Reminder that associating hair length with gender is not a culturally universal concept and that many indigenous folks in North America donât cut their hair for cultural reasons that have nothing to do with gender.
Reminder that a native guy should be allowed to wear his hair in long braids without people calling it gender nonconformity or saying heâs breaking gender norms, because hair length has nothing to do with his gender norms.
Reminder that a queer native woman should be allowed to wear her hair long without being automatically read as femme presenting, that she can be butch with long hair, because long hair is not associated with femininity in her culture.
Reminder that many native folks cut their hair for solemn reasons, usually mourning, and remarking on it as a reflection of personal style or gender presentation can be deeply disrespectful. No, she didnât just get a fierce butch haircut - she cut her hair because someone died. No, he didnât cave to a gender conforming haircut - he cut his hair because someone died.
Reminder that this is not universally practiced by native folks and, like all cultural practices, some people are more strict in their adherence than others.
When you find out that facts and logic donât actually change peoples opinions you instinctively go pffftttt that canât be right but then later after your mind has been changed on it you go wait a minute
Iâve got this old post where I was like hey sometimes itâs fun to try to get a chore done while youâre waiting for water to boil or something. Might help if you have adhd. Itâs free deadline.
And I still get people commenting on that post like uhm no some of us have anxiety so bad that weâd pass out if we did that.
Get the real meaning of Fujoshi, Fudanshi, Boys Love and Yaoi with these numerous academic resources.
This website was created as a means to educate Anglophone (English-speaking) fandom and share academic resources on the topics of Fujoshi, Boys Love, Yaoi, and Danmei media. Danmei, BL, and Yaoi fall under Queer Media Studies in Asia. It is a rich category of literature used to freely explore sexuality, gender identity, social politics, and relationship dynamics for those often not at liberty to do so.
Since at least 2015 in Anglophone fandom, anti-trans groups began spreading disinformation about these topics, and unfortunately, fan spaces have never fully recovered. Instead, they are riddled with xenophobia, misogyny, racism, misinformation, and miscommunication.
Here you will find over 200 resources to educate yourself and others on BL, Yaoi, Danmei, Anti-fan behaviors, Psychology, and LGBTQ+ history written by scholars and professionals in these fields.
fan language: the victorian imaginary and cnovel fandom
thereâs this pinterest image iâve seen circulating a lot in the past year iâve been on fandom social media. itâs a drawn infographic of a, i guess, asian-looking woman holding a fan in different places relative to her face to show what the graphic helpfully calls âthe language of the fan.â
people like sharing it. they like thinking about what nefarious ancient chinese hanky code shenanigans their favorite fan-toting character might get up toâ âaccidentally or on purpose. and whatâs the problem with that?
the problem is that fan language isnât chinese. itâs victorian. and even then, itâs not really quite victorian at all.Â
wangxianist posted this tweet. To quote, âthis is going to sound harsh but I would trust straight asian women writing about gay asian people over gay white people writing about gay asian peopleâ.
Western LGBT writers in fannish spaces have a sense of entitlement over Asian charactersâ identities. In MDZS fandom, this entitlement manifests in the growing âanti-fujoshiâ sentiment; the obsession with the ârightâ way of creating/consuming content with LGBT characters.
This increasingly vitriolic type of virtue signalling isnât unique to MDZS fandom, but it highlights the way people impose western values and cultural norms onto Asian spaces.
A recent example of this occurred on twitter, when a Chinese fan compared East/West reactions towards (fictional) incest. Specifically, Eastern fandomâs acceptance and enthusiasm versus western fandomâs avoidance and disgust. A prolific fanartist replied to the post, referring to POC fans who âsupportâ incest as âfreaks of colourâ.
Incest is taboo in both cultures, so initially it may not seem like there is any relationship between the imposition of western values onto Asian spaces and someone on twitter dot com calling POC fans they disagree with âfreaks of colourâ (aside from the blatant racism). In fact, there are several layers of it in this interaction.
First, there is the judgement towards Chinese and Asian spaces; a decision was made that the western reaction of avoidance and disgust towards the topic of incest was the âcorrectâ way. There is the attempt to speak over Asian and Chinese voices, to fight against their experience of their own culture in order to insist that the reality falls into line with those western values and cultural norms. In separating Asians into ânormalâ POCs and âfreaks of colourâ, the message being sent was this: our way is the correct way; in fact, our way is the way âgoodâ Asians have been living already.
Second, there is a lack of understanding about Chinese culture and the way it informs fan spaces. Incest fiction has been argued to âshowcase a feminine attempt to re-order the power structure in the family by means of erosâ. Chinese BL culture often serves as a space where social, cultural and political conversations can take place in a traditionally conservative and oppressive regime.
This is another reason why western LGBT fansâ entitlement towards Asian characters is particularly problematic. A new trend occurring in the MDZS AO3 tag are authors claiming their stories are âfor the gays onlyâ. Clicking and reading these stories, I started to wonder how many of these authors were Chinese, or even Asian. What made them so confident in their right to claim these characters, which was never their intellectual property in the first place, and attempting to stop others from accessing them?
