Was she going to slap you because you never in any way made him gay in the actual books, taking zero risks/doing absolutely nothing for gay characters in literature, and only announcing your “authorial intent” afterwards for a cheap shot at looking like an ~ally~
^^^
Gay people are just normal people. We are not told about any of the Hogwarts professors love lives, other than Snape, and it would be completely out of character for Dumbledore to walk around telling everyone about his sexuality.
Did you want her to make him dress in glittery platform boots, a crop top, and decorate his office in rainbow flags to make it more obvious for you? Would that be enough of a stereotype to appease you people? Or what? Please tell me. I’d like to know how you think a gay character is supposed to be portrayed.
And did you miss the Grindelwald chapters in the ‘actual books’? Or was that also not obvious enough for you? Did Dumbledore need to whisper “always” wistfully in order for you to connect that he had romantic feelings for Grindelwald? Maybe you are American and need them to gaze longingly into each others eyes with awkward close ups of their fingers almost grazing each other that Hollywood thinks means ‘true love’.
It didn’t fit into his relationship to Harry to ever say “I’m gay”, and so it was not stated explicitly (you might have noticed the book was told from Harry Potter’s perspective).
The point is though, that he is a homosexual, well respected, powerful, and very loved wizard- and his sexuality doesn’t matter because no one else thinks it matters. a.k.a. no one cares that he loves men, and that is wonderful.
^ THANK
And yet I knew he was gay in the first book. Fancy that.
Um….
Did you want her to make him dress in glittery platform boots, a crop top, and decorate his office in rainbow flags to make it more obvious for you?
In the very first chapter of the very first book I believe he’s wearing high-heeled boots and a an eye-smarting robe with stars all over it… that’s my memory anyway, I’d have to check.
But no really, there is valid criticism to be had here.
Because Jo Rowling made a choice to have the only gay charterer in seven books be someone who was elderly, celibate, and had no reason to ever mention his sexuality any time in the canon.
Saying ‘Dumbledore was gay’ after the last book is published is spineless and meaningless move that allows her to say that she wrote a gay character without actually working at portraying a gay character and facing the criticisms that come from portraying a gay character while her works were still in progress.
What does this mean about Authorial Intent re: the sexualities that we are to presume of all the other characters (after all, she didn’t say anyone else was gay)?
If the character’s sexuality is not apparent in the canon, then it’s up to fan interpretation and the fans are not wrong about it. Your post-work declarations are not valid, author. Time for me to once again quote Ferretbrain:
“As far as Rowling is concerned, Harry Potter is not a series of cultural artifacts existing within the world, but a world that exists in her imagination. This is why she feels so free to amend, interpret, and justify the text after its publication. As far as she’s concerned (and, as other FB articles have discussed, as far as a depressingly large number of other people are concerned) the Harry Potter universe has a distinct, external reality and the process of reading about Harry Potter is a process of bringing your understanding into line with this distinct, external reality. Essentially a person’s appreciation of Harry Potter (as far as Rowling is concerned) can be judged exclusively in terms of how closely it matches her own.”
The entire post on this subject, “What The Fucking Fucking Fuck JK Rowling?” is also really worthwhile.
Basically, ROWLING IS NOT CORRECT. If she didn’t write, in the books, anything that indicates that Dumbledore is gay, her declaration that he is because she’s the author and she says so is worth approximately squat in terms of character interpretation from the text, because the text is a thing that exists.
JK Rowling didn’t write, in her text, any explicitly sexual relationships. No one is stated to be having sex with anyone else at any time during the events at Hogwarts. We can infer in some instances that sex has occurred between characters; we can infer that Molly and Arthur Weasley have had a bunch of sex because they have seven kids. We know explicitly that Merope Gaunt raped Tom Riddle Sr. with the use of drugs, because that story was explicitly told. But no one has sex or even is said to be having sex on the page. Hence it is legitimate to debate whether it happened/is happening/will happen at any point in the story. What this means is that Rowling has no characters that are explicitly gay because she never shows characters in explicitly homosexual relationships. Just like she has no characters who are explicitly trans, and no characters that are explicitly outside of the gender binary. Not having characters like this is -safe- because the erasure of such characters is ubiquitous. These are marked categories of humanity. If we are not given explicit details about certain things pertaining to characters, it is an unfortunate fact that we, the readers, live in a culture where certain things are to be presumed about them. A character that is not described physically is presumed to be white, cis, able-bodied, and of averge weight and height. A character who isn’t in a romantic relationship with anyone and doesn’t have any sexual thoughts about anyone is presumed to be straight. It is not the fault of the reader for presuming these things, because these are assumptions that the author generally expects the reader to make; characters are from default classes of existence (Male, white, straight, able, average) until described otherwise. This is why white characters’ skintone is seldom described in fiction but black characters’ skin tone -always is- and why if a director makes a casting choice in which a character whose skintone in not described is played by a person of color, the fandom rants and raves and rends the heavens. It’s also why many readers feel totally comfortable ‘not picturing the character that way’ even when the character IS explicitly of color. Because white is default. Straight is default. Cis is default. POC, Gay, and Trans are -marked-.
