Tag: heteronormativity

I’m sorry that the clexa pairing has turned into an unsafe place and that people are defending the harmful “trend” by saying that it’s a ‘safe place’ for them to express themselves. I don’t understand how people can be okay with causing someone else distress, not everyone is in a stable place where they can move past that. Yet the writers get defensive when they are -politely- reminded of that. Creative liberties cannot excuse it

I know the standard-issue response and defense is ‘don’t like, don’t read’ – aka, leave us alone to have our fantasies that, while, perhaps, not intended to harm anyone, are built off of our (as you point out) willful ignorance, and if you try to educate us, we’ll tell you to back off, none of your business what we do.  It’s not about trans women, anyway. It’s about a person with a label I just invented to be conveniently removed from any and all discussion. Censorship! Danger! 

Not exactly a supportive attitude toward trans women or discussion or education of their reality or how the pervasiveness of this work affects them in the wider world. The impression is that the writer’s fantasies are more important than trans women’s real lives and they don’t seem to care that there is a price for what they do and they don’t seem to have a clue that other people are paying it (and, keep in mind, so many of them are very young and even admit to having no or limited sexual experience themselves – who/what is informing their fantasy lives? Is that a discussion to have?).

The freedom of the oppressor (even if unintentional) is everything.  

thedeadflag:

I mean, they’re not entirely wrong that fandom is a safe space for them to do that. They willed it to be that way, at the expense of trans women. They’re safe to reproduce transmisogyny and the fetishization of trans women to any length they desire, freely without consequence, as they’re not affected by transmisogyny, and they can very easily shut out the voices of trans women and/or rally people to ignore us and support them. And the fandom, as a whole, allowed that to happen, supported that turn of events, that exclusion of trans women. All the folks who thought “Oh shit, I don’t want to get caught in drama, I’ll just keep quiet and keep enjoying X, Y, and Z big name fanworks creators’ stuff, this isn’t my battle” helped this along just as much as those who actively supported and promoted the g!p trope and pushing trans women out of fandom. We needed help, and only a tiny spattering of allies tried to help push back against the wave of transmisogyny. And then, long after the damage was done, some regretted what they did but made no effort to really change things and repair the damage, generally reverting to the “not my battle, not my problem” mindset. So not a lot of solidarity for trans women in this wlw fandom (or really any other major wlw fandom tbh).

So yeah, they kicked us out of the fandom so they could reproduce harm against trans women freely and without consequence. it’s now a safe space for them, even if it absolutely shouldn’t be.

Many just refuse to admit that simple truth, and get defensive about it, but it’s still the truth. When trans women were reaching out to say “this really hurts us, we wont be able to keep participating if you keep pushing this, it makes you unsafe for us”, folks re-centered the dialogue on ‘trans and nb people’ in general, so they wouldn’t have to listen to trans women, so they could pretend transmisogyny wasn’t involved, so they could rally around all the trans men and afab nb folks that were responsible in the start for promoting the g!p trope, who were ignorant of transmisogyny as a whole. it was willful ignorance, because it was a willful dismissal of our voices so that the only ones they’d hear were the ones they wanted to. People who weren’t trans women.

You’d think that after 3×07 that folks would recognize fandom’s importance as a safe harbour, as a place to escape harmful media representation and gain the support of others who share the love of those characters, those worlds. But it’s just not the case. Too many rush to fandom to flee harmful canon rep, but refuse to accept that their harmful fandom creations can force out others within fandom, who then don’t really have anywhere to go. LGBT+ folks find the majority of our representation within fandom, it’s essentially our version of mainstream media representation since most is subtext and/or baiting-grade material. But many refuse to accept that, and just keep comparing our rep to cishet rep rather than looking at the differing dynamics among the communities. 

All in all, I won’t want people to stop writing g!p and other trans fetishistic works because I tell them to. I want them to stop because they recognize the harm it’s doing. And so, so many refuse to see and accept that harm, but it doesn’t make it any less real.  And that’s the most upsetting thing…telling someone they’re hurting you, and them insisting repeatedly that they’re not, while continuing to hurt you. All while claiming to be open-minded and caring, which might fool some of our allies, but not us, but I suppose that’s the point. They don’t care about us, it’s just virtue signaling.

