it's got handy little toggles to include or exclude individual channels :D

i have a lot of thoughts abt the femboy thing and tbh tbfh tbfqh theyre not positive so i just shut my trap about it but maybe i shouldnt in current age of big transphobia/particularly big transmisogyny

first disclaimer: i dont think dan and phil are bad people for dressing up in feminine attire, in fact i love it very much

second disclaimer: i dont think phannies are bad people for engaging with dan and phil in feminine attire, in fact i love it very much

third disclaimer: i am one of those dangender people but i dont believe any hard truth that dan is 100% this gender or that gender or nonbinary identity, in fact that's the whole point

i have a problem with the label of femboy as it relates to transmisogyny, and it is related to transmisogyny and we gotta not pretend like it isn't.

ive talked before about how i felt that sister daniel was a more honest expression of dangender compared to femboy dan, because femboy dan to me felt like even more of a costume. yeah it was cute and i still reblog fanart of femboy dan cuz he's cute and its good art and the makeup was rlly good but like, it was essentially the "tgirl amazon starter pack" meme ykwim. whereas sister daniel was more of a whim, like literally just saw the costume in fuckin tennessee in 2022 and said yeah lets go with this and then said it was causing an "awakening" in her LIKE AH anyway maybe you could argue its not comparable because sister daniel had become more of a persona but she felt more honest to me in a way that femboy bear dan didnt.

what does this have to do with transmisogyny? well, seeing this largely transmisogyny-exempt (TME) community (i mean the fact that i feel the need to explain this acronym says a lot already) engaging with the label of femboy as just like a given or a silly little thing when i think it's a label that has hurt trans women and i guess the reason i bring up sister daniel is because she wasn't labelled as a femboy, and moreso a drag persona? and there's obv history with like drag and transmisogyny and it's complicated because a lot of trans women discovered themselves initially through drag and i guess with sister daniel it's just like. a given that she's a woman, and with "femboy bear dan" that obfuscates her femininity with the sexualization of the label. and it's like. sister daniel is very sexual too right but IDK it just feels different, i said before like, in the femboy baking video there were moments of seeing dangender but overall it was caked in irony like guys isn't it FUNNY that we're men dressing femininely? isn't that so FUNNY??? whereas sister daniel wasn't really about that

first of all I do want to fully agree that I think people need to be acknowledging the history of the word "femboy", because i was of the perspective that the queer community had reclaimed that word, but I'm thankful that you taught me that that's not the case. it seems as though it was a word reclaimed in the gay and masculine community (which I think sometimes we all may need to just have a gentle reminder of that Dan and Phil have at least spent their whole lives being "cisgender gay men", so that is the point of view they look at life from) however it's still important to note when words have other meanings like you said when it pertains to trans women. I think PSAs about word usage are super important because everyone learns things at different times in life, so being reminded of this is very important.

I have a hard time sometimes when I see people claiming "the entire fandom has a transmisogyny" problem, because I can't quite find like, a solid example if you know what I mean? I've seen some people claiming the transmisogyny is because of how many transmascs there are in the community, and I've seen some people claim it's because of the lesbians, but I haven't been able to find like, a proper track record of people being malicious with intent. the way I look at it, Dan and Phil always attracted teenage girls for some reason, and statistically a good chunk of those teenage girls came out as transmasc once they were allowed to spend time with their gender and emotions outside of high school. if you have specifics I really would love to know about them because I do feel like I personally have the emotional capacity to inform people why they're being disrespectful if you have any on hand tho!

