RE: Recent Concerns

takethatzine:

Hello.

As I’m sure most of you have seen by
now, this project has been publicly questioned for suspicion of
things such as gatekeeping and biphobia. We mediated on what to
do as a result of this, ranging from attempting to carry on to
canceling the project entirely, and ultimately we’ve decided to at
least acknowledge and attempt to explain what people are concerned
about.

We frankly do not understand these accusations, as we have
thoroughly explained our positions on the matters brought up and
where they came from, nor do we necessarily approve of the idea of
bringing them up in such a way rather than messaging us with concerns
–which we have shown to be already more than receptive to. We are
not a blog here to engage in arguments or discourse. We’re simply a
project trying to have a good time, so allow us to attempt to clarify
this matter as well as we can.

We have been primarily accused of
having an anti-aroace agenda because we are putting some of it
through the same screening process as much of our other submissions.
That is to say that aroace characters who are either trans and/or in
same-gender ships (or otherwise same gender attracted) are automatically good to go. We have also said that we gladly encourage art of two or more people in platonic relationships. Anything else, as we have
described, will be reviewed by staff upon submission for mere purposes of caution. It should not
be surprising why this is, especially because we have detailed our concerns before (re-articulated in the next paragraph). There’s no point in pretending that this
isn’t a major point of contention of late, and this is why our rules
and regulations follow such a pattern. In-depth discussion on this is for
another time and another place. Our aim is simply to try and offend
as few people as possible and consider what we are given very
carefully.

The other accusation is that we are
bi- and panphobic because we don’t have an anything goes policy on
cis M/F ships. We have previously articulated why this is, both in
response to asks and in our FAQ, in a way that we deem at least
fairly reasonable. The reason for this provision is simple: there are
people out there who would be more than willing to take advantage of
good faith for their own purposes. People who do not and would not
headcanon these characters as bi- or pansexual might attempt to use
this project as a way to slip in M/F art of characters they view as
cis and heterosexual. This screening process simply aims to filter
these out.

Our purpose has never been to exclude,
and our purpose has especially not been to cause debates about
identity. We’re simply here to showcase LGBT content in the most
respectful way we can possibly manage. We want to particularly note
that our staff has multiple people who identify as asexual and/or bi-
and pansexual on it. We’re fully aware of the discussions within the
community and the perspectives within them. We are not here to cause
trouble or frustration.

We have also been referred to as
“cissexist,” and we out-and-out don’t understand this. We’ve
made zero statements about trans people and characters other than
“they’re included and welcome,” and the majority of our staff
identifies as trans in one form or another.

We kindly ask that in the future, if
you take issue with our policies, that you please come to our inbox
before taking further action. We would be glad to explain ourselves
rather than feel like we have our backs against the wall when our
primary goal is to be as inoffensive as we can possibly manage. We
know that this is theoretically impossible – everyone has their own
perspective on intracommunity issues, and there is essentially no way
we can please everyone. But we ask that you understand that we are
trying very hard to do so.

We kindly request that you do not attempt to get in any arguments on the post that this is responding to, or with the people involved in it. We are sure that they are speaking from legitimate concern. 

We also request that you do not try to
engage in discussion on this post, as it’s already rather long.
Please direct any questions and concerns to our inbox. We will not be engaging with anyone who reblogs this post, but we will gladly talk to people who are willing to approach us in these manners. If you would like a response and an explanation, please simply do that. We’re not attempting to silence anyone, but merely contain any and all discussions to a calm and constructive format.

Thanks again for your time and
patience.

TTZ Staff

Oh, and I’m hoping my time and patience will be rewarded.

A quick way to deconstruct every line of passive dodging in this post? @takethatzine sums up their guidelines with this; we, the moderators of this artistic project, have the right to intrusively ‘guess’ and ‘evaluate’ who’s Gay Enough …. whether it’s fictional Ace Attorney characters, or the creator’s intentions.

There’s only so much gatekeeping that someone can justify without being cissexist, or acephobic, or bi/panphobic. And believe it or not, your guidelines cross that mark. 

“Oh, nope, it’s gotta be somewhat same-gender-attraction-based. What does that mean? Well, when a non-binary person undresses, their relationship will really be on the rocks! What do you mean? Of course all non-binary people are trans!”

“Oh, nope, we’re very much concerned about these hypothetical people submitting artwork that we are gonna somehow see through their sneakypeaky intentions and see that they’re actually trying to take up a page on our zine! How do we know this? Hell if anyone else knows! We’ll just keep you guessing, I’m sure it wouldn’t creep people out too much.”

“Oh, nope, ace people aren’t lgbt. Because every single shitty argument spewed by truscum, terfs, bi/panphobes, anti-non-binaries, and so on is definitely legitimate when applied to aces.”

“And hey; we’re taking a neutral stance here! That’s why we’re making a literal safe haven of exclusionism for people who like to impose cissexism upon trans bodies and their sexuality, for people who like to invade other people’s sense of private sexual identities and how they chose to express them, and for people who think not having a sexual orientation is the same thing as a man wholly attracted to women!”

It’s ironic that this project is a charity event for the Los Angeles LGBT Center. Going by what major non-profit LGBT+ organizations are doing, run by people who actually do see the numbers of who ‘takes advantage of good faith’ and who needs these resources, they’d wouldn’t approve of an attempt to guise zine participation based off of you’re-not-gay-enough discourse.