Everyone go read “He’s Gay, and He’s Native American: Rowling and Scalzi Claim Marginal Identities for Charcters After the Fact”. I’ll wait here.
When an author declares information about a character that is not indicated on the page in any way, and says ‘I always envisioned them thus’…that’s useless to us as readers. When an author further says ‘If you envisioned the character some other way than the way I envisioned them, and you’re upset that I didn’t indicate that the character was that way, it’s your own fault. I always thought they were black and if you think the fact that I never described them as black means they’re white, it is you who are racist!’ that’s…. a fucking horrible, spineless move. SHAME ON YOU, AUTHOR. MOTHERFUCKING SHAME.
So yeah, maybe that’s why the reader looked like they wanted to slap you, JK. Just a thought.
Also, let me address this:
Did you want her to make him dress in glittery platform boots, a crop top, and decorate his office in rainbow flags to make it more obvious for you? Would that be enough of a stereotype to appease you people?
No one is asking for Dumbledore to have been ‘more gay’.
Her not mentioning Dumbledore’s sexuality in canon is not bad. It’s perfectly valid to have characters whose sexuality is never mentioned at all because it’s not important to the plot. Much like it’s ok to have characters about whom we know fuck all because they are not important to the plot. If the protag has a short conversation with a person identified only as ‘The police officer’ who is never even referred to by pronouns and who doesn’t appear again, absolutely nothing can be determined about that character other than that the protag believes them to be a police officer. And that’s fine.
Knowing shit about your characters that never makes it to the page is fine. I myself have many characters who only briefly appear in the work but who, in my own little head, have whole life stories before and after their appearance in the text. And that’s fine.
What isn’t fine is the author then going ahead and telling us all kinds of things about that character and pretending like they’re true because that’s what the author intended.
Dumbledore, like most of the characters in Harry Potter, doesn’t have a canon sexuality.
That’s not a problem at all. It just means that all bets are off and that no one’s speculations can be wrong (or right) because there is not enough evidence in the canon for anyone’s claims. It isn’t there on the page.
Once your canon is closed, you don’t get to add to it. That’s how canon works. ‘Dumbledore is gay’ is no more canon than ‘Dumbledore is straight’ or ‘Dumbledore is asexual’ or ‘Dumbledore is only sexually attracted to pink wereleopards from mars’ because Dumbledore’s sexuality is not a part of the story. My beef with JK Rowling’s declaration after the fact of Dumbledore’s gayness is that she’s basically trying to get the attention of having a gay character…without actually having had a gay character.
I want you to read these two other ferretbrain articles; they’re about race, but they could easily be about sexuality because they’re really about portrayals of marginalized characters and lack thereof:
Musings on Race in Fantasy or: Why Ron Weasley isn’t Black
Race, Brand and the Placebo Effect
Let me quote from that second one:
To put it another way, just imagine for a moment that Harry Potter had been a black kid. Of course first you need to get over the fact that it would then be a book about a black kid who gets rescued from his abusive black family by a kindly white guy, but if we assume that Harry was black and the Potter books weren’t written in such a way that “Muggle” was effectively a racial slur. You would then have a situation in which the single most recognised fictional character in the world was a black kid (not only a black kid, but a black British kid). It would be huge, just like it was huge the first time they let an actual black guy play Othello. It wouldn’t matter in the slightest that Harry Potter didn’t listen to hip-hop or talk about Malcom X or use “urban” slang or do whatever else it is that white people seem to think black people have to do in fiction to properly represent “black culture”. The simple fact of the most popular fictional character in the world having black skin would have been huge. It would have changed the way a generation of children thought about race, and it would have changed it for the better. It wouldn’t have been a miracle, it wouldn’t have abolished racism overnight, but it would have done more good than any three government initiatives you might care to name.
What if Dumbledore had actually been gay on the page? What if it was a known and explicit fact that he (or any character, for that matter) had during the books or in the past been involved in a romantic relationship with someone of the same sex? Not implied, not hinted, not ‘read between the lines, reader!’ - STATED. What if, in the best-selling Childrens/YA series in recent years, in a series of books that were a generational phenomenon, there were one or more characters who actually affectionately cheek-kissed and held hands with characters of the same sex. Attended the school dance with characters of the same sex. Had childish crushes on members of the same sex. Set up households and raised children with characters of the same sex. Existed, in canon, as explicitly gay characters. Not as ‘the author said it, so it must be true’ after the fact bullshit; undeniable and incontrovertible statement on the page during the story.
That would have been amazing.
“Dumbledore was gay because I said so” is a pale fucking imitation of what could have been. JK Rowling should not get ‘wrote a gay character’ props for her portrayal of Dumbedore.