And it really sucks that clexa, as a pairing, was kind of really tainted, if not ruined, for a lot of us because of it. it’s a beautiful romance, and it just really hurts that I can’t think of Lexa, can’t dip into her character’s voice, without recalling all the horribly transmisogynistic, trans fetishistic shit that’s been funneled into her character.

Don’t come in OUR space and tell US how to write about people like YOU. 

And no one wants to support or engage with anything that someone they perceive as more powerful than they are labels as ‘censorship.’   

There are layers to all of this that reflect society as a whole and are, altogether, disturbing and in need of wider discussion.  

As someone who has never seen the 100, can you explain what went wrong with Clexa? You’ve mentioned it before and apparently it has something to do with intersexism and transmisogyny, but I’m kinda unsure the specifics.

thedeadflag:

Oh, the canon issues with clexa differ from the fandom issues with clexa.

Canon issues:

On the show, the showrunner (Jason Rothenburg) and staff aggressively baited the fandom, fueling the fire under the clexa fandom specifically to draw views, acclaim, etc. The fandom grew worried after season 2, because Alycia Debnam Carey (Lexa) was only renewed for a guest role, while she had recently signed on as a lead for an AMC show, Fear the Walking Dead. Generally, networks don’t let their stars play on other networks’ shows, and Alycia only getting contracted on part-time had people thinking she’d get killed off. Rothenburg and staff rushed onto social media to tell us we were idiots to think that, that they had too much respect for the character and the fandom to treat them that way. 

They repeatedly, repeatedly said that Clarke and Lexa would both be alive at the end of the season. When worries renewed after Alycia Debnam Carey was absent for nearly half a season’s worth of shooting, Rothenburg made a huge, huge deal about bringing her back in to film in the finale, inviting the fans to come see the scenes get shot in Vancouver, where fans could see Lexa and Clarke embrace and kiss.

The fandom was going wild with joy, and took the CW and Rothenburg and the 100 staff at their word. After all, they had been so reassuring, and so aggressive in their support. As Season 3 progressed, The 100′s social media focused heavily on Clexa, playing up on the recovering, budding romance. They leaked a sex scene that was set to air in episode 7 early, just to get the fans riled up.

And directly after that sex scene in episode 7, they killed Lexa off. Accidentally shot by a bullet not meant for her, a wound in a spot far less lethal than others had suffered in the show, with Clarke (a trained medic/surgeon) present. Lexa died in that episode, and the version of her that showed up in the finale was simply a stored virtual reality version of her.

The clexa fandom blew up in grief, and the show’s social media, cheered the ‘twist’, and claimed that the fandom was taking things too seriously when the LGBT+ fans rightfully lashed out over being baited on a show meant for a teen audience, one far more vulnerable than adults. 

Just the way the show treated the fans, the characters…it was hideous and cruel and some of the worst, ham-handed, shoehorned writing I’ve seen on television in my nearly 31 years. 

Fandom issues:

In the lead-up to season 3, and the anticipation of a romance involving Clarke and Lexa, a few big names in the fandom (none of whom were trans women, or intersex women) started a “Lexa’s Dick” meme. Prior to this, the fandom’s fan works were were solid. There was a surprisingly low amount of transmisogynistic, trans-fetishistic, intersexist content compared to other wlw fandoms. It’s part of what helped me feel safe to join it when I had, early on in season 2. 

Anyways, trans women like myself spoke out against the meme and how it was used to aggressively, joyfully fetishize trans women’s bodies. We were thoroughly, swiftly laughed off. if anything, the pushback against it only seemed to make people celebrate it more. Especially when season 3 started airing and the sexual tension started up on screen. The more that ‘Lexa’s Dick’ stuff spread on social media, the more fanworks of g!p and a/b/o tropes were made. And when lexa was killed off, one of the rallying cries as a means to cope was “Lexa’s Dick”, pushing people to revel in that even while the show was falling apart and had hurt everyone. 

There were people crying out against the Dead lesbians trope, the Bury Your Gays trope. There was a huge push to get people aware of how wlw were represented in media, how often they would get killed off directly after validating their relationship, how toxic wlw representation has historically been, etc. etc.

Rightfully so. Media representation is an important fight. nearly all fo the clexa fandom recognized that intimately, having been hurt by it.

