I've been on this site too long but now I use this blog to post my DND, furry, sci-fi and WoW art and reblog the fandoms and ships I like. Occasionally nsfw. Enjoy! >:3c
(27, she/her, bi, trans woman)
Being a trans woman online is actually absurd sometimes. Gooseworx, prolific creator of one of the most popular indie animated shows ever, banned from Tumblr for no reason. /r/Deltarune banned calling Ralsei a girl because people were transphobic about it but didn't ban the transphobes. It's now reversed I believe but the sub still freaks out over trans Ralsei. And this is just fairly inconsequential fandom stuff!
Trans women are banned across tumblr and blusky constantly for no reason, and if we're not banned we're suppressed by the algorithm, denied verification, deplatformed in other ways. Maia arson crimew was actively ignored for verification despite meeting the requirements and then a blusky mod verified someone with a smaller account complaining about their unresponsiveness in maia's thread with a cheeky comment about how they must've missed it but left Maia unverified! Not to mention the gangstalking, the document-keeping, the micro-analysis of every action, the lolcow culture. And if we talk about it we're treated like we're mad and aggressive for daring to be fed up with it! Like we're just not allowed to exist or be happy in certain spaces and so many people treat this as normal and it makes me lose my MIND.
I have a lot more to say and didn't want to put this under a cut since I think it's important buuuut it's pretty long and interweaves "less important" fandom culture and writing with real issues of platforming and IRL transmisogyny, so I'm leaving this intro up and if you want you can read more of Nyxie's rambles about transmisogyny below below.
The above is a lot more serious but we're also not allowed to have ownership of our stories or believe certain characters are trans without a bunch of people freaking out. Trans Jax and possibly trans Ralsei in the same week was like a nuke to people who don't believe they're transphobic but get really weird when they find themselves empathizing with a trans woman, like as soon as people find out they're actually transfem they're mad.
I see this a lot in other places too, any "femboy" who becomes transfem, IRL or fictionally, is instantly treated horrifically, especially by "straight" men who somehow think it's more gay to be with a trans woman than a femboy. Bridget, Finnster, possibly Ralsei, and even supertf who I'm pretty sure is genuinely a cis crossdresser has had a lot of his fans get really weird at the notion he could be transfem (he's been pretty good about shutting down weird fans, fortunately).
Trans women characters aren't allowed to be anything but effectively perfectly passing cis women, usually with the bonus of a fandom-accepted headcanon dick for fetishization reasons. People want their fetish porn but want to be woke so just recreate it 1:1 but say the character is trans, and sure I'd prefer that, but you're still recreating the fetishization of trans women.
Transfem characters who are closeted, pre-transition, early in transition, etc. happen and cis allies decry them as bad rep like they don't often represent a lot of trans women or are made by trans women. Our stories can only be a cool fun fact label or maybe an angsty post-transition coming out scene from a character everyone assumed was cis, no one is allowed to transition in-narrative without people losing their minds. Featherweight happened and people (who largely weren't transfem) lost their minds over out of context panels and came away believing she was a transphobic caricature when she's just a fine, if not good rep for a baby trans.
The point of above and how characters like Jax, Ralsei, etc. are treated further extends to IRL spaces too. I remember when I first started transitioning, even a lot of the queer-friendly WoW guild with my queer friends in it started getting really weird toward me. I got socially isolated, bullied, and ignored. People made fun of my voice, misgendered me, got mad at me for talking about being trans, mad for trying to help another baby trans later in a way that felt like they wanted her to stay closeted. It cleaned up later thanks to some good leadership and it largely being a few bad eggs with high social sway, but it was real bad for a while.
This was in a community with lots of trans members already! I was just the first or one of the first highly active members to begin transitioning after joining, so people had to adjust to the shift, my gay friend had to adjust to not being able to do gay stuff with me anymore, and it was too much for some people. Also there was a chaser in there but he flew under like every transfem's radar for the years he was in there so whatever, but it still sucked.
All of this is very long and very rambly and ranty and mixing some really major issues with fandom and writing stuff but it's stuff that's been bubbling in my mess of a mind for a while. The TL;DR is trans women are the women of women, everyone needs to get more genuinely transfem accepting NOW, and if you're not transfem you need to be extremely careful about negatively commenting on transfem rep and people if not outright avoid doing so, and you should welcome any new trans women, real or fictional, with joy instead of doubt, scrutiny, or rejection. Also put pressure on these websites to stop moderating against trans women. Especially black trans women because holy shit there's a huge racial element too.
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