The Chinese BL genre is a âtransnational Chinese public sphere where women from diasporas around the world could discuss and debate all kinds of fannish, feminine and political topicsâ; it is a movement that has created a space for itself in a repressive regime, spearheaded by women. It is not for western LGBT individuals to claim; not a media where they should expect their values and culture to be upheld. The expectation that it should is an insidious remnant of colonisation. Â
Western LGBT writers in fannish spaces have a sense of entitlement over Asian charactersâ identities. Frequently, they speak over Asian voices in the community and impose their own values and cultural norms on Asian spaces, often misunderstanding Asian values and norms in the process. They claim Asian characters as their own and attempt to restrict access to it, falsely believing that these characters and universes are their own. That tweet is a culmination of these experiences causing frustration for Chinese and Asian fans within the community.
There have been some really thoughtful additions to this post that I want to bring attention to -
âWestern fans look at BL porn and think âthis is 2020 and we donât need that kind of representation anymoreâ [but] your 2020 is not everyoneâs 2020.âÂ
And more on that topic.
âMost westerners consider Asian to be a race [over] a nationalityâ and what that means when Asians who grew up in western spaces try to speak over Asians who live in Asia, who represent totally different values, cultures and norms.
This tweet and the comments from various Asian/BL fans.
âJust because you like something doesnât mean you get to steal it. Enjoy it, embrace it, share it, but never try to claim it or force your own values on it.â
In response to non-Asians insisting on sticking to their guns with regards to coming into Asian fandoms and labelling it âproblematicâ:
âThe problem of women fetishising gay men isnât limited to Asian women, nor is it limited to Asian menâ
Actually, in the context of Asian spaces, it really is. That was the point of the post. At no point should western voices have a say in Asian spaces. At no point should western values come into play in Asian spaces.Â
âIâm curious as to how come we never see gay Asian menâs opinion mentioned onceâ
I mean - thatâs what happens when you jump into issues that you know nothing about - you think it doesnât exist. But for those who are curious, here are some gay Asian menâs opinions on âfujoshiâ and BL. Keep in mind that gay men arenât a hive mind and donât all have the same opinions; these links are just to show that gay men ARE in these spaces.
From a Japanese-Latino gay man, âall that youâre doing is misusing terms of a language you donât know, from a culture youâre not part of and fandoms you donât participate in, speaking over gay men and Asian fans, othering Asian people, and fostering an environment in which harassment of innocent fans is encouraged and marginalized people are used as scapegoatsâ. (More from him in the âfujoshi discourseâ tag)
An Indonesian gay man, âIn the end, [fujoshi] they are one of most supportive people for LGBT community [in Indonesia] alongside the civil right activist. They help a lot of gay artist to get a spot on anime convention, which probably the only place where we can express ourselves in public without fear of repercussionâ.
Women are not the only creators in BL! âGengoroh Tagame [âŠ] wrote for a mostly female-assumed audience (published in BL-leaning magazines and crossover magazines like Nikutaiha) and heâs not the only gay man that does this. Tsukasa Matsuzaki is another geicomi artist that writes for BL magazines and anthologies. So does Shoutaroh Kojima, Takeshi Matsu, Gai Mizuki, Kansuke Yoshida and D-Raw2.â
A gay man literally writing up some ways to not be a racist about fujoshi (also mentioned in the TERF post).
Lastly, âif this kind of literature is about the âliberation of womenâ then why donât you write about women?â
First of all - this is not what this post was saying. Youâre getting that from other fujoshi discourse and applying it to this post. This post is about how danmei and BL are used a space for Asian political and social discussions, and that this space is EXPLICITLY ASIAN, FOR ASIANS, ABOUT ASIAN THINGS, and that as a result a Westerner coming in and telling Asians how to run said space is a galling act of colonisation. It is spearheaded by women, but not just for the liberation of women. Danmei IS part of Chinaâs LGBT space, and by insisting on it conforming to western values, westerners are also speaking over gay Asian men.Â
Westerners need to stop fighting for the rights of people who have never asked for their interference. Asian men and Asian LGBT in our Asian spaces DID NOT ASK for you to gut our media with the ârightâ content (according to you). Thatâs literally what this post is saying.Â
(As a side note, fujoshi created yuri. So, yes, fujoshi do write about women.)
Further aside, just for some HISTORY, hereâs a little bit about how anti-fujoshi rhetoric was started by TERFs.
PDF | Scholarship of counterpublics has long illuminated the rhetorical dynamics whereby the dominant public excludes marginalized groups fr
Call for civil inattention: âRaceFail â09â and counterpublics on the internet
By Jiyeon Kang, Department of Communication Studies, International Programs, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, USA
Abstract:
Scholarship of counterpublics has long illuminated the rhetorical
dynamics whereby the dominant public excludes marginalized
groups from the public sphere and labels them undeserving of
coexistence. However, the hypertextual architecture of the
internet upends this insideâoutside distinction, inverting
challenges to and opportunities for a counterpublic. As illustrated
by the course of âRaceFail â09,â a debate over cultural
appropriation and racism in online science fiction and fantasy
fandom, the internetâs architecture makes it easy for a
counterpublic to enter and draw attention from the broad public
but much more difficult to maintain separation and preserve its
boundaries from unwanted encroachment. Here I reread the
norms of inclusion and transparency as historically specific
constructs of canonical public sphere theories, and propose a
consideration of particular challenges that counterpublics
encounter online, including imposed labor, difficulty of
withdrawal, and unwanted attention. I end the article with a
proposal for civil inattention as a potential ethic for coexistence of
publics and counterpublics on the internet.
