shine

I am begging the UK trans community and its allies to attend the Mass Lobby at Parliament on June 25th, 11am-4pm, organised by Trans Solidarity Alliance.

The new EHRC Code of Practice pushes trans people out of toilets, hospital wards, and community spaces. It normalises gender policing based on appearance and stereotypes. It becomes statutory guidance in the UK by the end of June.

Trans people are now legally their assigned gender at birth and must join gendered spaces accordingly, but if they are perceived as their lived gender, they can also be ejected from those spaces. The guidance says: either break the law, or don’t pass too well.

A mass lobby is where you invite your MP to discuss your concerns with you in-person. Ask your MP to:

Demand full parliamentary scrutiny, debate, and use their free vote on the EHRC Code of Practice.

Support any motions rejecting the EHRC guidance. As of June 4th, Labour MP Nadia Whittome has submitted a prayer motion - Early Day Motion 240.

Write to Bridget Phillipson, the Minister for Women and Equalities about our concerns

Your MP does not have to be an ally, they do not have to respond to your email for you to show up and greencard them (details below the cut.) What matters is that as many people as possible show up.

I cannot stress this enough: Showing up in person matters. It is much more effective than petitions, emails, and letters.

It is a horrible, stressful time, and I am so sorry if you're trans and live in the UK. But I was at last year's mass lobby and the line for greencarding alone stretched around the back gates. It was a record breaking mass lobby and made us impossible to ignore. Let's do even better this time. Details under the cut:

A friend of mine considers themself anti-censorship but thinks that if you write about an identity you aren’t a part of and receive criticism for it and don’t take down/change the work, people are allowed to set you straight.

(“Set straight” in this instance means making posts that say “this person is racist/homophobic, so report their account and do not support them”, making burner accounts to comment on all of their posts about how bad the fic in question is or calling them racist/sexist, or spamming the fic with aggressive comments).

Their argument is that freedom of expression stops when your expression involves stereotypes or misinformation about marginalized groups, since it affects real people. I’m having a hard time disagreeing with them to be honest.

no, it is never reasonable or justified to harass anybody. period. I have already talked about this before but you (general you) cannot know if someone is racist or homophobic or a bad person in real life just because they write about fictional stories that are taboo and “problematic” in a way that is “problematic”. I have always praised “write whatever you want, however you want” and I mean writers can and should write whatever they want, however they want. what art someone creates does not reflect their real life moral compass or who they are as a person.

my advice for your friend is to close the tab and move on. because while I get how frustrating it can get and while their feelings are valid, fanfiction is not an activism and fanfic writers do not owe anybody anything. fanfic writers write for themselves. they don’t write for anybody’s approval. or at least I write for myself, not for anybody’s approval.

no, people are not freely allowed to “set someone straight” if it’s a hobby that that someone does for themself and their own enjoyment. “but what they write is harmful” actually it’s words on a screen that you (still general you) choose to read, you can stop reading anytime you want. and if someone else reads it and thinks “oh everything that is written in this fanfiction must be true in real life because it’s portrayed as such in this piece of fiction, I will change my entire moral compass now” then chances are that with or without the fiction they consume, they are already troubled — if they can’t separate fiction from reality — and they need help. the problem is them. not the writer or how they write their fic.

no one needs to take anything down because it pissed someone else off. “taking something down because someone else doesn’t want people to see it and so they believe they have the power to control what other people see and what can be created” is literally a fascist tool and what censorship means. so your friend cannot claim to be anti censorship if they think a work that offended them specifically should be taken down, otherwise I promise you there would be no fic about taboo contents or “problematic” ships. because these fics still offended someone and there are people (pro censorship folks) who believe these fics should be taken down because it offended them.

anti censorship means no censorship, no censorship means no censorship. it does not mean “works I personally think is morally good enough can stay but works that I personally find too offensive must go”.

“but it affects real people”. no, it doesn’t. it’s a work about fictional characters. not you. “but it’s about marginalized people who are real” it’s still a fictional stories about fictional characters. by your friend’s logic, works that contain topics like violence, murder or SA also affect real people because violence, murder and SA happen to real people in real life too. go back and read what I’ve already said:

“if someone else reads it and thinks “oh everything that is written in this fanfiction must be true in real life because it’s portrayed as such in this piece of fiction, I will change my entire moral compass now” then chances are that with or without the fiction they consume, they are already troubled — if they can’t separate fiction from reality — and they need help. the problem is them. not the writer or how they write their fic.”

no, fanfics, especially about fictional characters, do not affect real people. what does is harassment. if you (general you) make a call out post about someone, if you harass someone because you disapprove of the fictional stories they write, if you encourage other people to harass them because you disapprove of the fictional stories they write, then you are nothing more than a pathetic bully who just wants an excuse to harass real people over fiction in order to feel morally superior. but what you actually are is just a pathetic bully who should be ashamed of themself.

With the first (online) story I've read with an autistic main character I could see the depiction was very thoughtful. She had good comments but the criticism was wild.

I've seen people criticise the writer's depiction of her female lead with autism and the 'criticism' was mainly them saying you can't write an autistic main character, people saying my autistic (kid) cousin/brother doesn't act like that. People criticising it's unrealistic that mc would have a love interest and a love life, saying it's unrealistic she has any friends, it's unrealistic she doesn't have a more explosive meltdown, criticising mc for acting too (insert autistic trait), saying it's not relatable that mc has a scheduled meal plan that's always the same, she's too robotic, this depiction of autism doesn't look like my autism, etc.

I can’t do that without negative consequences

I can’t do that unless I have support for it

I can’t do that

Did I look ill, you might ask? Was I worryingly underweight again after a bout of bad health? Was my hair shedding again? Had I been injured in some way?

No. She just thought a recent selfie I had sent to a group chat looked "tired" and that I should consider Botox for my crows' feet before I started to "look my age."

I'm turning 39 in a few weeks. I asked her, "How am I supposed to look?" and she couldn't give me an answer beyond, "You just look like you're getting old."

This was in stark contrast to a few short years ago, when a different friend messaged me in a flood of happy tears because they'd just seen a picture of me that highlighted my crows' feet when I smiled. Crows' feet, which they never thought I'd live long enough to get because of my declining health.

Truthfully, I didn't either. MCAS is a fucker of an unpredictable disease. And while I confess to having a complicated relationship with seeing my mother's face emerge in the mirror the older I get... I don't hate the new line and wrinkles either. I certainly don't feel the need to eradicate them or to do more than wear sunscreen to protect my skin.

And zero shade or hate to anyone who does get procedures done: it's your body, you can do what you want with it. Botox, fillers, whatever the fuck. I repeat: it's your body; you can do what you want with it.

I just think it's a particular brand of assholery to turn to someone else and say, "I'm uncomfortable with the way you're letting yourself age naturally. You should fix that."

Like, truly, the lion, the witch, and the audacity of this bitch.

Hey:

Make it tiny

Mix it with something Good Texture that you like

"Eat healthy!" they say, and then they show you pictures of a smiling woman digging a fork into half a butternut squash or eyeing a bowl of whole blueberries like a ravening wolf and your spine wants to crawl out through your skull at the thought of that Texture in your mouth.