Sperm donor fights attempts to force him to pay child support to lesbian couple
A sperm donor is fighting an effort to force him to pay child support for a child conceived through artificial insemination by a lesbian couple.
William Marotta told The Topeka Capital-Journal newspaper he’s “a little scared about where this is going to go, primarily for financial reasons.”
When the 46-year-old donated sperm to Angela Bauer and Jennifer Schreiner in 2009, Marotta relinquished all parental rights, including financial responsibility to the child. When Bauer and Schreiner filed for state assistance in Kansas this year, the state demanded the donor’s name so it could collect child support for the now 3-year-old girl. (AP Photo/The Topeka Capital Journal, Jeff Davis)Pay close attention folks. Neither of the women is suing this man for child support. The state is. The women, having gone through a divorce and having a child between them, should have been made to go through a judgment for custody and child support that effected only the two of them. Instead, because the state doesn’t like the idea of a lesbian couple, they are attempting to involve the donor. The problem with this is that had this been a heterosexual couple who had sought a donor and artificial insemination due to infertility, the court would not go after the donor, but would have sought child support between the couple. But because lesbians are involved, now they go after the donor. Homophobic bullshit.
Reblogging for generalbriefing’s commentary, which is spot on.
That is all kinds of fucked up.
Oh the MRAs are gonna love this.
Also note the details: under state law, sperm donations made through a licensed physician or clinic are granted legal immunity from paternity claims, but privately made sperm donations are not covered by this immunity and are legally considered biological parents no matter who actually raises the kids. This sounds fair until you realize that only heterosexual cis couples have access to sperm donations through licensed physicians and clinics, a perfect example of how “neutral” laws can be written and enforced in a way that actually supports discrimination.
Emphasis mine.
When somebody writes “bio” but means “cis” I wait for them to write a biography about men or women.
what are you talking about
im not biological anything
im actually a complex network of blogs that has gained self awareness
Last year at this Womyn’s Film Night event, I had this older lady ask me if I was “eligible” to go to MichFest. When I asked her what she meant, she lowered her voice and asked, “You know…are you a bio-woman?”
My response that I was in fact an android did not sit well with her.
You are, by the way, STILL my hero for saying that.
Just sayin’.
omg
ILU
(Source: write-on-red)
(Rebloggable version of this reply, per request.)
Well, here’s the deal, anon. The Salvation Army is an evangelical Christian group, and they impose those beliefs on the people that they employ and the communities they serve. Here are a few examples:
They are so opposed to LGBT rights that they have lobbied multiple times for exemptions from Federal and Local anti-discrimination laws, and threatened to withdraw their services.
They refused to provide shelter to a homeless gay couple, unless they broke up and renounced their homosexuality.
They refused to provide a transgender woman with shelter that was congruent with her gender presentation, instead insisting she house with men. She chose instead to sleep on the sidewalk and died from the cold.
Speaking of gender, there was also this charming incident where one of their hostels refused to open the door for a 17-year-old victim who had just been brutally raped (or even call the police for her) because that particular hostel had a strict “men only” policy.
Children who can’t prove their immigration status are turned away.
The organization also disposes of any Harry Potter or Twilight related donations (rather than giving them to other charities), because they claim the toys are “incompatible with the charity’s Christian beliefs”.
During the Bush Administration (thanks to ‘faith-based initiatives’) they fired about 20 long-time employees (Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Gay), simply for refusing to sign the organization’s statement of Christian belief.
So, that—in a nutshell—is what’s wrong with it.
Winter is coming… and so are their buckets. Remember this when they’re bothering you for change.
![megidoparty:
pixiemoon42:
fucknodansavage:
zloi-medved:
dan savage is the person who founded the It Gets Better campaign, and is also reknowned for his “Savage Love” advice column that deals with sex, sexuality, love, and whatever other freaky stuff readers write in about
and he’s like, totally all about GSM rights, y’all!
as long as you’re a white cis homosexual male, anyway.
oh, and don’t be fat. being fat is sooooooo gross.
there’s this lovely incident where he tells a reader who indentifies as “minimally sexual” (somewhere between the spectrum of asexual and heterosexual) and all minimally sexual and asexual everywhere to stop “inflicting themselves” upon “normally sexual” people.
With all the minimally sexuals out there making normally sexuals miserable, NSNA, it should be obvious to all regular readers that there’s not exactly a shortage of people who aren’t interested in sex. With that being the case, why would you even contemplate inflicting yourself on a normally sexual person? Why not go find another minimally sexual person? You’ll be doing your minimally sexual self a favor, you’ll be doing your future minimally sexual partner a favor, and you’ll be doing all normally sexual persons everywhere a favor by removing two minimals—you and your future partner—from the dating pool.
what a fucking asshole
in the same column, talking to a woman who recently came out as queer, he refers to her tactic of telling a bisexual friend she doesn’t want to pursue a relationship because she’s still unstable from the coming-out process as “a baby-dyke variation on “I’m just not ready for a relationship right now.”“
“baby-dyke” lmao okay asshole
we also have this awesome incident where a woman writes in about how her once-gay-ex-husband-now-transexual-ex-wife has gone through a series of events in her life - first, coming out as gay, and then being diagnosed with HIV, and now declaring that she is undergoing hormone treatment and preparing for surgery to become a woman. this is having a negative impact on their 15yo son, and the mother writes in, concerned.
savage’s response? he repeatedly refers to her ex as a tranny and as a man, and just shows very little regard for the whole situation in general.