Be careful: nostalgia likes to link arms with fascism.
I've seen a lot of talk about how millennials are especially prone to nostalgia. How technology's rapid evolution left our childhoods as a distinctly different world than our present. How we cling to our childhood hobbies and IPs as a way to heal our inner children, etc etc.
And there's nothing inherently wrong with nostalgia. I still play pokemon games and am in the middle of rewatching Yu Yu Hakusho. You're allowed to love the things you grew up with.
But we need to be careful.
Conservatives, nationalists, and fascists *love* to evoke a âmythicâ idealized past- when men were men, when America was great, upon which to build a fixed and solid identity. Any progress away from this idealized conception of the past is thus decay- corruption and ruin. Nostalgia underpins a fascists worldview and allows them to justify any violence against the forces that would further degrade society away from its perfect past. Protecting the past comes to justify all sorts of things in the present.
We need to be very careful about what we allow our nostalgia to mean to us, what we allow it to excuse or justify.
This is not *just* about Hogwarts Legacy, but Hogwarts Legacy is a good example of it. When you can invoke your nostalgia- that golden beautiful past where you felt safe and special- what are you willing to ignore? What harm are you willing to allow? What will you turn a blind eye to if doing so makes you feel like you've recaptured some of the magic from the past?
Tread carefully, friends. This HP bullshit may have been a test that you passed, but it will not be the last time when our sense of nostalgia may conflict with progress and morals. Always remember that you can love something from the past without letting it dictate the future.
Every so often, I see posts or discussions criticizing the way that Fallout (and more specifically, Fallout 4) handles the discrepancy between the 1950s-inspired nostalgia of the prewar era and the violently regressive culture of the fictional year 2077. Visions of 2077 as being a progressive utopia is, at best, a shallow look at the introductory sequence and flavored by the deliberate 1950s aesthetic. In part, this is due to inconsistent writing (from the devs) and a certain amount of deliberate escapism (from the fans) when engaging with the canon. Occasionally, I see people wishing that we had seen more blatant bigotry in the game, such as racism or sexism from prewar ghouls and robots.
I disagree. I do not want to be forced to encounter more of this while just trying to play the game. I personally do not want, desire, or otherwise wish that the canon had been even more overt in its hostility towards players and fans of color. I would like the privilege of being able to enjoy my post-apocalyptic game without having me (or my OC) being forced to bear the burden of othersâ prejudices, especially as I question the ability of Bethesdaâs open-world sandbox to convey nuance in its storytelling.
Thereâs also a large grey area between an Offensive Stereotype and âthing that can be misconstrued as a stereotype if one uses a particularly reductive lens of interpretation that the text itself is not endorsingâ, and while I believe that creators should hold some level of responsibility to look out for potential unfortunate optics on their work, intentional or not, I also do think that placing the entire onus of trying to anticipate every single bad angle someone somewhere might take when reading the text upon the shoulders of the writers â instead of giving in that there should be also a level of responsibility on the part of the audience not to project whatever biases they might carry onto the text â is the kind of thing that will only end up reducing the range of stories that can be told about marginalized people.Â
A japanese-american Beth Harmon would be pidgeonholed as another nerdy asian stock character. Baby Driver with a black lead would be accused of perpetuating stereotypes about black youth and crime. Phantom Of The Opera with a female Phantom would be accused of playing into the predatory lesbian stereotype. Romeo & Juliet with a gay couple would be accused of pulling the bury your gays trope â and no, you canât just rewrite it into having a happy ending, the final tragedy of the tale is the rock onto which the entire central thesis statement of the play stands on. Remove that one element and you change the whole point of the story from a âlook at what senseless hatred does to our youthâ cautionary tale to a âlove conquers allâ inspiration piece, and it may not be the story the author wants to tell.
Sometimes, in order for a given story to function (and keep in mind, by function I donât mean just logistically, but also thematically) it is necessary that your protagonist has specific personality traits that will play out in significant ways in the story. Or that they come from a specific background that will be an important element to the narrative. Or that they go through a particular experience that will consist on crucial plot point. All those narrative tools and building blocks are considered to be completely harmless and neutral when telling stories about straight/white people but, when applied to marginalized characters, it can be difficult to navigate them as, depending on the type of story you might want to tell, you may be steering dangerously close to falling into Unfortunate Implicationsâą. And trying to find alternatives as to avoid falling into potentially iffy subtext is not always easy, as, depending on how central the âproblematicâ element to your plot, it could alter the very foundation of the story youâre trying to tell beyond recognition. See the point above about Romeo & Juliet.  Â
Like, I once saw a woman a gringa obviously accuse the movie Knives Out of racism because the one latina character in the otherwise consistently white and wealthy cast is the nurse, when everyone who watched the movie with their eyes and not their ass can see that the entire tension of the plot hinges upon not only the power imbalance between Martha and the Thrombeys, but also on her isolation as the one latina immigrant navigating a world of white rich people. Iâve seen people paint Rosa Diaz as an example of the Hothead Latina stereotype, when Rosa was originally written as a white woman (named Megan) and only turned latina later when Stephanie Beatriz was cast â and itâs not like they could write out Rosaâs anger issues to avoid bad optics when it is such a defining trait of her character. Iâve seen people say Mulholland Drive is a lesbophobic movie when its story couldnât even exist in first place if the fatally toxic lesbian relationship that moves the plot was healthy, or if it was straight.             Â
Thatâs not to say we canât ever question the larger patterns in stories about certain demographics, or not draw lines between artistic liberty and social responsibility, and much less that I know where such lines should be drawn. I made this post precisely to raise a discussion, not to silence people. But one thing I think itâs important to keep in mind in such discussions is that stereotypes, after all, are all about oversimplification. It is more productive, I believe, to evaluate the quality of the representation in any given piece of fiction by looking first into how much its minority characters are a) deep, complex, well-rounded, b) treated with care by the narrative, with plenty of focus and insight into their inner life, and c) a character in their own right that can carry their own storyline and doesnât just exist to prop up other characterâs stories. And only then, yes, look into their particular characterization, but without ever overlooking aspects such as the context and how nuanced such characterization is handled. Much like weâve moved on from the simplistic mindset that a good female character is necessarily one that punches good otherwise sheâs useless, I really do believe that it is time for us to move on from the the idea that thereâs a one-size-fits-all model of good representation and start looking into the core of representation issues (meaning: how painfully flat it is, not to mention scarce) rather than the window dressing.
