his confused mother and TERF lesbian grandmother. Stupid, cis-gaze bullshit.
Romeos (2011) and Tomboy (2011): Both are films abut being stealth and/or in the closet at young ages, and both are again, little seen outside art house/cinephile/film festival circles.
And the list goes on and on. Truth is, because of lack of understanding and visibility, society views Elliot as who he was before in such a stupid way (Guys I work with would talk about how hot he was in a typical toxically masculine way that made me sick) that who he was before is how so many people will forever see him. They watch films like Juno or Inception and to them, that person is inextricably linked with him forever. As a trans person, it’s hard for me to say how I feel about myself before. While that person is a part of me, it’s a part of me I’ve spent years burying and running from. And even then, sometimes, it’s hard not to see something of that person when I look in the mirror. I detested that person and it was somebody I’m not, but at least I don’t have to deal with reminders of them except when around family or mementoes from my past.
I can’t even begin to imagine how Elliot must feel with being an A-list celebrity and having an entire film career as someone you aren’t anymore. But risking your entire career to be yourself is the most noble and admirable thing one can do. My fiance is a minor celebrity who achieved some fame before her own transition, and she put it in the best way:
“In my mind, the things I did before transition were still things I did. To credit them to my old name does make it seem as though I was not the one who did them. Yes, the person by my old name did them, but that person is me.”
And so, the point I want to make is this: Everyone’s identity is their own, and everyone has their own views on their pasts. What Elliot is doing is amazing. What news to wake up to. Just when I thought COVID killed the dreamy magic of the movies that bring me joy, something else came along to put a smile on my face. Fantastic.
#elliot page#trans#transmale#lgbt issues#umbrella academy#gerard way#lgbt#queer#transgender#news#current events#hollywood#movies#cinema#filmblr#film#filmmaking#transmasculine#coming out
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hi!! i've been reading through your ao no flag liveblogs lately and they're really interesting! i enjoy seeing someone so passionate about this manga and it makes me want to reread it .... i'm really interested in hearing what you have to say about masumi's ending though!! part of me thinks it makes sense but i'm mostly conflicted on it and would love to see it from your perspective ^^
haha well thank you! ah yes, the arc that created as much controversy as you can get in an active readership of like 10 people...
Blue Flag is an imperfect story, but it also gets a lot of flack for things that a) didn't...actually...happen, b) didn't happen in the way people think they did.
Part 1: Is it actually straightwashing?
The most common criticism I see of Masumi's ending is that she was written as a lesbian character and straightwashed at the end. Marrying off a female character as a way to 'fix' her issues is a common and harmful trope, and saying that lesbian women just need to get a man is a widespread homophobic trope and talking point. So, it's not a good look. To have a character angst over interest in a woman and end up happily married to a guy reads like a '50s pulp novel that just uses f/f attraction for marketing.
But, if the intention of the ending was to show that Masumi should give up on women and force herself to date men, then it doesn't. Mitsuyuki's description of her is 'look at my bisexual wife who has dated both women and men and could also have married a woman', which is an odd choice if the intention was straightwashing. It feels more like a clumsy way to make sure that, in a series full of ambiguity, there could be no argument that Masumi was queer. That isn't to say that cisstraight people don't view bisexuality as less/better than/straighter than her being lesbian and that making a previously gay character bisexual isn't still straightwashing (increasing the appearance of straightness).
Part 2: Was it actually a retcon?
So: Masumi's ending reaffirms that she's a WLW. One question is, was she always meant to be bisexual, or was she originally written as lesbian?
Blue Flag doesn't have a lot of straight (no pun intended) answers. Taichi never expresses any explicit attraction to guys, but there is enough subtext to suggest he's attracted to Touma well before the finale. Futaba believes she is attracted to Touma at first and is shown to be attracted to him using the visual shorthand of manga (blushing, etc.), but she later says that it was just misinterpreted admiration. Mami doesn't want to date Touma or any man, but she implies that she is attracted to Touma when she says around him she was 'glad to be a woman.' Within the main romance, Futaba says that it was specifically because Taichi was a friend to her that she grew to like-like him. The lines between friendship and romance are blurred in Blue Flag, and sometimes romance can only grow out of friendship.
Masumi has a tense conversation with Taichi in the first half after she breaks up with her boyfriend that most people (me included) read as her saying that she tried guys and she just isn't and can't be attracted to them. However, it's Blue Flag, so the conversation is unfocused and doesn't paint a complete picture.
"Even if I get a boyfriend, I can never make it work"/"I don't know why [I don't like him anymore]" seem to imply that Masumi realized that she was feeling compulsory heterosexuality and that she will never like men. "[I don't know] why he like someone like me"/"You can be friends with potential sexual partners? With both guys and girls?"/"I just wanted to hear how you men feel about [a girl liking other girls]" seem to imply that Masumi is bisexual and is afraid to date because someone might find out. Maybe she's written as questioning--she knows she likes Futaba, but she's feeling out other possibilities. It's Blue Flag, so it's unclear.
Part 3: How does it work with Masumi's arc?
Diving further into Masumi's story, she acts as a foil to Touma (and Futaba, see later). Touma feels free to show his affection for Taichi as a friend as well as a love interest and almost confesses to him of his own free will, well before he's forced to. Touma tells her that he intends to try and set Taichi up with Futaba (because they would be good for each other), and also that he intends to pursue Taichi in some way. He tells her he's "not like [her]."
For Masumi's part, she tells Touma that she wants to express more affection for Futaba--not necessarily in a romantic way, just to participate more fully in that relationship--but she's afraid to, she doesn't feel confident enough to try, and that she's "the worst" because of it. We see this theme repeated, that Masumi is pessimistic, is afraid to trust people and hates herself for being afraid. Her conversations with Aki and Mami explore this; Aki tells her that it's not bad to be insecure or unready and that it's fine to keep a secret/stay closeted until she's ready, Mami tells her that she does have people she can trust, who care about her and who will do their best to understand her and help out. Why am I typing all this out? Because Masumi is a bitter, insecure wlw and that is an Established Trope, but her twist on it is that her negativity or bitterness isn't over her attraction to women/to Futaba or even over the reaction she might get from others (as Touma's is), it's over her own insecurity. Like Futaba, she's hesitant to act on her feelings, and like Futaba, she gets frustrated and hates herself for her own inaction.
All that is to say--Masumi is never shown to have a problem with her attraction to women. Her angst isn't gayngst, she's not ashamed of her feelings for Futaba bur rather her inability to express them. Her problems are with social attitudes and more with her own personal feelings--she and Touma face similar problems, but Touma is simply aware of the consequences (being roughed up and ostracised by a certain group of people) while Masumi feels a more generalized and ambiguous fear.
If Masumi were shown to have mixed feelings about her queerness/were shown to be in denial/were shown to be trying to move on from Futaba, then her ending would read more as straightwashing. As it is, there's nothing in her character and arc to say that she'd ever want to erase that part of herself or get rid of it, rather, she wishes she could embrace it but she just doesn't feel confident in doing it. Her ending shows her as an openly bisexual woman who is out to her friends and husband at the very least, which is a completion of her arc in the manga (of learning to trust other people and express her feelings honestly).
Part 4: What context clues does the rest of the series give us?
