fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3945 ]

[ SECRET POST #3945 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3945 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 47 secrets from Secret Submission Post #565.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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I'm not the OP and I don't agree with "cut it out, you make us look stupid", but I make that face a lot. I have no problem with out and public trans folk, but the density of nonbinary or ftm-identified people in the fandom population is ridiculous. A lot of them are very young, so I often find myself assuming that they just chose the extreme SJ version of "how to navigate the patriarchy". Certainly when you add how "cis straight white" places you at the bottom of the hierarchy of people who are allowed to have opinions on all things gay, how shipping is extremely political these days, and how I have never seen these people show up when I browse for het pairings.

Okay, first, I just want to note that OP came across to me like they're saying something about gender identity, not just talking about how people act in fandom - what with the square quotes around everything and all the rest of that. Maybe I'm wrong there, fair enough.

Second, my reaction to the point you're making is kind of - I think, 10 or 12 years ago, you could easily have had someone say that the density of queer people in fandom was ridiculous, and that people were only ID'ing as queer for the same reasons that you say people are identifying as nonbinary or trans. In fact I'm pretty sure I remember people actually saying that. And I think that would have been an incorrect judgment at that time, and I worry about doing the same thing now. I see where you're coming from but...

the density of nonbinary or ftm-identified people in the fandom population is ridiculous

I can't speak for everybody, but I came to m/m slash fandom because I'd always been drawn to gay male relationships without knowing why. I didn't know that it was possible to be a transgender man, let alone a gay one, and fandom is the place where I gradually found my identity. It took me a long damn time to be "out and public"--even now I'm only partially out offline.

Fandom is self-selecting for a lot of things, including minority/stigmatized sexual identities and genders. People who feel rejected in meatspace often find fandom, news at 11!

Maybe some of those people you find ridiculous really aren't trans. Maybe they're trying to work out their identities. Maybe they're even lying, though I find it unlikely. But you don't know that, and you don't know who, and scorning people who identify as trans or nonbinary can do real harm to folks who already face plenty of scorn and discrimination in their non-fandom lives.

I have never seen these people show up when I browse for het pairings

Seriously, what does that have to do with anything? People who don't read het can't actually be trans or nonbinary? You make no sense.

DA

I kinda wonder how much of this is a chicken or the egg sort of thing. Like slash has been around a good while but /this amount/ of transmen is new, but sort of person who usually participates (ie nerdy social outcast) isn't fundamentally different than say 20 years. So imo the current fandom and political climate outside of it makes so that more people consider the label.

Yeah, being trans or nonbinary is thinkable now. Fewer people are spending decades foundering around trying to figure out why they feel so different, or repressing it all.

And the availability of those identities maybe does mean that some people try them on for a while and decide that they don't fit. I don't get why that process of self-understanding is seen as a bad thing, or why it's so often assumed that people are lying. Maybe there are a few people who are actually lying for the SJW points (what a paltry reward!) but using that as a justification to doubt every trans and nonbinary person is really skeevy.

It's not just thinkable, it's trendy.

NAYRT but again, this is the same thing that people said about LGB people a decade ago

With the slight difference that back then, claiming the LGBT label for yourself meant you had to commit to it in real life. Currently, you can claim all you want online with none of your real life identity attached if you don't want it to be. And people lie on the internet. That's a fact.

The Internet existed 10 years ago, my friend

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(Anonymous) - 2017-10-22 22:57 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2017-10-22 22:58 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2017-10-22 23:01 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2017-10-22 23:04 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2017-10-22 23:00 (UTC) - Expand

ayrt

Yeah, it's so trendy! It's not like trans and nonbinary people ever get death threats and rape threats on social media, or get forced into conversion therapy if they're underage, or get kicked out of their houses or lose their jobs or get actually raped or murdered because they're trans. I can totally see why so many people are pretending to be trans! What fun!

Yes, pretending to be trans or NB on tumblr surely has all those effects. Clearly, online life and real life are exactly the same!

I'm very certain that of all those "genderqueer" people on tumblr, not even a third is actually genderqueer offline and therefore have none of the problems you just described. But sure, there is no middle ground. Either all are fake or all are real. No inbetween.

What clever and original victimizing! Never heard these points before.
The r-word and death threat claims never fail to get the attention you badly crave.

People really have never faced harships like these, only special snowflakes.

Are you really grouping trans people with NB/queer? Because as far as I know there's no such thing as conversion therapy for transgender problems. Trust me, if you are transgender, you already have a lot of problems and it's not the transphobes that cause it.

Homophobia =/= Transphobia kthxbia

In fandom it really is, and how much tumblr supports performing the right role is no wonder so many people use labels to both fit and to be taken more seriously in some random fandom argument.

Trendy only in spaces that don't really matter that much.

Trendy!? Oh anon, have you ever tried speaking to queer people? Ever? I recall there was vast amounts of them always ... just media and internet and queer lit did not reach this far, so sure - you might see more if you were not exposed to queer stuff before but for me it was always about 1/4th people I met. Yes, out of all people, met randomly in random places.

