“Don’t like, don’t read” is so exhausting because it acts like fandom can only be harmful if people go out of their way to read triggering fanfic. As if it’s all isolated and underground and easy to avoid. Like. I’ve never read a Reylo fic, but if I search for Finn stuff, there it is. If I scroll the TFA tag, it’s there. Fans write “Finn meta” that tears him down to elevate Reylo (shit, journalists do it too). Finnrey shippers and Finn fans are demonized for noticing any of it.
We can avoid it, sure – if we leave fandom. We’re fans, we’re not going anywhere.
Some good points here. The meta bit is pretty distasteful, and just in general I think people shouldn’t tag character hate, or tag a character just because they show up in a fic if they’re not going to be a focus of it.
That said… being upset because you see a ship you don’t like when scrolling through a tag for the whole fandom is maybe a wee bit excessive. ‘cause honestly, if you find it harmful just to know there are people who write your NoTP, then maybe you SHOULD leave that fandom.
You have a right not to have to read content you find upsetting. You do NOT have a right to demand it be so “isolated and underground” that you don’t even have to know it exists.
You have it a wee bit backward. I demanded no such thing. Do I think reylo belongs in the main tags? No, I don’t. It has nothing to do with The Last Jedi, it’s a white fantasy wankfest that buries posts that are about the movie and erases the inclusiveness of the actual trilogy. There’s nothing I can do about that, the Star Wars fandom has always been racist as hell.
But don’t tell me “don’t like don’t read” when it’s everywhere, making just about every tag a shitshow. I DO have the right to say I don’t like it when I can’t avoid it. Don’t like criticism, don’t shove it in my face.
Do you use Xkit or Tumblr Savior?
Those are browser extensions that work with tumblr (i.e. make it goddamn functional for a change) on multiple browser platforms.
You can use the Blacklist feature in Xkit or Tumblr Savior (and for AO3 this works too, with the AO3 Savior extension) to completely block a chosen tag or keyword.
It might show you something was blocked from your dashboard or whatnot depending on the extension but it won’t show you the actual posts with that tag (some people have also managed to set it up – I think in Tumblr Savior specifically? not sure, I stick with Xkit and haven’t fiddled much with this but I think it has a whitelist option too- so that it would whitelist something so that for example a fandom tag would only show up with say, your preferred ships and not any other content, something the Teen Wolf fandom has made heavy use of in rebellion against canon’s apparent queerbaiting turnaround – I say apparent because I’m not in that fandom, but that’s what I’ve seen some people in it say they did).
If you use an extension like this to block the reylo tag/keyword then you should almost never have to sit through those posts on the Force Awakens or Star Wars tags again, if they’ve been tagged with the ship or otherwise include the ship name in their text they should get blocked. 🙂
At worst, you’ll spot a few “blocked based on this keyboard” notifications but they’ll be like a single text line with no post and no content attached other than mentioning what keyboard it was being blocked for.
Options like this are exactly why a lot of people are okay with saying “don’t like, don’t read” because we CAN filter better now – but if you didn’t know these were common options (because why would you? it’s not like they’re official through tumblr, which hates that third parties attempt to make this hellsite functional apparently) then I can understand your frustration. So I hope this reply helps you out with your annoying reylo issue! 🙂 I don’t tend to browse the main tag for TFA or Star Wars, but I really don’t like that ship either (just?? why??) and so I could see how if you’re looking for neutral content and can’t block it, that could be really frustrating
Unfortunately there is no fix for character hate tagged with just the character name though : that’s a matter of individuals tagging accurately, and that’s in turn a matter of internal fandom tagging practices/culture. I’m sad to hear Finn hate is being tagged with neutral tags, that sucks. 😦 If you spot some common lines that get repeated though you might be able to cut down on it with keyword blocking? Again, not a perfect fix, but >_>
Wow, patronizing. Of course I know about and use xkit on the web. Dropped Tumblr Savior years ago. I know how Tumblr works. I’m on mobile 90% of the time, and yes, I know about Washboard, too. All but one of the examples in the op? Xkit doesn’t fix it.
Personally, because of the nature of my blog, I don’t blacklist or block, ever. It’s important for me to see the reality of the fandom. That’s my choice, yeah. It doesn’t make flooding tags with irrelevant ship content reasonable or above criticism. It’s not that I can’t handle all they reylo, it’s that it pisses me off when fanon ships like reylo sideline Black characters. I’ve used blacklisting, and believe me, seeing dozens of “this post has been hidden” posts isn’t any better.
And why is it so damn hard for this particular fandom to be respectful? Kyluxers, regardless of how I feel about the ship, somehow manage not to infest every corner of fandom, on and off Tumblr. I don’t see them harassing SW directors and actors on social media. It can’t be that damn hard.
This isn’t just like, I don’t want to look at Adam Driver’s face. It’s about maneuvering through a fandom for a trilogy that offers inclusion that aggressively prioritizes whiteness.It’s about antiblackness. A band-aid doesn’t help.
I’m someone who does black list things I hate, and I STILL see them! Part of my problems with my current fandom is that there is literally no way to avoid the problematic stuff without leaving it entirely.
And that’s before getting into all the insidious ways in which hate continues to permeate even after you black list the obvious stuff. i.e. My fandom is tremendously racist towards the main character – which would be fine (or, well, tolerable) if people tagged it. But they don’t, because the fanon has spread so far that people think it’s canon, and thus no one thinks to tag it.
Not to mention microagressions. No one is going to tag their fic or write in a warning that “I took the main character’s good traits and gave them to the white leads while giving him all their bad traits” – but that’s exactly what happens.
One of the biggest problems with things like racism, sexism, etc., is that they most often AREN’T intentional – which means people aren’t going to tag for them. The racism will run so deep that people don’t even see it. The hate will run so deep that people don’t even see it. If you don’t see it, you can’t tag for it, so how are you supposed to block it?
“Blocking” problematic content on Tumblr, AO3, or anywhere else, relies on the person generating that content, AND on *everyone* else reblogging that content, to accurately tag it with what you have blocked.
How likely do you think that is to actually happen when people don’t even think they’re doing anything problematic in the first place?
Exactly. People will trigger warning all kinds of things, but not racism, not unless it’s like a screencap of an “alt right” Twitter rant. Tagging their own potentially triggering posts for racism? Doesn’t happen. People can use fandom to cope, unless it’s coping with racism, then it doesn’t really count. What is upsetting to Black fans is just fandom fun. They wouldn’t even think to tag it as racist.