This is branching off a little from the strict text of Parts 1-3. As I've said, as we know, Blue Flag is 50% subtext and interpretation. Characters speak, but they don't say what they mean, characters think, but they're not always honest with themselves or in tune with reality. Mami is an ominous and antagonistic figure in the first half, but then it just turns out that Taichi was jumping to conclusions. Taichi is the main character and narrator, but we get radio silence from him for like 7 chapters after the climax. Taichi is bisexual, but the reader has to guess that from the way the art style shifts between PoVs, the similar panelling between Futaba and Touma's confessions, the things he does and does not think about Touma and how he feels about them. It's safe to say that there is room for speculation.
First, there is no explicit evidence that Taichi could be bisexual before ch 54. It's easy to tell that he is, but again, there's nothing specific. Some people reading Blue Flag have said that him marrying Touma was out of character, unforeshadowed, bizarre, inexplicable, etc. because their experienced is coloured by their own heterosexuality. Masumi is shown to have dated a guy and in saying she didn't like him "anymore," implied that she did like him. Her conflicted feelings over her bf could well have been foreshadowing her liking men as well, and my reading that as comphet could have just been my own experience colouring the text. Who knows! Taichi's bisexuality was intentional from the start but could be read as a last-minute twist, so why not Masumi's?
Second, Mitsuyuki is Futaba 2.0. Same colouring, same personality. This could feel like a way of saying "Masumi just needs to like guys instead," but to me it reads deeper with some of the trans subtext around Futaba. One of my issues with Blue Flag is that it doesn't go further into Futaba's admiration/envy for masculinity and her uncomfortable relationship with femininity. As a cis woman who wants to be buff and mildly masculine, I can understand why she's a cis girl throughout and I don't necessarily think that she was supposed to be a trans guy. However, her relationship with masculinity draws a parallel to Mitsuyuki. Reading Mitsuyuki as a cis man, he is the combination of Futaba's personality and looks with her 'ideal form.' So, Masumi marrying Mitsuyuki can read as Masumi marring Ascended FutabaTM.
Third, Futaba having a faceless prop husband is interesting in the context of Mitsuyuki getting a name and personality. Mitsuyuki = Futaba and Mr. Kuze is a blank space, so the reader is prompted to reduce the scenario and slot Masumi into that blank space. Given Masumi and Touma's history as foils, I'm inclined to think that Mitsuyuki exists to show the road not taken. Back at the fireworks, Touma tells Masumi that he hasn't given up on Taichi, and Masumi says she doesn't intend to pursue Futaba even though the pining is making her miserable. Given that Futaba reacts a lot better to the idea of Masumi liking her than Taichi reacts to the idea of Touma liking him, given that we see Masumi has successfully wooed male!Futaba, I think that Masumi's ending shows that she could have ended up with Futaba if she chose to pursue her. She didn't and she still got a happy ending where she is confident in her sexuality and unafraid to trust, but she could have also had a happy ending where she married Futaba. Mitsuyuki is a man because desire-for-masculinity is a key aspect of Futaba's character, and Mitsuyuki is a named character with a personality because KAITO wanted the reader to know that Masumi could have ended up with Futaba (as Touma ended up with Taichi).
Fourth, KAITO's notes on volume give us a few hints. He comments that there was remarkably little interference with his story and that he was able to tell it as he wanted, and that the ending was meant to be a "question" to the reader. The way I see it, Masumi's ending wasn't meant to say "maybe you'll be fixed if you get a man" but rather was meant to complement Taichi's ending and say "things happen in ways you might not expect, but that doesn't mean they're bad."
Fifth, Touma/Taichi ending up together shows us that the series is willing and able to show queerness as a good thing and a happy ending, so it's unlikely that Masumi was meant to come off as "actually she just needed a man" and more as "life can be unpredictable but you can always find happiness"
Summary
It's unclear whether Masumi was written as a bisexual woman or a lesbian woman or a questioning wlw
I personally read her as a lesbian and I wish that part of her character had gotten more exploration
Masumi's ending wraps up her arc (struggling to trust other people with her feelings in general and her queerness in particular) in a satisfying and logical way
Masumi being bisexual does not in any way negate or lessen her identity and experienes as a wlw, bisexual people still face external and internalized homophobia and all the associated issues
Masumi's bisexuality may well have been foreshadowed, but the execution makes it easier to read her as a lesbian, which makes her ending seem like a homophobic cop-out in the style of the Hays Code
Masumi's ending doesn't straightwash her and goes to unusual lengths to affirm her attraction to women
Masumi's ending seems to be written to contrast Touma's ending, showing that getting or not getting the love interest depends entirely on whether you choose to pursue them
It's unlikely that authorial intent was to straightwash Masumi
#ao no flag#blue flag#itachi masumi#masumi itachi#kelsey liveblogs ao no flag#that 8 volumes of a manga where nothing happens could be so complicated...
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DC SUPERHERO GIRLS HEADCANNONS
i’m gonna start writing headcannons whenever i get sad/anxious for a number of different fandoms. it takes my mind off things, even if only for a little bit. this time it’s gonna be about dcshg 2019. i’m honestly obsessed with thinking about the mundane teenager things we don’t see in the show that all the superhero/villian kids go through so i wanted to write some stuff about that.
•karen is actually more popular than she realizes, people think she’s sweet even though they rarely see her/don’t have classes with her
•leslie and dorris are a thing to everyone BUT themselves; they hilariously don’t even realize they’ve basically been dating for years: carpooling together, hanging out before and after school, bullying kids like a tag team, skipping classes together, movie nights, shorting out the exercise machines at the mall to make that misogynistic jerk at the fitness store scared, buying their favorite snacks for each other without thinking much of it, etc.
•barbi not only hates diana with a burning passion but ALSO tatsu because both girls excel in both their academic and physical education classes, unintentionally surpassing barbie by a long shot whenever the opportunity presents itself
•jessica and hal hang out at sweet justice after their week day training classes and even invite barry when he has the day off
•kara is completely oblivious to the fact there are a bunch of girls crushing on her at school, she keeps wondering why they whisper about her and never make direct eye contact with her as she walks through the hallways. she only finds out what is actually going on when she opens her locker on valentine’s day and gets COVERED in cards. she doesn’t tell most of her friends about it (she knows they’ll just be annoying) but she does vaguely ask jess about how to write people back, turning them down nicely and whatnot, she’s not a monster for gods sake, she’s just not ready for a relationship.
•babs and diana like to study together the most even though barbra never really pays attention, she mostly talks about different batman articles and comics she read and new gadgets she’s created but diana doesn’t mind TOO much because she has an growing interest in modern day ‘world of man’ technology
•diana can NOT sing to save her life. the girls thought that having a karaoke night would be fun sure, but nothing would’ve prepared them for the laughing fits they had when diana started screeching into the mic. They also find out that Babs is always off pitch and Jessica refuses to sing in front of people. alternatively, however, zee, kara and karen (in that order) are the best singers in the group.
•zee keeps inviting kara to these crazy expensive-super long wait list restaurants even though she knows kara probably won’t eat any of the food. she doesn’t really know why she keeps doing it, especially after the whole giant tentacle incident, but she does know she enjoys kara’s funny comments and cute laugh enough to continue.
•when selina first saw diana she might of had a tiny sexuality crisis, no she won’t elaborate.
•tatsu helps garth work on his confidence and he helps her with her HUGE slight fear of open water. even though they don’t know the other is super, they still help each other as much as they can. tatsu will train garth to do some basic defense techniques against bullies and they’ll go swimming every other week, garth always making sure to keep as much water as he can away from tatsu’s eyes and nose.
•kara and barry like to race each other whenever they get a chance to go to the pier. kara always cheats so she never loses but barry doesn’t mind because he’s her friend and it makes them laugh.
