[ SECRET POST #4724 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4724 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 07 secrets from Secret Submission Post #676.
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.

Comments

[ninefox]

THE PROBLEM IS NOT THAT THE SCRAPS OF GENDER NON-CONFORMITY SHOULD BELONG TO EITHER THE 'WOMEN CAN BREAK STEREOTYPES' OR 'TRANS AND NB PEOPLE EXIST' CAMPS AND ONE IS STEALING FROM THE OTHER

THE PROBLEM IS THAT IT IS 2019 AND WE STILL ONLY HAVE SCRAPS TO FIGHT OVER

SOME FANS CAN BE IMMATURE ASSHATS ABOUT THIS BUT THE FUNDAMENTAL FAULT STILL LIES WITH THE OVERARCHING CULTURE OF GENDER CONFORMITY AND CAPITALIST COWARDICE

[(Anonymous)]

This is why I've just given up on mainstream media in favor of queer lit. I'm just so over trying to justify reading into dubious "subtext" (that's mostly ship goggles) or fanfic about the straightest of straight-coded dull guys.

[(Anonymous)]

I want to agree with you but your entire comment still doesn't cover the core problem that the secret is highlighting-- that fandom (in its current state) will see a woman that's not traditionally feminine and will immediately label her nb/trans. It's like clockwork now. Meanwhile, you could say that the ultra-feminine one is nb/trans, and the non-feminine one is as cis as they come, but fandom won't do it. In your example, we're all sitting at a goddamn smorgasbord and only putting a couple of peas on our plates, only to complain that the hosts are starving us.

[(Anonymous)]

And it's even worse when these fucking wishywashy writer bastards leave all this subtext lying around and are too chickenshit to just come out and say 'Yeah, she's trans'.

Hi, Celeste devs, you guys are fucking cowards~

[(Anonymous)]

Okay, I swear to god I'm not trying to be a shitheel here, I'm genuinely curious: why does Celeste read as trans to you? I'm nb myself, and the thought literally never even occurred to me for her.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not familiar with that game but I do know it's an indie title. In cases like that where smaller devs can be dogpiled, threatened, harassed, and even doxxed by the larger, male-dominated gaming community I entirely understand why they wouldn't outright say it.

[(Anonymous)]

No, the problem is immediately associating being gender non-conforming with being trans or non-binary. There are a huge number of cis people who are gender non-conforming, and there are a huge number of trans people who fit into the stereotypes of their gender. One of my good friends is a trans woman who is very, very femme. Another one of my friends is a cis woman who is pretty much the definition of butch. By assuming that "gender non-conforming = trans/non-binary," all these people are doing is creating another stereotype instead of breaking them down.

[ninefox]

No offense, but having some trans friends does not make you the arbiter of what it is okay for people to relate to or find representation in, and it does not suddenly make it not a dick move to tell vulnerable folks defensive of something they love and see themselves in "EXCUSE YOU BUT ACTUALLY SEXISM AND TRANSMISOGYNY ARE YOUR FAULT."

I fully acknowledge that some fans behave badly about this. Insisting that anyone who doesn't share your headcanons is X-ist, and certainly claiming it justifies harassing people, is both factually and morally wrong. But the secret isn't about just the subset of bad behavior, it's about GNC characters being treated as trans in the first place. And using mulan as the picture only emphasizes that, because like, a whole THEME of Mulan's story is that she doesn't feel like her feminine presentation matchers her identity. There's like. A song about it.

Trans people ARE ALLOWED to fit their gender roles, and many of them do; I daresay most of them fit some and don't fit others, just like cis people. And they're allowed to have headcanons that reflect that. And the burden of pushing us into a magical genderfree utopia should not fall exclusively on the people for whom navigating gender is hardest. If you're demand it does, you're a dick.

[(Anonymous)]

hell yeah

[(Anonymous)]

uh. did we watch the same movie? because nowhere in it did Mulan ever express unhappiness over being a woman, she was unhappy with what it meant was expected of her as a result, which was getting married to a man who was chosen for her by other people and being a good, obedient wife and mother.