Divorced parents, gay dad, the HIV bombshell… and now, so suddenly, a woman. That’s an awful lot for a high-school-age kid, especially a boy, to deal with. The tranny activists are going to jump down my throat for this, but… it seems to me that your ex could’ve put off the sex change until after his son was out of high school. One of the things parents are supposed to do is make sacrifices, big and small, for the sake of their children. And while I think people have a right to do pretty much as they please (and parents are people), I also believe that children have a right to some stability and constancy from the adults in their lives. Perhaps I’m a transphobic bigot, but I honestly think waiting a measly 36 months to cut your dick is a sacrifice any father should be willing to make for his 15-year-old son. Call me old-fashioned.
Unfortunately, your ex wasn’t willing to make that sacrifice (selfish tranny!), or it never occurred to him to make that sacrifice (stupid tranny!).
what a fucking piece of work
(same article, he also states that sexually dominant women are rare… okay :/ he must have poor google skills)
he basically says no one should date bisexual people because they’re all sleazy heartbreakers:
I’m not saying bi guys are bad people, or they don’t make great one-night stands. Bushes, bathhouses, and sleazy gay bars are crawling with bi guys. But if a guy wants more, he’ll have an easier time getting it from another gay man.
[…]
Judging from my mail, Andrew, when a gay guy or a straight girl gets involved with a bi guy, someone always winds up getting hurt. And guess what? It’s rarely the bi guy. So while I wish the rules and the risks were the same for everyone, it seems that in this instance they’re not.
[…]
No, there are definitely some people who should fool around with bisexual men: OTHER BISEXUAL MEN! Jesus Christ, bisexuals — if straights and gays treat you unfairly, then why not turn to each other for love and comfort? Judging from my mail of late, there’s an unlimited supply of easily offended, extremely verbose, highly ethical bisexuals out there looking for love. Fuck each other!
REMEMBER KIDS, ONLY EVER PURSUE A RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR OWN KIND! DON’T CROSS THE STREAMS! DON’T DIRTY THE BLOODLINES!
one of his crowning moments of sheer asshatery, where a rape survivor writes in with concerns about a previous article.
he starts off okay:
I’m extremely sorry that you were raped, DRARS,
but then it just gets
so much worse
so quickly
although your baseless accusations of rape make me doubt your claim to be a survivor of rape. The feminist bloggers are going to accuse me of thought crimes: If a woman says she was raped then, by God, she was raped. (Tell it to the lacrosse team.) If this is a thought crime, well, I plead entrapment: I wouldn’t have had these illegal thoughts if you hadn’t sent me such a stupid letter in the first place.
so basically “sorry you got raped but lol i don’t believe you really did and now i’m going to mock you”
the letter she was expressing concern about was a man who has a sexual fetish for fucking a woman while she’s asleep. his wife consented while awake, but in her sleep, she “whimpers, turns away, and otherwise makes herself inaccessible”. if that isn’t her body clearly unconsciously expressing that it does not comfortable with those sexual advances, i don’t know what is.
savage gave the man the advice to drug his wife so she would be more prone while sleeping. he then states, “I’d be willing to pop a sleeping pill now and then to keep my boyfriend happy, so why not Ambien?”
because how he thinks and feels and would act is the blueprint of how everyone should, clearly!
he finishes it off beautifully.
I hereby withdraw my consent for you to read Savage Love. If you continue to read my column against my will, well, we all know what word to apply to your actions.
who let this man near an equality movement?
he continues to show stunning disregard for asexuality when he apparently disparages the sexuality on a podcast (that i refuse to listen to - his grating, pompous voice dripping with crass superiority gives me a headache), and receives this letter from an asexual woman who only discovered that asexuality even existed several months into a relationship, explaining her asexuality, and was completely open with her boyfriend about it. she was fully expecting to get dumped, but her boyfriend was very understanding and they’d been together three years as of the sending of the email.
in savage’s response, he says the only possible way any man could ever love her and want to pursue a relationship with her is if they were “either a fool or a fag”.
then he expresses the belief that homophobic POC can do way more damage to white homosexuals than racist homosexuals can do to POC.
i
um
ok?????????????????????//
and as the piece de resistance, an anon super helpfully reminded me of the FUCKNODANSAVAGE tumblr
for your browsing convenience
^ This is like a greatest hits summary of why we exist!
