okay. gonna just do the Healthy Thing and draw a line and say if you ascribe to the most recent wave of “hmmm ppl wanting to not be women or aligned with women? this ‘gender dysphoria’ sounds a lot like internalised misogyny to me idk maybe homophobia also : / what’s wrong with just being gnc hmm why are you forcing this ‘trans/nb’ poison onto our youth???” thing like if that seems like an acceptable discourse to be having between ppl who aren’t and have never been trans/nb and/or non-aligned
i would appreciate being hard-blocked asap so i can live out my evil problematic non-aligned nb life in some sort of peace yeah? like i don’t wanna argue or talk about it i don’t want to read essays from cis feminists 30 years ago that surprisingly reach the same conclusions ab me being inferior or malformed or whatever i don’t wanna hear about how it’s totally not about Real Transes like me it’s just u know poor young ppl who might grow up thinking being like me isn’t an insult to womanhood if we don’t nip this thing in the bud : (
i don’t wanna be following, followed-by or interact with ppl who think it’s a fun hip new idea and i would like ppl to respect that boundary and that’s it really. the end.
Why do people blame their inability to deal with their own internalized homophobia and transphobia on the MOGAI community and a-specs? For every person that claims these communities hurt them, there’s a person who was helped by them. All they do is provide labels and terminology for people to use to better understand themselves or others and what someone does with those labels is completely up to them. No one is forcing them onto anyone. And people can do that with any label, not just MOGAI and a-spec ones. Some gay people called themselves bi for years because of internalized homophobia and some bi people called themselves gay/straight for years because of internalized biphobia. The same can be said in relation to transness and being nonbinary. If someone can’t deal with their own internalized homophobia/transphobia/etc it’s the fault of society, not other marginalized people.
deadass look me in the eye and tell me that a teen identifying as fog-gender or smth because they heard about it on Tungle Dot Net does not cause any harm to lgbt people who are struggling to be taken seriously. look at me and tell me that, susan.
yeah we gotta keep our appearances under the watchful gaze of our oppressors otherwise whats the point in Being Ourselves
Okay, so whether or not you agree with how subtle Leighton Grey & Co. went with representing Damien’s trans identity, his story arc/ending was a great, subtle way in representing the difficulties and nuances of performing vs. over-performing his gender (with Damien’s goth identity acting as a metaphor).
Damien feels “embarrassed” at showing a part of himself that isn’t stereotypically goth, like many trans people feel uncomfortable or up for ridicule if they showcase interests or present in such a way that is like their gender assigned at birth. He feels that in order to be validated, he needs to act as goth as he possibly can 24/7– like how trans people feel pressured to overperform their genders.
Even though his goth interests are a huge part of his identity, and he originally entered the goth subculture to make himself happy, he soon felt like the goth stuff was the most important thing about him.
The player character’s interest in Damien despite his “normal” behaviors is what causes him to reflect on WHY he felt the need to perform goth to such an extent, in a way that made him feel uncomfortable expressing parts of his real self.
Through this reflection (and not, may I note, the PC’s love alone), Damien concludes that he would live a fuller, happier life if he allowed himself to be a three-dimensional human being instead of just manifesting one character trait (goth, gender).
This is not a pitch-perfect metaphor– for many trans people, performing their gender “perfectly” is often a matter of life and death– but it is useful for those in the nonbinary/trans umbrella who feel the need to embody only masculine/feminine/androgynous/whatever traits in order to be respected as their gender (even if they’re in a relatively safe environment).
And it was just a really cool, subtle way to tie goth/trans stuff together???
Honestly, really good representation all around, in my humble opinion.
EDIT: tumblr user supergaysatan (who I can’t tag for some reason) pointed out this article on the difficulties of being both goth and trans, which adds a deeper layer to this analysis… just gotta figure out how to word it, and then I’m going to probably make another edit to add more thoughts no one asked for (but y’all should read it)
i have a lot of feelings about the way the ddadds fandom attacks and polices trans men for how masculine and/or feminine they draw damien. if you wanna draw him in a big ass lacy dress and a princess crown, that is your right as a trans man. you wanna draw him post-surgery with big muscles and chugging Goth Gatorade, that is your right as a trans man. but miss me with that “he can’t be feminine ever at all because thats fetishizing yourself!!!” bull-honkey. let a man breathe. miss me with that truscum bullshit. its transphobic, damaging, and downright nasty.
(also sai likes to freeze and then delete random layers so enjoy his weird eyes akj;jads…. he was halfway thru putting in his contacts, i guess)
whitemanning critical 