Third Planet From The Sun

Ilphaer's story is a very purpose exploration of the binary trans experience in the various drow societies. Save for in lolth culture, Ilphaer has purposefully never been a traditional Lolthite story just by nature of having been raised in Sshamath. She gets the generational trauma of her mother having been part of it and being directly targeted and affected by it, but she was raised separately to the Menzobarranzan level of oppression.

So to summarize Ilphaer's thoughts on her gender before I fully explain it: It is not that she hated being a man, it is that she enjoys being a woman more. She's more comfortable with herself and her identity as a woman, but she transitioned pretty late in life (it would be around 35-40 by human standards) and so she spend a large period of it as man. She cannot bring herself to fully reject her lived experiences as man because of how long she identified as one.

And this is specific to Ilphaer and her thoughts on gender, I do have character who have the "I've always been my gender and I was born in the wrong body" approach to trans-identity, but thats not Ilphaer.

One of the things that actually chased her away from Eilistraee's church is this... Okay hold on. Let me actually grab something from how Ed Greenwood describes the priestesses and how they see the participants of the changedance.

Yes, you heard me right: there now ARE a few males among her church, but to enter it they have all “Danced The Changedance” and spent time as female, just as Mystra caused Elminster to spend time as Elmara - - and for the same reasons: greater understanding and sensitivity of “the life of the other gender.” One cannot truly feel the Divine Dance of Eilistraee PROPERLY except as a female, and so her (still very rare, few, and generally secretive about it) male priests must spend some time as a female (not just for the duration of a ritual, but they must do some everyday living as a female). The most accomplished drow, elf, half-elf, and human male priests seem to feel the need to take female form for some days every few years or so (if they wish to “cleave more fully to the Goddess” and thus rise in levels), and most spend longer and longer times in female form. Not all female priests of the Goddess fully trust the males, and they don’t tend to rise much in the church hierarchy (no matter what character levels they achieve). More than that, many drow priestesses of Eilistraee are unhappy about this, and may prove hostile (not to the point of violence or refusal to accept or aid, but with a coldness in manner and a wary “always watching over” any males, until they achieve acceptance on a personal level [e.g. “I still don’t hold with allowing males - - males! - - to join the dances, but Elorand can be trusted; he’s proven himself over and over, and don’t think we haven’t tested him. Other males, I still don’t trust!”). Eilistraee has always had enough personal contact with her clergy that none of them would think of disbelieving that she truly means this “new way” to occur and to be followed - - and no established priestess of Eilistraee will renounce this new order, either. (“Reluctantly accepting and unhappily coping” is a good description of their state; “defying the goddess and rejecting males or trying to trick or lead them into fatal mishaps so we can be rid of them” would NOT be an accurate characterization.)

Source, of course

Before I start using The Big Scary words in this analysis, let me say: I don't think this is bad writing. I think this makes sense in the context of the world building and is very revealing about the general culture of the church. What I'm about to analyze is strictly Doylist acknowledgement and not something that is a flaw in the writing itself. You can tell with how Ed is describing this that this is meant to be a flaw these priestesses have - a belief that is Wrong and goes directly against Eilistraee's that they're struggling to overcome.

Anyway.

Eilistraee's Priestesses have a very thin idea of what "good femininity" is. The changedance is, culturally (though, probably not what Eilistraee intended for it to be), an affirmation of that idea of femininity. The way Ed describes the priestesses treatment towards those that undergo it is with this level of irritation, distrust, and judgement. They're portrayed as monitoring the participants of the changedance (be the individual a man only momentarily taking the form of a woman, or someone who genuinely comes to identify as one)

Like as much as her church is advertised as the more accepting one, this is (I would argue) very stock standard transphobia, baby! And weirdly (though I would not claim to know whats going on in Greenwoods head regarding his thoughts on his gender) he managed to capture a lot of layers of transphobia with this in both transmasculinity and transfemininity, be it the "You only want to transition to get power in our society" often described in the transmasc experience or "We don't trust you as a true woman" often described in the transfem experience

And this is an aspect of it that has been critiqued before but needs brushed over again in these contexts: It is a little weird that only men need to be the ones to experience "life as the other gender." Yes, Eilistraee is a mother goddess. Yes, she embodies this idea of a gentle and nurturing figure. Men are not incapable of embodying the ideas and traits we generally associate with motherhood. And in fact, I would argue the fact that they both only view woman as being able to embody these traits and only view that as the "right way" to be a woman is.... Bad.