But so, so many of those same people refused to acknowledge that they were causing the same abuse against trans and intersex women, by reproducing and reinforcing and celebrating our violently misrepresentative, fetishistic, toxic representation, and refusing to hear us when we spoke out on that. They’d cry over how the media wasn’t listening, the showrunners weren’t listening, how hetero fandoms were vilifying them and just didn’t understand. yet, they’d laugh us off when we’d bring up transmisogyny and trans fetishization, all while propping up monikers and orgs like “LGBT Fans Deserve Better” when they were aggressively dropping the T.

And that momentum behind trans fetishistic, intersexist works has only continued, and now The 100, as a fandom, is not so arguably the most saturated fiction-based wlw fandom when it comes to g!p and a/b/o fanworks. Some of those big names have since recanted their support for the trope, but generally haven’t done anything to work at undoing the damage they helped cause, haven’t done anything to make fandom safer for us.

Even today, some of the biggest names reproducing those works have patreons and paypals and whatever earning them good money each month by exploiting, misrepresenting, and fetishizing trans women, and directing harm against us. Some of them are published authors. Most of them are very well loved in the fandom and nearly no one actually speaks out against them for fear of causing drama, such is the hold that transmisogyny has on it. Apparently, it’s okay for trans women to suffer so long as other marginalized people might benefit. When they claim to be willing to do anything to help except stop harming trans women directly, it’s pretty telling who they deem disposable and not part of the wlw community, regardless of their offhand comments of ‘support’.

I’ve written extensively on this. I’ve a long post here covering most issues, I’ve a shorter one detailing the impact of these works on trans women here, and I’ve got data from g!p fanworks in the clexa fandom here, just to toss out a few things, if you’re ever curious.

I see so much defensiveness on this topic due to the idea that we have freedom of expression (well, depending upon where you live), that fetish-shaming is wrong and so long as the stories are tagged properly, you just have to live with ‘problematic’ content and not read it, if it is not for you.  No one is here to parent you and there are no safe places, so don’t even ask for them anymore, kthnksbai. All useful discussion stops here. 

Nothing in the OP’s articles (and, if you consider yourself a trans ally, I hope you read with an open heart and mind) call for censorship.  Her articles DO point out the inherent transmisogyny, intersexism, and heteronormative bias of these stories (basically presenting Lexa as a heterosexual male in all but name) and how they can relate to perpetuating damaging and hurtful images of trans women in media and, thus, perpetuate violence toward them in real life.  

Do we only care about what gets us off and not how it harms other people who are presented as the source of that fetish?  Do such stories fetishise abuse? Isn’t this what heterocentric porn has been criticised for for decades? 

I’m not blind for the need of many writers to exorcise a demon or two in their writing.  Some people write ‘dark fic’ that helps them cope with their own lived trauma.  Some people write g!p stories where the g!p character is presented in a positive light, is popular, successful, etc. with the hope that it will help ‘normalise’ being trans or intersex, to give a trans woman a happy ending she probably won’t see in real life (regardless of how problematic the depiction of her body or sexuality might be).  

People are going to have their fantasies and write what they will – but I hope we care as much about being educated and honouring the lived experience of other people (and thus truly honour our queer family in its entirety) and not reduce anyone to a truly damaging stereotype, to not bully trans women when they speak out with clarity and conviction over what is happening to them. 

The Clexa fandom rose up in rage when they realised they had been manipulated over the use of a damaging stereotype. We refused to back down and sought to educate others and change minds.  

Are we not willing to look ourselves in the eye when we do the same to one another?  I think this writer has some excellent points to make, I hope others read and absorb all the information and pass it on – build a respectful discussion. We – and our art – can only benefit.  

sad over Supergirl

yesbothways:

When you have only a small handful of archetypal, iconic
woman superheroes and action heroes living inside of you, standing out among a
multitude of iconic men who continue to pop up as unchecked and
indistinguishable as dandelions, you cherish every one in a way that would be
hard to explain to someone who simply did not need to see symbolic, non-gender
conforming women to represent the possibilities for new ways of being a woman
in this world.  

I am glad I have the dynamic between Alex and Maggie to
remind me to honor my emotions, talk stuff out, and just cry.  Cause I am having a profound moment of grief
over Supergirl.  I am tempted to tell myself that I did this
to myself and that I should not have taken television trash seriously.  And also want to tell myself, it’s a weird
phase, it’s misdirection, what’s happening right now will end soon.  But this stuff is important.
Even if I push this aside, I know that it’s incredibly important.  

