This is ultimately a wider issue with all media critique, up to and including critique of the pornographic. Yes, many critiques will be motivated by conservatism or shame or a certain desire for respectability, denying that sex is a part of human life. But legitimate critiques exist too.

And well, some of us are trans women whose bodies are closer to the faceless, interchangeable block of masculinity that your more typical transfeminine subject wants to define her femininity against. That's not a problem of shame, folks. That's an entirely different set of problems.

To which I have to say... You know, these narratives of effeminization are ultimately a wish fulfillment about being able to extract femininity from certain kinds of bodies, about positioning yourself such that you are feminized, womanized, rendered consumable by contrast to masculinity.

And that's a back-and-forth worth having, but I want to focus on that. On shame. Specifically on the idea that any trans woman who has an issue with these tropes, these erotic narratives, is simply ashamed and trying to distance her legitimate transness from these shameful fetishistic caricatures.

Other girls will respond: that's bunk. So many of us found ourselves through such tropes because in a climate of near-total epistemicide, how else is a trans woman supposed to understand herself? Porn is the vector through which most of us learn of our own existence. That's shame talking.

This is obviously a contentious topic, and for good reasons. But the common narrative is that some girls want to distance themselves from these erotic milieus, these tropes and narratives that are largely pornographic, as something that is distinct from true, real transfemininity.

I'm in a mood to discuss this away from any discourse that precipitated it, so bear in mind I am not intentionally responding to anything right now. But I have a troubled relationship, let's say, with the attempted "reclamation" of things like sissy porn in transfem culture.

Who determines the fucking standards? Who will certify you as a standard-conforming individual? If there comes a time or a reason where someone with power can wield those standards against you, you will always be found too tall or broad or weak or gay or masculine or effeminate for comfort.

tl;dr

the contributors in this Bundle are some of the most creative and skilled people i’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. their art is so so so worth checking out. tell your friends. give this a gift to someone! it doesn’t matter. spread the word. support these amazing people

And there's still some stigma against these things for various reasons, including society's fetish for the natural, but that's only one aspect of transphobia, not the totality of it. The topic perhaps merits some degree of complexity and thought.

Cis people who avail of HRT and implants and so on "affirm" the right gender, the one they're supposed to, the role they have been charged with embodying all along. Trans people are trying to "affirm" the "wrong" gender. You can't compare these things so reductively, or you'll miss the point.

Like we're just doing this again. We keep euphemizing, downplaying and glossing over the fact that trans healthcare is specifically an issue because it permits us to change sex, because it moves us from one of society's rigidly bounded categories to another, and that's the whole fucking problem.

But even past that, consider what the term "gender-affirming care" elides! If a cis man takes steroids, we can call it HRT all we like. Sure, he's taking hormones to "affirm his gender"... but also he's not CHANGING his gender, is he? Man stays man. He's coloring within the lines, so to speak.

There's also the clear matter of cis people not really caring about hypocrisy. Puberty blocker bans for only trans youth clearly bear this out. Cis youth can still be prescribed blockers when needed, but for trans youth it's experimental and dangerous. The contradiction doesn't exist to them.

So firstly, is it okay when cis people do it? Many ads for cosmetic procedures bill themselves as "looking natural" or pride themselves on others not being able to tell you've had work done. There is obviously a stigma when it comes to this, a valuing of the "natural" over artifice and construction.

This is great, because I've been meaning to discuss the various fallacies and pitfalls that come with lumping together these things cis people do with trans healthcare and calling it all "gender-affirming". Starting with the idea that "it's okay when cis people do it but not trans people".

this is just me rambling and not actually forming a coherent thought atm but it does bother me how reductive people get about this topic and also how often the actions of Oppressor (who is real and actively doing violence!) get ignored in favor of telling a woman she is Doing It Wrong

some random woman the audience knows nothing about doing a makeup tutorial getting called a pick-me for caring about makeup while the dudes in the comment section are calling her a whore who would look better without makeup

how many times do people see a beautiful woman… including liberal/pop feminists… going through violent misogyny and act as if it’s her fault and she should have known better. and no i don’t mean conservative women who get their faces eaten by leopards. i mean sex workers, i mean trans women, i mean

looked at as the act of resistance that it is. but i just don’t think that it’s as simple as “burn your bras and throw away your razors to resist patriarchy.” idk, i just have a real beef with pop/liberal feminist stances on this that largely ignores how femininity is also punished and policed…

