"It's Giving Me The Death Giggles"

yes* the image most people have in their heads of a nonbinary person is someone white, thin, lacking breasts, lacking a visible penis, lacking facial hair, lacking makeup, lacking lacking lacking. but why is it that when people critique this image, they never critique the idea that this is how we are defining androgyny? people loving talking about how this image is neutral-masculine as proof it favors transmasculine/FTX people, but there are plenty of transfeminine/MTX people who also go for this neutral-androgynous look.

meanwhile, many nb/gq/gnc people of all assigned sexes and genders are hairy, fat, have breasts (or give themselves breasts), have penises (or give themselves penises), dresses using both feminine and masculine clothing, etc. hell, just look at how stigmatized the androgyny of intersex people with PMOS & other kinds of hyperandrogenism are. the image of a fat hairy person with large breasts and a deep voice is repulsive in patriarchal culture; this is androgyny, too. to act like "androgyny" is one simple thing is to erase how misandrogyny actually functions.

from "Why Can’t My Famous Gender Nonconforming Friends Get Laid?" by Meredith Talusan (she/they)

for reference, here's photos of Meredith, Jacob, and Alok:

I would argue what is depicted here as "femme" androgyny is (one example of) what I would describe as maximalist/genderful androgyny; it is read as "femme" as opposed to "masc" because minimalist/genderless androgyny focuses on minimizing gendered characteristics to be neutral (non-masculine non-feminine), and neutrality in patriarchal society is read as diet-masculine by default — and perhaps cis by default, because both of those things are more comfortable for people in a patriarchal society to assume of a person who minimizes intensely gendered traits.

But the treatment Alok and Jacob experience, in my opinion, while shaped by femmephobia, is not reducible to femmephobia alone. It is the combination of explicitly masculine traits (like body and facial hair) and feminine traits (makeup, feminine clothing), their failure to pursue and perform a non-masculine femininity, that leads them to be seen as undesirable. This is misandrogyny.

#basically the unmarked androgyny is perceived as a blank slate from which gender can be imposed on the individual with the potential for#eventual conformity (aka the can still be saved by detransition theory)#while marked androgyny is to show both masculine and feminine traits in ways that refuse to be conforming#and which would have to take active steps towards eliminating traits in order to force the individual to conform to masculinity or feminity#so the marked androgyny is a threat that refuses to be silenced and refuses to allow the plausible deniability of being non-conforming#where neither is actually truly desired#just the ones that is perceived as easier to 'fix' and impose a binary gender on is seen as more desirable and less threatening to the syst

#adding on: also there is the you look cis they think you're a cis woman#like the idea that unmarked androgyny is just someone who is perceived as a cis woman not presenting feminine#and how marked androgyny almost always has facial hair#like the hostility towards unmarked androgyny within the queer community absolutely overlaps with the hatred for the transtrender theyfab#like i see a lot of talk about how we need to show more appreciation and visibility of marked androgyny but we also need to just have more#for everything bc 90% of the time if im seeing something about unmarked androgyny it's not actually uplifting those who are#this post is i think the most positive thing I've seen regarding unmarked androgyny in months

great points made here.

After sifting through hundreds of photos... I have realized that every time Simon takes a photo in the SM-13, he's pulling up a frame to a stop motion animation.

And it can be played back as video.

So, I took each black box photo and compiled them together. You can now watch Simon's entire journey from the SM-13's camera like found footage.

You can also gain access to Simon's amazing photography portfolio from my master reference project, as well as the video for yourself.

Please, have a watch. It's terrifying. I feel like a C.O.I. lab tech delving into something I really shouldn't, and it's a blast!

"My privilege and the fact that I literally wasn't in the places where half of these things happened geographically protected me from illness! I'm so excited to shit my pants!"

The way our generation grew into adulthood surrounded by entirely accurate warnings that having unprotected sex could actually be a death sentence, but now traipses around all tra-la-la-happytimes-brunch-on-vacay...my mind is truly boggled.

We went from a society of people barely able to discuss what a condom was to a society ready to rightfully yell at anyone who wasn't using them.

We went from ignorance to "no glove no love" very quickly when the bodies started falling.

But by 2022 even the people who were on board with masking in 2021 were eagerly buying lies from the government figures they would not believe about any other topic.

The Animal Photo Reference Repository is an independent, permanently open-access project and funded entirely by donations. Artists creating derivative or transformative works (without AI) have blanket permission to use all photos in the repository as references.

