Fem or smaller people expected in LGBT relationships to be submissive and "the woman in the relationship"
And masc and taller people in LGBT relationships to be dominant and the "man"
This is homonormativity and gender essentialism/bioessentialism.
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Fem or smaller people expected in LGBT relationships to be submissive and "the woman in the relationship"
And masc and taller people in LGBT relationships to be dominant and the "man"
This is homonormativity and gender essentialism/bioessentialism.
Honestly just this weird thing Ive noticed of canon gay characters being seen as woman-like??? Like yes gay men being effeminate is a stereotype, but it's genuinely uncomfortable how in gay ships between men you'll always have one getting the "woman" role or sort of infantilized almost.
It's like, queerness = diversion from (egemonic) masculinity = femininity
This is homonormativity. (Note: Homonormativity is an offshoot of heteronormativity, in which queer couples are "acceptable", so long as there is a "masc & fem balance.")
I see this a lot, too. And of course, feminine gay men deserve to exist, but it is very odd how so many fandoms will take a gay man that isn't canonically feminine in any sort of way, and feminize them just for the sake of the ship having 1 masc and 1 fem.
Or the other way around, they'll masculinize one so they don't end up with 2 fem gay men in a ship. (And don't even get me started on how they act about gay men who arent fem OR masc.)
Forgive me for being a nerd on this account, but a recent example of this I've seen is Will Byers x Mike Wheeler from Stranger Things. Will is a soft man, so people start shoving him into a feminine box (even though he showcases no interest in feminine presentation in the series), and push Mike into a more hypermasculine role as well. On rare occasion I'll even see that flipped, where people headcanon that Will gets "more masculine" once he develops confidence, and that Mike turns into a "loser babygirl" for him.
It's bizarre.
Idk if this is transphobia so maybe you can correct me? Seems more like sexism or homophobia to me. I’m currently transitioning (ftm) and had an argument with a family member. I was told I couldn’t be trans masculine because I’ve always been masculine my whole life (even when I was really little, I liked “boys” toys, clothing, etc). Sounds ridiculous to me. I was also told that most masculine women are either lesbian (or in some way queer) or just trying to, and I quote, “become the oppressor to not feel oppressed”. I know it was a horrible thing either way, but is this also transphobia?
This is androqueerphobia (transandrophobia, butchphobia, and gncphobia), homonormativity (because it implies that people who are attracted to women need to be masculine), and anti-masculinity.
First of all, you're transitioning because it's who you are, not because you want to "become privileged."
Second of all, men are not oppressors. Man =/= benefited by the patriarchy. Man =/= oppressor.
TGD (trans & gender diverse), varsex, queer, BIPOC, disabled, fat, "too skinny", homeless, economically/socially vulnerable men are not privileged. Any "privilege" they have is outweighed by the unique forms of oppression they face in regards to their masculinity intersecting with marginalized characteristics.
And even privileged men are not inherently oppressors. Privileged man =/= patriarchal man. A gender conforming, pericis, nonqueer, white, able-bodied, able-minded, muscular or "acceptably skinny", housed, economically stable man can still be a kind ally to those who do not benefit from the patriarchy.
This mindset is gender essentialist (as it implies manhood makes someone evil) and TERF rhetoric.
The Violence of Homonormativity (Or: Respectability Politics Will Never Save Us)
I've been thinking a lot about homonormativity lately and how it's actively harming our communities. For those unfamiliar, homonormativity is the pressure within queer spaces to assimilate into heteronormative culture—to be palatable, respectable, and 'just like everyone else.' It's the gay couple in the suburbs with the white picket fence and 2.5 kids. It's the argument that we deserve rights because we're 'normal' and 'harmless.'
And it's fucking us over.
As a transmasc person, I see homonormativity weaponized against trans people constantly. The narrative becomes: 'We're not like those trans people. We're just normal gay people who want to get married and pay taxes.' It throws us under the bus for the promise of acceptance that was never real to begin with. Homonormativity requires the existence of an 'other'—someone too queer, too trans, too sexual, too radical—to define itself against.
Homonormativity tells us that liberation means access to oppressive institutions. Marriage, military service, corporate jobs with rainbow logos during Pride month. It tells us to be grateful for scraps while the systems that grind us down remain intact. It prioritizes the comfort of white, cis, middle-class gays while abandoning everyone else—especially trans people, sex workers, the poor, the disabled, people of color, and anyone who doesn't or can't conform.
The reality is that respectability has never protected us. It didn't protect us at Stonewall, and it won't protect us now. Homonormativity asks us to distance ourselves from the people who fought for our right to exist—the trans women of color, the street queens, the drag performers, the sex workers, the radicals who threw the first bricks. It asks us to sanitize our history and our present for the comfort of straight society.
And here's the thing: that acceptance is conditional. It depends on us being quiet, non-threatening, and willing to uphold the very systems that oppress us. The moment we step out of line, the moment we demand actual liberation instead of assimilation, that acceptance evaporates. We're only tolerated as long as we're useful, as long as we don't challenge the status quo.
Homonormativity also erases the radical potential of queerness. Our existence is inherently revolutionary—we challenge binaries, we create chosen families, we build communities outside of traditional structures. But homonormativity flattens all of that into 'we just want to be normal.' It strips queerness of its liberatory power and turns it into a consumer identity, something corporations can profit from while doing nothing to dismantle homophobia, transphobia, or any other system of oppression.
