(no subject)

[la_vie_noire]

iambickilometer writes: Five+ Ways Being Transgender in Fandom Really Sucks, and Why I Stick With It Anyway.

There are almost no transgender characters. I can't think of any transgender TV personalities or celebrities. No sports stars, few "out" politicians. You know what sucks about being a transgender fan? There are so few people to identify with. I watch these shows and read these comics and books and I look for myself in the characters, because that's what makes them good stories, right? And I maybe see my personality, and maybe some of my experiences, but no one's feeling my gender dysphoria. No one's doing their damndest to pass every day. They're all wearing stylish tight-fitting shirts or tailored suits or (god forbid) all-revealing spandex so we can see they've got the bodies they seem to identify with. Maybe not perfect bodies, but they're not wrong. They're not wishing desperately that they could tear off their chests and make their genitalia just disappear. They're not afraid that their voices, their body language, their face, or their friends or family will give them away. Not like I am.

I love many cisgendered characters, mind. Just like I love many straight characters and many non-Latino characters. But I want to be able to love transgender characters, too. And I want other people to love them, to follow their stories and root for them and see them as people and interesting, complex characters that they can ship and analyse. I want people to feel like they can write trans characters even though they're not trans themselves. I want to be able to say I'm transgendered and have people know what that means.

The Elephant in the Room for cis fans.

ETA: I forgot, something I wanted to quote days ago when I was still busy and I read the article was the bit about the "gender-swap" thing going on in fandom. Seriously, go read the article.

the_future_modernes at politics: Iran fights Fifa ban on hijab.

instead of asking that adjustments be made to satisfy their safety requirements, they just banned religious symbols entirely. Which is in my view discriminatory and high-handed.

Seeing what some famous football players use while playing? I don't see why they don't try to make some adjustments for hijab to make it what they consider safer. Seriously, I don't think they will be such a big things, maybe some rules for rivals about touching the cloth and some other little things, these girls are probably very used to play while wearing it and I don't think there are more accidents than the ones involving t-shirts and shorts (considered obligatory because people can't go on naked, which is, you know, social construction also! Well, these girls have to use hijab).