I’ve been seeing a lot of posts about the “dangers of fiction influencing reality” with linked scientific findings and stuff and I appreciate the effort to back things up with psychological studies rather than, like, memes, but I’m just letting y'all know… that was literally the argument Tipper Gore used when she went after Prince music for fear it would turn her daughter into a stripper. That’s the exact argument that was used against Rockstar when they were accused of ‘making’ kids shoot up schools. These crusades against media have time and time again failed with their only positive results usually just being more prevalently available warnings for mature content. And their negative repurcussions have been far greater, such as an increased stigma against black music and parents banning their children from playing any video games. (Blocking people off from experiencing multiple genres based on racial bias and excluding access to an entire artform.) I’m not saying that there’s not stuff to be concerned about/critique. I’m just saying that if you’re going the “fiction is dangerous!” route it has historically been proven to be a lost cause.
Let’s not forget that gangsta rap was one of the things people like Tipper were after too.
I.e.: artistic expression by black men who were, sure, sometimes being vulgar for the hell of it (like white rockers weren’t?!) but who were also often talking about social issues and injustices too
You can’t kill the vulgarity without killing the important part too.
It is deeply, deeply beneficial to TERFs if the only characteristic of TERF ideology you will recognize as wrong, harmful, or problematic is “they hate trans women”.
TERF ideology is an expansive network of extremely toxic ideas, and the more of them we accept and normalize, the easier it becomes for them to fly under the radar and recruit new TERFs. The closer they get to turning the tide against all trans people, trans women included.
Case in point: In 2014-2015, I fell headlong into radical feminism. I did not know it was called radical feminism at the time, but I also didn’t know what was wrong with radical feminism in the first place. I didn’t see a problem with it.
I was a year deep into this shit when people I had been following, listening to, and looking up to finally said they didn’t think trans women were women. It was only then that I unfollowed those people, specifically; but I continued to follow other TERFs-who-didn’t-say-they-were-TERFs. I continued ingesting and spreading their ideas- for yearsafter.
If TERFs “only target trans women” and “only want trans women gone”, if that’s the one and only problem with their ideology and if that’s the only way we’ll define them, we will inevitably miss a vast majority of the quiet beliefs that support their much louder hatred of trans women.
As another example: the trans community stood relatively united when TERFs and conservatives targeted our right to use the correct restroom, citing the “dangers” of trans women sharing space with cis women. But when they began targeting Lost Little Girls and Confused Lesbians and trotting detransitioners out to raise a panic about trans men, virtually the only people speaking up about it were other transmascs. Now we see a rash of anti-trans healthcare bills being passed in the US, and they’re hurting every single one of us.
When you refuse to call a TERF a TERF just because they didn’t specifically say they hate trans women, when you refuse to think critically about a TERF belief just because it’s not directly related to trans women, you are actively helping TERFs spread their influence and build credibility.
what is some TERF ideology we should be on the look out for?
This isn’t comprehensive, but I’ll do my best.
TERFs are, first and foremost, radical feminists. Radical feminism is essentially second-wave feminism without the intersectionality brought in by third-wave feminism. It believes that patriarchy is at fault for the oppression of women, but sees this in a very strict, binary way: women are the oppressed, and men are the oppressors.
TERFs use this to justify their specific brand of transphobia. This idea, among others, is essential in supporting that transphobia.
I’ll try to outline some of those ideas, and some of the logical thruoughlines they use:
Women are uniquely oppressed, and always in danger. Womanhood- or the experience of being a woman- is defined by oppression, misogyny, and Being In Danger.
Women are particularly in danger in the presence of, and in relationships with, men. Spaces that exclude men are essential to preserving the safety of women.
Socialization: men are raised to support patriarchy, while women are raised to be subjugated by it. Men have no motive to unlearn these lessons, so all men are inherently more corrupted by these lessons than women.
Relationships with men are therefore inherently (more likely to be) abusive, and relationships with women are inherently safe(er).
Sex, in particular, is more often exploitative than not. Only some kinds of sex are not exploitative. Many kinds of sex that we think are consensual, or that people say are consensual, are either rape or proto-rape.
Exchanging money for sex is inherently rape/exploitation/non-consensual in some way.
As women who deny men access to them, lesbians are The Most Oppressed and also The Most Endangered. They must be protected at all costs.
Because so many women have been raped by men with penises, both men and penises are inherently traumatic to A Lot Of Women.
Many lesbians will naturally have an aversion to relationships with trans women because of this. Trans women who argue against this “genital preference” are potential rapists trying to infiltrate lesbian spaces to hurt and take advantage of women.
Men will always try to invade “women’s spaces” to take advantage of women, endanger them, and strip away their resources both for personal gain/pleasure, and in service of upholding the patriarchy.
If we allow men to say they are women, they will invade those spaces and hurt “real” women. Men who say they are women are dangerous, and must be excluded and punished.
Men may try to obfuscate labels and terminology to “define women out of existence” or otherwise cause confusion, which they can manipulate to further their infiltration.
Women are all miserable with their bodies, cursed with the pressure to reproduce and have sex with men.
Women are all miserable with their genders, forced as they are to ensure the overwhelming and constant suffering that is patriarchy.
Women will attempt to escape this misery and pressure by “becoming men”. This is cowardly, but understandable; a tragic but inevitable result of patriarchy. These women must be saved.
Some women who try to escape patriarchy are doing it out of self-interest; they are betraying women by becoming men, and contributing to their oppression. These women must be punished.
Bio-essentialism: women are oppressed specifically because of their bodies and ability to reproduce. This is an inherent and defining part of womanhood. Nobody can claim womanhood without this experience, everyone who has had this experience is a woman.
Women’s bodies are all beautiful and perfect because they are women’s bodies. If the womanliness of them is tampered with, they become less valuable. Men’s bodies are gross and undesirable symbols of patriarchy.
Testosterone makes people violent, aggressive, irrational, and angry. Estrogen makes people calm, kind, and happy.
Men can never understand women’s bodies as well as other women do.
People can be attracted to other people on the basis of “sex” alone. This is inherent, immutable, and unquestionable.
Men are sexual animals who inherently and unavoidably find lots of bad things sexually arousing. Because “youth” is attractive, many men find young girls and children attractive, and will try to take advantage of them. Misogynistic control/power over women, hurting women, and even rape are also inherently sexually appealing to men.
“Gender” is meaningless; it’s founded in misogynistic stereotypes about men and women, and when you remove the stereotypes, there’s nothing left at all. Only binary “sex” is real, because that’s what patriarchy (and biology) is based on.