I'm tired of it. I'm tired of being told that if I just tone it down, if I just make myself smaller and more acceptable, I'll be safe. I won't. None of us will. Safety doesn't come from assimilation. It comes from solidarity, from collective liberation, from building power together and fighting for a world where we all get to live freely and authentically.
No gods, no masters, no assimilation.
Trans liberation isn't compatible with homonormativity. Disabled liberation isn't compatible with homonormativity. Sex worker liberation isn't compatible with homonormativity. If your version of queer acceptance requires throwing other marginalized people under the bus, it's not liberation—it's just repackaged oppression with a rainbow flag.
We don't need to prove we're 'just like' straight people. We need to tear down the systems that require us to prove anything at all. We need to reject respectability politics and embrace the radical, messy, beautiful reality of queer and trans existence in all its forms.
Queerness is resistance. Let's act like it.
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Hello everyone! I had a new idea for a februari challenge 🌟
Within fandom, there’s a big focus on romantic and sexual relationships, in my opinion sometimes to the detriment of other types of relations. Friendships, familiar bonds, queer platonic characters and aspec characters more often than not get the short end of the stick in these kind of spaces. I fear this notion reinforces amatonormativity and makes fandom spaces less comfortable for aspec folks.
In fanfiction spaces, gen fics are a good way to filter out romantic content! I love ao3’s tagging and filtering system in particular, as you can look up fanfics that explore non romantic relationships easily. I appreciate the ampersand and slash differentiation.
I would like to take the idea of gen fics further, and develop the presence of non romantic or sexual relationships in fandom spaces more. For example, I want to coin the term “gen art”! This would be fanart, that much like gen fics, explores characters and character bonds that aren’t focused on romance. I think it would also be great to develop a tagging system for platonic bonds. Creating this type of language within fandom is the first step to changing the relationship hierarchy we so often see there.
For this challenge, the idea is that for every day you create a gen fan work inspired by the prompt of that day. This can be art as the name suggests, but any type of media is welcome! Fanfics, art, edits, poems, moodboards, photography, the sky’s the limit. Don’t worry about skipping any days or changing up the prompts! This is all in good fun ✨💕
You are very welcome to join in! Please tag your posts with #genartfebruari so I can find them and reblog them 💖 I will be reblogging all entries! I'm of course joining myself too 😊
Even if you don’t plan to join, I would very much appreciate reblogs as it would help spread the word 🙏
It would be really nice if we could make this into a solid thing together. We could have fun creating together, but also try our hand at changing fandom spaces to be more safe and comfortable for everyone ✨
Yaoi is the heterosexuality of MCYT
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Practicing homonormativity. Will assume everyone gay unless proven otherwise
I wanna start with something close to home and that I regularly see interactions on Tumblr about. I’ll share the context that inspired this (& in this case, where I first saw the term) at the end under a readmore.
Homonormativity vs Heteronormativity, & Falling In-Between
Most of us have seen the term “heteronormativity”, where people assume that heterosexuality (“straight”) is the default (often paired with “and anything else is gross/abnormal/bad”).
Homonormativity is similar in its strict lines, though it allows for two to three LGBT+ identities: gay, lesbian, or homosexual. You are one of these, or you’re “straight”, and there’s nothing in-between.
This is the transition that some allies (some well-meaning, some not) have made, and some queer/LGBT+ people fall into the trap of. “Bisexuality isn’t real, you’re gay or straight.” “Do you like boys, or girls?” “What do you mean you’re ‘hetero-flexible’? You’re just straight.” “You’re just trying to invade the gay/lesbian community. You’re not one of us.”
We went from “you’re straight, or you’re bad/confused”, “you’re straight, you just need (conversion) therapy” to a similar binary, “you’re gay or straight”, or you’re wrong about your own orientation/what attracts you. The point is to only accept lesbians who are butch, or extremely fem straight women, & gay men who are very fem or straight men who are very “macho” and “manly”.
Humans (& other animals) are not strictly black-and-white binary, no matter the labels & packaging. The whole point of an LGBTQ+ community is that we are united in our differences. We aren’t a community because we’re all the same. We’re a community because we were excluded from “straight” spaces.
We’re a community that collected everyone in the margins of society, from asexual to queer to gay or lesbian to “it’s complicated”. We became powerful in that unity.
But now that we’re more visible, now that people can see some of the people who aren’t willing (or able) to “make it easy” for everyone else to keep a strict, never-changing label, division erupts.
LGBT+ identities and orientations weren’t meant to be set in stone. What gave you wings at one point in your life might be the same metal that forms prison bars later on.
You’re never done becoming yourself. And policing/“correcting” the identities/orientations that free others won’t help you be yourself, let alone combat the powers that want to keep our heterogeneous (somewhat punny) community shoved out of public life.
(* heterogeneous/heterogeneity = a group whose parts are disparate/different yet linked/related)
The point of all of this is, don’t run from the strict comfort of heteronormativity into the strict comfort of homonormativity. Neither binary will actually free you, and both will oppress & marginalize people who may not be like you but are still part of our community.