I know I am starting to sound like a broken record here, but it feels that being a latina author writing about latine characters is a losing game, when thereâs extra pressure on minority authors to avoid ~problematic~ optics in their work on the basis of the âyou should know betterâ argument. And this âlower common denominatorâ approach to representation, that bars people from exploring otherwise interesting and meaningful concepts in stories because the most narrow minded people in the audience will get their biases confirmed, in many ways, sounds like a new form of respectability politics. Why, if it was gringos that created and imposed those stereotypes onto my ethnicity, why it should be my responsibility as a latina creator to dispel such stereotypes by curbing my artistic expression? Instead of asking of them to take responsibility for the lenses and biases they bring onto the text? Why is it too much to ask from people to wrap their minds about the ridiculously basic concept that no story they consume about a marginalized person should be taken as a blanket representation of their entire community?
Itâs ridiculous. Gringos at some point came up with the idea that latinos are all naturally inclined to crime, so now I, a latina who loves heist movies, canât write a latino character whoâs a cool car thief. Gentiles created antisemitic propaganda claiming that the jews are all blood drinking monsters, so now jewish authors who love vampires canât write jewish vampires. Straights made up the idea that lesbian relationships tend to be unhealthy, so now sapphics who are into BrontĂ«-ish gothic romance donât get to read this type of story with lesbian protagonists. I want to scream.   Â
And at the end of the day it all boils down to how people see marginalized characters as Representationâą first and narrative tools created to tell good stories later, if at all. White/straight characters get to be evaluated on how entertaining and tridimensional they are, whereas minority characters get to be evaluated on how well theyâd fit into an after school special. Fuck this shit.              Â
How to write fic for Black characters: a guide for non-Black fans
Donât characterize a Black character as sassy or thuggish, especially when the character in question is can be described in literally ten thousand other ways..
Donât describe Black characters as chocolate, coffee, or any sort of food item.
Donât highlight the race of Black characters (ie, âthe dark manâ or âthe brown womanâ) if you donât highlight the race of white characters.
Think very carefully about that antebellum slavery or Jim Crow AU fic as a backdrop for your romance.
If youâre not fluent with AAVE, donât use it to try to look cool or edgy. You look corny as hell.
Donât use Black characters as a prop for the non-Black characters youâre actually interested in.
Keep âunpopular opinionsâ about racism, Black Lives Matter, and other issues pertinent to Black folks out the mouths of Black characters. We know what the fuck youâre doing with that and need to stop.
Donât assume a Black character likes or hates a certain food, music, or piece of pop culture.
You can make a Black characterâs race pertinent without doing it like this.
Be extremely careful about insinuating that one or more of a Black characterâs physical features are dirty, unclean, or ugly.
Be wary of making Black characters seem animalistic, uncivilized, or subhuman in comparison to white characters. Watch out for: comparing us to monkeys, gorillas, chimpanzees, apes, and other animals.
Words like Negroid, colored/colured, Negro, and the n-word do not belong in the mouths of contemporary characters you want to portray as sympathetic.
Not all Black people are African American.
Africa is not a country but the second-largest continent on earth with some 54 different countries with thousands of ethnic groups and 1,500 to 3,000 languages and dialects.
Resist the urge to make a Black character seem uneducated and ignorant compared to white characters.
Capitalizing Black shows that you recognize that the word unifying people of African descent, particularly the diaspora, should be described using a proper noun.
Do your own homework instead of expecting, asking, or demanding Black fans to do it.
Before approaching that Black person you admire so much for being so articulate about race issues (this is sarcasm) to beta read your work: 1) make sure itâs something theyâve expressed interest in doing, and 2) you offer something in return for their time and expertise.
Be prepared for fans to have issues with what you came up with and open to suggestions.
Having only one Black character in a story that takes place in a huge city, country, or galaxy looks weird. Really, really weird. Scary weird.
Donât use a Black characterâs death to motivate a white character.
Portray Black characters with complex and multifaceted identities. We are more than just Black. We are also women, LGBT, Jewish, disabled, neurodivergent, immigrants, etc.