I FUCKING HATE DAN SAVAGE.
excellent](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdcw6hg5Sw1qeb0j8o1_500.png)
dan savage is the person who founded the It Gets Better campaign, and is also reknowned for his “Savage Love” advice column that deals with sex, sexuality, love, and whatever other freaky stuff readers write in about
and he’s like, totally all about GSM rights, y’all!
as long as you’re a white cis homosexual male, anyway.
oh, and don’t be fat. being fat is sooooooo gross.
there’s this lovely incident where he tells a reader who indentifies as “minimally sexual” (somewhere between the spectrum of asexual and heterosexual) and all minimally sexual and asexual everywhere to stop “inflicting themselves” upon “normally sexual” people.
With all the minimally sexuals out there making normally sexuals miserable, NSNA, it should be obvious to all regular readers that there’s not exactly a shortage of people who aren’t interested in sex. With that being the case, why would you even contemplate inflicting yourself on a normally sexual person? Why not go find another minimally sexual person? You’ll be doing your minimally sexual self a favor, you’ll be doing your future minimally sexual partner a favor, and you’ll be doing all normally sexual persons everywhere a favor by removing two minimals—you and your future partner—from the dating pool.
what a fucking asshole
in the same column, talking to a woman who recently came out as queer, he refers to her tactic of telling a bisexual friend she doesn’t want to pursue a relationship because she’s still unstable from the coming-out process as “a baby-dyke variation on “I’m just not ready for a relationship right now.”“
“baby-dyke” lmao okay asshole
we also have this awesome incident where a woman writes in about how her once-gay-ex-husband-now-transexual-ex-wife has gone through a series of events in her life - first, coming out as gay, and then being diagnosed with HIV, and now declaring that she is undergoing hormone treatment and preparing for surgery to become a woman. this is having a negative impact on their 15yo son, and the mother writes in, concerned.
savage’s response? he repeatedly refers to her ex as a tranny and as a man, and just shows very little regard for the whole situation in general.
Divorced parents, gay dad, the HIV bombshell… and now, so suddenly, a woman. That’s an awful lot for a high-school-age kid, especially a boy, to deal with. The tranny activists are going to jump down my throat for this, but… it seems to me that your ex could’ve put off the sex change until after his son was out of high school. One of the things parents are supposed to do is make sacrifices, big and small, for the sake of their children. And while I think people have a right to do pretty much as they please (and parents are people), I also believe that children have a right to some stability and constancy from the adults in their lives. Perhaps I’m a transphobic bigot, but I honestly think waiting a measly 36 months to cut your dick is a sacrifice any father should be willing to make for his 15-year-old son. Call me old-fashioned.
Unfortunately, your ex wasn’t willing to make that sacrifice (selfish tranny!), or it never occurred to him to make that sacrifice (stupid tranny!).
what a fucking piece of work
(same article, he also states that sexually dominant women are rare… okay :/ he must have poor google skills)
he basically says no one should date bisexual people because they’re all sleazy heartbreakers:
I’m not saying bi guys are bad people, or they don’t make great one-night stands. Bushes, bathhouses, and sleazy gay bars are crawling with bi guys. But if a guy wants more, he’ll have an easier time getting it from another gay man.
[…]
Judging from my mail, Andrew, when a gay guy or a straight girl gets involved with a bi guy, someone always winds up getting hurt. And guess what? It’s rarely the bi guy. So while I wish the rules and the risks were the same for everyone, it seems that in this instance they’re not.
[…]
No, there are definitely some people who should fool around with bisexual men: OTHER BISEXUAL MEN! Jesus Christ, bisexuals — if straights and gays treat you unfairly, then why not turn to each other for love and comfort? Judging from my mail of late, there’s an unlimited supply of easily offended, extremely verbose, highly ethical bisexuals out there looking for love. Fuck each other!
REMEMBER KIDS, ONLY EVER PURSUE A RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR OWN KIND! DON’T CROSS THE STREAMS! DON’T DIRTY THE BLOODLINES!
one of his crowning moments of sheer asshatery, where a rape survivor writes in with concerns about a previous article.
he starts off okay:
I’m extremely sorry that you were raped, DRARS,
but then it just gets
so much worse
so quickly
although your baseless accusations of rape make me doubt your claim to be a survivor of rape. The feminist bloggers are going to accuse me of thought crimes: If a woman says she was raped then, by God, she was raped. (Tell it to the lacrosse team.) If this is a thought crime, well, I plead entrapment: I wouldn’t have had these illegal thoughts if you hadn’t sent me such a stupid letter in the first place.
so basically “sorry you got raped but lol i don’t believe you really did and now i’m going to mock you”
the letter she was expressing concern about was a man who has a sexual fetish for fucking a woman while she’s asleep. his wife consented while awake, but in her sleep, she “whimpers, turns away, and otherwise makes herself inaccessible”. if that isn’t her body clearly unconsciously expressing that it does not comfortable with those sexual advances, i don’t know what is.
savage gave the man the advice to drug his wife so she would be more prone while sleeping. he then states, “I’d be willing to pop a sleeping pill now and then to keep my boyfriend happy, so why not Ambien?”
because how he thinks and feels and would act is the blueprint of how everyone should, clearly!
he finishes it off beautifully.