In any event, I’m not going to expend time and energy on helping to create a space that fosters the comfort of fans who make fandom a hurtful place for fans of color who don’t toe the line. They want me to do the work so fandom can be a nice, happy place where racism can flourish while xkit makes me (partially) oblivious of how shitty it really is? Lol no.
if you’re lgbt and a transmisogynist like i’m really sorry you’re an idiot and don’t realize trans women literally created this community cause that’s really sad, like we wouldn’t have a community without them. you waving your pitchfork and incomprehensible rhetoric to thank them is sad. and all i’m gonna feel in response is utter secondhand embarrassment for how stupid you are. like you’re dumb bye
don’t just like this, reblog it! let trans women know you love and support them in this community!
Probably gonna feel dumb in a sec but what is g!p?
g!p: Stands for Girl Peen or Girl Penis
In femslash works, it’s when someone:
takes a fetishized version of a trans woman’s body and uses it as a vehicle, often to write their trans fetishistic smut and/or pregnancy fetish fics through, though sometimes it’s just flat out a non-sexual combo of compulsory heterosexuality, cissexism, and heteronormativity
discards trans experience from their fics, and writes about our bodies in generally incorrect and/or impossible ways, basically showing zero interest in actually representing us, and full interest in misrepresenting us in ways that are directly tied to physical and sexual real life violence against us, purely to sate their sexual fantasies
(also common, but not always present) attaches their pent up baggage and taboo fantasies about cis men (due to compulsory heterosexuality and toxic masculinity) to the g!p characters, which more or less blatantly casts trans women as toxic, sexually predatory cis men. As an example, 50 Shades of Grey and Twilight both featured toxic cis men romantic leads that women in society tend to be conditioned to find attractive…some wlw see trans women and our bodies as close enough to manhood and maleness for them to engage in the compulsory het messages they were taught, so they can have that toxic, powerful/dominant, dangerous person with all the associated power dynamics, PiV sex, and potential pregnancy without necessarily compromising their sexuality so long as they accept trans women as women on a surface level
Characters chosen to be the g!p character in the fic tend to be the more masculine of the women, the more aggressive ones, the taller ones, the ones with more power/status, the more violent ones, the ones with more angular features, the darker-skinned characters, etc. I could list more, but the pattern should be fairly clear.
I’ve written more in detail here, and also have a bunch of links on my education page as well
.. it’s all about how you take it. You can be triggered by it because of your own insecurities or you can love it because of your own insecurities. There are 2 sides to the coin and promoting censorship of art because of how it makes you feel is about the most hypocritical thing anyone who is not a straight white male can do. Simply put, those who wish not see, need not look. But I don’t want my children growing up in a world, where they don’t have the option.
I find g!p gratifying
It’s literally not all about how a person “takes it”. It has nothing to do with triggering (although those are valid experiences), and everything to do with the way the trope reproduces and directs sexual violence against trans women, deeply fetishizes and dehumanizes us categorically, and erases our lived experiences and the realities of our bodies in ways that render us vulnerable and conditionally worthy of desire and love.
So, uh, yeah. It’s got nothing to do with whether it gives an individual person the warm fuzzies.
And I’m not promoting censorship, since I can’t censor anyone. I’m promoting that people recognize the harm their works do and find it in their heart to weight the wellbeing of trans women over the orgasms they get off our backs.
“Don’t Like Don’t Read” is a highly privileged and ignorant stance to take in fandom
If you want to understand more, read this, this, this, or the other posts on my education page on g!p
Because you may find g!p gratifying, but it’s literally deeply cissexist, transmisogynistic, trans-fetishistic, and reproduces a whole host of stigmas and taboos about trans women that direct real physical sexual violence against us and promotes our exclusion from women’s spaces, wlw spaces, lesbian spaces, often while casting us as dangerous male predators. Those are the facts, regardless of how you, I, or anyone else feels.
“Don’t Like Don’t Read” is a highly privileged and ignorant stance to take in fandom
In a time when women are standing up to male violence and saying ‘no more,’ trans women are still being left out and here, ‘censorship’ is the excuse – even though there is no call for censorship, only understanding that will lead to better choices that do not harm others.
I remember when Roman Polanski was defended by Hollywood actors and actresses saying that his raping of a child should be forgiven because he was a ‘great artist’ and how his working life should continue. Same for Woody Allen.
Now that the tides have turned, sympathy for these ‘great artists’ has eroded – we recognise the harm done, the harm that continues, when we allow these men to be given power and feted. Dylan Farrow’s story of the ongoing hurt and harm of watching Woody Allen escape justice, the harm he did to her family, while he kept working, kept receiving awards – can you see some parallels here?
No one calls for ‘censorship’ of a ‘great artist.’ It’s the human equation that is being left out. The human cost of allowing oppressors to maintain status quo – one that only benefits a few. Will people throw away ‘Chinatown’ or ‘Stardust Memories’ as crap because the men who made them are rubbish?
How many films or books created by ‘great artists’ featured content that we now consider backward, harmful, ignorant, sexist, racist – and those books and films still exist? No one ripped them off the shelves (that’s something fascists and Nazis do). I find the 50 Shades books to not only be terrible, but terrible influences and the woman who wrote them is another rubbish human being who benefited enormously from spreading wrongful, harmful text – that was openly derided far and wide. Did anyone get offended and call it ‘censorship’ to point out her work was harmful? I’d never call for anyone’s works to be banned – but we do seek to educate others on their content, don’t we? How many posts have you seen over the years of readers declaring 50 Shades is harmful? Is it a censorship issue or education?
But trans women point out g!p is harmful and support disappears (insert gif of Mariah Carey in sunglasses, unable to read suddenly).
How much g!p fiction mirrors 50 Shades?
It’s time to to allow those they have harmed to be free from that harm and to know we will progress in better ways. Society either improves and becomes genuinely inclusive and equal – or it continues to fall apart, thanks to selfishness and greed.
If trans women are shouting what is harmful to them and you are not listening, take some stock of the world around you. Look at all the other women who weren’t listened to when they told the world they were harmed. Look at all the other women who were too terrified to come forward, who were told they were asking for it, who were told it was all their fault it happened.
Instead of looking at trans women as something separate, maybe we could start seeing them as women who are pointing out the harm being done to them and stand with them.