When Supergirl first cropped up, I nearly
cried, simply because Supergirl’s clothing was something that women could
actually wear as a recognizable costume comfortably in cool weather and without
being hyper-sexualized.  Then I got to watch Kara struggle to take up space in the
world and not feel responsible for everybody’s feelings, overcome fears that
she would hurt herself and other people if she exerted her strength, struggle
to reconcile disparate identities, and watch herself being used as an icon with
a definition beyond her own will.  And I
felt like this show was actually written for women every bit as much as
men.  When I saw how a bond between two
sisters formed the arch and defined the narrative arc of the entire first
season, I recognized that choice alone as enough to make this show ten times
more feminist than almost anything on television.  

The word I would use to describe the representation of
Kara’s sexuality in season one would be anxious.  The show seemed anxious to ensure that she
had a sexuality and would not read as immature or closeted.  They also seemed anxious to let that interest
turn into even implied sex.  I hoped that
in season two the show would change.  I
hoped that the creative team would create a context where they would feel
comfortable allowing Kara’s sexuality to emerge fully and in fulfilling
ways.  

They did find the context that made them feel comfortable.
e.  I never imagined they would craft
such a stylized archetype of recognizable and self-conscious postmodern, white,
straight masculinity to line up with Kara as her romantic and sexual
compliment.  Kara’s sexuality in season
two feels like a relief from the tension and anxiety of season one and now
feels like a grinning, uneasy, indirect, continuous apology for the show’s
feminism including the show’s current, beautiful wlw storyline.  

Now viewers have become divided between those focused on their
feelings about the threat Kara clearly represents to the personification of a
seemingly fragile, socially unstable, and emotionally underdeveloped man and those
having feelings about the unacknowledged threat that a self-absorbed sexist man
who seems like an anachronism in the world of this show poses to Kara.  Kara’s increasing self-definition and
self-ownership no longer serve as a foundation for the show.  And while the crucial importance of the bond between
the Danvers sisters still resonates in the show’s conflicts, it no longer forms
the heart of the show.  

This may be temporary. This may be what Supergirl is now.  That will
be a real loss.  

Now that the 100 trailer has dropped what do you think? Everyone on my dash is saying beII arke is happening. Does that mean clarke isn’t bi anymore? I just feel kinda sick. it doesn’t look like 100.

I thought the trailer looked messy and derivative and thought the choices for some scene spoilers was questionable. They started with the bit about the nuclear power plants melting down. Embarrassing, especially if you know a little of how those things work. So the science doesn’t look like it’s being corrected. Shame if that’s the case. Bellamy not wanting to sacrifice any more lives?  Didn’t he slaughter innocent people?  It sounds odd coming from him. A little…revisionism in his history going on, maybe?  By placing two intimate-looking scenes with Clarke in the trailer, I’d say they’ve embraced that more than half their fandom is gone and they’ll give what remains something of what they want. It does reek of a little spitefulness. Even if there is no romance between Clarke and Bellamy, the trailer is certainly implying something. Who is being baited now?  We’ll see.  I’ve written below why such a pairing would be outright offensive at this point.  

As for Clarke…and I’ll put this in as it answers a couple of similar asks right now (regarding her legitimacy as a bisexual character):

A fictional bisexual character created by a straight male, who is given a brief romance with a lesbian character who is then killed off to make way for the fictional bisexual to have a romance with the male hero is the problem, if it happens, not that she’s bisexual or offers good (or bad) representation on her own.  

It upholds the heteronormative VISUAL that demeans f/f relationships time and again.  Another toxic trope.  “She was just experimenting.”  “It’s just a phase.”  “She really belongs with him.”  Clarke Griffin becomes a prize that Bellamy ‘deserves’ to win.  It’s an appalling stereotype.  Ask why it’s ‘okay’ that she ‘belongs with him,’ but not ‘her.’  

Answering a previous ask about ‘salty Clexas’: Fans who want Clarke to be reunited with Lexa are fighting against the heteronormative they are constantly slammed with.  The constant degradation of their own fantasies and desires to see just a tiny bit of positive representation on-screen.  They are also fighting back against the deliberate queerbaiting they went through at the hands of the showrunner and members of his team throughout 2015 and early 2016.  

