This is a random thing from a lot of the stupid jealousy stuff rn but does it make anyone uncomfortable that everyone and I swear everyone i see force feminise Dan and Phil?
I see so many posts where people call them lesbians (they're gay men i feel they very much fought for the right to be out as GAY MEN) and saying if you told someone they were just butch women apparently they'd believe that? But again this could be my own discomfort I'm a gay trans man who's fought to be seen as a gay man and not a lesbian and I've fought to have my gay relationship seen validly so it sort of stings and feels uncomfortable how much people seem to desperately want them to be lesbians? People so consistently she/her them both whilst I know Dan doesnt care i remember Phil saying a while back I think in stereo shows that hes comfortable in his expression of being a guy and he doesn't personally feel comfortable being feminine in his expression etc. Not at all saying there's anything wrong with doing fanart, fics etc where they're genderbent but I feel there's this strange attachment in the community that they are lesbians and I swear everyone overlooks they are both adult gay men??
Holy fuck, it's like you plucked this straight out of my brain and put it into words and I could not agree more. I'm nearly 100% certain you can find me posting some time in 2024 being like "haha ok the "every Dan and Phil fan is a lesbian" jokes were funny at first but some of y'all are taking it way too seriously", because it started to feel like there wasn't space for me in the community unless I was sapphic, and like don't get me wrong I'm queer as hell, I love women, but I'm primarily masc and usually in relationships with men, so I was actually sorta surprised that in a fandom for gay men, there weren't really ANY others to be found at the time
I also really want to point out how much I agree with your whole force feminization thing and how much I think people REALLY need to distinguish when they're posting headcanons or fanfic fodder vs when they're actually discussing "Dan and Phil The People", because I genuinely see people claiming things like "Dan outright said he was trans in his coming out video!" and it's like! What Dan are you watching?! His exact words in Basically I'm Gay were, and I literally quote, "Gender identity isn't my issue. I feel comfortable with the identity I've had my whole life[...] but "being a man" means nothing to me, but I wouldn't feel uncomfortable wearing make up or a sickening pair of heels" and THAT'S the part that I think is important. Granted the entire video is important but like it's the way immediately before that he doesn't feel like there's terminology to full explain what the concept of manhood is to him, and ESPECIALLY how immediately after he says "I wouldn't feel offended if I wasn't referred to as a 'he'" and then uses the "she" pronoun in an ironic, gay man fashion like UGH. (thank you for letting me rant about this I'm really to see this frustrating other people)
I ALSO want this to be noted by people who keep trying to claim Dan is straight up a trans women, that there are real conversations happening in this fandom literally this weekend about how transgender women are TERRIBLY underrepresented in this community, and I genuinely don't blame them for not finding any comfort in this community. There is a LOT of cisnormativity that Dan and Phil allude to because they're trying to keep appealing to their majority cis lesbian audience, with the occasional mention to trans guys who are interested in penis, and it's like man im like sort of almost one of those things but it just feels like there's a VERY distinct group of people dominating the conversation claiming Dan and Phil are transgender while actual transgender people are over here like "um! hello! I'd like to share my opinion as to why I don't think that's necessarily a reasonable conclusion" and 30+ year old white women who only decided they care about Dan and Phil because they finally announced they're actually in a relationship are like "OMG YOU JUST HATE DAN AND PHIL AND YOU DON'T LISTEN TO THEM, THEY'RE OBVIOUSLY TRANS!" like! 😃! okay! 👍🏽!
I've mentioned this a couple times now, but some conversation that I've seen lately has been around the concept of Dan and Phil only interacting with femininity in a sexual context (for example the use of the word femboy being primarily used in a porn context or the constant irony of how "funny" it's supposed to be that they're dressing up feminine (yonpote and I had a brief convo about this somewhere recently on my blog and I'm really glad this was pointed out because I hadn't personally seen it that way but once someone did point it out I can totally see how the way dnp interact with being feminine can feel disrespectful)) but yeah, Dan doesn't wear a skirt casually or put makeup on his face for non event reasons, it's just when it's relevant for "the bit", so seeing people claim things like THAT are trans rep is just factually incorrect
moral of the story I think it's insane that people aren't differentiating what's fanfic and what's headcanon and what's a basic discussion about Dan and Phil, and I think even tho people are more than welcome to lean into the RPF, I would just love a space that makes a distinguishable difference between the 3!! I love playing with Dan and Phil The Toys in RPF and making them struggle with their gender, but to outright claim that is something they actually experience is just weird parasocial behaviour and I think some new fans genuinely don't think they exhibit any parasocial behaviours at all which is! concerning! to say the least!