Would that be gratifying?
I’ve pointed out before, in the Clexa fandom, fans stood up to a man who did them harm. We pointed out a HARMFUL TROPE that should not be used – no one called for ‘censorship.’ We asked straight content creators to be better allies, to be better educated and not perpetuate the writing of harmful content. It’s about representation.
Trans women are usually the last ones who receive any kind of support. Is ‘time’s up’ inclusive? Is ‘me too?’ I believe them when they tell me someone is hurting them. I believe you, I’m listening, I hope to be a better ally.
It means a lot to come back on tumblr tonight and have read that 🙂
.. it’s all about how you take it. You can be triggered by it because of your own insecurities or you can love it because of your own insecurities. There are 2 sides to the coin and promoting censorship of art because of how it makes you feel is about the most hypocritical thing anyone who is not a straight white male can do. Simply put, those who wish not see, need not look. But I don’t want my children growing up in a world, where they don’t have the option.
I find g!p gratifying
It’s literally not all about how a person “takes it”. It has nothing to do with triggering (although those are valid experiences), and everything to do with the way the trope reproduces and directs sexual violence against trans women, deeply fetishizes and dehumanizes us categorically, and erases our lived experiences and the realities of our bodies in ways that render us vulnerable and conditionally worthy of desire and love.
So, uh, yeah. It’s got nothing to do with whether it gives an individual person the warm fuzzies.
And I’m not promoting censorship, since I can’t censor anyone. I’m promoting that people recognize the harm their works do and find it in their heart to weight the wellbeing of trans women over the orgasms they get off our backs.
“Don’t Like Don’t Read” is a highly privileged and ignorant stance to take in fandom
If you want to understand more, read this, this, this, or the other posts on my education page on g!p
Because you may find g!p gratifying, but it’s literally deeply cissexist, transmisogynistic, trans-fetishistic, and reproduces a whole host of stigmas and taboos about trans women that direct real physical sexual violence against us and promotes our exclusion from women’s spaces, wlw spaces, lesbian spaces, often while casting us as dangerous male predators. Those are the facts, regardless of how you, I, or anyone else feels.
“Don’t Like Don’t Read” is a highly privileged and ignorant stance to take in fandom
In a time when women are standing up to male violence and saying ‘no more,’ trans women are still being left out and here, ‘censorship’ is the excuse – even though there is no call for censorship, only understanding that will lead to better choices that do not harm others.
I remember when Roman Polanski was defended by Hollywood actors and actresses saying that his raping of a child should be forgiven because he was a ‘great artist’ and how his working life should continue. Same for Woody Allen.
Now that the tides have turned, sympathy for these ‘great artists’ has eroded – we recognise the harm done, the harm that continues, when we allow these men to be given power and feted. Dylan Farrow’s story of the ongoing hurt and harm of watching Woody Allen escape justice, the harm he did to her family, while he kept working, kept receiving awards – can you see some parallels here?
No one calls for ‘censorship’ of a ‘great artist.’ It’s the human equation that is being left out. The human cost of allowing oppressors to maintain status quo – one that only benefits a few. Will people throw away ‘Chinatown’ or ‘Stardust Memories’ as crap because the men who made them are rubbish?
How many films or books created by ‘great artists’ featured content that we now consider backward, harmful, ignorant, sexist, racist – and those books and films still exist? No one ripped them off the shelves (that’s something fascists and Nazis do). I find the 50 Shades books to not only be terrible, but terrible influences and the woman who wrote them is another rubbish human being who benefited enormously from spreading wrongful, harmful text – that was openly derided far and wide. Did anyone get offended and call it ‘censorship’ to point out her work was harmful? I’d never call for anyone’s works to be banned – but we do seek to educate others on their content, don’t we? How many posts have you seen over the years of readers declaring 50 Shades is harmful? Is it a censorship issue or education?
But trans women point out g!p is harmful and support disappears (insert gif of Mariah Carey in sunglasses, unable to read suddenly).
How much g!p fiction mirrors 50 Shades?
It’s time to to allow those they have harmed to be free from that harm and to know we will progress in better ways. Society either improves and becomes genuinely inclusive and equal – or it continues to fall apart, thanks to selfishness and greed.
If trans women are shouting what is harmful to them and you are not listening, take some stock of the world around you. Look at all the other women who weren’t listened to when they told the world they were harmed. Look at all the other women who were too terrified to come forward, who were told they were asking for it, who were told it was all their fault it happened.
Instead of looking at trans women as something separate, maybe we could start seeing them as women who are pointing out the harm being done to them and stand with them.
Would that be gratifying?
I’ve pointed out before, in the Clexa fandom, fans stood up to a man who did them harm. We pointed out a HARMFUL TROPE that should not be used – no one called for ‘censorship.’ We asked straight content creators to be better allies, to be better educated and not perpetuate the writing of harmful content. It’s about representation.
Trans women are usually the last ones who receive any kind of support. Is ‘time’s up’ inclusive? Is ‘me too?’ I believe them when they tell me someone is hurting them. I believe you, I’m listening, I hope to be a better ally.
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.
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.
Sometimes I feel a little guilty about not updating Breaking Out all that often, but it’s just really hard.
Like, after what happened in canon, I can’t really watch the show’s Clexa content without feeling really, really sad about it.
And then after how the fandom twisted Clexa, particularly in their handling of Lexa, it’s really hard for me to work through the repulsion and dysphoria and pain and betrayal and exclusion to where I can find those characters’ voices again.
Clanya is just so much easier, because there wasn’t an orchestrated effort to cast Anya or Clarke as a toxic, abusive man in a woman suit through every transmisogynistic and trans fetishistic stigma they could get their hands on.
It’s so much easier for me with them. It’s a lot healthier for me.
It sucks that Lexa’s been defiled for me because I loved her character wholeheartedly. It sucks that Clexa will always, no matter what, have horrible baggage attached to it. It sucks that Jason Rothenburg threw away something beautiful, and it sucks that the fandom poisoned the well so I couldn’t even escape to that.
I want to write more Breaking Out, more Clexa, but it hurts. It hurts.