Add with the disgusting amount of homophobic taunting that went on with certain members of another end of the fandom (who are now revelling in what they feel is their triumph over the ‘Clexughs’) there is more going on here than just whether or not Clarke’s bisexuality is valid and good representation. A lot more.  

A truism for queer folks: if we note and comment on a problem in society that specifically concerns us, you can be sure a straight person will be right there with their own ignorant commentary to counter ours.

Straight white folks (the Privileged) seeking to argue with queer folks over matters that concern us: ‘But it’s all about US, too.’  No.  No it isn’t.  

We have absolutely no need for another ignorant straight person’s ignorant opinion about our lives.  None. 

Our lives should not be spent having to educate others about how to Human and treat others humanely and with respect.  

Or maybe we need another definition of ‘humane.’  

Mr. Burton’s Home for The Not-So-Unusual

Spoilers ahead.  

The nieces and I went to see Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.  We wanted to like it.  I think the youngest did.  There were enjoyable bits like Eva Green smoking a pipe and a boy making a puppet of the dead – good potential.  Still.  I was bothered.  

First off, I’ve not read the book, so can give no insight there.  No idea if the film is faithful or not.  It’s not what matters to me, though, as a film adaptation is always its own creature.  This is a film by Tim Burton, and he has long been held in mind by cinema-goers and critics alike as a peculiar sort himself, with a patented quirky romantic gloom that follows most of his films, this one no different. 

Burton is also, arguably, a filmmaker with a particular aesthetic that most definitely revolves around pale skin tones (his racist commentary this last summer only adding a troubling layer), and decidedly heteronormative romance narratives (Corpse Bride, Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow, Dark Shadows, this one) that only seem gloomy and peculiar on the surface.  I say ‘the surface’ because there is little to his films but that: pretty pale people in peril falling in love. The morbid and the gloom are just scenery. 

Not that there isn’t some charm and eccentricity to it all, but at this point, Burton has really played out his bag of tricks and seems to have run out of the sort of gleeful morbid steam that held together rickety offerings like Beetlejuice or his Batman films.  At the heart of even these stories, Burton places a gormless, often outsider, male hero, devoted to a Pale Love Object Who Might Be a Bit Strange, in a generally mild sort of complication (ghosts haunted by the living, a talented beautician in need of a family, a detective on a supernatural quest, or this film: a boring suburban boy thrust into a family mystery).  Nothing terribly challenging or morally complex, just a kind of a Addams Family afternoon of mayhem and ennui. 

And that’s just it: Jacob, the gormless, outsider male hero, the one we are supposed to identify with, is a complete bore.  He might very well be Ordinary, a character that might better belong in one of Burton’s non-fantastical films like Big Fish, say, but this highlights for me, the problem of the film and so many films like it: a straight white boy is given a map and a mystery and without doing anything other than convincing others to guide him, becomes a hero and gets the Pretty (forgot that one) Pale Love Object Who Might Be a Bit Strange (she’s lighter than air, apparently, though Jacob struggles to pull her down with a rope). he is unimaginative in every other way, but when the chips are down, Jacob is The One.  

On the surface of it, a story about ‘Peculiar Children’ should really offer up some eccentricity as more of a challenge to the audience, something that could, and perhaps somewhere in the past, might have been coded as ‘queer.’  A ‘peculiar’ child is the odd one out, the strange one, the one who doesn’t fit in, but there is nothing here you could ostensibly point to and say ‘we know what THAT really means.’  It’s all terribly straight (with the exception of Miss Peregrine’s pipe) and I can only imagine a hopeful, queer kid going to see this and being terribly disappointed at seeing no reflection there (if you did find one though, do tell).

I do not try to equate being ‘queer’ with ‘peculiar’ of course, only the opportunity that Burton (and filmmakers like him) have to use their fantastical imagery to show a picture with more depth and more scope in character.  No, we still get the same old, same old.  I could only imagine how much different and, possibly, more interesting this film might have been if Jacob were Janet, instead.  

