there are people in the comments of this post who don’t understand this confession or don’t seem to think there’s homophobia in this fandom. so allow me to set the record straight and assure you all that yes, there is homophobia in this fandom.
this is not a call out post! i’m purposefully blocking all icons and usernames from these screenshots. but i really do think people need to see all these homophobic instances in one spot so they understand what some content creators in this fandom have to go through.
So, if you know me well, you know that I ship Chlonette (Chloe x Marinette) and actively produce content for them. Now, I don’t publish all of it, but I get a lot of hate mail for this pairing.
……I can pull out more, but you get the picture. Often times I get asks like this because a) people don’t think Marinette or Chloe are queer (which we’ll get back to in a second), b) they don’t like the pairing and insist on making me feel bad for liking it, or c) they don’t like that I’m pairing Chloe with Marinette because of Chloe’s personality (which is interesting when you consider how well received Chloe x Nathanael is and suggests a type of double standard).
Now, admittedly some of these asks are explicitly homophobic. It could very well be people just don’t like the ship and feel the need to accost me over it. But what also tends to happen in fandom is that whenever someone makes headcanons about a queer pairing, headcanons an ML character as queer, people often get unwanted responses like this:
^[an anon message that i’ve received in response to a Chlonette headcanon post i made]
^ [a pair of replies from two different users about a headcanon i posted about everyone in the Miraculous classroom being queer]
^[an anon i received as well as three other content creators in the fandom about queer headcanons/pairings/fics/etc.
^ [a reply on a post another user made where adrien was headcanoned/depicted as being trans]
Everytime someone so much as suggests that an ML character is anything but cis and straight, it gets questioned much like this. Mainly what I see are two things: a) the inability to believe that characters like Marinette and Adrien can be bisexual and yet still like each other, and b) the inability to believe that characters can be trans/non-binary/genderfluid, etc. Although, there are a plethora of other grievances for some reason.
Something that happens on Alyanette posts a lot is that people uselessly comment on clearly romantic art/fics/posts about Alyanette and leave comments like this:
People like to cushion these comments by saying they don’t have a problem with the ship or that they’re not homophobic. But the thing is when you respond to content that a user has created of Alya and Marinette in a romantic relationship and say things like, “oh they’re just friends, this seems a bit forced, i can’t ship this because of x reasons, and this seems weird,” that’s implicit homophobia. Leave alone the fact that sharing your opinion of why you don’t like a ship on content meant to celebrate that ship is rude, but the fact that people feel the need to say that Alyanette makes no sense to them because they’re best friends is quite harmful. Alya and Nino are just friends in the show. Adrien only sees Marinette as a friend. We don’t question this. We love the “friends to lovers” trope as it pertains to Adrienette and DJWifi. Why is it an issue with Alyanette?
What’s worse is that when you try to have discussions with people about this stuff, the responses you typically get are “well maybe people just don’t like gay ships and you have to just accept that.”
^ [conversation i had with a user (who will remain anonymous) in response to a post about fandom homophobia]
But hey. If that’s not blatant enough for you, I am currently a moderator for the Miraculous Pride Zine, which is a zine solely for LGBTQ+ content. We got a death threat sent to us on that blog.
Sometimes, it doesn’t even happen in asks, comments, and replies. There are content creators in this fandom who openly admit to thinking that being gay is a sin, there are people who think it’s inappropriate to headcanon 14 year olds as being queer because they’re too young, and there are people who flat out turn down requests and commissions because of gay ships. There are users in this fandom who have internalized homophobia that they have not grappled with and openly speak about it on their blogs while those of us who are queer or make queer content just have to accept it
This stuff is subtle and implicit, I’ll admit. You have to read between the lines, consider context, consider double standards, and look at how the rest of “mainstream” fandom is treated to understand it. But it’s there. This is subdued homophobia that gets downright maddening when it piles up and happens everyday. That’s why queer content creators in this fandom needed to make their own server and their own community. Because this fandom can at times be very isolating and it’s tough to deal with if you don’t have friends who go through the same thing.
Again. This is not a call out post. This is a post meant to inform people about a problem that does exist. If you do anything like what I screenshotted, please stop. If you see it, call it out. If you have internalized homophobia, work it out privately, not publicly within a fandom filled with people who are queer.
Just…..be aware and be mindful. Please.
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