[ninefox]

I'm not saying Mulan is obviously trans or that it was the creator's intention or anything like that. But "reflection" is LITERALLY about her made-up matchmaker-ready appearance not being "who I am inside".

Even though her journey in the PLOT is about constrained expectations of getting married &c, that song expresses some feelings that resonate very strongly with both trans and NB folks for obvious reasons.

Textually, she is not trans. Thematically, it is very easy to see why she might be read as trans, for reasons a lot more weighty than "she get a sword, sword is Man Thing, I am so binarist!"

But even on top of that, people are allowed to relate to whatever touches them, even if they can't pull a thematic analysis out of their pocket to back them up, and you're still a dick if you're rolling up and cross-examining them about something that makes them feel comforted and less isolated because HDU CARE ABOUT SUPERFICIAL GENDER SIGNIFIERS.

[(Anonymous)]

... and reading her as trans would be completely missing the point of her story but okay.

[ninefox]

declaring that stories only have one point each is missing the point of all media, but okay

[(Anonymous)]

It's not a trans narrative and I'm fucking trans, FFS. Is it EMPOWERING to me? Hell yeah, but that doesn't make Mulan TRANS.

[(Anonymous)]

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

And when an unimaginably huge media company gives us heteronormativity, make fanfic.

[(Anonymous)]

Sure, but don't also insist it's fucking canon and that, oh, well, gee, that's just ONE interpretation.

It's an AU that you're talking about. An AU. It's not an alternate goddamn interpretation, it's straight up AU fic.

[(Anonymous)]

Sure, but don't also insist it's fucking canon...

Strawman much?

It's an AU that you're talking about. An AU. It's not an alternate goddamn interpretation, it's straight up AU fic.

Setting aside the problem that this distinction exists entirely between your two ears, and was invented about an hour ago, so fucking what? Civil War is not in any way a gay romance and that hasn't stopped anyone. Neither are Supernatural, Sherlock, Harry Potter, or Star Trek. Why is queering Mulan (or Yao, or Chien-Po, or Li Shang) the reinterpretation of a Disney product that Shall Not Be Done but not Bisexual Steve Rogers?

[ninefox]

Please read my actual comments.

"I'm not saying Mulan is obviously trans or that it was the creator's intention or anything like that."

If your problem is that we should have more textually trans characters, then right on, yeah we should. That's literally the point of my "we should have only scraps to fight over" argument.

But if your point is that no one can read queerness into texts with complicated gender themes and feelings unless it is CONFIRMED AND OFFICIALLY AN [X] NARRATIVE then like, A, you're ignoring entire decades of literary studies, and B, you don't have to lick Daddy Disney's boot so hard. SEIZE THE MEDIA OF PRODUCTION. That's what fandom is FOR.

And if you don't want to do fandom like that, it's okay. But going around telling other fans "you're doing it WRONG" is both cruel and pointless, whether it's you doing this or what's-his-face from Dangan Ronpa's fans being rabid and policing anyone who DIDN'T agree with trans headcanons.

FANDOM POLICING IS BAD. MORE REPRESENTATION IS GOOD. why are y'all so insistent that stories can only belong to one point of view.

[(Anonymous)]

Give em hell!

[(Anonymous)]

NAYRT: Agreed. I just reread Nino Cipri's "The Shape of My Name" which discusses experiencing dysphoria when the main character is forced to perform femininity as a child. So there are some common themes between Mulan and fiction written by trans people about trans characters.

Mulan has three musical numbers discussing gender roles and one discussing heterosexuality. Mulan is both cross-dressing folklore and cross-dressing screwball comedy, and both have been richly reinterpreted to discuss issues of sexuality and gender identity. In terms of queer possibilities within a Disney Animated Feature, Mulan is pretty damn juicy. (And it's not just Mulan who can be queered in that movie.)

Elsewhere in fandom, we're queering any two blokes who share a screen. Which is fine, but concern trolling about trans headcanons at the same time strikes me as a blatant double standard.

[(Anonymous)]

YEP +1!