•steve is actually really good at embroidery, his mom taught him when he was younger. he once made a wonder woman shirt for diana and when he gave it to her, she fainted.....twice.
•pam is allergic to three different types of flowers but she still nurtures them in her garden at home whenever she can. if her allergies get really bad though, she’ll ask jess to help her water them, ONLY because she needs to keep her precious flowers alive, NOT because she is actually jess’ friend...she thinks.
•the first time carol met barbie they both got into detention for loudly insulting each other’s fashion sense in the middle of math class. (they still haven’t apologized to each other so they keep acting like it didn’t happen because they both think they’re right)
•the first time harleen called pam “green bean”, pam blushed and giggled...like FULL blown diana talking to steve giggle. and then she pushed harleen off a bridge with a vine on accident. harleen thought it was the funniest thing ever and pam could only awkwardly apologize for almost killing her teammate
•oliver and zee tried to co-write a christmas play but they were so busy fighting each other on who had a better ending they didn’t actually order any props or costumes for it. leaving the main actress to perform in a pirate outfit.
•kara still hangs out with bizarro super girl every now and again and they take turns ranting about their idiot cousins, it’s all light hearted because kara still has some emotional stuff to work through.
•diana unintentionally starts a “who will come out next” contest when she asks the girls about same sex attraction. she had seen leslie and dorris making out in one of the locker rooms (yes they FINALLY got together together) and asked her friends what it meant. after a lot of confusion as kara stumbled over her explanation of the lgbtq+ community, she ends up coming out as a lesbian first, followed by babs, who is bisexual, karen, who is questioning but absolutely had a crush on kara before their food fight detention day, and zee who is trans. they end up going to metropolis pride two months after that.
•diana is still convinced there is an oracle at the pier so every other sunday the girls go so she can spend all of her money on “knowing the future”
•babs never really gets angry on the daily and the rest of the girls learn why when some jerk at sweet justice insults jess’ looks because she wouldn’t go out with him. barbra turned bright red as she let him have it, words coming out of her mouth faster than barry can make their ice cream (they didn’t think she had it in her). and if he he ended up glued to his bed the next day, well, jess will let batgirl get away with that one JUST this once. barbra will NEVER not stick up for her friends.
•kara and babs often have multiple sleepovers a week, harleen even joins them sometimes when kara doesn’t mind her LOUD presence.
•the girls never get mad at one another when someone breaks down or blows up after holding certain feelings in for too long. whether it’s kara ghosting them for days leading up to her mom’s birthday, diana overworking herself to the point of exhaustion when she gets homesick, karen refusing to go out to anywhere except for school and tough missions for weeks at a time because she thinks she doesn’t matter, zee reading too many spells at once and giving herself an awful migraine after messing up an easy one, jessica isolating herself at lunch so she can sit in the library alone and cry to herself quietly after a hard day of training, or babs not being her normal happy self after having a heated argument with harleen, there will ALWAYS be a shoulder to cry on when someone needs it. If that comes in the form a knock on kara’s door as her friends invite themselves in with her favorite foods and a mega ‘feel better soon’ music playlist in tow, an impromptu destress retreat that they force diana to go on where she is only allowed to use a weapon if there is a direct threat, making a giant list of all the things they love about karen and reading it to her from outside her window, someone closing zee’s spell book and holding her tightly as her eyes turn back to normal from flaring pink with anger, all the girls quietly sitting with jessica one by one in the library and gently holding her hand as she lets out what she can, or buying limited edition comics and leaving them as presents for babs in her section of the hideout, there is ALWAYS someone there to make it hurt a little less.
the end :))
#tatsu yamashiro#dcshg19#dc super hero girls 2019#dc superhero girls#kara danvers#kara zor el#diana prince#barbara gordon#jessica cruz#karen beecher#zee zatara#super girl#wonder woman#green lantern#bat girl#bumble bee#zatanna#DCSHG#DCSHG19#giganta#livewire#cat woman#harley quinn#star sapphire#poison ivy#invincabros#the flash
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An Extremely Personal Look at my Disconnect with Frozen 2
I’m trans and I’ve been closeted for so long that being in the closet has begun to feel like a futile routine, an inescapability born of my own weakness.
That’s... not how a post about a Disney film usually starts, is it?
But, like the title of my post says, this reflection is personal. I’m allowing myself to be vulnerable.
Because of my life experience, I’ve connected deeply with the character of Elsa over the years. I suppose that’s not a surprise. Elsa’s powers can serve as a broad metaphor for aspects of someone’s identity that others can stigmatize - whether that be read as gender, sexuality, anxiety, or depression. Part of the reason Elsa became so incredibly popular in the first film is because her struggle with her powers could reflect so many various people’s struggles with their own identities.
Frozen 2 actually leans into that broad metaphor of Elsa’s powers reflecting personal identity - a part of oneself that is unique but beautiful in its uniqueness. The lyrics of Show Yourself reinforce this, telling Elsa that “you are the one you’ve been waiting for all of your life.” So I should love Frozen 2. I want to love Frozen 2. There are things I absolutely do love about Frozen 2.
But I have a complicated disconnect with the way the film approaches the origin of Elsa’s powers.
The film makes Elsa’s powers a gift from the spirits - and also suggests that they are a gift for Iduna because she saved Agnarr’s life. By introducing the idea that Elsa’s powers originate not because of anything to do with Elsa herself but because of an event that happened before Elsa was even born, the film kind of undermines the metaphor of Elsa’s powers reflecting a key aspect of her identity.
Identity doesn’t work like that. I’m not trans because of other people’s actions. My trans-ness is a part of me. It comes from me. It wasn’t decided that I was trans so that my mother could have a “reward” for her own righteousness. If some divinity did bestow my trans-ness upon me, I would be disturbed to find out if they didn't do it for my sake - if they did it because my mother did something and I was only an aspect of the equation insomuch as I related to her...
To me, that thought isn’t empowering. And it still wouldn’t be empowering even if my mother were as loving as Iduna - because it would tell me that I’m only a vessel...
There’s a difference between saying, “Elsa is a gift because Iduna’s good deed was rewarded with her,” and saying, “Elsa is a gift simply because she is who she is, Elsa is a gift by simply existing.” One is conditional and one is unconditional. One uses Elsa to prop up Iduna’s actions and the other loves Elsa for herself.
(Also, I’d argue that a better gift for Iduna’s goodness would be to let her see her family again. Why cut the Northuldra off from the world when the fault was solely Arendelle’s? I’ve seen some people speculate that Arendelle could have wiped the Northuldra out after Runeard’s death and the mist protects them, but what does that reading make us think of Agnarr if we assume he could be complicit in genocide? Why “protect” the Northuldra in a way that will negatively psychologically impact a generation of them? Why let them suffer? No, that rationale doesn’t make sense to me. The whole mist scenario smacks of the “both-sides-ism” of white writers - but that’s a discussion for another time, a discussion I’m not really qualified to comment on in depth. I need to return to Elsa.)
The interesting thing is, after introducing the concept that the spirits gifted Elsa’s powers to celebrate Iduna’s nobility, the film doesn’t really bring up that angle again. Instead, it tries to frame “we made you a gift for someone else’s sake in a scenario where your individual identity is irrelevant because you did not even yet have a consciousness” and “you are a gift by being you” as being the same thing. But those two things are not the same.
