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LGBT: Let's talk nomenclature, and the harm it can do. (TW?)
6 years ago
ᚷᛚᛟᚱᛇ ᛏᛟ ᚦᛖ ᚨᛚᛚ-ᚠᚨᚦᛖᚱ Hey there, Kara Calhoun - KCDodger here. I wanna' talk to you today about gender, representation and why particular titles can be harmful to minorities.
If you're already rolling your eyes, you can probably stop reading here. But let's say you actually give a damn about helping people and bettering yourself. None of us start perfect and if I'm honest- in the early 2010s I was not an ally to the LGBT community at large and I was a conservative on top of being christian.
See my profile to see how much has changed. Worked to better myself.
So let's start. Note that I'm still learning, myself.
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Herm: The longest standing "Endowed Woman" archetype in the furry fandom. You probably know them by other terms such as Futa and Dickgirl. Both are also pretty rotten terms. But why?
If your character is genuinely hermaphroditic, cool. You need to do some research to make sure you're representing that extreme minority well, however. If anything the concept is closer linked to Intersex- which are not explicitly trans issues but definitely adjacent. If you're making a pinched-waist lady with a perfectly functional set of both sex's genitals that can operate without issue to satiate your fantasy... Well, you need to be better. That's not how you do right. You want something better? Intersex. But they're not even quite the same thing.
Futa or Dickgirl: Gods where do I fucking start? The reason these are a thing is because there's a lot of guys out there who think women with penises are really hot. Okay, cool. Where's the problem right? By their logic, "Futa/Dickgirl" always had it so they were just born that way, so they're a "real girl" and not one of those "gross trannies" who decide they want to be, "Something they're not." It's several different kinds of fucking not okay, because when someone argues in favor of Futa/Dickgirl tags instead of trans tags, they're making the motion, explicitly, to exclude us. To delegitimize transgendered individuals and our issues.
Cuntboy: Same concept really. "Was always a guy but can get pregnant / has a fully functioning pussy" to avoid the "gross mastectomy scars" or "chick that's trying to play man". It's exclusionary and horny in a bad way by nature. Don't do it.
We exist. When you draw a woman with a penis, when you draw a man with a vagina, you're drawing somebody with a bodytype that belongs to us and has for as long as anybody can remember and no, we are not "a recent thing". There is nothing bad or wrong about representing us. Yes, it's possible you will make some people angry. Like right wingers and TERFs. If you care about making them angry you seriously need to re-evaluate your stances on things, because you're very probably in the wrong.
Tag your characters right. If you're drawing a guy with a vagina or a woman with a penis, understand that you're drawing something that exists and calling it something it's not. You need to tag your characters as trans if they have these bodytypes, otherwise you are willfully excluding us for no other reason than to make some kind of anti-trans point.
Have I been abrasive? Maybe a little. But this needs to be heard, it needs to be said, and I needed to be able to show people this at a moment's notice.
Represent us and you have allies. We ALWAYS appreciate it and our numbers are growing. We're a community that does right by those who do right by us. You have nothing to lose from supporting us.
If you're already rolling your eyes, you can probably stop reading here. But let's say you actually give a damn about helping people and bettering yourself. None of us start perfect and if I'm honest- in the early 2010s I was not an ally to the LGBT community at large and I was a conservative on top of being christian.
See my profile to see how much has changed. Worked to better myself.
So let's start. Note that I'm still learning, myself.
_________________________________
Herm: The longest standing "Endowed Woman" archetype in the furry fandom. You probably know them by other terms such as Futa and Dickgirl. Both are also pretty rotten terms. But why?
If your character is genuinely hermaphroditic, cool. You need to do some research to make sure you're representing that extreme minority well, however. If anything the concept is closer linked to Intersex- which are not explicitly trans issues but definitely adjacent. If you're making a pinched-waist lady with a perfectly functional set of both sex's genitals that can operate without issue to satiate your fantasy... Well, you need to be better. That's not how you do right. You want something better? Intersex. But they're not even quite the same thing.
Futa or Dickgirl: Gods where do I fucking start? The reason these are a thing is because there's a lot of guys out there who think women with penises are really hot. Okay, cool. Where's the problem right? By their logic, "Futa/Dickgirl" always had it so they were just born that way, so they're a "real girl" and not one of those "gross trannies" who decide they want to be, "Something they're not." It's several different kinds of fucking not okay, because when someone argues in favor of Futa/Dickgirl tags instead of trans tags, they're making the motion, explicitly, to exclude us. To delegitimize transgendered individuals and our issues.
Cuntboy: Same concept really. "Was always a guy but can get pregnant / has a fully functioning pussy" to avoid the "gross mastectomy scars" or "chick that's trying to play man". It's exclusionary and horny in a bad way by nature. Don't do it.
We exist. When you draw a woman with a penis, when you draw a man with a vagina, you're drawing somebody with a bodytype that belongs to us and has for as long as anybody can remember and no, we are not "a recent thing". There is nothing bad or wrong about representing us. Yes, it's possible you will make some people angry. Like right wingers and TERFs. If you care about making them angry you seriously need to re-evaluate your stances on things, because you're very probably in the wrong.
