Whiny -- I feel as though all my hobby spaces are now impromptu venues for gender-centric therapy

submitted by [deleted] from self.GenderCritical

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[–]persistentlywoman 15 insightful - 1 fun15 insightful - 0 fun16 insightful - 1 fun -  (9 children)

yeah I've noticed fandom spaces are absolutely plagued by this garbage now. all the self-hating straight women (often married) who fetishise gay male rships (not actual gay male of course - straight men they find attractive and then awkwardly 'ship') as a conduit for self insertion without feeling like they're competing with another woman are all calling themselves 'enby' and all the 'characterxreader' self-insert fics use 'gender neutral pronouns' even though they can't avoid describing female body parts with the accepted language. so somehow they're not made dysphoric reading sexual fiction describing male and female body parts interacting with each other, but use the pronouns she/her and all of a sudden it's toottaaallllyyyyy inaccessible to them and they can't RELATE.

I've noticed a huge uptick in people starting to pursue transition after immersing themselves in fandoms where they become wholly invested in fantasising about opposite sex characters and pretty obviously use it as a way to detach from painful realities. people have already observed this in TIMs who love anime of course, but it's huge amongst TIFs heavily invested in slash fandoms too. internalised misogyny in female-heavy fandoms projected outward onto other women has long been a problem in those spaces, but now it's being obfuscated by the trans narrative. women can deny their own misogyny by simply saying they are trans and slash is just the only expression of their sexuality that really validates it.

it'a not a hobby for them. it's an escape from a reality they loathe and they want to drag the rest of us down into fantasy with them. it's very hard when you just want to have a good time.

[–][deleted]  (8 children)

[deleted]

    [–]persistentlywoman 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

    my observation of the overlap between these communities makes me wonder just how far off we are from some people giving furries and others some legitimacy in their form of dissociation. the current pseudo-science formed by people pretending to have the disorder in insular virtual communities around DID, for example, is rapidly gaining traction in some material spaces, just as the 'ace spectrum' has. both I would've argued a few years ago would never be taken seriously by people more grounded in reality. a lot of the DID nonsense about 'alters' and 'switching' etc comes straight from roleplaying communities I saw functioning on tumblr ten years ago. there's a lot of overlap in the rhetoric and concepts from those spaces, and the current trans narratives - a lot of overlap between participants too. a loooooooooooooot of overlap. people participating in the trans community are often also in the ace community, the roleplaying communities, the autism communities, the furry communities, the fringe kink communities (littles, adult babies, vore etc), the DID communities... there's a reason we all have a checklist of stated attributes we anticipate them revealing. watching people deeply invested in the DID nonsense argue that their 'black alters' should be allowed to use racial slurs even if their 'host body' is white and be defended for it makes me nervous about how far these and other outrageous concepts are from emerging into the real world, just as the trans narrative has. it seems impossible to believe that any decent person would take the concept of being 'transracial' seriously, but isn't that what happened with transgender? somehow a whole lot of people got roped into it. I no longer take any of it for granted, no matter how ridiculous it obviously is. these movements work insidiously.

    [–][deleted]  (6 children)

    [deleted]

      [–]persistentlywoman 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

      I totally see where you're coming from.

      the reason people have responded differently to the concept of transracial rather than transgender is because of the perceived materiality of experience. a visibly black person has a very specific experience of racism that no white person, regardless of their ancestral history, can understand or simply 'identify' into. of course it is the same with transgender at the end of the day BUT the reason that people have felt differently about gender is because gender has such strong visual elements tied to it in our culture than can be adapted by either sex that it forces something of a mind trick when we see it. if that makes sense. sex is binary and this is obvious once our clothes are off. but gendered fashion and modes of dress are just the trappings we put on top, and the significance attached to them socially is very important to many. I think this is PARTLY why transgender has been more readily accepted than other outrageously offensive identity appropriating.

      also, wheras a white woman braiding her hair and tanning will NEVER lead her to experience what black women do, people dressing as the opposite sex do experience stigma and discrimination that others are able to observe and recognise - which then lends extra credence to the claim they are an oppressed population.

      [–]MarkTwainiac 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

      a visibly black person has a very specific experience of racism that no white person, regardless of their ancestral history, can understand or simply 'identify' into. of course it is the same with transgender at the end of the day BUT the reason that people have felt differently about gender is because gender has such strong visual elements tied to it in our culture than can be adapted by either sex that it forces something of a mind trick when we see it

      But you're saying being subjected to racism comes from being "visibly black" (presumably in white-majority parts of the world) whilst also saying that what makes "gender" so important to some is that it "has such strong visual elements..." Which I find confusing.

      World history shows that there are many, many different kinds of racism and ethnic prejudice - racism is not just something that only affects, and historically has affected, "visibly black" people in places/countries that are majority white. There's long been tons of racism against all kinds of people in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, the Americas and Australia, New Zealand and the other Pacific Islands.

      Moreover, even amongst persons who are perceived by others and themselves as black in countries such as the USA, there has always been a huge variation in skin tones and physical characteristics of those who have experienced anti-black racism. The great black civil rights activist Walter White, founder and first president of the NAACP, was a mixed-race person who definitely did not look "visibly black." On the contrary, most people thought he looked completely white.

      wheras a white woman braiding her hair and tanning will NEVER lead her to experience what black women do, people dressing as the opposite sex do experience stigma and discrimination that others are able to observe and recognise - which then lends extra credence to the claim they are an oppressed population.

      What do you mean by "dressing as the opposite sex"? And which countries/regions of countries and historical periods are you speaking of? In countries like the US, UK and Canada today, men who "dress as the opposite sex" are lionized for being stunning and brave and treated extremely well. They get awards for being "woman of the year" and showing "courage," and they occupy positions of power. In the 70s, 80s and 90s, men who wore long hair, frilly and "feminine" clothing and makeup were a dime a dozen and did not get singled out for "stigma and discrimination" as a result.

      For many decades women in countries in North America, Europe and the UK wore trousers, trouser suits and other men's clothing, and very short hair including shaved heads and buzz cuts, and most other people in those places/cultures didn't mind at all.

      My sense is, the "stigma and discrimination" you claim people who "dress as the opposite sex" routinely experience today is over-stated, and a matter of the questionable perceptions and claims of insecure, histrionic people who mistakenly think that everyone else in the world is constantly looking at them and disapproving of them. When the reality is, most of the world hardly notices them (which funnily enough, these self-conscious, self-obsessed people who think they are so edgy and unique coz of their "gender identity" and expression take as an invalidating affront as well).

      I'm not saying that such stigma and discrimination does not occur, just that it's over-stated. Moreover, when it does occur nowadays I think it comes from homophobia, the regressive sex stereotypes that previous generations in the Western world rejected but today's "hip and young" people are embracing, and the rampant and hyper lookism of the Instagram and social media era.

      Still, whatever "stigma and discrimination" they suffer, the experience of boys/men and girls/women who "dress as the opposite sex" is nothing like the experience of people who actually are the opposite sex.

      [–]persistentlywoman 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

      there you go again. would you like a prize for being Smarter Than The New Girl?