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alright kiddos basically all the discourse about this particular fest appears to have been done already but i wanted to take a quick second to talk about sex essentialism & spotting TERF rhetoric out in the wild for folks who aren& #39;t familiar with trans politics https://twitter.com/btslesfest/status/1307981315707416576">https://twitter.com/btslesfes...
the concept behind this fest is really, deeply shitty and is clearly organized by someone who& #39;s centered her conception of gender around resentment of trans people. that being said, please don& #39;t harass the creator. tell her that she& #39;s wrong, but personal threats are not EVER okay
and since i believe the organizer is planning on deleting the account, here are the screenshots of what i& #39;ll be talking about so this thread makes sense in the future:
now, to get the fuck on with it: the concept behind this fest is a really good example of sex essentialism, which is the belief that a person& #39;s biological sex is ultimately what defines their gender. usually TERFs define "biological sex" by genitals or chromosomes.
so, in this worldview everyone who has a vagina is a woman/female and everyone with a penis is a man/male, including trans people who do not identify with those categories. they think "woman" and "female" are synonymous and so forth.
TERFs in the wild will frequently refer to trans women as "male" & trans men as "female". they& #39;ll probably try to frame this as harmless scientific truth when in reality there are terms used specifically to refer to trans folks& #39; birth gender (amab/afab) without also implying that
the biology of trans folks is, across the board, identical to that of cis people (ie hormonal & surgical transition changes many aspects of biology and medical professionals& #39; beliefs that trans men are always "just female" results in lower standards of care for us, but i digress)
"sex-swapped" is essentially a way to say that the organizer wants the members to be written with pussies, not only excluding trans amab people but also making some pretty unsubstantiated claims about what the fuck& #39;s going on in the bts members& #39; pants in real life!
now, to talk about a few other points: the labrys flag (this flag, seen in upper left hand corner of first image) is a pretty common lesbian pride flag used among TERFs.
the flag itself is not entirely associated with TERFs and there have been attempts to break that association (see https://thelabrysflag.tumblr.com/ ">https://thelabrysflag.tumblr.com/">... ) but the association is very much worth noting. in the case of this fest the color palette of the labrys flag was clearly used as a base.
next, i want to talk about the way TERFs will often frame accusations of transphobia. many TERFs rely on casting themselves as kind-hearted individuals. you might see them say that they "genuinely wish trans-identified people well in reconnecting with their sex" or sth similar.
in the case of this fest, the organizer repeatedly stated that she ONLY wanted "sex-swapped lesbian" bts (ie, bts as girls with pussies), welcomed people to create their own fests if they didn& #39;t like hers, and cast herself as the victim when accused of transphobia.
the issue, however, is not that writing cis-swaps (the equivalent term which acknowledges the reality of gender identity and doesn& #39;t lump trans women and men into the same category when there& #39;s no reason to do so) is bad. the issue is that writing trans lesbians was banned.
the issue is that the concept of the fest itself encourages participants to draw a line in the sand between trans and cis lesbians. you might hear TERFs say, "they& #39;re both lesbians, just Different!" which is obviously true across a variety of topics.
but we have to pay attention to the context in which those differences are being highlighted -- which, for TERFs, is usually for the purpose of outright stating or at least strongly implying that having a penis excludes one from participating in "female" spaces. sex essentialism.
you are your genitals and your genitals are you. TERFs might talk about "sex-based" discrimination against women, meaning that trans women don& #39;t experience misogyny (because, to TERFs, they aren& #39;t women) or "single-sex" spaces.
TERFs frequently say things that are unambiguously true ("cis lesbians and trans lesbians are different") & let implication do the rest of the work for them. ask yourself why someone is bringing up biological sex, in what context, & what they want to highlight about trans people.
alright, now who are TERFs? similar to other extremist ideologies, TERF rhetoric usually aims to take advantage of vulnerable people. a lot of TERFs are cis women who have experienced sexual assault at the hands of cis men and are struggling with healing and trusting.
this organizer falls into a different category. this organizer is detrans, meaning that she& #39;s someone who once transitioned and then began to identify with her birth gender again. all research i am familiar with indicates that people who detransition are relatively rare.
being detrans is not an inherently bad thing. we all go on journeys, make mistakes, and live our lives. but for somewhat obvious reasons, TERFs will look to radicalize detrans people because their existence can be used to back up the idea of sex essentialism.
in this case, the organizer used her experience as a detransitioner as an argument from authority that she knows what is and isn& #39;t transphobic. this is pretty obviously not the case.
be wary of detransitioners who use experience with transness as a way to argue what is good or bad for the trans community. often they no longer have any stake in that particular game and their opinions are shaped by bitterness which has been fostered by TERFs.
and the aim of their rhetoric is to make being trans MORE FRAUGHT WITH VIOLENCE, given less institutional support, and to reinforce the idea of sex essentialism.
sighs alright. i think that is basically all i wanted to say with regards to the fic fest itself. i think it& #39;s important to talk about these kinds of things in order to make fandom a safer and more welcoming space for trans people.
thankfully the response to this fest was overwhelmingly negative, but i saw a lot of folks saying that they "weren& #39;t quite sure why" the phrasing rubbed them the wrong way, so i wanted to discuss these ideas in a clear and easy to understand way for folks who aren& #39;t familiar.
and the unfortunate reality is that while using the phrase "sex-swapped" and the labrys flag is what you initially see at the surface, the rest of the iceberg ends up looking like what you can see in this thread: https://twitter.com/yooninmyheart/status/1308523103601950724">https://twitter.com/yooninmyh...
to speak from personal experience, my last conversation with the organizer of this fest more than a year ago involved (among other things) her insisting that i was "female," telling me i was a bigot for not wanting to be called that, insisting being trans made me mentally ill,
and threatening to come to where i live & physically harm me. since then, she& #39;s spent her time in public saying things like "asking people to use new pronouns for you is emotionally manipulative, so you should only do it if you have a good reason like a crippling mental illness,"
having discussions with people who bill themselves as "anti-trans moms" about how wanting to transition is just a phase, and talking about how she agrees with joanne& #39;s horrible and uninformed takes on trans people.
as someone who was just starting to transition, those conversations profoundly impacted me. i didn& #39;t know much about TERFs at the time and cutting off my relationship with her made me feel a lot more passionate about understanding transphobia broadly and terfs specifically.
i wanted to make this thread NOT to encourage anyone to harass the fest organizer, but to help us learn to unpack this rhetoric, understand what it& #39;s getting at, and how to spot it when we see it and call it out so these kinds of people DON& #39;T get massive fandom followings.
and hopefully make fandom a little safer for trans people in the process.
stay safe, stay kind, stay hopeful y& #39;all
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stay safe, stay kind, stay hopeful y& #39;all
also if you& #39;d like a fic fest which is inclusive of ALL wlw -- please keep ur eye on this :D https://twitter.com/sapphest/status/1308504230353924101">https://twitter.com/sapphest/...