I don't think Eilistraee's Priestesses would take kindly to someone like Ilphaer, who will not fully reject her past lived experiences as a man while still embracing the femininity afforded to her by the church and changedance. Ilphaer is crass, she's rude, she opperates out of spite and very explicitly rejects the gentle motherhood Eilistraee's church embodies. She demands commands and demands respect for her identity rather than asking permission for it. She's outspoken and brash about things she perceived as injustice. Her idea of womanhood is what she has made of it- of the harsher and more direct forms of womanhood found in Lolth culture.

and I think that would get under their skin fast.

Mind you. The way she's treated by the worst ends of Vhaeraun's church is, I don't think, any better. A character like Malakuth, who she's been doing dealings with since before she transitioned, doesn't respect or fear her as a woman, he feels annoyance towards her as someone Playing as one. He doesn't accept her identity in a deeply patronizing way.

But its not hard for her to ignore what he has to say about her gender, because Malakuth is not a good person and not trying to say he is one. Compared to Eilistraee's church, who largely are advertising themselves and their morals as good.

(As a reminder, Malakuth as much as I make jokes about him, is a sexist slaver, he's NOT a good person)

leftward ho! thanks for writing. these questions are always difficult to answer because i don’t know where you’re coming from on your personal journey. but i’ll try to answer some of the basics and recommend some good resources to start with.

first of all, there are many anarchisms and if you ask three anarchists you’ll get five opinions. but probably the most prevalent form of anarchism is anarcho-communism, so while i’ll try to talk broadly from a general anarchist position, much of it be from an anarchocommunist perspective for simplicity’s sake.

at it’s most basic, anarchism is an opposition to hierarchy, to one person having control over another. it is a radical commitment to compassion and absolute freedom. like communists, anarchists want a moneyless, stateless, and classless society. unlike leninists, who falsely claim to be communists, we know that there has never been a good state, and never can be. they are by their very nature oppressive, and cannot be used as a means to an end to achieve communism. no group or individual can wield that much power over others and not become corrupted by it. absolute power corrupts absolutely, etc. so while we are committed to the fight against capitalism, we are also committed to the fight against the state. they are intertwined and must be defeated simultaneously. so we believe in the abolition of all government and the organization of society on a voluntary, cooperative basis without recourse to force or compulsion, and the abolition of money and private property, as the best way to ensure the basic and higher needs of everyone are met.

if you haven’t read it yet, the wikipedia article for anarchism is actually a pretty good place to start:

Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions they claim maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessarily limited to, the state[1] and capitalism. Anarchism advocates for the replacement of the state with stateless societies or other forms of free associations. As a historically left-wing movement, usually placed on the farthest left of the political spectrum, it is usually described alongside communalism and libertarian Marxism as the libertarian wing (libertarian socialism) of the socialist movement.

Humans lived in societies without formal hierarchies long before the establishment of formal states, realms, or empires. With the rise of organised hierarchical bodies, scepticism toward authority also rose. Although traces of anarchist thought are found throughout history, modern anarchism emerged from the Enlightenment. During the latter half of the 19th and the first decades of the 20th century, the anarchist movement flourished in most parts of the world and had a significant role in workers' struggles for emancipation. Various anarchist schools of thought formed during this period. Anarchists have taken part in several revolutions, most notably in the Paris Commune, the Russian Civil War and the Spanish Civil War, whose end marked the end of the classical era of anarchism. In the last decades of the 20th and into the 21st century, the anarchist movement has been resurgent once more.

Anarchism employs a diversity of tactics in order to meet its ideal ends which can be broadly separated into revolutionary and evolutionary tactics; there is significant overlap between the two, which are merely descriptive. Revolutionary tactics aim to bring down authority and state, having taken a violent turn in the past, while evolutionary tactics aim to prefigure what an anarchist society would be like. Anarchist thought, criticism, and praxis have played a part in diverse areas of human society.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism

i don’t know how much original theory you’ve read before, but i’ll give some reading recs. personally i’m a big fan of peter kropotkin, and found the conquest of bread to be a breath of fresh air after studying marx for years. others have recommended starting with errico malatesta’s anarchy or peter gelderloos’ anarchy works. and zoe baker (anarchopac) is excellent if videos or tweets are more your speed.

https://enoughisenough14.org/2019/06/10/anarchism-a-very-short-introduction-by-colin-ward/

getting involved masterpost