Manhood is itself a toxic, oppressive, inherently corrupting concept. Anyone who participates in manhood is corrupt and immoral; who would choose to be the oppressor?
Masculinity is defined only by hating women, having power, and being aggressive, violent, and controlling (etc.)
Patriarchy doesn’t just target women, but femininity as a whole, for its association with women.
Patriarchy doesn’t just reward men, but masculinity, as it rejects femininity. People who reject femininity and embrace masculinity are rewarded by the patriarchy.
Some of these ideas are contradictory, but they lead to the same conclusions. Some of them lead to similar conclusions, many of which take very little further nudging to push into more dogmatic ideas.
This is exactly why we need to understand all of these paths into TERF ideology- and more.
In fact, the vast majority of the points on this list- particularly the beginnings of their logic- can be very easily swallowed while still holding that trans women are women, and trans men are men.
That’s what TIRFs (trans-inclusive radical feminists) are, and they’re still incredibly dangerous. TIRF ideology normalizes these points, making it far easier for TERFs to recruit; even if TIRFs themselves try to be aggressively anti-TERF.
Again, this isn’t comprehensive, and it would take a long time and a lot of words to cover every flaw and danger in every line of reasoning here.
But remember how these things work; even if some of them begin with a grain of truth, even if some of them are true- especially if you define the words they contain differently- be wary of them.
It’s important to note how sex-negative they can be, and how in some circles this leads to a belief that being a lesbian is the only way one can liberate oneself from the abuse of men. They see sexual orientation as a choice to be made for one’s safety, or a political act–not something based on genuine attraction. They also sometimes push the idea of the “gold-star lesbian”–that is, a lesbian who’s never been with a man–as the ideal. If you’re a bisexual? Disgusting, don’t interact.
It’s… sadly common to see on dating sites.
radical feminism is almost indistinguishable from evangelical conservatism. both camps believe that heterosexual sex is a violent consumption (and an immoral corruption) of women’s pure bodies. they believe that womanhood is inextricably centered around the uterus. they believe that men are basically ravenous violent sex-obsessed beasts who need to be restrained by the morality of good women. they believe that your sex at birth defines your character for the rest of your life, and that male and female are completely different, oppositional states of being. they believe that limiting young people’s access to information will keep them safer than giving them a full education and letting them make their own fully informed choices. they believe it’s better–safer and more virtuous–to be an innocent victim than an active agent. they both believe that suffering through all of this sanctifieswomen and proves that they’re more noble and virtuous than men. and, of course, the more suffering a woman endures, the more noble it must have made her.
the only difference is that radical feminists express their anger over these terrible beliefs and evangelical conservatives repress it.
and lot of these beliefs are familiar, and comfortable, to a lot of people who aren’t even radfems or conservatives. they pervade western thought already. it’s a framework of understanding sexism that resonates with a lot of our lived experiences. and going from acceptance of a terrible system to righteous anger at that terrible system can be an important and cathartic stage for victims of that system! but the next step is to reject the validity of that system, which radfems do not.
It’s implied but not explicitly stated above that BDSM–all BDSM no matter how well negotiated–counts as “rape” in this type of ideology.
Other highlights: All rape fantasies are inherently sick and dangerous. Pornography is inherently unhealthy and people who say they can separate porn from real life are suspect. “Informed consent” is fake: people are inherently harmed by BDSM/weird fantasies/porn/whatever, and saying yes to those things is just a sign that the person is damaged, not a valid conscious choice.
In a fandom context, the above stuff looks like this:
AFABs who write m/m instead of focusing on female characters are self-hating women who are betraying their sisters.
It is the duty of AFABs to write f/f in particular.
Being into m/m if you aren’t a cis man is “fetishization”.
Everyone could just choose to write f/f if they were being politically good. Saying you’re “just not into” something is an excuse rather than a valid description of how desire and inspiration work.
“Because it makes me horny” is never a valid reason for fic.
F/F is purer and better and softer than any other content.
All kinky fic is furthering rape culture.
Kinky f/f is especially heinous and must be stamped out.
The fact that you have to click on “gross” AO3 works to see them doesn’t matter because their very existence is damaging to people.
If you disagree, it’s because you’re a broken, deluded victim engaging in self harm.
Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
A lot of fandom wank is explicitlyandovertly pushing radfem garbage and calling that progressive. Yes, you, trans teenagers of tumblr. No matter how many times you reaffirm that you hate TERFs.
When you say “X is bad except for cope-shipping”…
When you demand that hobbyist women write about female characters…
When you say that people are clearly predators or going to become predators because of their Bad fic content…
You are helping TERFs.
…. Huh. I hadn’t previously considered the possibility of connecting the concept of political lesbianism to the way we talk about f/f, but now you suggest it…. Hm.
And just as political lesbians hurt wlw who are trying to find each other by confusing the signals and blocking the ability to find people who are genuinely interested in one another for their own sake….
huh.
Gotta chew on that some, I think.
for FUCKS sake can a single post on this site not derail onto fandom context????
No.
Fandom is a hotbed of radfem recruiting.
Half the people on this site are bathing in this shit within a specifically fandom context and then taking it with them to fuck up other communities after.
If they ship pedophilia, incest or an abusive ship. No if ands or buts about it. Its disgusting.
Anyone else find this ironic that a South Park fan is saying this? No one at all? A fan of a show that has the most vile, dark shit is trying to call shippers disgusting?
This person gets it
Except im aware of the problematic content of the show and dont promote it and actively try to shove the problematic content in fans faces. South Park has always been a show that was highly satirical and in the earlier seasons have very very crude and horrible humor.
South park does have horrible parts- yes. But it also has very informative and progressive ideals- especially in the later seasons. I figured it would be at some point someone would try to point out the character I have- one of the least (Id consider him not at all controversial aside from his habits of flipping people off) problematic people in the show.
You do not see south park promoting pedophilia, incest, or abusive ships and romanticizing them. Are those things in the show? Pedophilia was, in one episode, and the person who did it landed behind bars and labelled as such. Abusive ship? Yes, in the latest season between Cartman and Heidi. Its not in any way a good thing, and the creators intended to show that.
South Park does not promote Pedophilia, Incest or Abusive ships- which was the point of my post in the first place.