Before F2, Elsa continually frames herself based on what she can do for the sake of others - even at the expense of herself. Clearly, with Frozen 2, the filmmakers wanted to have Elsa come into fuller self-acceptance and love herself for being herself - but that isn’t quite what they wrote. By making Elsa a reward for her mother and defining her powers based only on how Elsa relates to her, the film itself frames Elsa based on what she can be for the sake of others - while disregarding Elsa’s own selfhood and identity. Elsa’s self-identity is so immaterial to the decision to give her powers that it happens before she is even born.
I know the film may not have intended this, but it ends up validating Elsa’s negative thought processes in the act of nominally ‘refuting’ them. All because of those few lines trying to explain why Elsa has powers.
Show Yourself tries to fix this by basically brushing aside the “you were a gift from the spirits for Iduna’s actions” revelation and focusing on Iduna and Elsa’s familial connection and love. This is why Show Yourself is so much more amazing than the earlier revelation and an admittedly breathtaking scene. The focus becomes “you are the one you’ve been waiting for all of your life” - you are a gift to the world simply by being you - and that is so much better than the earlier revelation, but the damage of the earlier revelation has already been done.
Now, the film has two slightly different interpretations of the word “gift” that it tries to use interchangeably - in spite of the fact those two interpretations subtly contradict. The film never comes back to the “gift for Iduna’s good deed” element. It doesn’t establish that what happens in Ahtohallan is an expansion of that or an emendation to that. It doesn’t address the dubious implications of it. It just brushes it aside, never to explore it again.
Indeed, as I’ve said in other posts, if you take out those few lines from earlier, you lose the internal narrative contradiction and the film actually becomes stronger.
So why are they there at all?
I think they’re there because they give a seemingly simple, external explanation for why Elsa has powers. Show Yourself is more focused on what being at peace with yourself means to Elsa emotionally (that’s why it’s better, in my opinion), but the “the spirits gave her powers because of her mother” lines are there because the writers felt they needed to give a direct explanation of Elsa’s magic.
Here’s a hot take, though: Elsa’s powers work better without an explanation. The fact she was just “born with them” in the first film was part of what led to her broad appeal. It allowed countless people to latch onto her because - people who society deems “other?” We’re just people. We’re ordinary. We’re human. We just are. The first film understood this - and for all of Elsa’s magical abilities, she was allowed to just be. And the lack of any lore surrounding Elsa’s powers meant that scores of different people could identify with Elsa. Her powers were vague enough that they could stand in for any unique aspect of an individual’s identity. The point wasn’t where they came from; the point was what they meant.
But after the first film came out, I kept seeing the refrain: “Why do they never explain Elsa’s powers? That’s a plot hole.” it isn’t a plot hole. It isn’t a plot hole any more than not explaining how the Wicked Queen in Snow White got a magic mirror is a plot hole. Something being unexplained isn’t a plot hole. That’s not what “plot hole” means. But I can understand why the writers, after hearing things like that for years, felt like they had to address that explanation.
And in doing so, they tried admirably to connect that plot point to an internal journey for Elsa - and created some absolutely beautiful elements within the film - like Show Yourself. Although, in this post, I’m documenting flaws I see in Frozen 2 and my own disconnect with it, I want to stress that I respect the artists and creatives who brought the film into being and I value their work.
In the process of their efforts, however, they inadvertently opened up internal contradictions within their own narrative; opened up unfortunate implications when it came to their commentary on colonization; and opened up unfortunate implications when it came to their discussions of individuality and identity.
As I have said, there is much I admire about Frozen 2. And I know that my words here come from a very personal place. If Elsa’s arc in Frozen 2 works for you, you’re valid. This isn’t a takedown of Frozen 2. None of my more critical posts about Frozen 2 are. I don’t want to take anything away from you. You’re valid.
It’s just that my perspective is valid too. I know, there are scores of critiques of Frozen 2 and some of them are absolutely terrible or just plain racist, but I hope that as you read this, you’ll understand that my perspective comes from the heart and that I’ve done my best to support it with examples from the text of the film. I hope that you’ll read this. I’m writing it to be heard - because I feel like my perspective gets drowned out a lot, regardless of the posts I make. Flashier positive posts draw one part of the fandom’s attention and flashier and more toxic negative posts draw another part’s attention.
I’m just trying to express my thoughts in a cohesive way, trying to be heard and trying not to feel guilty. (Because I do feel guilty writing posts like these. I get scared that people resent them or that I’m spoiling other people’s fun - even though more toxic people make much more incoherent arguments and they don’t feel guilt, while I try to support all my claims.) I feel like I’m relentlessly apologetic to others, always begging, I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry, always... feeling guilty for even having a perspective like this. As though I feel there’s something wrong with me for simply having a perspective. As though I’m scared it somehow invalidates all the good things I’ve said about the film elsewhere or will make people hate me.
(Not to connect everything back to my being closeted, but I feel like that entrenches a guilt in me that manifests even as I talk about innocuous things like fandom opinions).
But I just... want to speak. I hope that’s not bad, is it? And I hope this post finds a receptive audience. I know it’s personal. I know it’s heavily informed by my own personal experience and perspective, but I hope it’s nuanced. And I hope people will read it and, even if they approach the film differently than me, understand.
Thank you.
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Identity, Infidelity, and iPhones: A Critique of “Tangerine”
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Tangerine, set in Los Angeles in 2015, follows the journey of two black transgender women through the streets of West Hollywood the day that one of them is released from jail. The main character, Sin-Dee Rella, learns from her friend Alexandra that her fiance, Chester, has been cheating on her while she was in jail for a month. Sin-Dee sets off to seek revenge on Chester and the “other woman”. The film, which takes place over the course of Christmas Eve, depicts sex work, infidelity, drug use, singing performances, transphobic violence, and more. The plot comes to a peak with all the main characters in one donut shop, where the biggest secret of the film is revealed. Part drama and part comedy, Tangerine is a story of revenge, friendship, identity, sexuality, and love.
The reception of Tangerine was rather mixed. The film was highly acclaimed for its methods of production, as it was shot entirely from three iPhone 5s smartphones. It was also praised for its casting: the two main characters, Sin-Dee and Alexandra, are played by Kitana Kiki Rodriguez and Mya Taylor, two openly transgender actresses. Taylor won several independent film awards for her role (Shawan, 2015). Today, the film has a score of 96 on Rotten Tomatoes. However, the film has also received criticism about its portrayals of trans characters.
While Tangerine exhibits themes that align with aspects of queer theory, it also has some problematic elements within its production and content. As a viewer, my personal subject positionality impacts my interpretations and criticisms of the film, and my identity informs how my reading of the film differs from others’. Overall, Tangerine is a complex text that requires many different perspectives to dissect.
One of the major themes evident in Tangerine is intersectionality. This film follows the lives of two transgender black women who are also sex workers. This represents an intersection of marginalized gender identity, race, and class, all of which overlap and inform each other to create experiences unique to these particular positions in society. The intersection of these many marginalized identities is not often represented on screen, and this film was made in the 2015, pre Pose era.
Other apparent themes in the film include trans identity and gender performativity. In one scene, Sin-Dee drags Dinah, the “other woman” to Alexandra’s performance where she sings Doris Day’s Toyland in a club. Dinah later refers to the performance as a “drag show”, to which Alexandra sternly replies “I am not a drag queen”. This exchange challenges Dinah, who, rather than deconstructing her ideas of gender, still thinks of Alexandra as a man performing as a woman. Although Tangerine includes trans characters, the film does not give Sin-Dee or Alexandra much more background or storyline other than their trans identity, a critique that will be explored more in later sections.