Tag your characters right. If you're drawing a guy with a vagina or a woman with a penis, understand that you're drawing something that exists and calling it something it's not. You need to tag your characters as trans if they have these bodytypes, otherwise you are willfully excluding us for no other reason than to make some kind of anti-trans point.
Have I been abrasive? Maybe a little. But this needs to be heard, it needs to be said, and I needed to be able to show people this at a moment's notice.
Represent us and you have allies. We ALWAYS appreciate it and our numbers are growing. We're a community that does right by those who do right by us. You have nothing to lose from supporting us.
So many people have shrugged my explanations off in shitty manners. I SUPPORT U
That's why people say "they were born this way". It's because being born non-binary isn't a transition, it's who the person is in the first place. So I think it's really rude to try and tell people what they should and shouldn't label themselves, especially when you try to tell people to identify with something they don't identify with. You're essentially assigning them a gender just because you feel left out and want to alter someone else's identity for your own personal gain.
Not identifying as trans isn't anti-trans, it's just non-binary existence.
More so that labels such as dickgirl, cuntboy and shemale etc are rather dehumanizing? They're porn terms, and I certainly think its shitty to have one's identity be referred to as something turned into a fetish / porn thing.
It doesn't make much sense when there are labels out there more respectable that require zero effort to use? Other than maybe just sayin guy or gal. If you really wanna get specific sure you can say transgirl, transguy or intersex y'know?
I think its more about stopping the normalizing of these words that derived from porn :P
Sure it's good to step away from porn names but at the same time the character doesn't have to be trans if the owner doesn't want them to.
Futa/Dickgirl/Cuntboy is no longer acceptable terminology. It never really was to begin with. A lot of us, myself included, didn't know better is all.
A character that's "Born with both and they both work totally like that of a cisfolk's" isn't nonbinary existence.
The term 'herm' is just a shortening of the actual scientific term hermaphrodite, so I never understood why people couldn't come to accept it. It's "dehumanizing" in the same vein that 'male' and 'female' and 'intersex' are dehumanizing because they're all referring to the genitals one has. People just don't want to go farther than the surface and start dictating other people's lives.
tl;dr I just think if someone refers to themselves or their characters by any terms then you have no grounds to be correcting them
Mind you this opinion is coming from a guy who would be more comfortable in his own body if he was born with a vag and kept the male body, and you can guess what term I like to go by on that front. What's dumb is that the community can take back and own some derogatory words like 'gay' and 'homo' and 'bitch' yet still gets offended at each other about other terms.
I honestly disagree. Now if you'd be more comfortable with a different set of genitals, fine. If you are more comfortable with an entirely derogatory term that benefits nobody, fine. But a LOT of us are not. I have lines I draw, and you can see them clearly.
You're right, some body types fall outside of a binary gendered experience, and the ones that do aren't always trans or intersex aligned, but there are other ways to describe them without using derogatory language. Altersex is a term I've seen used for all sorts of different non-binary, but also non-trans body types. Non-binary male/masc, or just non-binary. I know the andromorph/gynomorph tags on e621 are a big source of contention for trans people, but it's only because they won't let us tag our own characters as trans–for a non-trans character, I don't see as much of an issue using those terms. There's definitely more language that I don't know about, but there are options that don't hurt people.
None of us could make you do something you don't want to, but some options are more considerate and less hurtful than others.
Instead of rising up and making ineffective the derogatory language, we just sit here and complain about it and start migrating to another term. It's like getting our territory invaded and instead of making the enemy's weapons a moot point, "Yeah I'm a cuntboy, what're you gonna do about it?", we just tuck our tails and run.
It's just disappointing and tiring is all.
Maybe we can agree to disagree on the best long-term course of action, but at least don't harass people like familiarsaint about what terms they identify with, yeah?
No. I have no patience to tolerate an open hand being slapped away like that. It was rude.
WRT agreeing to disagree, sure- in the sense that I won't back down from my stance and we can stop talking about it. I will remain hard nosed about this.
It's still harmful and used for non hermaphroditic female characters.
Thing is you can't call them dickgirl or futa or whatever, because boiling one down to their genitals is harmful/objectifying - and spreading that concept, see: original definition of the term Meme, the genetics of ideas- means that invariably by normalizing potentially harmful terms, people will get... Bad, about it.
By most definitions she'd still just be female, and it'd be up to her what she calls herself. However, because people are the way people are- she'd probably find herself trans-adjacent because of the attitude people have about the opposite sex with genitals that match their own. Which, in and of itself, is part of the danger of being trans and why so many of us date within our own sex. I mean, I'm in a trans lesbian relationship for a planet's worth of reasons.
But yes. Calling that person trans would be wrong. My girlfriend,
Thank you for asking though.
Still, there's a lot of reason terms like futa and herm are bad for referring to us.