#queer ref

[trans-seraphim]

reposting this from sabre (@bottleneckloser on insta)

the article in question

[trans-seraphim]

maybe this is a blistering hot take, but the fact that conservatives are so afraid of us trans people (in contrast to liberals' token acceptance) demonstrates that they understand what we represent far better than liberals do. liberals believe they can put us in the corner and largely ignore us and keep their understanding of the world the way it is. conservatives see that we represent a fundamental challenge to cisheteronormative gender.

and there are so many trans people that are like "i don't want to disrupt anything, i just want to be left alone." and i get it, i really really do. but in our world, your existence is disruptive. you have to be willing to fuck shit up even more.

[trans-seraphim]

this always drives me crazy when i see it so transfems you deserve to know that 1mg and 2mg oral estradiol are baby doses. don't ever let them give you 1mg and if they won't give you more than 2mg at first, make sure you insist on a quick follow-up.

[trans-seraphim]

with a resigned sigh, i begin down another pointless research rabbit hole: is the sexualization of maid outfits in the trans community because of anime?

oh fuck here we go

following is a comment i wrote, slightly edited:

I'm tempted to say it's connected to the prominence and sexualization of maids in anime, which anecdotally is a fairly common interest among transfems (the shut-in nerd to transfem pipeline is real because dysphoria's a bitch). However, maids have been sexualized for a while (see Elvgren's famous maid pinup), easily before Japanese animation had any following abroad. I believe it is possible that the increased popularity of anime contributed to a resurgence of the trend or perhaps garnered interest from people who formerly were not interested in maid outfits. It's likely that Japanese-style maid uniforms, at least, were popularized through anime.

One of my Asian Studies professors has this to say (NSFW, discussion of porn/sex ahead)

Me: [...] I feel like it has to go back further, but do you feel like anime culture intensified it?

Them: This. Sexy maids are like a French porn thing. Being able to fuck the help at will? Peak bougie aspirational fantasy. Japanese anime/manga just picked up this western fetish and morphed it/accelerated it. Maid cafes are fairly recent… maybe like mid-90s?* I’m sure there were earlier experiments but the [Akihabara] versions were in the otaku boom.

* For context, the first permanent maid cafe went up in 2001 in Akihabara

I feel like a fool for not blaming the French. I mean, one of the common ways to refer to them are as French maids. Then, traditional gender roles give you the shift from fucking the help to being the help. In a world without anime, we might get the maid fixation in trans spaces due to French maids alone, but I kinda doubt it would be nearly as prominent.

Further, as written by Patrick Galbraith: "In the 1970s, some turned to the shōjo, the woman who is not one, as a source of alternative intimacy. Novelist and critic Honda Tōru argues that at the time consumption had come to play an increasingly important role in courting in Japan, and women gravitated towards men with resources. He describes this as 'love capitalism' (renai shihon shugi), an extension of market logic also reflected in discussion of 'the love gap' (renai kakusa), roughly corresponding to the income gap. According to Honda, men marginalised by this system, especially 'otaku' types investing in hobbies rather than relationships, turned to the fictional girls (the shōjo) of manga and anime. Such characters provide 'pure love' (junai), or love free of socioeconomic concerns. Honda is all too aware that this is an impossible ideal, which is precisely why it is only possible as fiction." (Galbraith 2011)

Some familiar with the man might problematize me citing Galbraith, but his analysis of Honda is fair and succinct. If we are to believe that maids specifically and shōjo more broadly stand in as objects of affection that are free from economic concerns for men marginalized by capitalism, it seems believable that transfems marginalized by transphobia (and also capitalism) would connect to maids as a form of aspirational femininity. Women are often expected to provide emotional comfort, and so the maid might be said to be a symbol of the desire to do so - perhaps more than that, as an embodiment of the ability to do so; or, seen more negatively, as a representation of the expectation to do so. I still think this connects to sexualization; emotional comfort is not the only comfort at play here.

I also think it's important to note that the maid trope is prevalent in online trans spaces and is not something I would associate with the transfem community more broadly. Naturally, these are trans spaces most proximate to otaku culture.

[trans-seraphim]

hey estradiol valerate girlies, you should be doing weekly injections. for every two weeks, cypionate is better. be sure to adjust your doses accordingly! many references and dosage guides have this exactly backwards. keep in mind this is not formal medical advice, i am not your doctor. just something i learned when trying to figure out why my mood is a train wreck

(source) (source 2)

[trans-seraphim]

https://www.tumblr.com/trans-seraphim/774977198785527808/if-you-want-to-understand-why-some-people-assigned?source=share

You take their explicit narratives about their transfem identity at face value, when they are really made for public-image reasons—to make their motivations appear more acceptable to us. It might be true that some claim that identity also because they felt excluded from femininity, but that's just a secondary, tertiary reason, *not* the main one. Without that main reason, they wouldn't identify as such. So it's not just a subset, because most of these 'AFAB transfems' really identify that way mainly because they are attracted to male femininity. You might feel that it's 'just a subgroup, not the majority' that is motivated by this because they are not overtly, loudly showcasing their attraction to male femininity. It's far more discreet, but it's nonetheless the reason

The BL connection is that they want to be trans women for the same reasons they want to be BL characters—they want to free themselves from female constraints. They see female femininity as a burden, a chore, bland, unappealing, as stripping away part of their personhood. They find conventional male masculinity unappealing as well, but for different reasons. It’s about rejecting gender nonconformity and embracing what they’re attracted to—their idealized version of what they wish men should be—androgyous, beautiful males, which allow them to explore femininity, masculinity, sexuality and all sorts of things from that appealing, personified perspective. It goes deeper than this.

So in short most afab transfems want to be transfem bc they find male femininity attractive, bc they want to (re)explore femininity from a male perspective.

this part parses:

"They see female femininity as a burden, a chore, bland, unappealing, as stripping away part of their personhood. They find conventional male masculinity unappealing as well, but for different reasons."

but the rest reads like a villain monologue, especially:

"... they are really made for public-image reasons- to make their motivations appear more acceptable to us."

same shit terfs say about trans women!!

I think you might be deeper down the rabbit hole on this than me. a cautionary tale about where I don't want to be! so thanks!

"So in short most afab transfems want to be transfem bc they find male femininity attractive, bc they want to (re)explore femininity from a male perspective."

doing this is based and gender as fuck honestly? i just wish they wouldn't say that makes them trans women 🤷🏼‍♀️

[trans-seraphim]

before i say this i want to clarify that i do not mean to say that identifying as nonbinary is a step on the path towards binary transness

that said, i think part of the reason that nonbinary people are so maligned in cisiety, especially by exclusionist types, is that it provides a softer, more gradual entry point to transness and queerness. once one accepts a rejection of binary notions of gender, it is much easier to play around in the gender space and get closer to your true gender, rather than jumping directly from man <—> woman

i believe this also connects to why bi and transhet people are seen as suspect, as they can bring a queer understanding to their relationships with cishet people. anything that provides cishet identified/perceived people the opportunity to become more proximate to/part of queerness is a threat to cisheteronormativity

[montparnasse]

i just got invited to “a peer-facilitated workshop for queer white women (cis + trans) and non-binary people talk to about racism”

“This event is only for queer identified white women (cis + trans) and non-binary people age 16-29.”

im kind of iffy about going to a workshop on racism where people of colour literally arent allowed to be honest what the fuck