So if I never do, at least you’ll know who to blame. And maybe y’all will speak up about transmisogyny and trans fetishization in your fandoms instead of striving to be ‘polite’ and ‘drama-free’
Okay, so trans man here (I imagine I’m coming from a different perspective). Whilst a lot of g!p fics can probably be considered fetishization of trans/intersex bodies, I think it’s unfair to lump them all into the same category. There are plenty of porn without plot fics for cis Clexa, so any fic that includes g!p shouldn’t automatically have to be full of meaningful plot. In fact, there have been some fics where they really delve into intersex Lexa and deconstruct her character around that. (Which I personally enjoyed reading because the whole dysphoria aspect was something I can relate to)
At the end of the day, fic writing is just like any other art: it’s completed because it’s something you had an interest in. Whilst we are all free to critisize someone’s art -be it for misogyny, transfetishization, racism, etc, we can’t call to censor and remove that art because where do we draw the line, and who gets to say where it is drawn?
To be completely honest, as a Trans guy that is still wrapping their mind around not being part of the lesbian community anymore, g!p fic can actually feel somewhat inclusive -particularly when you have no interest in straight ships. To clarify: I completely understand the hurt, and that some people’s fics are distasteful and outright rude, but I don’t feel that can be a blanket statement.
Also, obviously do what you need to do, personally -writing should be a pleasure for yourself, so only do what’s comfortable.
(I will also concede that I’ve only ever been in one other fandom and there seems to be a shit ton more g!p fics in this one. I also agree that given that it is 9/10 Lexa who is intersex, yes, that definitely screams transmisogyny for a good number of them)
I’m going to take this bit by bit here, because I have a lot to say
Okay, so trans man here (I imagine I’m coming from a different perspective).
Yes, you’re coming from a position of not understanding or experiencing transmisogyny, which means you ideally should listen to me and other trans women and let yourself be educated on this subject instead of pretending you can claim to educate me on it.
I’ve written tens of thousands of words on this subject. I’ve discussed it at length. You’re not saying anything I haven’t addressed before, but I’m a glutton for punishment so I’ll go over it all again.
Whilst a lot of g!p fics can probably be considered fetishization of trans/intersex bodies, I think it’s unfair to lump them all into the same category.
I’m gonna take it from the top, here
G!P doesn’t explicitly claim to be related to trans (or intersex) people but it cannot be viewed outside of that context in a world where trans and intersex people are also displaced from our bodies and our realities by cis dyadic people, in a world where our body parts are literally objectified and fetishized and removed from our humanity. It doesn’t matter what anyone’s intent is, that’s the reality of it, that’s representation that harms trans and intersex people, and if people fail to realize that, then they’re harming trans and intersex people, categorically. That’s a fact. These are categorically linked to oppression. And yes, other trans/intersex folks can help reproduce this oppression, because they can use these tools, these frameworks just as easily as a cis/dyadic person can.
Even if there’s one or two works here or there that inexplicably manage to avoid everything harmful about such tropes (I haven’t come across them, but who knows, there’s a first time for everything), even if a select few trans or intersex women (the harmed parties in g!p) don’t see the harm, these are still linked to ideas and systems of power that as a whole feed into our oppression and which actively cause harm. I’ve literally met multiple people who have been raped by partners in signifcant part due to harmful media like this. We cannot pretend that this is harmless activity. When LGBT+ folks by and large escape to fandoms to find representation, fandom becomes a far greater influence on us than it would the average cishet fan. And when trans and intersex women are overwhelmingly, practically always fetishized and consumed through a harmful lens, that’s going to have a significant impact on us.
So yeah, G!P characters are based off of the foundation of trans women due to the hypervisibility of our fetishization (and sometimes based off of the theoretical bodies of a small small section of intersex women, removed from social context and medical realities), and they use fetishized understandings of us (created by cishet dyadic men) as the foundation for the trope. That kind of media reflects all the stigmas and stereotypes we are faced with in real life, and reproduces those stigmas and stereotypes that direct harm against us.
So yeah, not all g!p characters are explicitly trans, but they are always implicitly penis-owning trans women. Every single one of them, whether they’re tagged as trans g!p, intersex g!p, a/b/o, or just flat out g!p.
Also, these fics are almost always written through a cis gaze (the cis person’s idea of what a trans woman and our struggles are, and often centered around a cis savior narrative and that cis character’s feelings…for a good example, see The Danish Girl).
Also, g!p fics get our bodies wrong (they’re often treated as cis dyadic women’s when convenient, and then cis dyadic men’s when convenient, which is really fetishistic and links us to cis men, male violence, and toxic masculinity, the latter of which often gets embodied by the g!p character in question to the point of saturation). They also portray us having sex in ways that most trans women do not have, and for a huge percentage, will not have for numerous very valid reasons. They basically never show us having sex in ways that are more likely to give us pleasure or which truly center us (we’re more often a vehicle to deliver the desires of the author, of the partner(s) involved in the fic), and never write the sex in ways that even consider our true existence. Almost never any anal in which we’re receiving. Never any muffing or rooing. There’s no excuse for the erasure of trans women’s sexuality in favor of a narrow, rigid cis dyadic men’s sexuality.
Basically, it’s absolutely fetishistic since it all follows the same narrow, rigid patterns and standards with some tiny leeway regarding how much toxic masculinity and issues with compulsory heterosexuality are projected and processed through trans women’s bodies.
If you don’t believe me, then please, consider the following:
Why is it that these smut stories almost always involve one penis and one vagina?
Why is it basically never 2 penises unless a third woman gets involved to provide a vagina?
Why are the penises always functionally exactly like a stereotypical cis man’s, and not a trans woman’s or intersex woman’s?
Why are they always shaped like cis men’s, and not trans or intersex women’s?
Why are they never micropenises?
Why are they never a penis that can’t get erect, and remains soft through orgasms? (fun fact: I once went 6 months without an erection and had daily orgasms, sometimes multiples, it’s pretty awesome)
Why not a penis that can’t ejaculate?
Why not a penis that cannot penetrate (whether at all, or consistently)?
Why do these g!p characters rarely if ever involve experiences reflective of trans/intersex women? Why are they so utterly cis and perisex-washed?
What g!p stories feature such characters with small breasts and minor to moderate pattern growth of chest and body hair?
What g!p stories feature
facial hair that grows too fast to remain smooth and is routinely noticeable and prickly when being kissed? And where the character has to take time out of their day every few hours to shave and reapply their makeup?
What g!p stories feature the character dealing with a 5-o’clock shadow no matter how close the shave?
What g!p stories feature
hair growth on fingers and toes and forearms?
What g!p stories feature a trans woman character that doesn’t always pass?