like at some point, the performance of hyper femininity is an act of resistance even if that falls well within the scope of society called “beauty standards.” because that hyper femininity gets punished anyway but women still do it. women performing masculinity is rightfully…

i’ve talked about misogynistic double binds a lot but that bind is a lot tighter than it has ever been and Men are more misogynistic than ever. there is truly no winning with people who fundamentally hate the existence of women and want nothing more than to strip women of every ounce of autonomy

i sort of wonder if it’s even really possible to “adhere to beauty standards set by the oppressor” when the oppressors of women so violently fucking hate women to begin with and there is no standard by which a woman can adhere to which meaningfully mitigates that violence

Good, striking cover, bold title that prompts questions... yeah I'd say so :3

While I find it important that his admin continues to say trans instead of backsliding - how about you do something about the hospitals that have stopped trans healthcare? You know, a campaign promise? If more people could back trans people, be loud, make him move.

I swear to god, EA.

People we admire are complex and it is impossible to align with them on everything because we are the products of our unique experiences and fallible.

You can share & donate to help the LGBTGIA+ community in the Gorom refugee camp in South Sudan. They're survivors of violent persecution, & urgently need help affording necessities including healthcare, food, and clean water:

A transformational book.

We keep having "do women of colour experience transphobia" discourses while the UK political landscape continues to hold up a giant middle finger at me specifically

I compartmentalize the horror re: the violence and destruction right now which leaves me with only what I can't, which is how much I loathe these guys for just who they are and how they talk and what they love and how they chose to live and their putrid culture etc. I just really hate these guys.

Happy pride! We're back with a new bundle, majority transfem and majority lesbian, with contributors from Ukraine, India, Thailand, and more. Feed and house queer creatives this month and get amazing, well-curated art! #lesfic itch.io/b/3691/brigh...

Pay black sex workers!

I can not begin to recommend Brown/Trans/Les enough. I was lucky enough to get to read some of these essays as they were being written, and Talia continues to do some of the most terrain-clarifying theoretical work in her field. Her work is as essential as essential gets.

Have you picked up @taliabhatt.itch.io's hit essay collection Brown/Trans/Les yet? Now is an excellent time for it, as part of this bundle!

Being transgender in a refugee camp means surviving fear while still holding onto hope. Pride in our hearts, fire in our eyes trans unafraid to be seen. We are visible✊️🏳️‍⚧️⛓️🏳️‍🌈 gofund.me/ec8207f5 #Pride #Trans #TransIsBeautiful #Gay #Queers #TransLives #EqualityForAll #RainbowPride

My 20th anniversary of graduating from high school is next year, and I genuinely don't know if any of my former friends would even begin to recognize me at this point except for the handful who have seen me in person since I transitioned.

I have only two emotions Careful fear and dead devotion I can't get the balance right With all my marbles in the fight I see all the ones I went for All the things I had it in for I won't cry until I hear 'Cause I was not supposed to be here

Can't you write it on the wall? You should know me better than that There's no room to write it all You should know me better than that Can you turn the TV down? You should know me better than that There's too much crying in the sound I should know you better than that

also that adult women look… well… like adults and not teenagers

I saw an advertisement on Reddit for someone's home-brewed board game called 'Ratcatcher' and immediately decided that I need a board game adaptation of 'Morvern Callar.'

Ok. So I went to the dentist and it was bad news. I got hit with a big bill. Any help would be greatly appreciated. gofund.me/5770fb997

know what would be just so cool? supporting a trans woman during pride ko-fi.com/faerynn

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wscQ... If you wanna get caught up on the saga, here's where to start. The TLDR: a store agreed to sell a man's collection on his behalf, the store changed hands, and now corporate and the franchise are stealing this collection and using the cops to get away with it

It's definitely prevalent in a lot of nerd culture spaces and it pisses me off because holy shit what an abusive and horrific church they are. It's why I dropped Sando Brando's work because he gives 10% of his income to them, they push bigotry and steal from families and get the cops to defend them

watching the whole Bricks and Minifigs saga and finding out it's a classic case of Mormon corruption. Unsurprised, I don't think enough people know how entrenched, powerful, and corrupt the Mormon church is and how many industries they've got claws in. SFF publishing is riddled with Mormon networks

I genuinely can't recommend J. Moufawad-Paul's Demarcation and Demystification enough if you have any interest in epistemology and the philosophy of Marxism.