There is a huge chasm between hypersexual and desexualized.
Remember: whatâs progressive for a white character is not necessarily progressive for a Black one.
You may have seen talk flying around about drama going down with OTW (the Organization for Transformative Works) and AO3. There isn't a clear write-up of the situation on Tumblr, and since the allegations in this case are serious and OTW Board elections are coming up, I thought there should be a resource for people to get some basic understanding about the events.
This account is a burner, because the topics here are deeply charged, and I don't want to become a character in what's happening. I am not a member of or volunteer for OTW; I am not affiliated with End OTW Racism; I am not affiliated with Dreamwidth; I do not personally know any of the people involved in these events, or have personal knowledge of the events themselves. I am only compiling the publicly available events, allegations, and discussion into a convenient format for Tumblr. I will be heavily referencing the the similar compilation put together by Dreamwidth user Synonymous, but I am not Synonymous, nor do I know who they are. I am not, however, completely without bias; for one thing, I am writing this with the clear understanding that I believe OTW's treatment of its volunteers and policies on content moderation are both deeply troubling. If I did not believe that, I wouldn't have bothered writing this post.
This write-up includes events relating both to allegations about volunteer abuse and improper handling of CSEM moderation by the OTW, and to arguments made about the OTW's handling of racist conduct and about End OTW Racism's ties to the writer known as Stitch. I am including both of these threads because they are deeply related both causally and in the arguments of many of the people involved, and because volunteer abuse, CSEM, and racist harassment are all deeply serious problems.
This situation has not resolved, and therefore you can likely expect more to occur, probably relating to all of those topics. I have not yet decided whether I will continue updating this timeline, but it should at least give you a grounding in what's happening.
Heavy Content Warning for discussions of child sexual abuse material; abuse, harassment, and stalking; and interpersonal and systemic racism. All language in this write-up is non-graphic and high-level, but some links include more detailed descriptions.
The Events
June 24, 2020: In the wake of George Floyd's murder and in response to pressure from people including Black writer Stitch (of the blog Stitch Media Mix and Teen Vogue) and fan studies academic Dr. Rukmini Pande, the OTW makes a statement promising to review their policies and procedures and take steps to protect users from racist harassment. The specific promises they make are:
Giving creators more control over the comments on their works.
Improving collection searching and filtering.
Improving admin tools for responding to Policy & Abuse reports.
Reviewing the Terms of Service to potentially allow Policy & Abuse to respond to more kinds of reports.
Reassess the required Archive Warnings and consider adding more.
Continue working on user muting and blocking.
They also say that they are considering "reaching out to an external contractor or partnering with an advocacy group," i.e., a diversity consultant, to help with reforms.
August 8, 2021: As part of their July newsletter, the OTW announces that it is creating a new officer role in the organization to research options for diversity consultants.
May 7, 2022: The OTW makes a public statement on their website that an unknown attacker has sent CSAM (child sexual abuse material) to some of their volunteers' email addresses, that they are working with authorities to find the attacker, and that response times may be slower than usual, as they have "shut down a number of internal tools" in order to protect their volunteers and the investigation.
May 8, 2022: Dreamwidth cofounder and former head of LiveJournal Trust & Safety Denise (rahaeli on Twitter, synecdochic on Dreamwidth) posts a Twitter thread urging any current or former OTW/AO3 volunteer who has provided the organization with their real-life name ("wallet name") to contact their local police department and let them know that they are at an elevated risk of swatting. She also provides advice on disabling image auto-loading in emails and dealing with trauma and anxiety from being exposed to CSAM, and mentions that she has contacted AO3 to offer help.
June 16, 2022: As part of their April newsletter (delayed several months due to the CSAM attack), the OTW announces that a Diversity Consultant Research Officer has been appointed.
May 10, 2023: The Tumblr account end-otw-racism publishes its first post, End OTW Racism: A Call to Action. In it, the anonymous authors call on the OTW to implement the changes that they promised in 2020, especially:
Hiring a diversity consultant within the next 3-6 months.
Updating their harassment policies and protocols to address on-site and off-site coordinated harassment.
Creating a content policy for content that is abusive in a racist manner.
As part of their background establishing the problem of racist abuse and harassment in fandom, they link to several articles written by Stitch on their commentary blog, as well as a couple of posts from other fans.
In their FAQs and other posts, the organizers of EOR clarify that they are not calling for the removal of any racist fic, but fic that is written specifically with the intention of perpetrating racist harassment or abuse. They also urge supporters not to berate or harass anyone for disagreeing with or failing to support their campaign.
May 17, 2023: An anonymous user asks about the End OTW Racism protest on the anon-meme Dreamwidth community Fail Fandom_Anon (FFA). As part of a tangent in that discussion, an anonymous former volunteer member of the OTW's Policy & Abuse Committee (PAC) mentions that they handled CSEM (child sexual exploitation material) tickets as part of their work, and that the OTW did not provide sufficient resources or expertise in dealing with them either emotionally or logistically. They describe themselves as being traumatized, burned out, and overworked during their time in PAC. They also mention that there was an earlier CSEM attack, targeted only at PAC volunteers, prior to the one that the OTW announced; that they were the volunteer who handled reporting to law enforcement; that the PAC chairs urged Legal and the Board to prepare for more attacks, but that nothing was done; and that the OTW did not provide any mental health resources for volunteers after the CSEM attack. (Here is a link to the user's top-level comment; read down the thread for more.)