Where their appearance diverges from the base the character actress provided? Or is making their bodies muscular with rippling abs and toned arms a special exemption like the addition of a cis man’s penis is?
What supposed intersex or trans woman stories feature characters that have gone through reconstructive surgery already?
Why do so many of these fics use cissexist language and framing?
Why do the overwhelming majority of g!p fics use language popularized in cishet porn to describe their genitals?
Why is there never any dysphoria when the vast majority of trans women experience it?
Why does the tag g!p even exist when it essentially casts women with vaginas as default, inherently othering an already marginalized group of women…and why does the combination of these two always frame trans/intersex women as not being as ‘real’ as cis women (generally implicitly, but the messages are pretty clear, and pretty much standard in g!p fics)?
Why are the g!p characters chosen so often the ones most sexualized in the canon, and/or the most masculine (or owning the more masculine roles)?
Why are the characters with the most social and/or financial power (a modern symbol for peak manhood within toxic masculinity) so often the ones with the g!p, and have sex and function as they do?
What messages is that sending about both trans and intersex women’s relationship with manhood/being male, toxic masculinity, and compulsory heterosexuality?
Why are there so many fics where g!p characters have dysphoria raped out of them by their sexual partner? When that’s literally the equivalent of toxic masculinity’s “Lesbians just haven’t been fucked by the right man yet” corrective rape trope, why is it so fucking common in wlw fics with this trope? What does that say about how non-trans women view trans women?
Adding onto that, why do so many g!p fics have the trans woman character raping or sexually assaulting their partner during a situation where they cannot provide consent? In OuaT, it’s 23% of g!p fics that include any smut at all. In The 100, it’s 25%. What does that say about how non-trans women view trans women?
Why do g!p fics fetishize trans women’s (and largely fictionalized fantasies of intersex women) imagined/supposed ability to fuck like cis men and make them pregnant, and throw away everything else about us?
Why do so many show a fundamental misunderstanding about dysphoria, about tucking, about being stealth, about everyday life as trans women, about sex as a trans woman, etc.? Pretty much all of them fail on the simplest understandings of us, so what does that say about the trope and what it takes from us and what it leaves behind? It’s the very definition of fetishization..
How is it that virtually all of these fics show a trans character who doesn’t want bottom surgery, when it’s generally something the majority of trans women want or would be interested in getting if the technique was better, or if they actually had access and the financial means (which, in fics, is 100% possible, because it’s fucking fiction, and we can make better worlds than we currently live in)?
What g!p stories involve genital dysphoria that’s actually respected, where the genitals aren’t engaged with?
Why, in g!p fics, is the sex always the same? Why no inguinal canals or perineal pouch stimulation? Why no genital dysphoria preventing any penetration or oral? Or hell, just personal boundaries of any kind limiting people’s access to our bodies that aren’t raped away?
Why, in g!p fics with a focus on pregnancy, are the more realistic forms of pregnancy and fertility not written about? Why no IUI, or even IVF, for instance?
Why do these g!p fics, whether using trans or intersex labels as cover, follow the same structure and traits as each other to an almost absurd degree, and end up mimicking the trans woman-themed porn created via cishet men’s fantasies? Why is it always so necessary for the authors to include certain traits or elements or experiences in line with the standard fantasy?
Why…it’s almost as if there’s a fetish involved by how necessary these things are within the trope. Could it be that there’s unnecessary fetishization on the character’s penis that’s prioritized over everything else? Could it be that the trope requires trans women’s bodies to be different from our reality in order to satisfy the dehumanizing desires and views of the author and readers?
Then there’s the growing amount of g!p works using the “daddy” kink (I’ve never come across a ‘daddy kink’ fic where a cis woman was the ‘daddy’ instead of the trans woman…there was a ‘mommy kink’ fic where the cis woman was the mommy and raped, abused, and conditioned the early teenage trans girl she’d fostered, but that’s all I can think of, and it’s clearly heinous).
I’m going to be straight with you and tell you that g!p authors who include this ‘kink’ in these fics are just about never trans women, and here’s why: Trans women referring to ourselves with male terminology is a very quick way for society to attack and strip away our womanhood. Others referring to us with those terms is almost always going to feel like (if not almost always actually being) misgendering. It’s a considerable part of our oppression. Like, I’ve known trans women who had kids before transitioning. For nearly all of them, mentioning in therapy or to doctors that even their children called them ‘daddy’ or ‘dad’ was enough to put the brakes on them getting access to HRT, because those aren’t suitable terms to describe “real” women, and since they already had children, how committed could the possibly be to being women? How “real” were they?
Of course, it’s all gatekeeper bullshit, trans women of any stripe should get access anyways, but that sort of language is a veritable minefield for us. Just like cis girls can get away with saying things like “Suck my cock/dick”, when if a trans woman says it, the phrase is suddenly sexually violent and aggressive and “male violence” and a sign that we’re really the sexual predators we’re made out to be, etc. etc., and can (and has) actually put us in real physical or sexual danger.
So yeah…daddy kinks? Even if folks can get past the age-play and incest elements, that’s still not language that can be used for us without invoking violence on us.
So it’s another clear example of authors not understanding us, not taking the time to understand us, and instead just finding reasons to excuse elements of the intersex and trans people’s lives from intersex and trans narratives because they’re difficult to deal with and face, and instead focus on the things that make them aroused. Always their orgasms over our humanity and dignity.
All our unique experiences, all our difficulties, they all get swept away so that the cis author can keep what they want from us, and only what they want. They strip parts of us away and keep what makes them hot, what they need to write the story they want. That erases us. That fetishizes us. That dehumanizes us. Especially for intersex folks, whose fictionalized fantasy version of intersex effectively erases all their variance and their experiences, and props up a media stereotype that does not fit or remotely accurately represent them. Their experiences and traits are stripped away until all that’s left are what the perisex author wants to consume, usually fetishized aspects of them. That’s wrong.
The sad thing is, it’s honestly not hard to write decent trans characters. It’s not even hard to write decent sex scenes with trans-inclusive content. It’s not hard. It’s really not hard to humanize the characters instead of fetishizing them. It’s not hard to become aware of all the harmful norms and elements in these tropes.
When writers are dismissive and say “oh, well, this is just a lady with a dick, she’s not trans or intersex or anything” that doesn’t actually register. Our brains don’t work like that. We connect certain traits with words and ideas and categories, and since most folks reading and creating these works are cis, and cis people are already atrocious at interrogating their own transphobia, transmisogyny and cissexism, let alone recognizing it, it’s dangerous for them to think that they can compartmentalize when they’re proven to be unable to.
