#performing gender

[kiraleighart]

many authors writing painful books these days worry that readers will react poorly at them.

i worry that readers won't feel that i write pain to show i felt it, you aren't alone, i heard you.

that's the reason i make art these days

k. leigh "the immortal corpse" 2023 digital

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

have you ever considered an animorphs "roleswap au"? for lack of a better word. essentially just... what if, instead of marco's mom being visser one, it was cassie's mom? or instead of tobias becoming a nothlit, maybe it was rachel instead?? things like that, lol i know it's kind of vague but i've been thinking about different animorphs backstory configurations all day thinking about what might be the most interesting to explore

I did do one AU where Jake is the team nothlit.  And one AU where Marco is the one split in half as a starfish.  You could probably also count that AU where Tobias’s house ends up becoming the home base for the team.

But also I agree that messing around with backstories is always a great opportunity for characterization because it raises fascinating questions about what makes the characters themselves.

I saw a conference presentation make the argument that fan fiction which alters a facet of a known character’s identity is inherently about what it really means to have a that identity.  Gender-bent fic demands a definition of gender, and grapples with questions at the core of what gender is.

To use the original author’s example, if Tony Stark is instead Antonia Stark, what does that change and what does it not change?  Does this version of the character still use the hyper-masculine name of Iron Man, reflecting the trend of non-men pretending to be male in anonymized spaces (e.g. web forums) to avoid sexism?  Does this version use a feminized version such as Iron Maiden or Iron Woman, and to what extent does that suggest canonical Iron Man is fundamentally male?  How does Antonia Stark’s relationship with the press differ from that of her male counterpart, especially if she remains a sex symbol in this AU?  Would she even become CEO of a tech company if she was female, or would she be shut out of the field the way that a majority of women in STEM eventually are?  Would she still be talked about as “the smartest person alive,” or would she instead have to endure condescending comments about how nice it is to see a woman in engineering for a change?  Either way, what does that say about our cultural standards for intelligence, for excellence, and for meritocracy?  Where do sexuality and gender diverge, and what does that mean for Antonia’s possible romance with Pepper?  Where do gender and sex diverge, and is the fic more or less close to canon if Antonia is still assigned male at birth?  So on and so forth.

And just by writing a story in which Antonia Stark walks into a room and drinks a cup of coffee, the writer must answer all of these questions even if they don’t consciously intend to do so.  The author’s fundamental worldviews about gender always come out whether they like it or not, the instant they so much as tell us what Antonia’s job and relationship status and nom de guerre happen to be in this universe.

[acearopositive]

I've heard a number of stories about people discovering Things™️ about their gender during the pandemic because they didn't have to go out and perform gender and whatnot.

And while I definitely had some inklings about not being entirely cisgender prior to the pandemic, I became increasingly aware of my gender over the course of the Year That Wasn't, culminating in five days spent almost entirely solo where I mostly had no gender at all.

I'm not entirely sure how to label myself, but what feels comfortable right now is to say that I'm mostly a girl but sometimes I'm nothing.

💜

Shout out to all my peeps figuring out that they're not who they thought they were, or who they were told they were.

[biandanxious18]

Me, thinking rationally: gender is performance! I don’t have to perform only femininity or masculinity. I always think butches look so good, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t look nice in more ‘masculine’ clothes.

My brain, when I look myself in the mirror: but if I don’t look girly girly I’m not pretty pretty :(:(

[xerserise]

Gender is a performance.

Some folks rehearse daily, making sure they have their lines and stage directions down pat. Some folks ad lib a little. And some prefer pure improv.

[next-of-kith]

Well, here I am getting my car serviced and performing Deep Man Voice™ so I get better service. Feels gross on several levels.

[moontyger]

The things I could do if I weren’t carrying around the mental burden of the need-to-find-the-perfect-blend-of-sheer-lip-plumper-slash-gloss-and-maybe-it-would-make-me-feel-better-about-my-mommy-pooch-which-makes-me-feel-weirdly-regretful-about-my-C-section-because-maybe-my-pooch-would-be-smaller-if-I’d-had-vaginal-births-but-we’ll-never-know-but-thanks-for-the-lifelong-question-that-I’m-too-embarrassed-to-talk-about-because-women-are-only-supposed-to-be-grateful-for-healthy-babies-and-a-feminist-shouldn’t-care-so-much-about-a-round-belly! The sheer SPACE I could clear in my brain! The loneliness I could let go of! The mental gymnastics—Jesus. What a waste of goddamn effort. How much more useful, how much more joyful, how much easier to actually be truthful, to celebrate our efforts, to create communities around our desires and not fucking live with the shame that the desire for effortlessness brings, for women, and for immigrants, and for people of color who may never fit into a white, Westernized standard of beauty. Maybe all the effort that goes into being effortless could be used, I don’t know, in loving ourselves and loving each other better. How transformative being honest could be.

Amy S. Choi, “ There’s Nothing Effortless About Being a Woman“

[isaacsapphire]

Woah, you're a security guard? You didn't strike me as the type. That makes a lot of things about you click into place in a really cool way. For some reason I'd super underestimated your mascness I think

I've got a whole tag about it! I've been in the industry since before I got on Tumblr! It's actually been pretty great for me; gave me space to be masculine and find my own way without being pressured to be feminine.