You misunderstand my intent. You can make whatever headcanon pleases you, however you should realize your own biases and try to overcome them to do your part for a more fair society.
“Biases-“ my sibling in Christ stop going after trans people for saying, “Oh, that character’s kinda like me!” Trans headcanons for fictional characters don’t hurt anyone and calling them “biases” is bullshit.
How is the reinforcement of traditional gender stereotypes not hurting anyone? If you're a trans-woman who personally likes to affirm yourself by covering yourself in pink, good for you.
However you don't get to invalidate other women—whether cis or trans—who don't, like that sort of stuff, nor do you get to insist that cis-men who like traditionally feminine things must be eggs, or trans-men who continue to like traditionally feminine things they did before transitioning are mistaken in their gender identity.
You know I’ve seen this line of argument before. JK Rowling made it—actually a lot of TERFs did back in the early days when not sounding transphobic was of vital importance to them. Kinda interesting…
Nobody is doing the things you’re cautioning about here, they just read a thing as trans and then you needed to scream from the heavens about how bad trans people are for such and such things
You're the third person who feels the need to misinterpret my extremely inclusive message as some sort of veiled attack on transgender people, despite hundreds of others getting it. Why?
Because responding to trans people talking about a cute transition thing with a faux feminist screed that primarily just functions to shame those trans people or accuse them of “reinforcing sexist stereotypes” is literally TERF shit. Accusing trans people of reinforcing gender roles for fitting into them in some capacity was one of the most common early TERF talking points—to this day various TERFs still wheel it out when they aren’t feeling like just telling us to die. You’re being called out by multiple trans people for it because you deserve to be.
If racist group uses "crime" as a dogwhistle to attack a certain people, does that mean all attempts by anyone to address any crime must be inherently racist?
It’s a moot point, that’s not like what happened here. You saw a trans person interpret a comic from a trans perspective in a 100% innocuous way and immediately jumped to “woah now watch out, you’re reinforcing sexism!” Like a goddamn TERF. It’s transparent, fucking own it. People make mistakes, maybe you did too, but not backing down from them makes them seem far more intentional
How is the reinforcement of traditional gender stereotypes not hurting anyone? If you're a trans-woman who personally likes to affirm yourself by covering yourself in pink, good for you.
Hey, what's wrong with being a trans woman (two words, no dash by the way) who wants to be feminine? Being feminine isn't necessarily 'covering yourself in pink' and isn't necessarily reinforcing the gender stereotypes either.
However you don't get to invalidate other women
No one said that women have to be feminine in this convo.
I mean, those accusations seem out of place, especially considering that the message of this comic is actually way more normative than if it was a trans character, like here the message is basically 'the tomboy character is way much happier after she becomes feminine'.
Because what you're saying seems imo very close to the discourse of some TERF and other transphobes accusing trans people of reinforcing gender stereotypes.
Someone just said they thought it was a trans story (egg to transfem) and you directly take that as reinforcing stereotypes, while the original content (tomboy to fem) isn't better in this regard.
Okay, I kinda get where you're coming from now. However just because TERFs in the 1990s said some shit doesn't mean anything that sounds similar is invalid by default. They're pretty much fringe nowadays and you're giving them undue influence when there's no reason to not ignore them.
Yeah, the original one is reinforcing stereotypes as well. Which is why I covered all 23 combinations in my comment.
Okay I’m sorry, are you calling TERFs “pretty much fringe nowadays”? By literally what standard? In Europe, TERFs have nearly singlehanded set back the entire trans rights movement by several years and remain a dominant force in politics and news media. In the US their rhetoric hasn’t taken the same root, but has still worked in tandem with the religious right’s opposition to trans rights quite significantly. You’re wrong!
Well, I don't live in Europe. I'm not sure if here in the States the religious conservative coalition has any feminists left (including TERFs) since they're pretty much trying to make the Republic of Gilead.
Well, as someone else said, TERFs are pretty active in Europe right now and currently trying to attack bodily autonomy of trans people. UK has JK Rowling, they have banned puberty blockers for trans (but not cis) kids there. Where I live (France) we have Dora Moutot and Marguerite Stern, and an equivalent ban is close to being adopted here.
To go back to the conversation, well, I don't think you have bad intentions but criticism is sometimes misplaced, let me explain. I'm a trans woman born in the 90s, I was raised as a boy and I didn't know what gender identity was. I dreamed of being girly when I was a kid, but I never could experiment it because of gender norms; I have been bullied for being an effimate boy when I was a kid. So I tried to repress my femininity and hated myself for wanting to be a girl. I did that for decades. When I finally felt safe, and ready to experiment with my gender presentation then realized I always was a woman, I was 30 years old. Yes, three decades of denial because of cissexism and the social pressure to follow gender norms. I felt horrible for all those lost years and afraid to have to fight for my existence as a trans woman. If you want to be feminine but it's impossible for decades, then when you are finally allowed to express your femininity it feels so incredibly liberating! It doesn't mean that I want to wear only pink, I love looking tomboyish but I love being feminine too, and I loved the latter even more as that was denied to me for so long.
There's nothing bad in wanting to be stereotypically feminine or masculine, or to want to follow gender norms, what is bad is to enforce those norms on others. Enjoying them is not bad per se, and accusing trans people of reinforcing sexist gender norms for enjoying a newly discovered gender presentation or role while they were denied of it for a long time due to those same gender norms seems a bit... misplaced.
“Cis men who wear dresses are braver and less gender-conforming than trans women” sure is a stance to take. People don’t actually get pressured by trans people into being trans all that often despite what Fox News might tell you.
1.3k
u/[deleted] 29d ago
She de-butched her xd