One of the most common praises for Tangerine is for its method of filming: the entire film was shot using iPhones and a four dollar editing app. This cheap, user-friendly technology exhibits a queer approach to production. As Scott & Fawaz point out in Queer About Comics, “low-tech quality makes comics either fundamentally democratic or especially available to democratic practices” (Scott & Fawaz, 2018, p 201). This idea is reflected in Tangerine, as the groundbreaking use of iPhones showed audiences the endless opportunities available with more readily accessible technology. The editing of the film also exemplified some nontraditional techniques. The footage was edited to be quite oversaturated, giving it a slight orange hue, thus the name Tangerine. These film choices deliberately broke cinematic norms.
Tangerine mirrors Pose when it comes to some of its criticism. Because of the casting of two trans women of color, the film was able to deflect a lot of criticism. Dr. Martin makes this argument with Pose, saying that “These gay and trans actors of color function as a shield for Pose’s problematic representational politics” (Martin, 2018). While the casting of these two actresses seems groundbreaking, the film itself was created and written by two straight, white, cisgender men, Sean Baker and Chris Bergoch. These two men received the praise and profits from Tangerine even though there were many problematic layers within the casting, production, content, and intended audience of the film.
For one, although Baker and Bergoch may have had good intentions by trying to cast black trans actors, their methods for finding actors were questionable. Their desire to create this film came from Baker’s “fascination” with a particular Los Angeles intersection that was known for sex work. “As straight, white, cisgender men, he and frequent writing partner Chris Bergoch knew they needed a collaborator familiar with the area’s culture. Approaching people on the street proved futile, so they wandered over to a nearby LGBT center. There, Baker instantly “gravitated” toward a transgender woman named Mya Taylor, an aspiring entertainer who had never acted before, but was game for whatever Baker and Bergoch wanted” (Jacobs, 2015). The intense interest in a community that Baker is not a part of seems voyeuristic if not intrusive. Also, the way that Baker found Mya Taylor shows a situation where Taylor has very little power in the creation of this film. While Baker did intend to get an “inside perspective” of the area’s culture rather than relying on his own perspective, his casting of Taylor seems to be solely based on the fact that she is a black trans woman and was willing to participate. This has some connotations of tokenism and performativity that must be looked at more closely.
Secondly, the film itself has many issues of representation of trans lives. Overall, Sin-Dee and Alexandra have been propped up as “window dressings” of the film. As Rich Juzwiak states in a critique of the film, “We get virtually no sense of Sin-Dee’s interior life, and the sense we get of Alexandra’s is eye-rollingly trite (she wants to be a singer)” (Juzwiak, 2015). We do not get much of a sense of these characters’ lives outside of sex work, such as their backgrounds or even where they live when they are not on the streets. Instead, Baker and Bergoch rely heavily on tropes and stereotypes of black trans women as well as sex workers. On the other hand, they show the family and home life of Razmik, a cab driver who is a regular customer of Sin-Dee and Alexandras. This makes sense with the later plot, but the stark distinctions between these characters are clear.
The obsession with anatomy in Tangerine presents another layer of concern. For one, the fetishization of trans women was a major component of the film. Razmik consistently objectifies and fetishizes trans women. We see this when he unknowingly picks up a cis woman, then proceeds to kick her out of his car when he realizes she is not trans. This fetishization is dehumanizing, as it portrays trans women as objects of a straight male’s gaze rather than people with complex identities. Cavalcante (2017) criticizes films such as Boys Don’t Cry and TransAmerica for “scenes in both films that fetishized genitalia” (Cavalcante, 2017). This obsession with the anatomy of trans bodies is also shown when Dinah calls Chester “homo” for wanting to marry Sin-Dee. Selena, the woman that Razmik picked up, also called him “homo” when she realized he was looking for a trans woman. This implies that Sin-Dee and other trans women are men, invalidating their female identity. There are also consistent references to Dinah as a “real” woman or a “fish”. This reference implies that, as a cisgender woman, Dinah’s biology is what makes her a woman, and that trans women are not real women. While the trans characters use this reference themselves, it is still problematic to use biology as the determining factor for womanhood. Rather than challenging this implication, Tangerine consistently perpetuates transphobic language and ideas.
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As viewers, it is important to recognize our own subject positionality when critiquing films. Personally, as a young queer woman of color in college, I often tend to have a critical, almost cynical lens with many texts. For one, as a mixed-race person, I rarely see images of myself in the media, so I understand the importance of representation. When I do come across characters that I identify with, I often will fall prey to the trap of representation without considering larger structures within media.
Because of my subjective experiences as a queer woman, I would say I am also sex-positive and sex work positive. I had trouble with some criticisms of Tangerine that I found online because many people took issue with the portrayal of Sin-Dee and Alexandra as sex workers. The particular editorials I came across used a lot of anti-sex worker language. While I agree that “trans women as sex workers” is a trope that must be challenged, my own positionality tells me that there is nothing inherently wrong with sex work. Sex workers deserve to have their stories told and they deserve respect and dignity. While there is a lot of questionable material in Tangerine, I don’t think the presence of sex work alone is inherently problematic. However, the portrayal of sex work as indecent, as it was sometimes portrayed in Tangerine, contributes to the stigma against it. My personal experiences and views further complicated my reading of this film.
At first glance, Tangerine seems indisputably groundbreaking based on its cast and the characters it is representing. However, a closer look behind the scenes reveals that the features praised in the film are a veil for some questionable processes. A close examination of the text recalls Tourmaline’s Teen Vogue piece: “Too often, people with resources who already have a platform become the ones to tell the stories of those at the margins rather than people who themselves belong to these communities. The process ends up extracting from people who are taking the most risks just to live our lives and connect with our histories…” (Tourmaline, 2017). If we truly want a raw, real look at the lives of trans people of color and sex workers, we must leave the storytelling up to them, rather than approaching these communities with nosy voyeurism as Baker did. However, Tangerine revealed the possibility of a full-length film created with very limited technology. Perhaps the next breakout film will be a story created by trans women of color using nothing but iPhones.
Works Cited
Critique by Lucy Briggs
Jacobs, M. (2015, July 9). Tangerine may have had a tiny budget, but the film's heart is bigger because of it. Huffington Post. Retrieved from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tangerine-movie-transgender_n_559bc990e4b05d7587e22881.
Juzwiak, R. (2015, October 17). Trans sex work comedy Tangerine is the most overrated movie of the year. Gawker. Retrieved from http://defamer.gawker.com/trans-sex-work-comedy-tangerine-is-the-most-overrated-m-1717662910.
Martin, A. L. (2018, August 2). Pose(r): Ryan Murphy, trans and queer of color labor, and the politics of representation. Los Angeles Review of Books. Retrieved from https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/poser-ryan-murphy-trans-queer-color-labor-politics-representation/.
Scott, D. & Fawaz, R. (2018) Queer about comics. American Literature, Volume 90, Number 2, June 2018, pp 197-219. Doi: 10.1215/00029831-4564274
Shawhan, J. (2015, August 6). Beyond using progressive filming techniques and casting, Tangerine is expressive and warm. Nashville Scene. Retrieved from https://www.nashvillescene.com/arts-culture/film/article/13060247/beyond-using-progressive-filming-techniques-and-casting-tangerine-is-expressive-and-warm.