Like, maybe all the terrible messages these works send won’t be digested. Maybe only some will. And maybe some won’t completely digest. But after time, and after enough volume of reading these works, like any other media content that negatively targets marginalized people with narrow, fetishistic representation, it will start to stick. it will impact how people think. it will help solidify certain elements of cissexism, certain stigmas, certain stereotypes.
Because when they leave their computer or phone and look out into the real world, the females with penises are, overwhelmingly, trans women. And when they interact with us (and we are relatively rare), that’s when the results of that kind of media rears its head. That’s where it will influence their gut reactions, their instincts, those first initial thoughts about us, those curiosities, the way they look at us, what they focus on when we’re around. They’re be far, far more likely to link us with harmful dehumanizing fetishistic crap they’ve “learned” about us.
The fact is, we’re not commodities. We’re not living sex toys. We’re not walking penises. Folks can try and dress that up as much as they like, but if they don’t understand us, all that window-dressing will probably just end up harming us even more. An entire social demographic cannot be a fetish or kink without dehumanizing us in the process, and that’s what g!p works do.
We’re worthy of being understood. We’re worthy of being heard and respected. And we’re worth far more than fandoms value us for. Sick of watching wlw die on TV? Sick of wlw being fucked/turned straight in media for the sake of propping up heteronormativity? Sick of wlw content catering heavily to the male gaze and being full to the brim with misogyny? Sick of wlw never getting happy endings? Sick of femslash being considered the unwanted stepsister in the fandom meta, compared to het, M/M, and gen? Sick of all the one-dimensional women characters in media?
All those issues above? Combine them all together and you still don’t get the percentage of media content trans people have to deal with that’s damaging and dehumanizing and misrepresentative and cruel and violent to us. Nothing with us without us, and non-trans women writing stories about our bodies, without centering us and our narratives? And instead centering their fetishes and fantasies? That’s literally objectification and fetshization and dehumanizing. Tossing in some content aside from the smut doesn’t mean we’re being humanized by the story, contrary to popular belief
We have next to nothing out there for us. And when we see cis or NB writers (who aren’t aligned with us) writing works that could…with time and effort and empathy…be positive trans representation? But aren’t, because they’re too caught up in their fetish and entitlement to put us ahead of their orgasms and fantasies?
It’s like being kicked in the teeth when you’re already down and out, by folks who should by all rights know better. It makes fandoms a hostile space, each mounting transphobic/transmisogynistic story pushing us further and further to the margins, loudly declaring a blunt disregard for us outside of the use of our bodies to sate lustful fetishistic desires.
And if folks can’t manage to stop fetishizing us, which is not difficult to manage…then I’d hope that they stop. Even if I know they won’t, because our humanity and dignity and safety are nothing compared to the orgasms they desire from us.
In fact, there have been some fics where they really delve into intersex Lexa and deconstruct her character around that. (Which I personally enjoyed reading because the whole dysphoria aspect was something I can relate to)
There really, really aren’t, but okay. There are fics exploring a fantasy intersex condition with no basis in reality, but yeah, that’s not intersex rep, it’s not tasteful, it’s not respectful, and out of the three fics you might be referring to, each of them is neck-deep in transmisogyny and aggressive fetishistic bullshit, so I wouldn’t be throwing praise their way. But the fact that you are just shows how detached you are from the reality of fetishization trans and intersex women face, so at least you might be aware of that now.
Like, I’ve challenged the fandom to show me a respectful, even minimally fetishistic fic. Not even completely free of fetishization, but, like, minimal levels. There’s nothing.
I’ve read hundreds in the 100 fandom alone in an attempt to find some instance of a minimally harmful fic to point at as an example for others to follow in reducing the harm they cause, and so far I’m drawing a blank. All the big name ones … This War of Needs, My Bones Have Found a Place, Leaving Home, the Badlands series, Her Alphas her mates, It’s Okay to be Different, Unplanned, Number 25, Movie Night, Welcome to Trigeda Industries, Ad Gladium, Fading Bright Eyes Dark, etc. etc. etc.
None of them are respectful. All of them are deeply fetishistic, cissexist, transmisogynistic, dangerously misrepresentative, etc.
I’d like folks who write g!p stories to write respectful fics (g!p term aside) including trans women’s bodies, but thus far, I have yet to come across one in this fandom. Just the presence of non-smut content doesn’t make a fic respectful. The presence of content other than smut doesn’t make it respectful, especially when it’s a pregnancy arc.
And if anyone thinks that tropes like g!p add intersex rep, they’re kidding themselves.
If there were 99x more fictional works featuring characters with CAH, AIS, Klinefelter’s Syndrome, Turner Syndrome, etc. , then maybe that argument could be considered, but that’s not reality.
Virtually no writer writing g!p stories including sex actually cares about intersex people enough to write actual intersex rep. They want the fictional fantasy that’s been peddled in porn/erotica instead, and they largely don’t care that it’s harmful, fetishistic, and unrepresentative rather than anything helpful.
Trans women face a world where far less than 1% of our sexual media content is respectful, positive, and representative of us.
But for intersex folks, there’s virtually nothing (or maybe literally nothing) accurate and positive out there that casts them as lovable, desirable, etc., so it’s an even bleaker situation.
So it’d be nice if folks would stop ejaculating on trans and intersex women’s backs while they pretend to care and be allies. Couldn’t be further from the truth
At the end of the day, fic writing is just like any other art: it’s completed because it’s something you had an interest in. Whilst we are all free to critisize someone’s art -be it for misogyny, transfetishization, racism, etc, we can’t call to censor and remove that art because where do we draw the line, and who gets to say where it is drawn?
Where do we draw the line? At content that encourages harm against a marginalized group of people. Who draws that line? The marginalized people in question.
If Ao3 required people to opt into certain content, things might be a tiny bit different, but it’s an opt-out service without the tools to easily and effectively opt-out. And people can always write what they want, but when they share it, they take responsibility for it and the harm it causes, because that’s how this works. If they want to share among friends, and those interested in it, they can. But putting their harmful works on blast, on a public archive site where people can stumble upon those works, where their visible presence can harm and exclude? Yeah. That’s their responsibility.