Get back to me when you can justify those kinds of ships like your trying to do. South Park is, shocker, satirical humor. Its meant to be in your face and shocking, and blunt and vile. Its not for everyone, and Im very aware of some of the more problematic episodes (Honestly the only one I can think of off the top of my head is Teacher bangs a boy, which i have never actually watched)
Tagging the person who said that as well - @doodlelover
What makes you think shippers aren’t aware of their problematic content? Like, they aren’t dumb. They’re entirely aware. That’s why they want others to block, blacklist, and not crosstag(which you have been doing and is shitty on your part since some antis DONT want shippers to tag in the anti tag, so you’re basically asking people to do that. GG)
South Park has cracked racist, transphobic, all types of other shit jokes within the series. I personally don’t really care for the show, but I do know that a good chunk of the anti community views the fans as shitty people for indulging in it and lumps them with Hetalia fans, so it’s a surprise seeing one who is a fan.
Also I’m just.. so curious here. Again, idc if you’re a South Park fan, but your logic here is uh. You know.
So having offensive jokes, showing violence in a comedic way, having kids in sexual situations, and all this other shit that is canon and in a show that is shown worldwide =\= promoting desensitization towards these topics that turns serious issues into pure jokes, and doesn’t make people want to go out and emulate Cartman’s antisemitic and douchebag behavior…
But someone shipping some dude and a dorito, of all things, has the power to promote people to go out and sleep with kids.
Oh yeah, forgot, it’s only okay if it’s joked about! Gotcha, gotcha.
I don’t need to justify anything since I don’t need your validation. Common sense to know just bc someone enjoys something in fiction doesn’t mean they condone it irl. I just commented to point out the hypocrisy. You may not support the ships, but you support a show that’s downright unapologetic for the shit they pull and that’s on television. Not in Amanda’s room who is currently scribbling up some some ship that’s seen by maybe a thousand people at best depending on the quality of the art.
Again, what doodlelover said, don’t throw stones from glass houses. But ig shit only applies to what you want it to
Again, as ive stated, South park isnt a good show in many ways.
Not my point. People are out there making it look like a child with an adult, incest and abuse is FINE. ive never once seen any of the ships i put in there put in a bad light like THEY SHOULD BE, unlike what south park does (I.E Cartman being called out on his bullshit and hated by almost everyone in their town - this is especially proven with Kyle, who calls him out for his antisemitic behaviour, and Butters, who literally said he feels bad that Cartman is so hated which is why he is his friend; then again Butters is also a gullible and naive character)
Im well aware of the problems of south park; but theyre also called out in the show. I do not see the shippers reprimanding their ships though; they act like this
Shippers are not advocating for any of the things you listed to actually happen. Where are all these shippers saying it’s ok ppl to go out and date kids, do incest, rape, etc? Seriously where are they?
Cartman is literally a fan favorite, as in when you mention the show to someone they will most likely mention Cartman and how his shitty behavior is hilarious. So obviously “calling him out” isn’t doing much to deter his fan base, huh? And saying South Park calls out all their problematic content is a lie. A blatant one. You get your prepubescent ass probed in their video game, grind and fart on a man’s dick, play underneath your dad’s ballsack, enter a gay man’s ass, etc. lmao are you serious rn? And considering the creators admitted to wanting to go back to their roots since they weren’t happy with the recent seasons, I’m assuming they’re gonna eventually drop the facade of being progressive
You are doing some serious mental gymnastics if you think watching South Park isn’t promoting violence and other shit, but shipping is promoting pedophilia, abuse, etc.
Antis literally have no room in the South Park fandom, so, screw you guys, you need to go home.
The phenomena of antis that talk like every bit of media needs to be pure and untainted being very into “problematic” shows is so hilarious to me. It’s also incredibly telling, since it pretty well confirms this isn’t truly based in ideology but just a way to demonize what they don’t like and police others.
I’ve legit seen people into actually pretty dark shit bully a teen for shipping Sonic the Hedgehog and Amy Rose because Amy is “an obsessive stalker and abusive.” Like what?!
you have a brain, you are capable of critical thinking, you can sift through the material and keep what is edifying for you and discard what isn’t
flaws don’t necessarily make material worthless
all right i queued this last night because i was already posting a lot and didn’t want to flood anyone’s dash but you guys i need to talk about this more.
like, okay. i grew up REALLY STRICT christian. like. every piece of media i consumed underwent a fine-toothed comb by my parents to be sure there wasn’t anything “sinful” in it. I got into a tearful, screaming fight with my mother over whether I was allowed to watch a piece of educational children’s material on PBS because one of the characters said “damn” once.
(I’m still not sure they did. In retrospect, I think my purity-focused mother misheard something and, having her suspicions confirmed that you couldn’t trust any “secular” source not to be sinful, reacted accordingly.)
(Pay attention, that parenthetical was also relevant.)
Do you know what my teenage rebellion was? Listening to the oldies station in the car when I had my driver’s license and could go places on my own. That was my big fuck-you to my parents: listening to the Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel and the Fifth Dimension when they couldn’t tell me how I shouldn’t be listening to them because the creators of that music were drug-addled, free-loving atheists whose own disregard for God and religion might just infect my impressionable spirit. Like I was gonna listen to “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and go do LSD and become an atheist. This was my teenage rebellion in the year 1999.
I’m 35 now. And all right so I became agnostic. But I didn’t become a drug addicted prostitute because I loved listening to psychedelic rock music as a teenager. (And you know what? Even if I had become a drug addicted prostitute, I’d still have worth as a human being, so dissect that one.) And it wasn’t even the psychedelic rock music that turned me agnostic: It was Christianity itself. But that’s another story altogether.
My point here is: Y’all are on here acting like my goddamn parents, “don’t watch this” and “don’t listen to that” because this character does XYZ problematic thing and this author said ABC ignorant thing two years ago at a con when they were put on the spot in an interview. If you watch this movie where a teenager falls in love with someone five years older than them, you’re going to become a pedophile! If you read this book by an author who once used an outdated term for someone in the trans community, then you’re a transphobe!
Y’all need to sit the fuck down and stop acting like nobody ever taught you to think for yourself, because I know damn well that you’re capable of critical thought and you don’t need your media chewed up and spit into your mouth like a baby bird. And I’m an adult and I sure the hell don’t, so stop telling me I’m going to choke because I’m consuming something complicated, complex, and not already pre-morally-dissected for me.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
Grew up under the thumb of my Baptist Christian Grandmother, and everything I consumed via tv, movies, music, books, or games, had to be screened to make sure she approved so my “soul” could be saved.
I grew up in the 90′s, in the era where Pokemon was encouraging satanism, Harry Potter was teaching witchcraft, Power Rangers encouraged violence, and video games inspired school shootings.