I hereby withdraw my consent for you to read Savage Love. If you continue to read my column against my will, well, we all know what word to apply to your actions.
who let this man near an equality movement?
he continues to show stunning disregard for asexuality when he apparently disparages the sexuality on a podcast (that i refuse to listen to - his grating, pompous voice dripping with crass superiority gives me a headache), and receives this letter from an asexual woman who only discovered that asexuality even existed several months into a relationship, explaining her asexuality, and was completely open with her boyfriend about it. she was fully expecting to get dumped, but her boyfriend was very understanding and they’d been together three years as of the sending of the email.
in savage’s response, he says the only possible way any man could ever love her and want to pursue a relationship with her is if they were “either a fool or a fag”.
i
um
ok?????????????????????//
and as the piece de resistance, an anon super helpfully reminded me of the FUCKNODANSAVAGE tumblr
for your browsing convenience
^ This is like a greatest hits summary of why we exist!
I FUCKING HATE DAN SAVAGE.
excellent
(Source: bullshitcockroach)
[tw: transphobia, ableism, murder, suicide] Train Wrecks at the Intersections
Comparing axes of oppression is often a terrible idea for many reasons. That is why I’m not attaching this to anyone else’s post; one of those reasons is that in those discussions, certain people’s voices get heard and other people’s voices are silenced, and I don’t want to do that to anyone, or have it done to me.
But when I came across this article by the mother of a trans man, the excruciating parallels of dehumanization from a parent with the overwhelmingly dominant narrative of “autism parents” in the media was horrifying, all-too-familiar, and triggering as fuck on a few levels for me.
To be clear: I’m a genderqueer (two-spirited; a specifically Native/Indigenous gender identity) person but I am still privileged over trans folks, especially trans women. I’ve been the target of quite a bit of abuse and awfulness specifically for not “conforming to gender”, especially as a child. But I cannot claim the trans experience because mine has been different in some important ways.
I’m also autistic as fuck.
When A.W. Paul, the author of the awful “parent of a trans person” story, says a sentence like,
Now the issue was knocking at my door.
about her own child, the dehumanization and easy willingness to reduce a human being to an issue reads all too much like an article published last year in the same section of the same damn publication, in which the author T. Fields-Meyer writes about his son with autism:
So what’s the parent of a living, breathing autism specimen to do with the constant barrage of speculation?
And when Paul says this about her trans child, I just about cried because it was all too familiar:
A transgender child brings a parent face to face with death. The daughter I had known and loved was gone; a stranger with facial hair and a deep voice had taken her place.
This narrative is practically verbatim the same exact dominant narrative in the media about autistic people. If you don’t believe me, have a gander at this guide to grieving over having an autistic child instead of the “normal” one you think the universe owed you, straight from Autism Speaks, a multimillion dollar organization dedicated to ruining autistic people’s lives:
Many parents must mourn some of the hopes and dreams they held for their child before they can move on. There will probably be many times when you feel extremely sad. With time, your sadness may give way to anger.Although anger is a natural part of the process, you may find that it’s directed at those closest to you – your child, your spouse, your friend or at the world in general. You may also feel resentment toward parents of typical children.
Then, when Fields-Meyer relates a comment from a *friend*:
Trying to make me feel better, she said, “When you have four children, you’re bound to have one who is a failure.”
It reads so much like every goddamn article from “autism parents”, the ones who utterly dominate just about every facet of media about autism. An excerpt from a fairly typical article barfed out in an internet search:
Then I realized: it’s not just about Tom. It’s about us: Tom’s parents.
In the long run, when our child is judged - and she will be judged - it’s us parents who are taking the brunt of the judgement, for better or for worse.
All too often, of course, no matter what we do as parents, our child with autism will always be judged as not quite good enough.And a gem from the comments:
It’s raining here, I’m likely taking in fewer negative ions, or I’m tired, today I will say autism is my personal failure.
Essential characteristics of both narratives:
- dehumanization of the child and reduction of the child to “an issue” that affects the parent more than the child.
- The “this is all about ME” perspective.
- Invocation of images of death; a “real” or “normal” child gone or disappeared and replaced by a stranger
- constant concern over public opinion towards the parent for having a child that does not conform to expectations
- speaking of the child as an embodiment of failure; either on the part of the parent or the child (notice A. W. Paul only gets jarred out of mourning when a “friend” implies a failure on her part as a parent, for fucks sakes)
That being said, it’s sad to note that either trans people or autistic people might be offended by comparison to the other group. Both are heavily stigmatized, and there is another effect of these specific narratives that manifests in the most horrible way possible:
That is the effect of dehumanization. Of literally being viewed as less than human, other than human, not a person.