Oh yes, 1 in 4 people is totally trans - because you say so.
Don't be ridiculous.

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digitalghosts - 2017-10-23 09:49 (UTC) - Expand

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(Anonymous) - 2017-10-23 09:56 (UTC) - Expand

+1 to this comment

looking back at my childhood in hindsight it is obvious I was always trans, without a word for it. I got into anime/manga fandom because I liked cartoons and artwork, and stayed because I could "roleplay" and write as a man interacting with men sexually, without fear of harm.

I don't think it's that different from a lot of "gay men" gravitating towards drag as a hobby, and realizing they were trans women using that as an outlet to express feelings they'd always had. there are a lot of stories like this wrt similar hobbies.

I've often worried this myself, not in the 'too many' or 'everyone's faking it' way but - fandom is a highly toxic place. It is oftentimes a place that, for all its preaching, actually holds some very outdated and unhealthy stereotypes. There's the immediate jump on any character that doesn't stick to clearly defined social gender traits. I can't tell you how many times I've seen a female character headcanoned as trans simply because they do something considered masculine. In itself there's nothing wrong with that, everyone should be able to explore ideas and themes and even themselves through fictional characters but instead of that it comes off as 'REAL girls don't like working on cars EVER so therefor the character MUST be male'. When... no. Girls can enjoy working on cars and still consider themselves entirely female. I've noticed that its a real trend, and a dangerous one, amoung younger girls in particular. m/m romance is 'pure' while m/f romance is evil and f/f romance is ignored or given lip service. And that's across the board, not based on characters or situations or personalities but based on nothing but the sex of the character. There is a huge undercurrent of internalized misogyny amoung some of the younger female fans in particular (see 'I'm not like the other girls'). So while I understand that a percentage of the girls working out who they are through fictional characters and the usual overdramatic teenage headcanons are going to end up in a healthy place because of it - I also worry that some of these girls are going to seriously damage themselves emotionally/mentally because they're too young and they're growing up in an echo box that tells them that girls being in love is never going to be as good/noble/pure/passionate as guys in love and that any girl that doesn't fit a very tight, very cookie cutter version of 'girl' must really be a guy and isn't allowed to be anything else. Because secretly, guys are automatically better and we should all be striving to be to be one because all girls are silly, pink ribbon loving, frill wearing ninnies. Except you don't say it, you just imply it and because you're a girl no one realizes you're being a 1950s misogynist. Maybe you don't even realize it yourself.

disclaimer: I'm not saving every teenage girl, I'm not even saying most. But I'm saying there is a percentage and its insidiously subtle at lodging in young girl's heads thanks to certain parts of fandom.

Yes to all of this.

Also yes to all of this.

I went through a period of time where I was very concerned about being a girl, because all of my interests were "boy". I finally grew enough that I realized that it didn't matter if I liked "boy" stuff, I could still be a girl. And this was before the internet was popular and my family was good about not pressuring me, so it was mostly an internal battle. I so worry with girls these days that a lot of them will go through a period like that and feel like they can't be girls because so many people around them are telling them that boys like these things and boys are cooler.

I've encountered girls like this in fandom and they worry the shit out of me.

(Not many. But they worry me.)

Thirding all this.

Fandom ideas of gender and sex are surprisingly outdated despite all the pretension that it's actually otherwise, and it's rather worrisome how many young people keep repeating those closed-minded ideas, full of very narrow gender roles and internalized misogyny.

But even doubting anything is answered with attacks, so no one can do anything but repeat like parrots. It's creepy as hell and to think how many people are internalizing so much bs (and how that'll affect them in their lives) is scary.

What specific gender roles and internalized ideas do you have in mind

The other anon gave examples: stuff like "REAL girls don't like working on cars EVER so therefor the character MUST be male."

A very common one is how clothing is not something that can be (but not necessarily is) about gender expression, but is an absolute proof of gender because wearing pants = a thing for guys, wearing skirts = a thing, and wearing both = genderfluid.

The moment gender is enclosed in such narrows ideas (aka that there's a right way to be a man/woman and anything that doesn't fit that mold someone isn't really a man/woman) and people actually believe it, there's something really wrong.

I'm not young, and honestly, I struggle with this. I think that even though overall I'm happy with myself and I'm fairly successful and I don't limit my interests based on "girl"/"boy" stereotypes... somewhere deep down I do think boys are cooler. I especially see it in my writing. It's all those boys with their Bildungsroman and adventures and superpowers, and some part of me feels like it's... not quite something I can fantasize about as a girl, or have access to.
To this day I struggle writing female characters, as if there's some kind of block in my brain that only lets me access my creativity when my MC is male.
I'm working on it. But I do wonder how much my involvement in fandom and yaoi fandom in my teens might have affected me.
Before fandom, I used to have Mary Sues. They were ridiculous and overpowered and had all these adventures. Since fandom... all my wish-fulfillment fantasies have been through a prism of male characters.

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