My grandmother was almost every bit of the mother in Waterboy to a T. If she didn’t approve of what I liked, it was clearly the devil and I needed to stop liking it. This shit didn’t even stop when I was in my twenties.
I get summoned for jury duty and I’m told it’s going to be a long drive and a long ass process so I bring a book. Now at the time I was in the middle of reading the Percy Jackson series, knowing my grandmother (who had to drive me) I knew she wouldn’t approve of me reading a book series about other gods, so I instead bring the Zombie Survival Guide a neat little fake instruction booklet. Apparently, even that wasn’t safe for my poor innocent developing early to mid 20 something impressionable brain because zombies were the foot soldiers of satan.
Even before me, my dad had to deal with similar shit with his mom. One day he came home from school and almost all of his rock band and movie posters were torn down from his bedroom walls and thrown away because his mom thought they were too evil. And no, this wasn’t the grandmother I was living with.
It is surreal as fuck to have survive life under my grandmother and get out from under her, to be 30 and log onto the internet and see people my age or younger claim how better they are than the “boomers” then do the exact same puritanical policing they did over the exact same topics for almost the exact same reasons.
“You can’t like this because it’ll turn you into drug addicted prostitute.”
“You can’t like this because it’ll corrupt your soul.”
“You can’t like this because it’ll mean you’re ist/phobe.”
“You can’t like this because it’ll mean the whites/straights/men/cis will win.”
I’m trying really hard to be understanding about this whole tumblr mess because people should be upset but like
this isn’t unexpected at all
the rise of “I shouldn’t have to see anything problematic ever, and instead of using available tools to protect myself from these problematic things, I demand that all such content be removed because no one should see it” rhetoric has inevitably been leading to something like this
don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that “all content should be morally pure” crowd is directly responsible for apple’s (or tumblrs) current battshittery
but if you don’t see how an algorithm designed to eliminate a mention of, let’s say, ‘erectlon’ has decided that ‘Alec Lightwood’ is also problematic, then you must’ve crawled out from under a rock yesterday
people say shit like “stories involving minors should be banned” without realizing that implementing something of the sort will inevitably result in the word “minor” being banned, whether we’re talking about minors, something unimportant, a school degree, or a whole set of fckn music chords
last time, tumblr didn’t ban p*rn, they banned pictures of hills and loaves of bread and a thousand other things that were in no way related to anything they were actually trying to ban
and then people spent the next two years going “we should ban problematic things” as if chasing off one person with exposed tits didn’t also mean chasing off thirty people who just liked to bake bread and twenty people who like to take pictures of barren hills, because, idk, they thought that was a fair trade?
and now they wanna know why the word “wax” on the banned list?
because this is literally what censorship devolves into, absolute absurdity, that, in its final form, makes a space utterly unusable even by those who were its most vehement supporters
If you want to live in a “Children of the Corn”-style bubble of innocence and purity, well, to me, that’s a startling approach to adolescence, but every generation’s got to find its own way to reject the one before, so: do as you will. But you can’t bring the bubble to the party, kids. Fandom, established media-style fandom, was by and for adults before some of your parentswere born now. You don’t get to show up and demand that everyone suddenly change their ways because you’re a minor and you want to enjoy the benefits of adult creative activity without the bits that make you uncomfortable. If you think you’re old enough to be roaming the Internet unsupervised, then you also think you’re old enough to be working out your limits by experience, like everybody else, like I did when I was underage and lying about it online. If you’re not old enough to be roaming the Internet unsupervised and you’re doing it anyway, then that’s on your parents, not on fandom.
If you were only reading fic rated G on AO3, if you had the various safe modes on other media enabled, you would be encountering very little disturbing material, anyway (at least in the crude way people tend to define “disturbing” these days; some of the most frankly horrifying art I have ever engaged with would have been rated PG at most under present systems, but none of that kind of work ever seems to draw your protests). In the end, what you really want is to be able to seek out the edges of your little world, but be able to blame other people when you don’t like what you find. Sorry. Adolescence is when you get to stop expecting others to pad your world for you and start experiencing the actual consequences of the risks you take, including feeling appalled and revolted at what other people think and feel.
Now, ironically, fandom’s actually a fairly good place for such risk-taking, as, for the most part, you control whether you engage and you can choose the level of your engagement. You can leave a site, blacklist something, stop reading an author, walk away from your computer. Are there actual people (as opposed to works of art, which cannot engage with you unless you engage with them) who will take advantage of you in fandom? Of course there are. Unfortunately, such people are everywhere. They will be there however “innocent” and “wholesome” the environment appears to be, superficially. That’s evil for you. There are abusers in elementary school. There are abusers in scout troops. There are abusers in houses of worship. Shutting down adult creative activity because you happen to be in the vicinity isn’t going to change any of that. It may help you avoid some of those icky feelings that you get when you think about sex (and you live in a rape culture, those feelings are actually understandable, even if your coping techniques are terrible), but no one, except maybe your parents, has a moral imperative to help you avoid those.
In the end, you’re not my kid and you’re not my intended audience. I’m under no obligation to imagine only healthy, wholesome relationships between people for your benefit. Until you’re old enough to understand that the world is not exclusively made up of people whose responsibility it is to protect you from your own decisions, yes, you’re too young for established media fandom. Fandom shouldn’t be “friendly” to you.
“In the end, what you really want is to be able to seek out the edges of your little world, but be able to blame other people when you don’t like what you find.”
Also, if you’re thinking “impure” thoughts (or, rather, perfectly normal and natural thoughts and feelings you’ve been taught by your religion are “evil” and “impure,”) don’t “modesty shame” anyone, either. Look away, and manage your feelings.
And don’t even bother trying to disguise your body-shaming or modesty-shaming as “concern” for them, either. Because we all know you’re not really “concerned” about them, or their health, or their well-being, or their self-care/self-respect.
the elephant in the room when it comes to the “we must protect our children” objections by conservative politicians is that they are not referring to living, breathing children, but a platonic concept of “a child” that children are coerced into emulating through abuse kneaded by both the state and their parents. The lack of rights children possess is to render them unable to object to what adults claim to do for their own good, which oftentimes are merely just means to maintain them as property than help them as people. The idea that teaching 6th graders very basic, very clinical sex ed is child abuse stems from the fear that their parents lose some control over their child’s autonomy by having the child know things (which, statically, also makes them more likely to tell someone when they are being abused by an adult. Interesting) that the parent has not sanctioned as a part of their person. Conservatives accuse everyone else of child abuse not because they care that a child is being hurt, but because hurting children is only their god given right.