The psychological and physical ramifications of being treated and talked about this way by our own parents, by those who created us and are supposed to love us, are nigh unbearable, and are in fact unbearable for so many of us.
Perhaps I’m stepping out of line with this comparison. I may be completely and utterly talking out of my ass on this. There are so many other overlapping issues that add to these oppressions, especially race. Being a person of color, and in particular being a Black person, adds so many attendant risks to just trying to exist…it boggles the mind.
Part of my perspective is shaped by having been a part of a LGBT community from 12 or 13 years of age, and understanding that transgender people are the most vulnerable among us, and that in many ways we must form a protective buffer around the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters. Whether in the form of a couch to sleep on, a few bucks for food, a listening ear, or to fight tooth and nail against those who would do them harm.
My heart bleeds and screams and cries out for solidarity among those of us whose normal human variation leaves us without protection, betrayed by those who are supposed to love and cherish us, and to also point out that those of us who are both autistic and transgender (and genderqueer in various ways, and/or are people of color-especially Black people) are exponentially more vulnerable as these factors crowd and try to drown out our voices.
What I’m really trying to say is that I firmly believe that it is our moral, human duty to protect the things about humanity that are so worth protecting: those of us who are vulnerable. And so much of protecting those who are precious to us is about fighting; fighting tooth and nail for our right to exist, for our right to live without the constant barrage of dehumanization. I will fight every day to chew a hole in the world for myself and for those who can barely breathe in this world without being threatened with obliteration.
yep….all of that is pretty much exactly what my parents said about me being trans/intersexed
Moffat doesn’t believe in queer representation, he believes in using queer characters to appear ‘cheeky’ and ‘off-centered’!
I can’t at this moment put into words why that bothers me so much, but oohhh it does.
If anyone else wants to do it for me, be my guest.
Original interview here.
(via grafityvalls)
i would guess because it turns queer people into “cheeky”, “off-centered” attractions to be used for ratings and a ~*fun quirky tone*~ instead of just… people
(via oodlyenough)
Right. This is why I actually don’t like Moffat as opposed to just having a problem with some aspects of his writing. He’s basically just sat there telling afterelton how gay characters are quirky accessories to his cis-het male leads.
I just…I can’t even express how much shit like this pisses me off.
(via feministinthetardis)
hahahahaha srsly fuq u so much moffat
(Source: agendawhale)
Why I Love My Mother
Shade's mom: Sir, I don't care if you have orgies every Tuesday night so long as you get your job done.
Politician: ...
Shade's mom: Also, if "traditional family values" is a sneaky way of saying "anti-gay marriage stance," you should know that my daughter is bisexual, and if I never get to cry at her wedding because some law you passed made her wedding illegal, I will personally see that your wife of 28 years has a lesbian awakening in time for you to discover the virtues of traditional divorce.
Politician: ...you have yourself a nice day, m'am.
Not only is “sex” more complex and less concrete than most people assume it to be, it’s also not even a useful categorization system for determining who does and does not experience discrimination, ostracization, violence and oppression.
Oppression…
Today my sister watched me put on my binder before I went to school.
She asked me if it hurt. I said sometimes, and showed her some of my bruises from it.
She asked me why I do it, I said because it makes me feel human.
She said, “At least you’re not an alien.”
“But I am an alien. In my own body. I don’t see myself as you see me. To me these things aren’t here,” I replied pointing to my chest.
I went to school. I just got home, took off my binder, and saw a piece of paper sticking out from my pillow. I moved my pillow and found this.
Can I just be honest and say I have the sweetest little sister in the world and that she has completely made me bawl my eyes out.
Thank you so, so much little sis. And yes, every penny counts.
I love you, kiddo. More than anything.#wellThatmademeTearUp.
(Source: cjshark)
This spectre of rape that cis lesbian “radfems” habitually raise, centered around the supposed inherent threat of the phallus, minimizes the appalling rates of physical and sexual violence committed against trans women, particularly trans women of color and sex workers. It also twists the picture of systemic violence to make it look like trans women are a huge, systemic threat to cis lesbians when in fact trans women as a group face incredible systemic barriers in almost every aspect of life.
Certainly there are individual cases of interpersonal violence that one could bring up involving a perpetrator of any description. But, although I may not be 100% comfortable with the mental image of panty-ripping, I find it ludicrous to suggest that trans women, in pointing out their exclusion from lesbian sexual communities and the relationship between common lack of cis lesbian desire for trans women and the structural problem of cissexism/transmisogyny, are threatening rape of cis lesbians or perpetuating rape culture.
For once, I actually recommend you read the comments. They’re just as awful as usual, but they’re also absolutely hilarious. If you can handle the foaming vitriol, the RadFem flailing is just precious.