May 20, 2023: Dreamwidth user chestnut_pod posts an entry called Be More Democratic, Be More Autocratic, OTW. The thesis of their post is that the OTW fails to adequately respond to racism on AO3 because of structural problems within the organization that amplify biases and make change difficult to achieve, and that in order to address racism and other problems more effectively, the organization should create a clear and straightforward command structure. They also advocate for creating some paid roles within the organization. The comments of the post become a kind of referendum on OTW's organizational policies, and some former volunteers show up to say that chestnut_pod's description of the problems with the org's structure tally with their experience.
May 23, 2023:
An anonymous user links to chestnut_pod's post on FFA. In response, the same former OTW volunteer describes various details of how the Policy & Abuse Committee (PAC) made decisions during her time there. (The description covers a lot of comments, so with one exception I'm linking to Synonymous's overview rather than the individual comments, but you can find all of them either through Synonymous's links or by reading down the FFA thread.) The upshot is that PAC often found it difficult to address racism, abuse, and harassment due to roadblocks and micromanagement from OTW's Legal Committee. In particular, the user mentions that they wanted to remove photo manipulations of real-life minors engaging in sex, as well as ambiguously-sourced explicit gifs from underage fics, and were told that they could not by Legal. (I have described the user's objections at as a high a level as possible, but the language used at the link is much more detailed and explicit.) A subsequent, current OTW volunteer says that since the first user left, the policy has changed to allow PAC to remove similar gifs.
Denise leaves a series of comments on chestnut_pod's post saying that the PAC policies described there run counter to industry best practices for Trust & Safety. In response to a commenter asking whether she could advise OTW, Denise says that she has offered several times, and only heard back from the organization once: after she posted her Twitter thread in response to the CSAM attacks, "at which point it immediately became extremely clear the person in question was more interested in protecting the external reputation of the organization than in listening to any advice I had to give and the only reason they'd contacted me was to pressure me to remove my Twitter thread."
In response to Denise's story, Dreamwidth user azarias reveals herself to be the anonymous former PAC volunteer on FFA. In a series of comments on chestnut_pod's post and FFA (bulk of the information in this comment, but see Synonymous's compilation or read up and down the thread for more), she relays the following story:
On May 6, 2022, shortly after the CSAM attack, azarias was kicked out of the OTW volunteer Slack with no notice and no communication. When she realized several days later that this was not an organization-wide shut down, she emailed the OTW Board, Legal, and the PAC chairs asking about the situation, and whether she was a suspect in the attack. The chair of Legal, Betsy Rosenblatt, responded, apologizing for the lack of communication and saying that the shut-out was at Legal's request because they thought azarias' account may have been compromised, but she was not a suspect. On July 22, 2022, having heard nothing further from the OTW, azarias emailed again asking about reinstatement, and Betsy responded that they had just that day started that process. All of azarias's accounts had been deleted, so she returned to the OTW with new accounts, and was informed by her PAC chairs that they were not consulted or informed about her suspension until it happened, were not told why she had been suspended, and were ordered not to speak to or about her during the suspension. Due to awkwardness, trauma, and burn-out, azarias quit volunteering soon after.
May 30, 2023:
On FFA, an anonymous OTW volunteer (not azarias) comments that the OTW Board has posted an update to Slack addressing azarias's story (though she is never named in the update). The update confirms that Legal made the decision to suspend azarias, and says that the Board was not consulted on or informed about the decision to either suspend or reinstate her. A statement from Legal is also attached. The statement does not in any way dispute azarias's timeline of events, and outwardly apologizes to her for the distressed caused, but it also contains several strong insinuations that the letter-writer believes that azarias was responsible for the CSEM attack.
In response to this letter, Denise posts a statement on Dreamwidth and Twitter recommending that any person currently volunteering for the OTW should resign for their own personal safety.
June 3, 2023: Azarias (now posting under her real account, which FFA allows people who are players in the events being discussed to do) comments on FFA that she has consulted a lawyer regarding Legal's insinuation, and has been advised that she doesn't have anything to worry about, legally. She explains some more of the details behind the situation, and discusses some of her guesses about the current situation at the OTW. (For clarification, the Heidi she's referring to is Heidi Tandy, a longtime member and one-time head of OTW Legal. During the heights of Harry Potter fandom, Fandom Wank coined the term "Heidipology" to describe what they believed to be Heidi's pattern of making insincere, backhanded apologies.) In the comments, anonymous users discuss the fact that OTW's Legal team is made up entirely of IP lawyers, and not lawyers who have expertise in criminal law, nonprofit governance, or Trust & Safety. (Link goes to Synonymous's compilation.)
June 12, 2023: The OTW publishes a statement addressing the End OTW Racism protest. They thank the organizers for holding them accountable, list the steps they've already taken in addressing racism (mostly muting/blocking abilities and similar), and reiterate that they are working on hiring a diversity consultant and reviewing PAC policies. They also say they will improve transparency and communication.