I heard this metaphor growing up, and in my case, it backfired supremely, because I went out into my neighbor’s backyard where a rose bush was growing, and the one I tested had like 30 petals (it was yellow, but definitely a rose of some kind), and as a very logical lass, I came to the conclusion that you could have premarital sex AT LEAST ten times before your future husband would even notice something was up. Moral of the story? Test your metaphors on the weirdest and most neurodivergent child you know before writing your weird religious propaganda.
So, i dont get why pro-shippers are bad? but i also dont get why they do it at the same time, so i would like to hear from both sides as to why they should do what they do, and/or why the other side is bad
i want to be educated and i will do my own research, but i want peoples opinions
thx! (please be RESPECTFUL to everyone responding)
Proship is the default stance fandom used to have–we didn’t need a label because you were either normal or an asshole, and what we define as proship now used to be considered normal.
Essentially you abide by the principles of SALS (“ship and let ship”) and YKINMKATO (“Your Kink Is Not My Kink And That’s Okay” or “kinktomato”).
Basically “we all ship what we like and stay in our own lanes and have nothing to do with the ships or kinks that distress us”
People who didn’t abide by this were the ones involved in ship wars and were by and large regarded as raging assholes by everybody else.
Quite frankly if you look at the roots of anti behavior and how often they decry a ship that turns out to be the “rival” of their OTP, it becomes blatantly clear the anti movement is basically what happens when you mix ship wars with radfem and puritanical christian ideology.
Yes, I said radfem. There is a lot of anti-kink, anti-sex, anti-porn rhetoric in the anti movement, both things that are well known as things radfems (especially SWERFs) spout. Quite honestly they often literally word for word use the same arguments. You also see echoes of this in how they decry mlm ships as evil and corrupt and immoral while praising wlw ships that tick all the same boxes and wholesome and good.
I also brought up puritanical Christian thought–there is a heavy emphasis on “sin”. They don’t call it that but the concept is the same–if you have Impure Thoughts you’ll be an Impure Person and Impure People are Evil. Also you must protect the children from the corrupting influence of Impure People. Again, they pretty much word for word make the argument Christian fundies do about thoughtcrime and sin.
They also seem to have a weird obsession with making everything about incest and/or pedophilia even when the work in question is entirely innocent.
When an anti sees something they don’t like, the go-to response is telling people to kill themselves or threatening them.
When a proshipper sees something they don’t like the go-to response is block the shit out of it to never see it again, then go on with their day.
At the end of the day if you’re an anti, you want to eradicate everything that makes you even mildly uncomfortable without having to do any work to curate your experiences and you want to frame things that make you uncomfortable as immoral.
If you’re proship, you just wanna be allowed to ship your silly little ships in peace and avoid the ships that make you uncomfortable.
A huge chunk of proshippers don’t even ship anything problematic, or at least nothing majorly so. Lots are only into totally wholesome ships–they just don’t think defaulting to death threats (and now terrorism) is the right response to seeing shit that upsets ‘em.
Most of us are just Fandom Old And Tired and want the fighting to stop, people to learn how to filter and block stuff they don’t want (I’d have killed for half the abilities we now have to curate what we see back when I was young and getting in fandom for the first time–and kids today don’t even use 'em!!! Why!!!), and for children to stop seeking out 18+ content if they’re just gonna scream at the creator when they find it.
I’ll also mention that the abovementioned “you want to eradicate everything that makes you even mildly uncomfortable without having to do any work to curate your experiences and you want to frame things that make you uncomfortable as immoral” mindframe is also very conservative Christian – there’s this idea in Evangelical Fundie Christianity that if you “allow” sin to exist around you, then you are guilty-by-association, and God will blame you for not purifying your environment, etc. etc. This is why fundies don’t abide by “Don’t like abortions? don’t have one” or “Don’t like gay marriage? Don’t get gay married.” In a fundie world, it’s their literal God-given mission in life to purify everything around them and make sure sin doesn’t EXIST.
The weird anti tendency to hate-follow tags, go looking for anyone who does shipping wrong, and send them aggressive, violent threats of eradication are VERY fundie in nature – “warriors of purity,” etc.
Anyway. It sucks, so.
“People who didn’t abide by this were the ones involved in ship wars and were by and large regarded as raging assholes by everybody else.
Quite frankly if you look at the roots of anti behavior and how often they decry a ship that turns out to be the "rival” of their OTP, it becomes blatantly clear the anti movement is basically what happens when you mix ship wars with radfem and puritanical christian ideology.“
All I know is, I too am Too Old For This. Anytime I see discourse for pro/anti stuff at this point, my eyes immediately roll out of my head and I leave.
Because the last time I reblogged a warned-for and tagged link to what was, I thought, a very well-done rumination on childhood sexual abuse through the lens of the Gravity Falls series, antis proceeded to comb through my Tumblr far back enough to find out I was a (then-recently) recovering alcoholic, then proceeded to spam my inbox with gems like how great some vodka would taste right now, and culminating with, "I hope you relapse, 'cause if you drink again, it means you’ll die sooner.”
It’s so interesting going back and forth between tumblr and tiktok because everyone misses the point on both so so hard.
No, minors should not be reading traumatic NSFW fanfics. However, as someone who was once a minor in fandom spaces, I had times where I read things I thought were fun and light and ended up deeply traumatizing me to this day. I didn’t seek this stuff out, it was hidden behind happy tags for a variety of possible reasons. But, I also actively sought out bad stuff. You guys like to claim that there is no black and white issue (and there isn’t. POINT BLANK.) But then both sides ignore the nuances of the issue and look at the lighter issue which is “Should minors be reading NSFW fanfic.” Which, why this is a debate is insanely ridiculous because it depends on the NSFW, honestly. There is nuance.
I don’t personally think it’s wrong for minors to read NSFW fanfiction that is light in themes. Unlike what adults would love to believe (myself included) minors do experience sexuality and most minors are sexually active, even if just with themselves. You guys demanding minors never read NSFW fanfiction in an effort to avoid purity culture is just pushing it in a new and fun way.
But the problem is, this debate is such a nuanced problem. Because while yes, minors can learn about sex in a healthy way, most fanfiction does not present sex in said healthy way.
Also, minors lack the reasoning to understand that they should be policing themselves and the content they consume. However, it is NOT on random strangers to also police the content they consume. And, quite frankly, while it is on Corporations to not actively push this content and push content that can cause harm to minors, but it’s not their job to actively police it either.
Which leads to the next problem that even if they DO police minors’ content, then you lead to problems of minors’ faking their ages, which I did. This also leads to the massive censorships happening on places like this website and tiktok.