I think the other thing I'm seeing about the halloween baking video specifically is that I didn't personally feel as though Dan and Phil were mocking the idea of dressing femininely at all, and like as someone who's technically non-binary, almost every one of my Halloween costumes had some form of gender bending because it allowed me to feel comfortable trying a new gender for a day. based on your mentions about dangender that I do agree with, I fully assumed this was something similar. to me, this was two gay men branching out from their usual style of clothing and having fun with it, something Dan has done in the past with things like the viewers pick his outfit or like you mentioned, sister daniel. I don't think the irony you mentioned is really present or the intention of the video, but again it's absolutely worth pointing out when words are used incorrectly and when we can ask for growth from people.

so first off, i am a trans man and not a trans woman, so when it comes to the perspectives of trans women it is important to hear what they have to say on the matter first and foremost. i HIGHLY recommend starting by reading The Whipping Girl by Julia Serrano, i think it's a book that is what really solidified my perspective on transmisogyny and it is quite literally the book that defined transmisogyny as a distinct intersectional oppression from general transphobia and general misogyny.

when it comes to the term femboy, i believe that it is largely a porn categorization label. the people you see who identify with the term are often transfem sex workers, still-closeted trans women and nonbinary transfems, and feminine men, both cis and trans tbf. the thing is, it is a word that is primarily categorizing trans women as a sexual fetish. this is the same as the word "shemale" which i am not using this word lightly and i choose not to censor because it needs to be said explicitly. the terms shemale and femboy come from the same place of primarily viewing trans women as sexual objects. i am never in my life gonna call out a trans woman who uses any of these terms for herself, thats not my place and if she is a sex worker then she probably feels the need to categorize herself as such because its how she makes a living. but i do chafe when it is used in a reclamatory way by non-transfems because of its use in fetishization, even if supposedly the non-transfem is not intending that to be the case.

den @freckliedan made a really good post that i just reblogged, about reminding everyone to not treat trans women as sexual objects, and that was posted around the time the femboy baking video came out. because even a lot of people who were saying they were supportive of dangender or just loving how dan looked in that video, were veering dangerously close if not fully careening into just sexual objectification of dan as a "Man In A Skirt." and don't get it twisted!!! i love to talk about how sexually attractive i find dan and phil!!!!! but the issue is when that is the ONLY thing people are posting about. and while i think was also true to some extent about sister daniel, i think it was really apparent and much worse with femboy dan, maybe because the sister daniel persona was one that owned her sexuality more explicitly than femboy bear dan.

when i say the phandom has a transmisogyny problem, i mean that systemically and not necessarily on an individual level but also yeah kinda a little bit on an individual level too. the WORLD RIGHT NOW has a transmisogyny problem lmao. and i think what bothers me the most when it comes to the phandom having this issue, is that we often preach being very accepting of everyone regardless of who they are and we're a safe space for so many queer people, and yet there is a distinct lack of transfems who are vocal in the phandom. transmisogyny is a learned systemic oppression, just like homophobia, just like racism, just like ableism. and if i'm being fully honest about everything like, fuck it, i think this community has a racism problem too! because the World has a racism problem! and i think if we claim to be a community that is open and supportive and a safe space for so many people, then we need to do the work in unlearning our biases that were forced into our heads by the rest of the world, and sure it's not any of our faults for living in an oppressive society, but it is our responsibility to push against it, especially if we are not a part of those marginalizations (white people yall gotta start doing better towards us phannies of color!!!!!!!)

to be honest it's been a while since i rewatched the original femboy baking video, so maybe the irony-caking i mentioned is not nearly as bad as i thought it was. and you are right, like ultimately it is a video about two gay men trying on a different style while also trying to bake and being silly and funny along the way. i think it really is the label of femboy that bothers me more than the actual content of the video itself, because of everything i said above. i felt this way about femboy baking and not about sister daniel because sister daniel was often labelled as a drag persona, which again, drag as a culture does have a history of transmisogyny as well, but idk it didn't feel quite as. explicit as femboy baking, and maybe that is just my opinion on the matter because i just didn't happen to be the biggest fan of the video (despite it having some lovely and funny moments as well).

but are you making sure to show up for & make this fandom safe for our transfem sisters too? are you supporting transfeminism or are you falling into fetishization?

thinking dan's fem personas/outfits are hot & throwing in some she/hers to your posting does not automatically make you into someone who's interrogated your ingrained biases. nothing magically makes you safe for transfems to be in community with, so put in the effort to make sure you are!