There’s no censorship, just demands for responsibility and openness. No one’s saying folks can’t write what they will, or share it how they like. We’re saying they’re hurting people, they’re hurting us, and it’s pushing us out of fandom. People can’t claim to support us, care for us, love us, and be our allies if they’re reproducing harm against us, refusing to listen to us, and refusing to stop harming us.
Like, me and other trans women have literally asked big name authors who write g!p to stop hurting us, to learn how to write about us in ways that don’t direct harm against us, that don’t exclude us from the community, that don’t render us male in the audience’s eyes. The answers have largely been “I’m willing to support you, but I won’t stop writing g!p fics the way I write them”, which is nowhere near support, it’s harm. It’s refusing to accept responsibility.
I’ve even made posts about how g!p writers can reduce their transmisogyny and cissexism. Because I know people will never stop exploiting us and hurting us when they can use us for orgasms, but maybe we can get them to hurt us less. it wouldn’t be a win, but it’d be something.
It’s really depressing to ask your oppressors to stop beating you so badly because you can’t take it full force, but alas, that’s where we are.
To be completely honest, as a Trans guy that is still wrapping their mind around not being part of the lesbian community anymore, g!p fic can actually feel somewhat inclusive -particularly when you have no interest in straight ships.
To be completely honest, you sound like you see g!p characters as having a closer proximity to manhood than cis woman characters. Which isn’t inclusive at all.
In fact, there’s kind of a serious issue specific to how trans men and afab NB folks often view g!p works that’s very different from how cis women do.
Like, to pull a quote from a trans dude on a g!p fic:
For me personally, as a 30 year old trans man, I like to see myself as gp Lexa. It’s like I’m getting to experience my fantasy through fanfic. And I’m not afraid to admit that I have always had penis envy. Having a big dick and testicles was always a dream of mine. So if I can at least fantasize about it by pretending to be GP Lexa then I will. You know what I mean? Probably not.
Like, do you get how fucking troubling it is that trans women’s bodies are used as fetish fuel by that dude because he can’t get past his own cissexism, and that he imagines himself as a woman with a penis…the genitals to satisfy his dysphoria, and the woman’s body to claim entitlement to wlw relationships and women’s bodies?
it’s a fantasy for trans men and afab NB folks. But these stories, and the messages they send, have real material impact on trans women. So I don’t give a fuck how any afab trans/nb person might feel included by g!p works, or might feel them useful to alleviate dysphoria. They can find another way that doesn’t direct harm against us and doesn’t exclude us from women’s spaces and fandom spaces that we need much, much more than they do. They can find another way, or just admit that they don’t care at all about trans women.
To clarify: I completely understand the hurt, and that some people’s fics are distasteful and outright rude, but I don’t feel that can be a blanket statement.
It really doesn’t sound like you do. This isn’t just about things being distasteful or rude. Like, holy fucking shit. Trans women have been raped and sexually assaulted and sexually abused because of this shit.
And it’s been made explicitly clear in fandom that fics are used as a source of sex-ed, as a source for education. Meaning that when writers promote inaccurate ideas about us, and violently misrepresent us, and attach tremendously harmful stigmas and associations to us and our bodies?
That comes back to bite us in the ass hardcore. Especially when there’s no visible sources offering any other ‘truth’, given 99.9+% of trans and intersex sexual media is unrepresentative.
If you have education in media literacy, you’ll understand that media representation is important because exposing people to real, positive people of marginalized groups helps combat stereotypes, misinformation stigmas, etc. It’s why sexism in media is less potent in regards to representation than racism in a lot of ways because everyone is exposed to women in their daily lives, so it’s harder to reduce women to stereotypes and to hold stigmatized views. Absolutely possible and common, but less so than how racism shapes and molds people’s views on racial/ethnic groups, when a lot of areas have very homogenized racial populations.
It’s a lot easier for a white guy in a town of 99% white people to stereotype black and brown people, and hold the harmful views that the media communicates. There’s way less exposure, less personal contact with positive representation to break down those views. In an urban environment like Brooklyn? Not as easy for folks to hold those views.
Same deal with trans women, except there’s virtually no positive, representative media about us, especially within sexual contexts. Even the 20-25% of trans women who are both able to and comfortable using their original genitals are largely unable to find representation in media that features how they have sex due to a huge variety of other issues regarding trans fetishization, transmisogyny, cissexism, transparent comp het/toxic masculinity/heteronormativity/misogyny baggage, etc..
So friendly reminder that if you’re not a trans woman, and you’re writing smut featuring trans women with penises that focuses purely/primarily on that penis, and you don’t write at least 90x more trans-inclusive smut that doesn’t resemble the hypersaturated trans fetishistic template?
Then you have no business writing about us, and no business pretending you care about trans women past your orgasms you get off our backs.
Like, trans women writing stuff that resembles fetishistic tripe, I get that, I understand the need to process that due to internalized transmisogyny and all, or due to its proximity to their lived experience.
But if you’re not us, then it’s not people’s place to write that shit. There’s zero need at all for anyone who isn’t a trans woman to write that stuff, because there’s enough of those works to go around for the next two hundred years, there’s zero need for more of that “representation” when 99.9+% of our sexual media content is exactly that form and less than 30% of us can realistically even potentially be represented by that in a physical sense, leaving over 70%+ of us without any representation, and that under 30% largely unrepresented as well due to the other harmful content involved. The 0.06% (probably less, honestly) of our sexual media content that’s actually representative would need a huge infusion to get to anywhere near a reasonable share in order to combat stereotypes and misinformation and stigmas and rampant fetishization, so there’s no need for more fetishistic crap. None at all.
So just…friendly reminder, if you claim to be an ally of trans women, then stop writing that shit, and start caring about the fact that the overwhelming majority of us cannot find any media representation for ourselves in sexual contexts, especially not without harmful baggage tied on.
Think about what message that sends to us about under what conditions we can be deemed lovable and desirable and date-worthy and fuckable. Consider the fact that a lot of trans women, despite massive dysphoria, despite all the self-hatred and disgust it’ll induce, won’t resist sex acts we don’t want to engage in if our partners push hard enough, if only because it’s the only way so many of us are shown even an illusion of desire, love, affection, intimacy, etc. from partners.
Think about what this type of media tells our abusers. Think about what it tells us.
We deserve better. We need better.