But guess what, guys? I can’t actively debate these topics because everyone only cares about the surface issue of “SHOULD MINORS BE IN FANDOM SPACES?” And it makes me want to slam my head into a wall.
And for anyone wondering, this post isn’t just about minors in fandom space. This is for many many topics. NSFW content on social media. Parenting. Abortion. War. Pride spaces. No one wants to talk about the deeper issues. So they pick the lightest smallest issue and debate that and all the deeper darker issues are left up to people who do not have the best intention in mind.
>Good guy director gets fired after far-right pundit digs up past he repeatedly apologized for
>Tumblr thinks this is okay
New rule, starting now. Anyone making a snarky comment about this gets unfollowed because that’s gross
>28 year old my little pony fan thinks I value their opinion on someone getting fired for making rape jokes
hahahahaha here I was, legit hoping this discourse wouldn’t show up on my blog but, there it is. wow.
#1) The person who dragged up the pedophilia jokes about James Gunn is none other than far-right blogger Mike Cernowich. You know, the guy behind fucking #PIZZAGATE.
#2) James Gunn already apologized for previous behavior. Like, several years ago. In 2012. Before #MeToo. Before ANY of this. And his behavior since then proves a marked change.
#3) In fact, James Gunn’s behavior changed so radically that he became the target of Mike Cernovich. Because Gunn’s been pretty outspoken about our current president. Which didn’t sit well with President Pizzagate, not one bit.
#4) So Mike Cernovich finding and released all the old tweets during SDCC was NOT a coincidence. This was targeted to Disney, to see if Mike can wank himself over forcing the biggest major conglomerate to make a marketing decision in order to get ONE GUY rightfully furious about Trump out of the business.
#5) Look, I think James Gunn’s tweets are pretty damn horrible. But to put it on the same level as someone like Harvey Weinstein is disingenuous.
#6) We’re not winning any wars with the mentality of “problematic people are forever doomed for having once done problematic things, even if they’ve changed.” And like stated above, James Gunn is NOT another Weinstein. I’ve said homophobic things in the past, and I’m A LESBIAN for fuck’s sake!!
#7) Dave Bautista isn’t the only one who’s on James Gunn’s side in this. The entire GOTG cast is on his side.
#8) In the end this isn’t just about GOTG. This isn’t about Disney. This isn’t about James Gunn’s career (he’ll bounce back). This is about Right-winger trolls weaponizing accountability. And it’s fucking gross.
This isn’t about Disney. This isn’t about James Gunn’s career (he’ll bounce back). This is about Right-winger trolls weaponizing accountability.And it’s fucking gross.
If James Gunn really cared he’d at least have yannow. Deleted the tweet
If Disney really cared they’d at least have yannow. Not hired him in the first place instead of combing through his social media AFTER someone brought it up instead of, yannow. Doing that before they hired him like any other company with a reputation to uphold.
One other thing: people think James Gunn is what made Guardians great and that the results can’t be repeated with him gone, is the gist of the defense. That knocks down the talent the actors, writers, cgi, props, costumes, and other people pour into the work. The director really is just a person that tells other people what to do. That’s it.
He apologized for the tweets but left them up because he wasn’t hiding what he said - he owned up to that and didn’t pretend it never happened.
The issue here is people who criticize Trump can be taken down by alt-right by weaponizing left wing purity/perfection politics. This is the same strategy that helped put Trump is in power.
Hillary Clinton isn’t perfect therefor both are bad, stay home, let Trump win that will show them.
It’s stupid to ignore the agenda behind the artificially created outrage over Gunn.
And I don’t even thing Gunn was that great. There are issues with those movies and those are worth criticizing and had been criticized for years. And that’s fine.
But this thing where the right wing can bring down any liberal who critiques Trump/gets in the way of their agenda by painting them as problematic is an issue. Because it creates a double standard where literal Nazi in the alt right don’t get half the criticism as liberals who don’t uphold some unreachable standard of perfection.
Because the right is morally bankrupt and won’t be held accountable and the left is too concerned with being perfect to not tear itself apart trying to purge anyone who falls short of perfection. It’s a double standard and it’s allowing alt right people to have power.
The same crowd is already using the same strategy against Jewish creators, Jewish women in particular. But, who cares? Certainly not tumblr. They are too busy celebrating Taika Watiti replacing Gunn.
people on this website be like “it’s actually school’s fault that i don’t know how to read because i wanted to write my essay on the divergent trilogy and that BITCH mrs. clarkson made us study 1984 instead. anyway here’s a 10 tweet thread of easily disproven misinformation about a 3 year old news story and btw, who is toni morrison?”
i KNOW most of y’all are lying about being in the gifted program as children because none of you could pass the basic reading comprehension assessment they give third graders today
this post is mean and I never read divergent or whatever the fuck but 1984 sucks and is rape apologism so if somebody wanted to write about divergent or whatever good for them
this reply is like literally exactly what op is talking about lol. like firstly ops point isn’t “1984 is good”, ops point is that analysing complex stories teaches you how to form opinions and think for yourself. and like secondly in 1984 you’re supposed to think damn it’s fucked up that he’s thinking that way about her, i wonder if this ties in with the central theme of “a society like this will fuck you in the head”? (this is the thinking for yourself part). like do you think orwell just put that in for fun? do you think that just because winston is the protagonist you’re supposed to agree with everything he does?
You know I feel like this post just gave me an epiphany for what is wrong with how Tumblr Fandom/Internet Fandom responds to media-or not *wrong* but makes it very hard to respond to anything but a morally correct, and heroic protagonist.
When an English teacher, or reader, taught or picked up 1984, it wasn’t with the intention they were going to love the protagonist. They picked it up with the intention of reading a whole story and trying to grasp the theme or catharsis from the story. If the protagonist was a *shitty* person it played into the the themes or the story, because it wasn’t about morally judging the book or *liking* or feeling attachment to the protagonist. Sometimes and often times, books were just about gaining another perspective.
No one read Lolita expecting to endear, or like, or be inspired by Humbert. You are supposed to be upset by his behavior, you don’t read Lolita with the intention of being inspired. You read it to learn more about what the fuck is going on inside someone’s head when they behave like that. How children get sucked into abusive situations. Or read “The Great Gatsby” not because they want to fall in love with Gatsby or Nick, but to better understand and analyze the experience of the 1920s or destitution of the American Dream.