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My Response to EruptionFang’s ‘An Honest Opinion Regarding Bumblbee’
To start, I think that everyone in this thread should watch the video, regardless of your opinion on EF or BMBLB, just so you can be sure that I'm being fair to EF's arguments and not putting words into his mouth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tVXh03kFCs&feature=youtu.be
Opening
Fang opens up with talking about his problems with relationship plots or subplots within fiction. This is actually a fair argument to make, and one I do find myself agreeing with. Relationships in entertainment are almost always forced into stories for the sake of having a relationship. Movies that are otherwise about fighting killer aliens or whatever will inevitably end up also having two characters- usually a goofy, snarky male and no-nonsense, stoic badass female- end up falling in love and kissing at the end. I could (and actually have) write an entire paper on why there are problems with A) relationships being forced into every piece of entertainment, and B) the problems with how its usually portrayed. So, yes I do think EF has a good point in this critique. (Also, I know that Blake/Yang obviously doesnt fit the dyanmic I described on how relationships in media are usually portrayed).
Volume 2 and Ship Baiting
Fang then discusses how V2 introduced relationships between characters- both romantic and platonic- as being important to the plot. He especially focuses on what he describes as 'ship-baiting' with Blake and her relationships with Sun and Yang. He spends a bit talking about how the show teases whether or not Blake will be "Straight... or is she maybe gay? Oh wait heres another gay girl- but wait heres this straight guy!"
Now, as a bisexual. I already have a problem with him deciding you have to be one or the other, but thats not really the point. His main issue hes talking about is how RWBY supposedly played up Blake's love life as being teased by the writers for "six years". Which I honestly don't see. Yes, Sun flirts with Blake from time to time, Yang's interactions with Blake are on a level that many see as romantic, Ilia is confirmed to have had (juries still out on if its still there) a crush on Blake, and Adam used to date her. But this was never the main part of Blake's character arc. Her arc has always been about her identity as a faunus and the White Fang, not how many people she can bang over the course of the series. He also talks about how the show wastes time on Blake's relationships with these characters (I guess his point about RWBY foocusing on character relationships doesn't get to apply here), which feels like a weird argument to me. If Blake didn't have such a close relationship with these four mentioned: Yang wouldn't have lost her arm, which lead to her character arc from 4 and 5 in a way; Sun wouldn't have followed Blake, which was why Blake's arc turned out the way it did; Ilia wouldn't have turned good, which means Blake's parents would likely be dead now; and Adam wouldn't have been as interesting an antagonist is he didn't have a personal connection to Blake.
Fang ends of this section talking about how lesbians are a 'safe' LGBT representation for writers in fiction, which again I agree with. This is another critique of entertainment at large that is sadly true- lesbians are 'hot' and fetishised so much by straight men esepcially that yeah, you're less likely to get backlash for that than for making a man gay or for having someone be trans. This is still a form of homophobia- lesbians aren't really allowed to be a normal couple, they have to be doing 'hot' stuff to appeal to men. So again, I agree with Fang on a critique of entertainment at large. And once again he says Blake and Yang are gay, as if us bis don't exist.
Main Argument
Fangs main thesis on why Bumblebee is a bad thing to become canon is that it "takes away from RWBY's dynamic". As he puts it:
"Now all of a sudden you have two people who care for each other more than they do the other team members."
He talks about how Yang grabs Blake's hand in the Apathy episode to lead her away from danger, and says this is bad because Yang ignored the others still in the room. I have two problems with this argument.
First, Yang was directly next to Blake, but farther away from Ruby and Weiss. She grabbed the closest hand, which was Blake.
Second: consider what had happened just before that scene. When the apathy were in the cellar with everyone, who was clearly the most affected by them? Not Weiss, and certainly not Ruby. Blake was literally unable to even stand for a while, and was hit by the apathy much harder. She was in a weaker state than anyone else, so Yang grabbing Blake's hand does actually have a reason within the show outside of shipping.
"Am I honestly to believe that Ruby or Weiss would do anything similar to what Yang is constantly doing... Its impossible to say that [Ruby] would risk her life for [Blake]."
YOU JUST TALKED ABOUT THE APATHY ARC. It wasn't Ruby herself being attacked by the apathy that set off her silver eyes- it was Blake. At the end of V6, Weiss and Ruby both share a moment to comfort Blake after she was still reeling from having killed someone directly. 6 in general deserves props from me for really showing every relationship between these friends- Ruby and Blake hugging at the end, Ren hugging Yang when he sees they're still fine, etc. Now, would I like to see Ruby and Blake interact more? As a ladybug fan, yes I would. But that doesn't mean we've not been shown that they do care a lot for each other. Fang is in my opinion being disingenuous when he says this.
He then says that Renora is an okay ship because "They're not main characters." Except that wasn't his argument about why BMBLB was a problem. He is being inconsistent here. Why doesn't he care that Ren and Nora now have someone they have a much deeper relationship with than Jaune? What is the difference?
And on that topic- does Fang think Ruby and Yang shouldn't be on a team together? As siblings, they care more about each other than say, Yang about Weiss. So doesn't that hurt the team dynamic? What's different there?
He spends a bit at the end just sort of ranting that having them be gay is forced diversity which is... a very dangerous stance to take, honestly. He's basically throwing out all of his 'I don't mind them being a thing because they're gay...' arguments because, he is pretty much now saying 'Well its different for them because they're gay...' I know this sounds nitpicky, but it is a blatant disregard of everything he had been saying up til now. I don't think EruptionFang is a homophobe or that he outright hates gay people- but I do think this specific part at the end just sort of sounds like the sort of rants you hear from far right homophobes.
He finishes up by talking about how all shipping in a show is fanservice to the audience- which, again, I agree. Shipping is fanservice and done for the audience to enjoy, so yeah he's right.
Overall, it feels like Fang is holding BMBLB to a higher standard than he does other ships and relationships. He outright admits that Renora is different to him, but the reason he gives for why it's different is a reason that wasn't connected to why he dislikes BMBLB. This makes his arguments seem dishonest, or at least as if he doesn't know himself what his reason is.
I want to reiterate- I don't think Fang hates gay people. But I do think that subtle homophobia- assumptions that everyone is gay or straight with no room for bisexuals, for instance- is influencing his opinion.
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Mothers
The first time my therapist "broke" me was when he said "maybe your mom hasn't ever loved you". I sat there, tears raging uncontrolled across my face. I tried to speak, I tried to process, to think. All I did was open and close my mouth, gasping like a fish in a broken bowl where all the water just violently rushed away. I vocalized half-words as I tried to speak, as I tried to refute, as my brain ran through the course of my more than 40 years of interaction with her. I tried to find the examples of love and affection, however all my brain wanted to find were the examples of horrible treatment. The many awful birthdays I joked about, the time she put a lock on the refrigerator, so many others. I thought about the things we did as adults. And realized, when looking through an eye not desperate for a mother's love, that she never really saw me as anything more than a burden.
And why should she? I was the caboose on the fun train. She was young, graduated high school in 1970 and was very much a freewheeling hippy flower child. Just like my dad who she met and fell in love with. But the party stopped as soon as I arrived. Later when my father, the man who has still never grown up, betrayed her enough she finally left him and had to care for my brother and I by herself, without even help from her parents. It wasn't easy and here I was, troublesome and bright, thwarting her and her control at every turn, all on top of bearing the same name of the man who had done her wrong and would never pay a single penny to help raise us. Of course she resented me.