There’s no ‘agree to disagree’ position that can be taken here. There’s no subjectivity. There is clear cause and effect, and maybe not everyone who reads and creates trans fetishistic media will translate that across to directly harming us, but enough do. More, more than enough do (and those that indirectly harm us? that impact is worth fighting against as well). And more than enough trans women are made vulnerable because of that media, are conditioned to be more vulnerable to abuse. Maybe not every trans woman, but enough, more than enough.
And it needs to end. We need more content that shows that we can be loved and desired and worthy of being dated and fucked that don’t involve our hypothetical penises at all. That don’t involve toxic masculinity or any of that stereotypical shit people tack onto us. That actually center us and our experiences and our pleasure.
Because right now, we’re only lovable under very specific conditions in the media, very restrictive, fetishistic conditions. And that needs to change.
(I will also concede that I’ve only ever been in one other fandom and there seems to be a shit ton more g!p fics in this one. I also agree that given that it is 9/10 Lexa who is intersex, yes, that definitely screams transmisogyny for a good number of them)
Judging by your icon, if that other fandom was Glee, then I have bad news. The 100 is more saturated with g!p works, but Glee has more in volume.
And yeah, Lexa is the one with the g!p the overwhelming majority of the time, for a few reasons.
This is largely due to her combat experience, social power, and leaner body positioning her closer to maleness than Clarke is (sexist, cissexist bullshit, but still). However, due to the deep cissexism of the fandom, it’s also certainly due to Clarke being bisexual and Lexa being a lesbian…if Clarke has a penis, people have a harder time believing Lexa would be interested in her/attracted to her (I could pull quotes from folks in the fandom on this, but this shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone paying attention), whereas if Lexa has one, the idea is that Clarke wouldn’t mind either way since she’s bi (all of which combines to a lesbophobic, biphobic, cissexist mess)…the underlying reasoning being that g!p Lexa is not an actual woman, but more of a man that just appears to be a woman and uses she/her pronouns. Transmisogynistic and cissexist, but it’s the logic of a lot of the g!p readership. Some position g!p characters between womanhood and manhood. Some consider it F/M in reality but entertain the F/F labeling because the canon couple is. Some think g!p characters are less female than cis woman characters. I could keep going. Yeah, there’s rarely views that aren’t transmisogynistic or cissexist when gauging the writers and readers of g!p.
This is sort of why there are instances where I’ve read about Lexa saying things like how she’s “Clarkesexual” and very little explicit mentions of g!p Lexa being a lesbian (men can’t be lesbians, after all, but they can be ‘attracted to women’, which IS a phrase commonly used to describe Lexa’s sexuality in these fics), and why there was so much internal monologue of Clarke comparing Lexa to past boyfriends rather than past girlfriends on a sexual level, and asserting that the penis made her special and different from women, etc.
For all the noise this fandom made about how popular a male Lexa would have been in canon, and how thankful they are that Lexa’s a woman, they sure are quick to infuse Lexa with as much maleness and male-coded traits as possible in fanworks in order to get off. >_>
From going through these fics, I’ve gotten a pretty good sense of how common issues with compulsory heterosexuality and toxic masculinity are in the fandom. Understandable, with a lot of young members and folks who are getting their first taste of living out their sexuality. And there’s a lot of trans men and afab NB folks projecting their baggage onto trans women’s bodies, too in their processing of cissexism, internalized transphobia, heteronormativity, toxic masculinity, etc. There’s often a lot of unprocessed baggage, and I get that it needs processing, but trans women are not here to be people’s vessels and bear the burden of that damage.
We do not deserve to be hurt just because other people are confused. They can find another way.
We live in a world where trans women’s voices are already silenced, where we experience violence for speaking up and declaring our womanhood and realness. We live in a world that already conditions people to believe that we aren’t real (in how we know ourselves to be, at least), that we aren’t valid, and these works spread a lot of the same ideas used to invalidate and oppress us. of course it isn’t okay to me that people choose their fantasies over the wellbeing of trans women.
Like, I can’t go on sites like FFnet or Ao3 and find new stories anymore. I can’t, because i’ll always run into g!p fics, a/b/o, etc., and any time I see those, I’m reminded of just how much fandom hates trans women, how much they fetishize and dehumanize us, how they use us and throw us away, how they don’t listen when we tell them that they’re hurting us. There are roundabout ways to get past those fics, but I shouldn’t have to put in that effort to drape the curtains over the masses in the fandom that are gleefully happy to harm me, not when they absolutely exist. not to mention those fics are almost always on rec-lists, so good luck traversing fandom safely in social media, anyways.
Fandom is a hostile, violent place for trans women to exist in. Fics that celebrate transmisogyny only make it that much harder for us to feel welcome and accepted, to create our own content on a platform that should be accessible for us where all others aren’t. Fandom should be where we can create the trans representation that the rest of media refuses to make, where we can feel safe and supported.
But it’s not. And g!p, a/b/o, etc., they chase us away. And after that, there’s not much of anywhere to go, but that’s generally how it is for trans women. There’s next to no spaces in this world that are actually accepting and non-hostile towards us. There’s next to no spaces where people will have our backs if we speak up about harm done to us. It’s why even engaging in LGBT communities is literally shown to be bad for our health and a factor in increasing risk of suicide for us (whereas, it’s helpful for trans men and afab nb folks).
It’d be nice for fandoms to even just try. Try to listen. Try to change. But it doesn’t happen. When g!p and a/b/o started taking root in The 100 fandom, trans women like myself and other trans folks spoke up and warned about the harm it can cause, and how hostile the fandom could be after it had seemed fairly accepting up to then?
The response was g!p and a/b/o fics being even more wildly celebrated and supported, and us being laughed off and roundly dismissed. And the big names making that push were: a cissexist trans dude; a trans masc nb person; a cis woman who has a trans man partner who is her exception, and who is open about fetishizing trans women to avoid processing her baggage. And now The 100 fandom is arguably the most saturated femslash-centered fandom when it comes to a/b/o and g!p.
And Lexa has been effectively ruined for me because I can hardly think of her and not think about all the ways she’s been weaponized against me and other trans women.
And so I blame those g!p-writing authors, their stories, and their readership, for making fandom a harmful, dangerous, hostile space for trans women. I can absolutely fairly lay that blame on them.
So yeah, another 5900 words on why g!p is absolutely harmful and people should stop writing and reading it if they care about trans women and intersex women.
Sharing this again because it should have all the notes and conversation.
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.
The Doctor Is Out 