My particular favorite is Sharon’s totally straight-faced assertion that she “instictively know[s] the difference between a genetic female and a genetic male” and “can actually feel the male energy from MTF transsexuals.”M2Ts rarely pass as female. It is usually painfully obvious that the “woman” in front of you is a dude wearing a dress and some lippy. Even if they look female, the male socialization will give them away almost every time. Dudes pretending to be women think they’re so sneaky, but they’re not.
Even when they manage to look female that day, their voices usually give them away in a heartbeat.
MTFs get pretty mad at a lot of FTMs for this whole issue, I’ve noticed, and tell them that now they have male privilege and “passing privilege” as a way of silencing them within the trans community through making them feel guilty.
…is this… transphobia… on behalf of trans men? da fuq?
also trans men do have privilege over trans women because it is usually easier for them to pass and society is less accepting of trans women…? (a fact which you literally just demonstrated with your post…)
also um it isn’t silencing to point out someone’s privilege over you
that’s like
the exact opposite thing
wat
I don’t even
wat.
[TW: Cissexism, radfems insulting every rape survivor on earth]
You know what, I’m going to take hormones, have surgery, lose ‘friends’ and ‘family’, increase my risk of homelessness, joblessness, physical and sexual violence, and spend thousands of hours and dollars navigating a hostile medical bureaucracy; because that way I’ll be able to finally infiltrate the super-secret radical feminist clubhouse and rape them all.
Oh, and as a nice side bonus maybe I’ll absorb some of their ‘feminine energy’ to use for my nefarious patriarchal plot for female subjugation.
"No trans woman ever (via smirkingbenevolence)
Didn’t you know? We’re a vast vampiric patriarchal conspiracy to build Miranda coils everywhere and steal the pink lightning that is uterus magic from all the cis ladies.
(via genderbitch)
Obviously, I mean if you’re going to rape cis women, putting yourself through hellish transition for years–having no idea if you’ll come out the other end alive or ever reach “the other end” at all, while losing everything you hold dear in the process–is the best way to do it. Cis men are such amateurs. They go and rape people (like, actual rape, involving nonconsensual sex and assertion of power and breaking the law and everything) and get back to their cis male lives, free to live off the back of male privilege, zero social stigma, and greater economic stability. So lazy! That’s like, rape on “easy” mode. Ferrealz.
I mean, they even do the physical rape stuff, which is child’s play. It takes a true pro to rape via telekinesis. Like, my magic tranny powers grant me two telekinetic abilities: spoon bending, and rape via merely existing. They’re both great at parties.
I don’t normally like being that flippant about these sorts of things, but how else to highlight the ridiculousness of that point of view? As a survivor of extreme abuse, it angers me just how far they’re willing to go to appropriate the rape survivor narrative for bigoted purposes. It’s so disgusting I have no choice left but to laugh.
(via amydentata)
I think perhaps it perpetuates the “gay unless otherwise stated” idea that keeps befalling female characters without a male romantic interest, especially characters who are not exactly feminine. While “straight unless otherwise stated” isn’t much better, why does the defined sexuality matter anyway?
omg stop pls
I think the issue that person above is getting at is that Merida is a badass in a rather masculine-coded way, so some people were basically saying “she’s not girly enough, she must be a lesbian,” more as a way of policing gender expression than as a legitimate speculation on the possibility of her queerness. It seems to me that SJ-types are getting antsy about people saying she’s a lesbian because it rings too much like the standard homophobic shaming of women who don’t conform to social standards of femininity.
That doesn’t mean that that she can’t or shouldn’t be read as queer, or that queer people can’t choose to see themselves as being represented in her, or that sexuality isn’t important and we should just ignore it and heterophobia (??? lol) is as bad as homophobia, etc., etc. (we’re all starstuff!!!!). The problem seems to be who is deciding she’s a lesbian, and why.
Like, it’s awesome for a queer person to say “haha, she’s totally a lesbian!” meaning, “I can totally identify with her and see in this movie issues that the queer community has to deal with, that is so great”
but it’s really not okay for a straight person to say “haha, she’s totally a lesbian!” meaning, “she is not adequately feminine and subservient to seem appropriately non-threatening to the patriarchy/fuckable to straight men, so I’m going to shame her and dismiss her story by arbitrarily lumping her in with a group that I already have no problem persecuting.”
Does that make any sense? Am I talking out of my ass here?oh no i get that and i agree, but with what the rest of the person’s post was saying i am hesitant to assume their point was to tell straight ppl off for perpetuating stereotypes? like, i was willing to consider the possibility that it’s what they meant but with the “~why does sexuality matter anyway~” later in the post it’s just ugh no
hmm yes that is much more obvious now that I have slept for 8 hours. this is why I shouldn’t Tumblr (tumbl?) after midnight. :P
but clearly the only resolution to this issue of assumption of gayness or not gayness is to have everyone be explicitly gay.
ALL THE LESBIANS
FOREVER!!