But look, even now I still seek to explain, to excuse her when really I shouldn't. Growing up I always heard about the many ways I was a disappointment, she even complained about how she had wanted a daughter. When I first came out to her she couldn't resist bringing that up (like it hadn't rattled around in my head with increasing frequency ever since my trans epiphany) and even suggesting the name she'd always wanted to use. Maybe my refusal (I'd known my name since the first time I had it suggested as mine when I was 15) is what led her to about face two weeks later as she e-mailed me, instructing me that I was not welcome to come for the upcoming planned father's day visit. What followed was the occasional e-mail, begging me to see how this affected her and her standing within her old lady groups (she is an avid member of the DAR and DUV). I responded to these attacks gently until later that year she unleashed the latest cruel attack. Words were always my mother's favorite weapon, weaving guilt and misery like some emotional spider. This time she informed me, and the cold, impersonal tone was very specifically merely a "polite" notice, that rather then celebrating my birthday the following day, that she would throw a memorial for her dead son.
Long before my mother revealed herself, when I finally accepted that I had no choice but to transition, I sought out a therapist. I knew transition would be hard, but I never suspected it would be this difficult, that my mother would lash out at me so hurtfully, and the realization that I probably SHOULD have anticipated this finally dawned on me as my therapist dissected the scaffold I'd built over so many years propping up the idea that of course she loved me.
When I finally had my first taste of freedom, a freshman in college, I'd had an argument with my mother where I hung up on her. I was furious (don't ask me why, I have no recollection) and i stomped back to my room (in those days, less than 2 decades ago, long distance calls were only able to be made on the communal dorm payphone) sulking in anger which eventually turned to regret and then sadness until half an hour later, I returned, called her back and apologized. From there I'd always worked hard to maintain an adult relationship with regular weekly phone calls and frequent get togethers, never moving too far away. I had always assumed that the friction and fightin' and feudin' with her that started when I was 15, and ended with that phone call, was the product of teenage rebellion. But part of me now wonders if that acquiesence and returned phone call was the death of me recognizing my mother's true disdain and asserting my lack of need of her in my life.
I am an indulgent optimist, so of course, even with continued rudeness heaped upon me, I left the door open, and eventually she came back around last year. We started rebuilding our friendship with monthly visits where we'd meet for a movie and then usually a meal and even once where we went shopping at a beauty store and she pointedly purchased me actual women's products for the first time. It felt like slow grudging acceptance and I leaped at it, as I'm certain she knew I would. It was not a coincidence that at the first such meeting she informed me of an upcoming surgery that I of course jeopardized my job to spend a week unpaid to help care for her. This summer she has visited and communicated even less (though taking her to the hospital for outpatient care was of course one of the few rare visits) and I'm again unsure if I'll ever have a real mother/daughter relationship like the one I hope for ideallized in my mind, but I'm at least cognizant that maybe I'll be just fine without it.
This all comes to the forefront of my mind, with fresh considerations that had not occured to me even before writing this, while reading of similar difficulties penned by a valued friend. A trans masculine person experiencing rejection from his mother and a lifetime of mental and emotional abuse. I see his strength in cutting ties and instead of feeling sadness it uplifts me, knowing that as trans people not only can we free ourselves of our fake costumes and personas, but that we can find in that power to care for ourselves enough to even surpass the painful bonds that we had previously let weigh us down.
#transgender#transition#trans woman#trans#trauma#amab#reclamation of self#motherly abuse#caboose on the fun train
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things
i hate group projects my partner’s supposed to finish making these flyers so i can print them tonight, cut them up and hand them out tomorrow on my paper route but it’s eight thirty eight and she hasn’t sent anything and i need them tonight because i have a dental appointment tomorrow and can’t cut them out tomorrow because i won’t finish my route in time (edit: she just came online, apparently she just got home, sweet relief)
in social justice class our teacher asked us to give examples of people in today’s society that are marginalized
and someone said gay people
and she frowned and said “are you sure” and a part of me died right then and there
so she asked for examples and he gave her so fucking many she had to relent
props to him
also in social justice: today’s topic was sexism, and someone said “what about non-binary people” and through the following confusion i had a bleak moment of realization about how little my classmates know about LGBT+ people. i am angry at my sex ed. they taught the girls with secret keeper girls and super sized me while the guys learned about STDs, it was not good, it wasn’t even mediocre it was actively bad
(also the fact that the majority of my classmates don’t know what the words trans man, trans woman, and non binary mean is just- kinda sad, really. what’s sadder is that i wouldn’t know without having dived head-first into the LGBT+ side of the internet. none of our parents talk about it, only one of my teachers actively pursues LGBT+ topics ((there was one time where he dedicated all of devotions to bringing up intersex people to address the “your gender = your genitals” argument. he has a gay pride flag on his whiteboard))
yesterday, after the final bell three of my friends came up to me and hugged me and told me if i needed to i should skip school the next day? and i was kinda confused but figured i looked like shit so i went home and slept early
i found out today they thought i was really fucking sick
i wasn’t i was just very very tired and stressed
i feel like i should be concerned that they mistook my very very tired for really really sick, sick enough that they told me not to worry about homework and to just spend the next day at home resting if i needed to. then again i spent the past six nights sleeping at 2am because stress adrenaline kept me up
a positive, i went to the dentist yesterday for a cleaning and i have:
no cavities
a tiny silicon pig with a slit in his back to hold a single quarter. a miniature piggy bank that i got with a free token for good behaviour. still one of the highlights of my dentists visits.
ps: sorry if i repeat myself, my memory is terrible these days, i forget many things
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So, I'm reading this fic, a HP AU of The 100, and I'm not that far into it, but so far it's been very good, and then there's a fight between Raven, a muggle born, and Fox, a pure blood, because Raven keeps ranting about the purebloods awfulness, which I totally agree with her, in a general way, as if every pureblood is like that and it hurts Fox, because she is a pureblood and she's not like that, and Raven knows that she isn't, but she still talks in general terms about purebloods and (1/?)
like, I understand and agree with what she means, but, being myself a white man who sees a lot of generalization on tumblr about things white men do, I understand how it can hurt your feelings to be lumped together with people you disagree with, and so I don’t think Fox is wrong on this matter, but then Raven gets angry, because it’s not like Fox suffers any restrictions or reproaches from society, while Raven, because she is muggleborn has to deal with a lot of shit from purebloods and (2/?)
and Raven says a lot of hurtful, mean things, saying that purebloods are a bunch o inbreds and that, basically, Fox should just suck it up, because there are people, the muggleborns, that are persecuted just because they weren’t bred, and like, I understand Raven, I do, some purebloods can be downright disgusting, but like, saying this thing to your friend just because she is a pureblood just, to me, feels a little too much like being discriminated for being muggleborn, and I guess (¾)
what I’m asking is, what do you think on this matter, seeing that it can be translated to current issues, issues of color, religion, sexuality, gender. (4/4)
Okay, so this is going to be long, because there’s some important lessons here on interacting with marginalized people.
Muggle-born folks are, within the context of the magical world in the Harry Potter Universe, an oppressed group. That’s just facts. There’s purebloods, halfbloods, and then muggle-born. Only thing deemed worse in some ways is a Squib, due to being from magical parents but lacking magical prowess, who are considered traitors to their blood, the purity of their people. Squibs put the ‘natural superiority’ of their people (or, at least, the argument of superiority) at risk by not being magical, and thus not carrying their people’s power that’s used to prop up their standing in society as superior to halfbloods and especially muggle-born folks
This sets up a pretty easy race/ethnicity allegory (that is also inherently infused with classism) from what I’ve seen, heard, and read in the books (I made it partway through the books, watched all the films, have a large number of HP fanatic friends).