In the comments, azarias (and several others) push the OTW for a retraction of Legal's letter. Azarias also pushes the OTW to make real progress on racist abuse, rather than paying it "lip service." Azarias reveals that she was the Board's original pick for the Diversity Consultant Research Officer, but dropped out. (Further comments later and earlier at FFA clarify that she dropped out due to the OTW's one name policy, which requires that all work that a volunteer does for the OTW be done under a single name; officers are required to serve under their wallet names, and azarias wanted to do her PAC work under her fandom name and not link that to her wallet name, and when OTW didn't let her, she resigned. Link to Synonymous's more thorough compilation of this story here.)
Also in the comments, several users respond to the OTW's statement by posting racist abuse and racial slurs. The OTW leaves the comments up for several days before finally screening them.
June 15, 2023: Denise posts a thread on Twitter, shortly after compiled on her Dreamwidth, laying out what she consider's the OTW's "absolute failure" at Trust & Safety. Among other things, she claims that:
Photomanips of minors in sexual situations, "however terrible or obvious the Photoshop job is, qualifies under the third definition of 'child pornography' as given in 18 USC §2256(8)(C)."
She believes that the OTW may not be in compliance with legal obligations to preserve information about reported CSEM, due to its policy of deleting author information about orphaned works.
In this post, Denise also elaborates on the story she told in the comments of chestnut_pod's post. She says that in May 2022, before the OTW made its statement about the CSEM attack, several volunteers reached out to her for advice, and she learned that the attack emails included threats to expose identifying volunteer information to, among other places, Kiwi Farms, a site whose users have previously swatted many people. In response to this, after the OTW's statement, she published her Twitter thread advising volunteers to alert their local law enforcement, and also reached out to the OTW to offer resources, contacts, and advice. In response, OTW member Rebecca Tushnet called her and spent half an hour pressuring her to remove her Twitter thread.
At the end of the post, Denise briefly touches on the End OTW Racism action that began this conversation, saying that she appreciates their work, but believes that their proposed solutions will not be effective, both because the OTW's organizational dysfunction makes it impossible for them to moderate racist content, and because PAC must moderate "conduct, not content." She says that she "firmly disagree[s] with the foundational work their campaign was built on."
June 16, 2023:
In response to several people asking for clarification on her statements about End OTW Racism, Denise posts a follow-up Twitter thread (which has not at this time been crossposted to Dreamwidth). She says that a diversity consultant will not effectively address abuse because the current OTW culture is resistant to change, and that reviewing TOS policies will not be effective, because the current TOS already allows for moderation of abusive conduct, but PAC has not been empowered to enforce it. Instead, she claims that progress of moderation of racist abuse can only truly be made once the organization's systemic She also believes that End OTW Racism's messaging is counterproductive, "because of its repeated failure to differentiate between content and conduct." In particular, she argues that, "by citing so heavily to the foundational background work by people who *have* repeatedly called for bans on work that 'reflects racist and bigoted stereotypes', and by failing to differentiate the two except in passing, the campaign has positioned itself in such a way that it will be, and I'm certain has already been, dismissed by the OTW." She does not mention Stitch by name, but it is clear by context that it is the citations of Stitch's work that she is referring to.
After someone DMs her to request she take down her clarifying statements about End OTW Racism, and various people supportive of EOR on Twitter denounce the statements, Denise posts a follow-up statement to Dreamwidth and to Twitter. She says that she has been contacted several times over the past few weeks by Black fans who have been harassed and abused by Stitch in racist and racialized ways, and who showed her screenshots of these interactions, which Stitch has since deleted. She says that because these fans are afraid to speak up for fear of further harassment, she offered to relay their concerns about a campaign based heavily on Stitch's writing. She does not provide the screenshots, in order to prevent the fans from being identified. She reiterates that she agrees with Stitch and with EOR that the OTW is failing to respond to racist abuse and harassment, but that she disagrees with their approach and proposals.
(For what it's worth, as I said up front, I am not personally acquainted with either Stitch or Denise, and have no personal knowledge of events, but Denise is not the first person to accuse Stitch of racist harassment. There has been a great deal of discussion on FFA, both well-sourced and not so much, detailing Stitch's past behavior. I am linking to this round-up so that people can find it, but with the exception of those that directly link to the evidence, and one or two that reference Stitch's public writing, I do not know the accuracy of any of the claims, and I do not know the source of some of them. The allegations listed also vary wildly in their degree of seriousness, ranging from "actually harassed someone" to "said something distasteful," to "is friends with a known serial stalker and harasser.")
The OTW posts a newspost addressing Denise's original (June 15) thread and allegations. The say that they are in legal compliance with CSEM reporting procedures, that they provided resources to volunteers following the CSEM attacks, and that "the Legal Committee has always worked closely and cooperatively with the Policy & Abuse Committee, and continues to do so." They do not reference azalias's accusations or Denise's claim to have been pressured by Rebecca Tushnet.
In the comments, azarias, Denise, and many other users, both anonymous and signed, express outrage at the OTW, and push for answers, apologies, retractions, and in some cases the resignation of Legal and/or the Board.
End OTW Racism posts a statement acknowledging the OTW's acknowledgment, and calling for supporters to donate to the OTW so that they can vote in the upcoming Board elections.
