I think my perception of gender is so so funny bc you can come up to me and be wearing a dress with full makeup and long hair and tell me you’re a man but use all pronouns or tell me you’re gender is what a will wood song feels like and I’m just like,,,Banger identity, hope you have a good day,,,and then I look at how other people are with stuff like that and realize that I’m just cool like that and I’m the ultimate woke guy,,,,like if that bothers you then just get good idk what to tell you
So, it’s only been within the last year and a half or so that I’ve started to realize I am both gray-romantic and Bisexual. I’ve always either been in denial or just had no fucking clue because queer terms are still things I’m learning.
Anyway, on this journey, I’ve noticed something that’s really starting to piss me off. And just what is that?
Well, it’s the notion hammered into us that the character cast of any given media source is Straight until proven Queer. and it pisses me the hell off!
Example? Well, have you ever written a fic or draw a pic of a same-sex ship and someone comments something like “How can you ship that?! There’s no canon evidence they’re gay!”
I always just agreed or don’t respond because I don’t have the mental energy to fight it. But what I always want to say is “Well, there’s no canon evidence they’re straight either!” when a character doesn’t have a canon relationship. Or if they do have a canon relationship, I find myself wanting to say “well, you don’t know that they’re not not Bi!”.
Why is it that every character has to be explicitly straight until there’s canon evidence of being queer?
Why can’t characters with unspecified orientations be whatever the fan wants them to be until their orientation is given (or even when an orientation is given. tastes change, after all)?
Want another example? Let’s use Team Fortress 2 for this but it applies to all fandoms.
You have two teams of 9 mercs. 8 of which are proven to be men with the 9th (Pyro) left ambiguous of gender. Together, two teams of 9 mercs make for a total of 18 mercs trapped and isolated in a tiny, geographic location for a minimum of 6 years.
Now only 2 out of 9 mercs, Spy and Scout, canonly have relationships where they are in love with women. Before you say anything, yes it is mentioned that Medic has/had a wife. But it’s the late 60′s/early 70′s. At that time, just because two people were in a heterosexual marriage did not automatically mean that every married couple was straight. Lots of marriages were gay/bi men marrying lesbians/bi women in order to keep up a hetero-normative front so they weren’t the outcasts of society. In Medic’s case, he was already close enough to being on the fringes of society. Given how he is obviously queer-coded, he would have to be careful about being anything other than straight if he wanted to work and have a livelihood before Mann Co.
Anyway, you’re trying to tell me that statistically out of 18 mercs, no one’s queer? That sounds like bullshit to me!
There is no way that you can convince me that 18 dudes (I’m Californian, “dude” is gender neutral) away from the prying eyes of social norms aren’t gonna start forming queer or queer-platonic relationships of some kind.
*Spoilers for the TF2 comics ahead, derp*
I’ll use a classic example of a fan favorite: Heavy/Medic
Two middle-age mercs who are basically the mom and dad of the team. They canonly have a deep “friendship” that can be seen both in the comics and the game. These two spend a lot of time together, they work well together, and they sort of complete each other. They are protective of each other and neither can be properly happy without the other.
In game, when one player dominates another, their character will tease and taunt the other player’s character. And yet, Heavy and Medic don’t have dominations lines towards each other.
Medic is one of the most fucked-up, sadistic mercs out of the bunch. Seems suspicious to me that he of all people wouldn’t want the pleasure of dominating and jeering someone as strong as Heavy. But, if Medic is romantically involved with Heavy, he’d be much less inclined to jeer his lover’s doppleganger.
And then there’s Heavy. He’s a sensitive man with a big heart despite his honestly frightening love of combat. But he’s softest towards family. His devotion to those that he loves is total. In the comic, the devastation he feels after Medic is murdered is total as well.
This man literally does not want to live without his Medic.
Bringing back the picture from earlier:
Their reunion is heartfelt. Moving on, Heavy immediately praises Medic ingenuity, just as he always does. And lets be real, I have never seen a person pour so much high praise on their platonic friend as constantly as Heavy praises Medic. Heavy can’t go like two minutes without saying how much he loves Medic, or how smart Medic is, or how skilled Medic is. There is just like a never ending stream of adoration that Heavy has for his precious German.
Also, at this point Medic has spent the past several comics being constantly verbally abused by the enemy, Classic!Heavy. Most of the time resulting in Medic being uncharacteristically docile and submissive. But around TF2!Heavy, Medic regains his cold, cruel ingenuity and confidence; becoming the force to be reckoned with that he’s known for.
The two complete each other both emotionally and in combat.
THERE NO WAY IN HELL YOU CAN CONVINCE ME THESE TWO AREN’T GAY AS FUCK!
The mercs are social outcasts. But working for Mann Co. allows them to be themselves away from the judging eyes of normal society. It only makes sense that most if not all of them would be queer, especially in a place where they could be safe in their identities.
So, why should we as a fandom have to believe that they’re all straight just because they don’t have canon queer labels? Especially when a canonly queer character exists in universe.
May I present Ms. Pauling! She’s the boys’ boss. She takes good care of them and she is very clearly gay.
You can see this clearly when Soldier and Zhanna are running around naked and covered in honey. Meanwhile, Ms. Pauling looks like this as she watches them.
It is confirmed several times over that Ms. Pauling is extremely tired of seeing Soldier naked. That means that she is clearly being entranced by the vision of Zhanna naked.
No straight woman has ever looked at another woman like this.
Ms. Pauling is definitely gay.
So, yeah, if one character is obviously queer but not explicitly labeled as such, then why can’t all the characters be queer? And why can’t characters be queer without an obviously queer character in canon? Why must all characters be straight unless proven otherwise?
It’s a stupid and toxic narrative that only contributes to shipping wars.
Why should a narrative that’s not even canon be allowed to overpower our personal headcanons?
We need to start allowing people to headcanon sexual orientations for fictional characters.
Ok but the most annoying part of homophobia/transphobia is the awfully personal questions some straight/cis people keep on asking. I’ve heard of many fellow asexual people who are just sick of all these questions that you’d never ask normally. Of course trans men and women get that whole “so what’s actually in your pants?!” Thing. Like dude just cuz this person brought up their sexuality/gender identity doesn’t mean we’re happy to answer all your questions.
Personal opinion here which I don’t expect anyone to share (just let me ramble I’m not really talking to anyone). So the whole straight pride thing was pretty silly, I don’t really see harm in that kind of stuff as long as you don’t liken it to lgbtq+ pride. You can have a thing sure (as long as it ain’t anti-lgbtq+ obviously). And fine, use a straight pride flag for whatever you’d do with that cuz our flags have a lot more meaning.
No ones going to include the straight pride flag in their art projects, paintings and things. Because we relate to our fellow lgbt peoples struggles. Those things are celebrations of being brave in the face of everything that comes with our labels.