Which means Raven can talk shit about purebloods all she wants if she’s muggle-born in that story. Maybe it might be a little mean of her sometimes depending on her word choice if she’s directing it at Fox, but honestly, marginalized people need to be able to vent their hurt and anger and frustration in order to be healthy. It’s a legitimate need that’s backed up by decades of science. Our friends and allies need to understand this and not take it personally.
Like, even remarks like “They’re all inbred!”, which might seem to be an insult against purebloods, would really just be a commentary on how purebloods aggressively discriminate and wield their power to the point where even in their relationships, only other purebloods are good enough, pure enough, valuable enough, worthy enough to be their partners (or sometimes even just their friends). It’s letting out anger that you and your people are so thoroughly deemed worthless and lesser-than. it’s turning the discrimination she faces into an attack to try and reclaim the violence done to her people.
Marginalized groups tend to discuss their oppression at a social level, not an individual level, since discussing things like racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. at an individual level basically never accomplishes anything except maybe, at best, a good venting session about a single person who upset them. These are social processes. They attack whole groups of people, not individuals, and by default, conversations and material about them will be on a social level unless explicitly noted otherwise.
When someone says, for instance (and to make this simple and easy for me to explain from my pov), that all cis people are transphobic, we’re saying intent does not matter, because society weaponizes cis people against trans people whether you’re aware of it or not, and usually promotes you being unaware of it (on top of all the largely invisible privileges that status offers). It doesn’t matter if someone wanted to hurt us, it just matters that we were hurt. Everyone’s raised in a thoroughly transphobic society, one cis people benefit from by being cis, and one where any inactivity or indifference or neutral stance on transphobia is, in effect, helping the reproduction of that oppression, because we do not live in a neutral society…we live in a society that actively oppresses large amounts of people in varying ways, and so any decision not to fight that oppression, not to attack the benefits cis folks gain from that oppression, is essentially a decision to permit that oppression. The marginalized, after all, are not responsible for overcoming their oppression…that’s the oppressing class’ responsibility, to work with the marginalized to dismantle those structures.
Society conditions us with thoughts and beliefs about marginalized peoples and buries them in our ‘common sense’ to be used via gut reactions, and unchallenged ‘truths’. Everyone, everyone needs to put in the work to unlearn these. It’s more visible for marginalized folks, since our oppressions tend to stand out when they’re directed at us, but it’s more important for those in power to put in the work to unlearn. That can be hard if they might not actually see themselves reproducing harm, or clearly recognize what is or isn’t harmful.
This is much larger than individual people. None of this is solely a single individual’s responsibility, but it is the responsibility of categories of people. Like, if you’re white, it’s your responsibility to be active in unlearning racism, and seeking out poc voices to manage that. Same deal for for privileged folks in relation to marginalized folks across just about any axis. If you’re not putting in the work, you’re effectively helping retain the status quo, and it’s important to be mindful of that. It’s important that folks do what they can, not just what they’re comfortable with, not just some notion of ‘if I treat everyone equally, I’m fine’ because that’s a non-solution, and it’s rarely that folks will end up treating everyone equally anyways, since they won’t have assessed the biases and stigmas guiding their common sense and instincts and gut reactions.
Cis folks can be visibly nice and still contribute to our oppression and harm us in ways they may or may not be unaware of. Malicious intent is not required for something to be transphobic, but even if it WAS, it’s very easy to attribute malicious intent to society as a whole, given it’s been operating a genocide against trans people for ages.
Far too often, when we vent about transphobia to our friends and family, we eventually experience hostility and aggression from them, and they experience burnout. Because I know my friends wouldn’t like me complaining a dozen plus times a day about varying instances of transphobia I face. Maybe a small handful every few days, but eventually I get the “Jeez, stop being so negative/sensitive/etc.” or the “well, I’m not like that!” remarks. Or, if I’m venting to coworkers, i could get complaints to my manager. Or my family members would stop picking up the phone when I call them, and/or stop answering when i text them. I, as well as well over a hundred trans folks I’ve known personally, have experienced being cut off from our social supports (whether temporarily or permanently) for trying to get support over the transphobia we face. Generally, people don’t want to hear about it, not on blast, not all the time, not every day for months and months, even though that’s our reality, and we need help managing that reality. Folks don’t want to hear it. And while it’s nice to feel validated by our local, in-person trans friends, sometimes that negativity can be draining on our relations with them. This is why having multiple outlets is good, and why we need good allies who know not to take it personally.
This is because stress is far more dangerous when it’s routine and relentless…major individual stress events like a death in the family can be difficult but there’s usually some form of supports in place to help manage that. But dealing with a dozen instances of minor to moderate stressors daily, ones that generally will not cease? That tends to have a more significantly negative impact on a person’s mental and physical health, especially since there’s rarely any support resources in place to help people deal with those. And those stressors, combined with social stigmas, and high rates of poverty, and high rates of unemployment and homelessness, and high rates of medical discrimination, tends to lead to us attempting suicide. These are the main reasons why 43+% of trans people have attempted suicide at least once (and that’s honestly a very conservative number). Not being permitted to manage our stress and pain without consequence is a huge reason for that. We’re attacked for expressing our pain, constantly, and that hurts.
Because when trans people vent “I fucking hate cis people!” they’re not thinking of each and every individual cis person alive, so it would be wrong to take such a statement personally. They’re likely speaking of the cis people that have harmed them recently, and how they wield transphobia against them. Because let me tell you, as a trans woman who has worked retail in numerous public positions, eventually, you just start to forget their faces. Too exhausting to be angry at each of them, and it’s much easier to just get upset at society for weaponizing cis folks against us, and use ‘cis people’ as shorthand, a form of metonymy, which is commonly used all across society in similar ways. And since the category of cis people is used to wield transphobia against us (remember transphobia exists at the social level first and foremost), it is logical for us to use metonymy. Easier than listing out the gritty details of each instance, each person involved, each form of transphobia, etc. When I’d come home from work and close the door, and loudly vent “UGH! FUCKING CIS PEOPLE I SWEAR TO GOD” my roommate would (if he was home) toss me a gummy worm and nod sagely, asking if the cis were at it again.
He, a cis dude, knew I wasn’t raging about him. He was well aware I was raging at all the cis people who wielded transphobia against me while I was away. Much in the way that when a friend of mine would slump down beside me after a failed date and complain about how “men are jerks”, I’d understand that she was not, in fact, attacking my best friend, who is a man, and a very good person. She was using hyperbole as a form of emotional expression. Just like someone who says “I hate litterers” does not in fact hate all people in the world who have littered, they are likely upset that littering is such a common, destructive thing that folks don’t really care much about. Hyperbole. Used all the time.
It’s healthy for us to do this. It’s important we have the ability to do this unrestricted, and without being attacked for it. it’s important that our allies jump through trans 101 hoops and recognize that when we vent like this, it’s not a personal attack.
It’s not necessarily actual hatred against cis people. Usually just anger, and we’re allowed to be angry when cis people harm us on the daily and rarely care to change what they’re doing or how they think of us. We’re allowed to express that anger, and we shouldn’t be attacked for it. Allies wouldn’t attack us for it, they’d understand it.
Recognize that this is bigger than your feelings, it’s bigger than you, it’s bigger than any single one of us. Recognize that we can be generally good people but still participate in widespread oppression. Recognize that you have a long way to go, and that’s okay, because so does everyone else.
The Fox in this story should work at understanding this dynamic better and getting past her initial defensive reactions, because no one’s attacking her, and it’s not personal
#long post#allyship 101#education#hyperbole#racism#classicm#transphobia#metonymy#terminology#social justice
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