But no – we get a handful of ‘peculiar’ children stuck in a time loop of one day in 1943 (fantasy stories of wartime British children transported to a magical place have long since lost magic for me) – kids that would probably fit in really well in Professor Xavier’s home for Gifted Children (what a pity this isn’t the Marvel Universe).  Jacob is the interloper, grandson to a former resident, and, we learn, he has the ability to see invisible things.  I wasn’t clear on this: can he only see the monsters or anything that is invisible? If so, he should have had no trouble seeing the invisible boy.  Of course, the monsters in this film make so much ruckus when they approach, you should have a good idea where they are and, even if they cannot be seen, those twins could have easily turned them to stone with a single glance in the right direction.  No one thinks to ask them to do this, unfortunately.  No one, not even the imperious Miss Peregrine who can make the evil Baron hesitate, asks them to lift their mask when the villain finally arrives.  Would have solved so many problems.  Still, I suppose we wouldn’t have a story then.  

Which I would have been fine with. The story as told was a disappointment, explored nothing and really went nowhere: just the standard-issue, pale-skinned heteronormative fantasy romance with its racist undercurrent.  I would have been happier spending more time with Miss Peregrine herself, seeing her on her own, not just the dutiful caretaker or if the villain hadn’t been handled in such a cartoonish fashion.  Or if Jacob had been Janet and, maybe, black or Latino.  If the boy necromancer made the script come to life with real peculiarity, true morbidity (best scene with all the potential, hands-down, when Enoch animates the dead Victor to torment Jacob) and allowed for some genuine queerness, the good kind that broadens the scope, not narrows it.  

What I walk away with is that, once again, a powerful white, straight, male filmmaker has thrown his fetish objects on a screen and, like his teenage necromancer, tried to give them life.  

Enoch, though, had more heart.  

yesbothways:

My friend said something to me the other day that made me think.  I do get that for a lot of people, the idea of dying for love seems epically romantic in a story.  It may seem like nothing could ever be a greater testament to the strength of love than that people would be willing to die for love.  But, when you’re a queer person, the idea of queer people dying for love tells a very different story.  Nothing could be a greater testament to the strength of a prejudiced world that will kill you for your love if it find that it cannot kill that love.  The story doesn’t say that love has power.  The story says that love has no real power because we will kill you.  

Yes, this.   

I do believe in the latter half of the 20th century, (straight) writers (in telly/film, etc) began to realise they couldn’t demonise us anymore and when they wrote us into their stories, it was to place us as the classic tragic (romantic) hero.  we died for love, as you say.  Their fantasies are not the same as ours.  

Dear NaySayers,

avataruncanon:

I don’t think people understand. Like when you’re queer you’re constantly surrounded by heteronormativity. From the moment you walk outside there’s a strict underlining that says men should be with women. You go to the store and find ads made to identify with women and men in strict gender roles for marketing’s sake. You see ads of only men with women. And if a man or woman deviates from these roles they are quickly ridiculed as if to remind you that as a “deviant” you are laughable. I mean you sit down and crack open a history book to find every president in history, including the current president, has at some point been willing to deny you basic human rights so long as they got elected at the end of it. You find that around the world there are people literally being mutilated and executed simply for being what society considers an abomination. You open a Bible and often see condemnation before you see deliverance for something you didn’t choose. And even if you realize the underlying message of love and acceptance in the Bible and can recognize/reconcile your faith then you will find large groups of people who try and invalidate your faith despite being sinners themselves.

So yes. When Lexa dies its not just the character I’m upset about. It’s the fact that for three minutes out of forty three minute episodes, Clarke and Lexa would find a quiet moment to smile. To feel. To make a suffocating world that much more breathable for me. And that was real. And Jason Rothenberg and everyone else failed to uphold that. They failed to see that killing her just moments after making love is the same as ridiculing Girl A because she doesnt buy Product X to impress Boy B. Or disregaurding the oppression of my community because it didn’t fit with an agenda. Or condeming someone for something they didn’t choose to eternal misery. It’s all related to the core principle that they chose their overwhelming irgnorance and willful misunderstanding over respecting me.

And I not only think they don’t understand. I think at some level, when they crawl into their heteronormative beds, unquestioningly enjoying their heteronormative routine, praying their heteronormative prayers, on some level they just don’t care. LGBT fans don’t just deserve better. We deserve respect.

Sincerely,
AvatarUncanon