sing in me, muse, and through me tell a story

By definition you can't accidentally queerbait. Queerbaiting is specifically using a same sex pair from the show to market the show to queer audiences with no intention of ever following through on a romantic relationship.

There is officially licensed Destiel merch signed off on by Kripke. Teen Wolf had a commercial with the actors for Derek and Stiles draped over each other talking about being "on a ship." Both shows actively used scenes between them as marketing while actively mocking fans for wanting them together. Sherlock has multiple characters refer to Johnlock as a couple, including characters we're supposed to believe are never wrong about human behavior and pushed those scenes in marketing. Then they acted insulted when fans saw them as a couple.

That's queerbaiting.

Done on accident it would just be queer subtext. Done because they had no other choice due to censorship is queer coding.

The specific meaning of the word is really starting to get lost and it's a pretty important one to keep accurate. It describes a very specific phenomenon that was done repeatedly and maliciously for decades and is meant to examine that specifically.

and yet she wonders why we have no interest in her, it must be because trans men don’t want to date trans women, the fault must be with us. the concept that it could be because of her doesn’t even cross her mind.

she was not asking for trans men who love trans women, she was asking for a completely cis passing, patriarchal man, who happened to share transsexuality with her.

and this thought has bumped into another thought in my head, about these trans women who say they are simply women asking for support from the men in their community. a deeply understandable request that i see trans men meet with joy on the regular, gusto even. and yet, they look around and go, no trans man is supporting us, no trans man is supporting me. and i’ve stopped in my tracks in this moment because, support isn’t whats being asked, is it. that’s why the support given is dismissed entirely. what’s being really asked for is worship. it’s servitude. and anything less is seen as a failure at our social duties of chivalry. a failure of our manhood. a failure to uphold our side of the patriarchal bargain it has been implicitly assumed we must have agreed to in the first place.

a third thought has been bumped into. the few trans men these women do surround themselves with, are without a doubt, in every instance i have seen, viscously misogynistic towards other trans men and transmasculine people, and deeply benevolently sexist towards trans women. that is what is given the seal of approval. that is what is required. anything less than looking up, anything less than that high pedestal that unconditional worship guarantees will never crack and fall, anything less than feet kissed and sexual favors freely given, anything less than a doormat, a punching bag, a sex toy, is akin to community abandonment to them.

The protection whiteness provides to a cisgender white man is fundamentally different from the protection whiteness provides to a cisgender white woman. This isn't to say that the protection of white maleness is unconditional, because it isn't. But the fundamental difference is that, at the end of the day, white AMAB people are born with the protection of whiteness. They can lose that protection by failing to comply with societal expectations, but it is still something they lose. And, a white cisgender man will never lose all of the protections of being a white cisgender man, despite what many white cis gay and neurodivergent men will tell you.

On the other hand, white AFAB people are not automatically born with the protection of whiteness. Instead, white AFAB people have to earn the protection of whiteness by complying with their own oppression through gender-conforming behavior (IE Not Being Queer Or Trans Or Fat Or.........) and, critically, by wielding the power of white supremacy and patriarchy against others, primarily queer people and people of color. But because white women are by and large conditioned from birth to earn that protection, you never see a white cisgender woman in the wild who doesn't have it, at least to some extent.

What that means is that your average white trans woman in all likelihood has no idea that the white cisgender women around her are playing a completely different game. The white trans woman has been raised to believe that the game is simple: comply with your gender role, and you'll be fine. She doesn't want to comply with the white male gender role anymore, but that's okay; if she sinks all of her time and energy and resources into transitioning into a perfect example of the white female gender role, she will be treated just like a cisgender white woman, with all of the power and privilege of whiteness that cis men have (except, y'know, the normal misogyny that white women willingly endure day to day in order to hold onto white privilege).

The problem is that that's not how it works. For trans people, once the cat's out of the closet, there's no reversing it. White supremacy and patriarchy will never accept a trans person, no matter how perfectly they comply with their gender role, because that's not how the game works. A trans woman will always be seen as a man who forfeited manhood, and a trans man will always be seen as a woman who failed at womanhood. (Note the use of forfeited vs. failed; that matters.)

So now you have a bunch of white trans women who are realizing that transitioning isn't all it was cracked up to be in the sense that they aren't being accepted as white women, no matter how hard they try to play the role, and they're all finding each other online and sharing their experiences. And because they're white, they think that being denied all of the power and privileges they think other white women have as their birthright is the highest form of oppression a human can experience. When in reality, those white cis women were always in a much more precarious situation than white cis men and are just collectively really really good at not rocking the boat, a boat the white trans woman will never be able to board to begin with.

White trans women do, undeniably, lose the protection from lateral violence when they transition. They will never be accepted by the white patriarchy, period full stop. No amount of trying to pass perfectly for a white cis woman will be enough. You can be the traddiest tradwife ever to Regina George, it will never be enough. And honestly, I do genuinely feel for these women and girls who get a very rude awakening that among both white men and white women, they will forever be treated like second-class citizens, no matter how hard they try.

Bodily autonomy (like abortion, anti draft, etc) -> “The government shouldn’t be able to force anything on my body I don’t want.”

Anti surveillance -> “I don’t trust big government/big tech (big brother if you’re feeling frisky) with the ability to spy on me and my family.”

Immigration -> “Next to all of us immigrated at some point, I don’t see why the elites get to decide who’s allowed to be where. What’s to stop them coming for me?”

Climate Change -> “Big oil shouldn’t get to determine whether or not I get to go places. I don’t want to be dependent on some big business to survive.”

State Violence -> “I don’t want the goddamn secret police breathing down my neck! I trust my community a whole hell of a lot more to help me than I do the state!”

There’s a lot of hate on widowers and I saw a woman say “You cannot compete with a dead woman.” which is perhaps a reasonable statement to say if he’s constantly comparing you to his dead partner but that wasn’t what the post was about. And I realized “Oh my God, these people genuinely feel like they’re constantly in competition with their spouse’s exes and the ex being dead makes them feel insecure that they cannot best her.”

1) I am widowed. my Beloved Wife of Blessed Memory(tm) died in 2019

2) I got together with my current partner about 18 months later

3) when I am committing acts of Foolishness my current partner loves to gesture at the sky to my dead wife, like "do you see this shit, my liege" and regularly says to me things like "[wife's name] was right about this" when my Foolishness inevitably comes back to bite me in the ass

4) this happens. all the time

more importantly:

5) my current partner is on tumblr

6) they love to incessantly send me posts

WHICH MEANS:

7) they just sent me this post with this commentary: