Iâm not even much of a fan of genderbends but goddamn am I even less of a fan of getting ordered around about what I should enjoy and how I should enjoy it and being lectured about how âproblematicâ it is, when the real problem is that theyâve cast the thing in question in black and white and refuse to admit that thereâs anything but their narrow framing.
Changing a character to the âoppositeâ cis gender is a very different thing than making them trans or nonbinary. Insisting that people only change characters to trans is also really damn invalidating, because it implies that being trans is interchangable with being cis. Whoopsie doodle!
I think the real issue here is that a lot of people want to see more trans headcanons, but for some reason think that using sj words while being bossy and rude is the way to go about it. Dress it up in progressive language all you like; at the end of the day youâre still being bossy and rude to get what you want, regardless of anyone elseâs valid feelings.
i get really irritated at kids who scream that genderbends are transphobic because theyâre completely missing the context and history. they have no idea. itâs like to them, Cis People made up genderbends specifically to thumb their noses at trans people. Â
rule 63 was originally a guy thing, sexual objectification thing. it states âfor every male character, thereâs a female version of that characterâ, and not because the dudes who were into it cared about having more realistically rendered female heroes in their media. it was made popular on 4chan and porn boards and comics+gaming forums because you could reduce a manly male character into a sexy tits-and-ass pinup. there were related kinks of sissification, but mostly it was about getting to jerk it to a sexy female version of a previously unappealing, macho male character.Â
then women got hold of the rule and started going, okay. letâs look at the female version of this male character. letâs talk about being a woman in a manâs world. letâs talk about rorschachâs misogyny, tony starkâs womanizing, batmanâs grimness, the fact thereâs one girl ninja to every four or five guy ninjas, letâs talk about that in the hypothetical context of these male heroes being women instead. if thereâs a girl version for every male character, what does that mean? whatâs her story?Â
and it became this really amazing lens for female fans to interrogate stories through, to examine the effects of sexism and misogyny and masculinity, to introduce another woman into a story with very few, to identify with fully-rendered heroes of the fanâs own gender. and to interrogate the very nature of gender, which led into the development of genderbends where the characterâs gender identity didnât necessarily match their assigned sex, and from there an increasing interest in, and familiarity with, trans characters, trans people, and trans issues.Â
so like. people now reducing the issue to âcis people are gross and hate trans peopleâ is pretty ridiculous. it ignores basically twenty years of women questioning, confronting and then dismantling the de-facto heteronormative, exploitative male gaze in order to create the radically progressive fandom atmosphere as we know it today on tumblr.Â
Iâd been trying to put into words my issue with the idea that genderbent versions of characters are somehow automatically, innately transphobic, and I think you pretty well nailed it.
Originally, it was called âgenderswapâ or âgenderswitchâ, which was rightfully criticized for reinforcing a binary view of gender. Hence why it is now âgenderbendâ. Things can bend in many directions.
Yeah basically.
Rule 63s can be transphobic and gender essentialist, no question, just as m/m slash can be misogynistic, but itâs not inherent to the genre.
The way I see it, rule 63 and trans/nb headcanons are two subsets of what I call âgender AUsâ, and theyâre not mutually exclusive. Girl!Sherlock Holmes is an example of one, trans!Holmes is the other, and trans woman Holmes is both. All those would be worthwhile explorations.
Yes! And all sorts have their place because all of them are exploring the experience of an under-represented group (or two) in a different way.
Thank you for writing this :) I never want to tell people that their feelings are invalid, but sometimes I think those feelings come from gut negative reactions that deserve to be re-examined. Like in this case, trans people have every right to be wary of something that could - and admittedly, sometimes does - re-enforce difficult gender stereotypes, and they also have every right to say genderbent art/fic isnât to their taste or ask people to tag it.
But thereâs nothing inherently transphobic about art that explores gender - quite the opposite, I think - and thatâs what genderbends are about. It can be hugely beneficial to imagine male characters as female in order to explore roles that arenât traditionally given to women (I would really love to see a genderbent take on, say, Stacker Pentecost for that exact reason).Â
i just want to point out that i know at least five trans people who have referred to the place they see a doctor about HRT as âthe rule 63 clinicâ.
Yes, to all of this, and oh my god âRule 63 clinicâ has me rolling. Iâm going to see one myself sometime in the next year. so.Â
I tend to back out of mediocre storytelling pretty fast, but some of the best fics Iâve ever seen were doing EXACTLY what Roach said⌠using gender bends and gender swaps as lenses to examine shitty canon through a feminist lens.
Some of the best had now-female characters who were actually saltier and harsher than their male alteregos, specifically because of sexism, rather than having characters become caricatures of femininity.Â
Is there a rule that says âA good writer can break all the rules and make people happy they did?â
Because seriously.
