I had a lesbian-identifying friend who went from a lesbian to a “enby gay trans man” because of yaoi...

Yeah, the "enby gay trans man" I know writes MM. Way to erase your entire concept of self by piling on the woke words.

I have a lot of feelings about this topic, because I devoured slashfic for well over a decade. Not really yaoi, because even back then I realised it was so rigid - big brunette semes and small blond ukes. The same cookie-cutter, rapey non-story. But growing up, my slash-goggles were fastened securely to my face and Livejournal was my home.

Where I read for enjoyment and angst and romance and, ultimately, the stories, at some point other girls seemed to read it and think they had to become those characters, become male to be happy and live the life they want. The only life they've ever thought about living because they're young and addicted to reading about cute guys getting it on.

No judgement. I was, too.

The thing is, I believed most boys my age were morons. But it was refreshing to read about messed-up, mixed-up boys with their own inner demons and turmoils, who were sensitive and brave and vulnerable and deep like teenaged me (plus hot - always, always hot ofc). Qualities given to them because the vast majority of MM is written by women. They're female romantic fantasies and the femaleness of it was the thing that chimed within me. It's appealing to see boys written through the lens of a woman, through the woman's gaze, and I wonder how often the readers who think they need to deny their womanhood actually take into consideration the female writer instead of the male characters?

(Unless it's to flame her for taking a hiatus and thereby putting a brake on the reader's porny self-indulgence.)

I lost interest in slash when, I guess, I grew up and my brain fully developed. When I interacted with guys and realised the reality of them and the fantasy of slash are very different beasts. Whenever I (rarely) check into AO3 nowadays, I find it incredibly binary: tops and bottoms and ABO and trans headcanons and so, so many plot-what-plots.

I don't recognise this version of fandom so I've noped out of all of it.

It was a significant chunk of my life. But something seems to have happened by the time I was mostly out of fandom, to convince female readers that they need to start identifying as trans and enbies, and I'm gonna blame this social contagion on the rise of Tumblr.

Hypothesis -

Middle-aged TIMs trans because of autogynephilia. Teenaged TIFs trans becaue of slash and yaoi.

It's all porn. Porn is the reason.