June 16-18, 2023: A group of people on Twitter, Tumblr, and Dreamwidth post individually and in conversation about Denise's comments on Stitch and End OTW Racism, defending Stitch and arguing that Denise's claims about them and disagreement with their and EOR's work are racist, unfounded or overblown, and a derailment from EOR's mission. Some of these are the same people who are in the comments of the OTW's response to Denise, pushing for the OTW to respond to azarias's allegations. (These are not inherently contradictory positions; I just want to note that both the personal and ideological stances here do not necessarily line up neatly into, say, pro-OTW and anti-OTW.) See, for instance, naye's Dreamwidth post, fiercynn's Dreamwidth post, or pearwaldorf's Tumblr post.
June 18, 2023: Denise posts a Twitter thread going into much greater detail about the number of fans of color who reported to her that Stitch had harassed them ("a number greater than five and less than fifteen"), and the severity of their claims ("Several of them said the harassment they experienced was so severe and pervasive that it caused them to change screen names, leave fandom, or otherwise restrict their conduct online.") She also gives a detailed, step-by-step outline of how she went about verifying their claims to her own satisfaction. She continues not to give out identifying details to prevent further harassment.
First of all, two things. OneâI am glad that there are white people who recognize racism in fandom, and specifically, how racism shapes fandomâs perceptions of and investments in the source material. TwoâI am glad that there are white people who call these things out when they see them and who are willing to have critical discussions about these things.
That being said.
Something about the way white people talk about fandom racism has been making me uncomfortable for quite a while, and it wasnât until recently, in the aftermath of this post and some responses to it, that it really became clear to me just what it is that bothers me so much.
A white personâs discussion about fandom racism tends to have its origins in a perceived difference between their own fannish interests and those of fandom at large; e.g., âI ship x/y and nobody else doesâ or âI love x but everyone else hates/ignores himâ. That perceived difference becomes the point of departure from which to start talking about racismâspecifically, fandomâs racism is the explanation for this difference. (Itâs not that POC never do this, but Iâve noticed that POC discussions of fandom racism tend to be broader and tend to outline repeated and systematic erasure and misrepresentation, by both creators and fans, rather than focusing on racism solely under the rubric of general fannish interest in one particular character or shipâeven if that analysis is then duplicated in discussions of a different character and/or ship in order to make a point about racism, as in the post I linked.)
Now, this does not have to be a recipe for disaster. The problem arises, though, because framing the discussion this way allows you to make the implicit claim that your difference of opinion with a racist fandom represents a successful resistance against racism (where others in the fandom have failed by buying into it). Whether or not you intend this claim or even agree with it, the possibility of it underlies your discussion. This possibility solidifies when you speak as if your fannish interest gives you authority to talk about fandom racism or when you argue that racism is the only possible explanation for an individual having or lacking certain opinions or emotional investments. It becomes explicit when white people start praising other predominantly white people for being interested in POC characters without questioning what shape that interest takes.Â
So whatâs the problem with all this? The problem is that there is now something dangerously self-congratulatory about the white personâs discussion about how a racist fandom hates their favorite characters and ships. The problem is that not only does it fall into the old fallacy of assuming that shipping and other forms of emotional investment equals âactivismâ or proof of being ânon-racistâ or âanti-racistâ, but it also assumes that âactivismâ or ânon-/anti-racismâ in fandom equals shipping/emotional investment, and that lack of investment in certain characters/ships equals failure to engage in  "activism" or to be adequately or authentically ânon-/anti-racistâ. This last point is particularly important because that oversimplification shits all over one of the most painful and complicated struggles faced by POCâthe struggle to not hate yourself for not being white, even after youâve recognized on a logical, intellectual level that this self-hatred is the product of internalized racism.Â
Okay, Iâm not going to mince words anymore: I find it really galling that a white person can successfully position themselves as âanti-racistâ because they ship Tony/Rhodey (and are therefore doing âanti-racismâ better than the rest of âracistâ fandom), when I have struggled so damn hard to keep my shipping and fangirling from centering around fantasies of whitenessâstruggled and failed. Sure, my favorite characters and ships are a lot more diverse than they were five years ago, but the fantasies of desire and self-identification that I am the most heavily invested in are still ones that revolve around a white (or white-passing/white-washed) character. I hate myself because white people taught me to hate non-whiteness, and then I hate myself even more for my failure to free myself from this cult of whiteness even after having intellectually âunlearnedâ this internalized racism. Iâve learned to accept this about myself, to an extent, even while I still fight to rectify the situation. What I wonât accept is white people shaming me for the damage whiteness has done to me while congratulating themselves for an âanti-racismâ that doesnât amount to a hill of beans.
Just because you love a POC character or ship a pairing with one doesnât mean youâve done anything âanti-racistââthatâs just a new, twisted fandom version of âsome of my best friends are black!â. I would say that all my efforts to engage in active, explicit critiques of racismâboth âfictionalâ and ârealâ, in both a personal and professional capacityâconstitute more work in the service of fighting racism than any shipper has ever done by fantasizing about a white guy and a black guy fucking each other. Yes, youâre allowed to be unhappy about how racism hurts your favorite characters and ships. But to carry it further than thatâto explicitly or implicitly found your self-conceived âanti-racismâ on your emotional investments in individual, fictional characters of color and their sex livesânot only profoundly misunderstands the nature of systemic racism (i.e., having POC friendsâor favorite POC characters whom you shipâdoesnât say shit about your attitudes toward race and toward POC), but is also an insult to the pain and the struggle of real POC, who are all too often erased and ignored in discussions of the racism of which they are the real victims and therefore the only real authorities.