Macro photography is still a skill I’m learning. Shooting through acrylic jewel case habitats is tricky. Doing it when the environment inside is purposefully humid and muddy is an exercise in frustration.

This little crab’s exhibit was all three.

what iron lung fans see

But I feel like an asteroid. I feel like the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. I was very, very guilty for years. I had to go to extensive therapy because I was like, “oh my god, I, Lochlan O'Neil, single-handedly destroyed fandom culture?”

She didn't she didn't she didn't. That wasn't it. She wasn't an asteroid.

She was the first skater that fell through the ice of Web 2.0.

I was also a teenager who found an amazing world, and My People, and friends I'd still talk to every day, on the internet. I spent years getting my mother to let me go to conventions and meet friends in distant cities. I started ambitious internet communities I didn't have the experience or skills to bring to fruition. I don't think there was a lot of difference between us, in a lot of ways. It's not that I was somehow smart or skilled or suave and she wasn't. She didn't have some awful planet-killing stink or velocity that she brought to the show.

The difference was this:

In 1994, when the Endless September began and the Internet felt perpetually full of stupid newbies, there were 20 million people online.

In 2001, when I got my first LiveJournal account, there were 500 million.

In 2012, when she joined Tumblr, there were 2.43 billion.

When I started out, and you joined a new messageboard or chatroom or mailing list, you had to introduce yourself to the community. Except in the biggest of websites, people expected to log onto the internet, read through all the new things that had been posted to their local bit of it, and then log off again. Older members took it upon themselves to greet the newbies and answer any questions they might have, directing them to the relevant community FAQs. People would say things like, "Oh yes, I remember you. This is only your second Thursday with us, right? I hope you have fun!"

I joined an Internet full of adults who got online through their jobs or their universities, one of the first wave of kids allowed to roam free. And the proportion of adults to kids kept steadily changing, but until DashCon, I don't think people understood how much. I remember a discussion that happened in early 2000s slash fandom, where the very true observation was made that in particular artistic ways, we had all agreed to suspend shame, which created a unique kind of space. As a community we could all admit that we were there to be embarrassingly enthusiastic in unusual ways about absolute nerd shit, and we understood that it wasn't life or death, it wasn't rocket surgery, but it also wasn't going to get broadcast onto the clouds and our bosses didn't know who we were. Everyone was (willing to act like) an adult, and we could hold the circle and create safety there.

That felt like a lot of geek spaces, then. Anime conventions, science fiction conventions, furry conventions, videogame stores, D&D meetups. Images were bulky and pixelated, video incredibly hard to move. When you got to a con, it was like a brief oasis of Weird that sheltered you and screened you from view, and you ended up volunteering because the weary, cynical, intelligent, kind people in the con ops office looked like you were throwing yourself in front of a bullet just for offering to run a clipboard down to the other end of the hotel for them.

The ice was thick enough to skate on. The circle was strong enough to let you be brave and funny and silly and free, and you could buckle down with some friends and clean all the trash out of the ballroom by 11am on Sunday, and you'd see everyone next year.

The bubble was going to burst, but nobody seemed to worry about it.

Things were changing fast for fans, all kinds of fans, in the early 2010s. Conventions that used to get news coverage like "Local Freaks Weird Out Hotel Employees: This Weekend Only" to "#Cosplay: The Hottest New Trend" and from Geocities sites that shut down if you exceeded your page visits for the month to AO3 getting 10 million pageviews a week.

It was great. We could conquer the world together. We could stay safe and together and the circle would hold.

And then the ice broke open and Lochlan fell through. Right through the bottom of that goddamn ballpit into freezing arctic sea. Right into years of people sorting through the churned ice of the wreck, taking years to come to the realization that there really had not been ANY goddamn adults in the room making sure things were okay. The community had not actually failed so much as never been formed in the first place.

Because as it turns out, group-bonding techniques that work for 100 or 1000 people do not work for 10,000. Or 100,000. Or one million. Or one billion.

That line about agreement to suspend shame sticks with me all these years after because the defining feature of post-Dashcon Tumblr has been shame. And scorn, contempt, derision, and hatred. Cringe, in short, and kys. Exactly the kind of bullshit I saw every day in junior high school, and ran to the Internet and fan conventions to get away from.

I got the kind of community and mentorship and support that have made fandom a refuge and a resource my whole life. Lochlan O'Neill didn't. Not because there was anything worse or dumber or less experienced about her.

Because a system built in the 1990s was incapable of bearing the stress of a load fifty times bigger than what was already "way too full."