A lot of internet and fandom culture has changed that though. When we say something like “I love the Great Gatsby” it comes with the idea or association that means you must *love* or relate to one of the characters. And maybe you do, but the first assumption is not longer about the quality of the work or themes, or cathartic impact-it’s about character admiration. And with that character admiration, in tumblr stan culture, or kin culture, or exalting characters with fanart/romance/so on you don’t just ‘admire’ or find that character ‘compelling’ it now translates to ‘you LOVE that character’ or you ‘DIRECTLY relate to that character.’
You can’t say “I love how Humbert is written, it’s so fascinating and dark”, without it directly translating you somehow relate to a child abuser or condone his actions. Taking in media has become an act of worship and connection. We no longer watch meant to just see the story as a whole, we watch expecting to connect to a character and if we offer them our “worship” as it’s become, as opposed to just attention or interest study as it traditionally was, it means we are condoning the character or saying we directly empathize with all their actions.
I think that’s why there is often now so much fuss over *toxic* characters or not. Or whether that classical novel is showing good or bad things anymore. We’re treating the characters as people we should love or want to draw or write about. Sometimes a story is just about getting the the theme or catharsis or learning another perspective. We don’t NEED to like the character. Or we don’t HAVE to like a character to be impressed by how they’re written or intrigued by their behavior.
I think if internet culture could learn to view stories as small insights into other lives or single takes of one perspective instead of purposeful moral inspirations we’d be a lot less worried about how toxic or not toxic they are.
Seriously!
And this is where “unhealthy relationships” in fiction come in too. Well-written, complex stories of bad relationships aren’t supposed to be good and healthy examples. If it’s held up that way (Twilight), then the issue is the writing and the writer. Unhealthy relationships in, say, Anna Karenina are obviously unhealthy but they are, to misquote James Joyce “portals to discovery.” You can know that a fictional relationships is seriously bad and still find it interesting. Psychology! Complexity!
Also I want to add that some characters (Humbert Humbert is a good one) are written so that if and when you find yourself sympathizing or saying “Yeah, I know that feeling” you’re supposed to stop and consider that. Not in terms of “I am a sick individual and deserve to die.” but more like “is it possible to have compassion for terrible people?” and “what is it in our culture or my upbringing that makes me think like I do?”
I’ve heard way too many people say “I will never read Lolita because of what it encourages” and I just…you’re missing the point? Completely? Like, you’re so missing the point that it’s almost meta? You’re not supposed to like Humbert??? You’re supposed to either be like “wow, gross, dude” or “oh fuck, wait, why do I have even 1 thing in common with this guy?” Nabokov is not going to be straightforward with you!
It’s like the jokes about being mad at your teacher for asking why the sky is blue in a certain book. Maybe there really is a reason. Did you think of that? For a bunch of people who’ll write thesis-length defenses of your favorite ships and trace down one instance in one minute of one episode of the 15 season show to prove that you’re right, it concerns me that you’re not as willing to look at a lot of other things with any depth. To say nothing of multi-chapter fanfic.
If you surround yourself with only good and pure and wholesome media approved by the purity-culture police, then you just don’t get to do a lot of introspection and I think that’s kind of a shame. I feel like it really limits your view of the world.
I dunno. There’s a weird kind of anti-intellectualism disguised as protection and good intent sometimes. Or it feels like the kind of prudishness that labels some books “dirty” and the people who read them equally disgusting, but just relies on social ostracism to enforce the labels. You know, “Think of the children!!”
Anyway, I’m going to go read some dirty, dirty literature now. Like 1984.
The reason why children and teenagers should be exposed to somber, disturbing works of literature, like 1984, Lolita, Maus, Gulag Archipelago and a host of others is precisely 1) so that they are aware that there are disturbing, harmful and downright evil things, people and phenomena out there, always have been and always will be, and 2) so that they can study them second-hand, with the help of an adult perspective of a teacher/editor, and 3) arrive at their own conclusions and coping mechanisms. Because closing your eyes and ears does not make you immune, quite the contrary - it only makes them more vulnerable and fragile.
Please kick the “Good People Can’t Do Bad Things and Bad People Can’t Do Good Things” mentality to the curb, and also start applying some nuance to the “Good Person-Bad Person” dichotomy, thank you.
“So when I would show my prosthetic leg in my YouTube videos, I began getting age restricted for potentially “disturbing imagery.” So i made a video talking about this, talking about how messed up and wrong that is, and the hardest thing to deal with has not been people being, like: “You do need to have a trigger warning on you.” “You’re gross.” Whatever. Uh, it’s the people who are like: “Dude, I totally get it. I’m on your side. I don’t think you’re disturbing, but–” Uh, like this one: “You kind of do deserve a PG rating in life, because you could be traumatizing to the children.” I just want you to pause for a moment, and think about that. You do realize that there are disabled KIDS out there. You do realize that there are kids with, uh, limb differences and amputations, who have to go to friggin’ school. Are you suggesting that the world and their other classmates need to be protected from the sight of them, because they could be traumatizing? “What if the kids don’t know how to deal with it?” Then they LEARN. That’s part of growing up. This is absolutely absurd. Comments like this make me so frustrated, because it’s like they’re coming at you like they’re an ally, and they just want to help, but what they’re saying is so messed up.”
I’m angered and frustrated by the newest crop of anti-trans, anti-queer, and anti-critical race theory laws in their own right, because they are unjust and detrimental to the whole of our society, even though I am cis and white.
But then, I get occasional reminders that there are people working at YouTube, and people in YouTube’s audience who think Iand other Disabled people, are also“Age-Inappropriate,” and I get a momentary twinge of fear, mixed in with that anger. How much longer until I cannot freely discuss Disability History, without fear of retribution or sanction (not that disability history is discussed at all, now, except within the Disability Community).
And I also realize that that twinge of fear is evidence of my own privilege, because it’s surprising when it comes, and it’s brief, until it comes back. And that reminds me of how I’ve been protected by White and Cis privilege, all the rest of my life.
I’m just so tired.
I mean… people will literally say that my wife, who has visible self-harm scars, which used to be incrediblyandimmediately visible but are now far less so, requires a trigger warning just for existing with their sleeves pushed up.
No one’s body requires a trigger warning. No matter how those injuries or disabilities came about… unless they are posting actively bleeding fresh injuries (which, yeah, that’s something you have control over, and isn’t cool to inflict on people who don’t expect it)… that’s the body they’re living in. No part of that needs to be warned for. Even if the injuries are fresh. Even if they’ve got a tapestry of raised red scars, or visible fresh scabbed over wounds… that’s their fucking body. That’s their human fucking existence.
You don’t get to tell anyone that’s inappropriate.
My grandmother had a prosthetic leg when I was a small child and nobody told me that I needed a content warning to see it or that it was disturbing imagery.
I’ve seen a lot of posts about purity culture and anti purity culture and while some of them are well-written, several boil down to insults, name-calling, or strawman attacks.
I wanted to investigate a more nuanced version of the argument to try and understand the heart of the issue. In doing so, I present the steelman argument of purity culture.
Violent media is not consequence-free.
Now, it’s certainly true that the media you consume affects how you think. Our perceptions, our beliefs, our biases are all constructions of the world around us, and these perceptions do not care if the world is fictional or real. We empathize with characters in media, we cry with them, we laugh with them. As anyone in any fandom can attest, we develop strong feelings about fictional characters, as though they are real people. In empathizing with fictional characters, their pain is our pain. An attack on them feels like an attack on us.
Argument 1: In hurting fictional characters, you can hurt real people.
Defense: Humans have an extraordinary ability to empathize with just about anything, from space-faring robots to household plants to rocks with googly eyes glued on. If an act is judged by its effects on bystanders, we are beholden to the whims of everyone around us. In practicality, this means nothing would ever get accomplished–everything in the world could be labelled wrong by someone. An act is judged by its effect on its human stakeholders, and in the case of fictional characters, both the perpetrator and the stakeholder is the author themself.
Secondly, another argument can be made for violent media biasing its consumers to more violence. This argument has been made numerous times with finger-pointing at things like violent video games. Being fed a steady stream of any biased media can warp your perception of the world, and a steady stream of violent media would then follow to make your perception of the world a more violent place. It can also cause desensitization and biases in how you treat real people.
Argument 2: Violent media causes people to be more violent.
Defense: This is a difficult one to either refute or prove because how do you quantify more violent? If the argument is that first person shooter games make users more likely to shoot people, how many people, in the vast, vast audience that these games have, have ever fired a real weapon? Would those people have fired a weapon without playing the games? Media has become more and more ubiquitous these days, from the advent of easily available books and an increase in literacy, to the invention of movies and TV shows, to the popularization of video games. And yet, I would argue, the world as a whole has learned more kindness.
Do I claim that the increase in violent media is the cause of increased kindness? No. Is it true that some people who have committed violent crimes have also consumed violent media? Yes. But I would argue that violent media gives users a safe place to vent out and cathart through negative emotions without hurting anyone.
And finally, the last argument is about the creators of violent media itself. That to create such stories–to write and think and characterize such awful people, to create tragedies and failures and horrible things happening to good people–they must be, in some way, shape, or form, morally bankrupt themselves. To imagine an act of violence is something no moral, good person would do.
Argument 3: Creating violent media means you are more predisposed to violence.
Defense: This is an accusation of every creator of dark themes that they are a person to be suspicious of. That their morals and their agenda are in some way questionable. That they’re not good. That it is okay to vilify them for daring to create a scenario in which bad things happen.
For argument’s sake, let’s say that this is right. Then what? How many creators out there can you accuse of being pro-rape or pro-child abuse or pro-murder or pro-violence? How many creators would be left? How many of those creators have actually committed crimes? How many of the stories and shows and games you love bring up dark themes?
Nature is, in and of itself, a violent place. Violence cannot be eradicated from this planet. What we can do is learn to think critically, to be aware of ‘dark’ and ‘problematic’ themes, even if they make us uncomfortable, to shine a light on the darkest parts of ourselves to better understand who we are, what we are capable of, and the consequences of those actions.
I believe that it’s in the confrontation of violence that we learn kindness.
Episode #058: A Big F*cking Worm: An Interview with Foz Meadows
Words have meanings! This week, Maggie and V have a chat with the delightful four-time Hugo Award nominee @fozmeadows. They discuss Dune, BTS, Call Me By Your Name, and the ravages of purity culture on fannish spaces. Foz brings their well-known thoughtful consideration and love of words to a heavy discussion with, of course, some spots of ridiculousness. Plus, the phrase “Twinks Unwrangled.”
This Episode Covers…
fandom • fanfiction • dune (2021) • buzzfeed make it fancy • bts • bts run • fanfiction versus porn • purity culture • words have meanings! • fandom culture wars
LISTENandSUBSCRIBE wherever you get your podcasts!
Make sure to follow I Met You On LJ on your favorite social media:
just saw a post where someone put “detrans dni” and like… hey we should be supporting detransitioned people bc if we don’t terfs will
sometimes you’re wrong about your identity and that’s ok like i used to think i was bi but it turns out i was wrong and i know ppl who thought they were trans but it turns out they were wrong and it should be ok and accepted that sometimes people don’t get it right on the first try
This touches on something I have felt for a long time, which is that one of the reasons rigid queer labels and gatekeeping is so dangerous is because if you want to encourage people to explore their gender/sexuality, there has to be a safe “Actually I was wrong” option.
I went through so very much anxiety coming out, and when I really think about it it was squarely from the fear of being wrong about it all. That I was, at heart, a cishet woman, and therefore I was appropriating a label that didn’t ‘belong’ to me, and I would (somehow) be harming other people by doing so. There’s so much more unnecessary pressure if the sword hanging over your head is “But you do have to be right about this, you can’t back out once you’ve even asked the question.”
I think that is Bad. I think it makes fewer people ask the question. I think that includes those who need to ask, and would be much happier for it.
to summarize: one of the things the Q stands for is QUESTIONING
and that is as it should be
I’d like to also submit the possibility that some people may be more prone to shifts in their gender identity than others, and that it’s not necessarily even a case of being “wrong,” so much as it’s a case of just changing over time. I know the predominant narrative we see in discourse is that a person who transitions was never their agab—and I’m sure that’s true for a lot of people! But… it’s not true everyone? I remember reading an interview with Danny Lavery after he came out, and he said something along the lines of “One day, I went to bed a woman and woke up not a woman anymore.” So if a person can change once, who’s to say that can’t change again? For example, I know Eddie Izzard (whose labels have shifted a lot over the decades, as terminology and options for gender identities identity have changed many times over since the 1980s) has said she goes through long block periods of being a particular gender, so right now she’s “based in girl mode,” (her words) but she’s previously had blocks of time being based in “boy mode,” too. So like, whose to say other people don’t have block periods like that? Maybe somebody really was non-binary for ten years and now they’re not anymore, y’know? Not feeling something about yourself forever doesn’t have to mean you were wrong the whole time. Of course, being wrong is okay too! But I’d make room for both.