Just because I'm from one generation, and she's from another.

Just hours later, I was hospitalized for my pain, which was now accompanied by a fever and a heart rate of 160 BPM. I was confused and disoriented, and every blood test pointed towards high levels of inflammation. The doctors, in their report, attributed my symptoms to sepsis.

That wasn't my first time experiencing transphobia in American healthcare hell, but it is by far the most obvious example. My doctor didn't care that I was in pain. She only cared that I, a nonbinary teenager with an F on their birth certificate, didn't meet her expectations of femininity.

but it's also horrifying, absolutely horrifying, for the living characters who are looking on because a.) they're watching their dead family and friends and neighbors, most of whom are covered in blood and visibly injured, get danced around like puppets and b.) it's the first time the characters are really getting a taste of the hivemind bullshit the audience has already been clued in on and c.) sure, they're just dancing for now, but they're realizing just how many hungry vampires are waiting outside to kill them at the first opportunity and take Sammie. so that's a nightmare for them.

so you could read that as a deliberate intimidation tactic on remmick's part, trying to overwhelm the survivors into giving up, but then you're like, okay, maybe in his mind this is a display of how good it is to be a vampire. isn't it good? doesn't it look fun? look how much fun we're having! you could come have fun too if you want! just let me in :3 I don't think that's impossible, that he'd be totally oblivious to how he comes across. the newly-turned vampires seem pretty bad at faking their interpersonal skills; all memory of how to act human beyond the most superficial level seems to really go out the window pretty immediately. remmick seems a little cannier than that, since we see him try to play on people's emotions more than once--appealing to the kkkouple's fear of the Choctaw to gain their shelter when he realizes they're klan, trying to lower Mary's guard by sympathizing with her over her dead mother, pressuring Grace by threatening her daughter. obviously some of those efforts are more successful than others, but he at least seems to have an ability to read the room that other vampires lack.

but it's also not a stretch at all to think he might sincerely be that clueless, because that whole song and dance number is remmick's whole thesis statement, which is that when he says he believes in "equality" he means that he'll kill anyone and turn them into one of his tools regardless of who they are. like sure, whatever, I'm willing to believe that he does sincerely find the klan objectionable, but he's also just packed full of shit. his version of equality is one where everyone's equal under him, acting out his own culture and history for his pleasure. thinks he's not racist because he doesn't care that Sammie's Black but still wants to take away everything that makes Sammie an individual and just keep the musical talent to perform a crude facsimile of being Irish.

[ survey.gendercensus.com ]

The 13th annual international gender census, collecting information about the language we use to refer to ourselves and each other, is now open until 13th August 2026.

It’s short and easy, for most participants it takes 5 minutes or less.

After the survey is closed I’ll process the results and publish a spreadsheet of the data and a report summarising the main findings. Then anyone can use them for academic or business purposes, self-advocacy, tracking the popularity of language over time, and just feeling like we’re part of a huge and diverse community.

If you think you might have friends and followers who’d be interested, please do reblog this blog post, and share the survey URL by email or at AFK social groups or on other social networks. Every share is extremely helpful!

Survey URL: https://survey.gendercensus.com

The survey is open to anyone anywhere who speaks English and feels that the gender binary doesn’t fully describe their experience of themselves and their gender(s) or lack thereof.

Thank you so much!

[ Link to survey ]

There have been over 1,000 responses since midnight, bringing the total to comfortably over 14,000 so far - great stuff!

During its busiest hour the survey received about 10 responses per minute (one every 6 seconds):

43% of participants are newcomers, and the more the merrier - my eternal mission is to get as many different types of people as possible represented in the survey results.

Another struggle is getting older participants involved. The age structure of a population varies a lot from country to country, but let's use the USA as an example since they're over half of Gender Census participants so far. In the USA generally more than 60% of the population are aged 30 and over. [Source.] In the Gender Census, only 25% are aged 31 and over so far:

So, since the survey relies on spreading by word of mouth, this is where you come in.

Older age groups tend to show up in the survey coming from Facebook, mailing lists, instant messaging groups, and (somewhat) Bluesky. If you haven't already, might you consider sharing in any of these mostly super easy ways?

If you are on the Gender Census mailing list, forward the email to any LGBTQ+ family members over the age of 30. (If you're not on the mailing list, you could just email people with the survey link?)

Share this post on Facebook, to your own profile and to any local LGBTQ+ groups you think might be open to it.

Hop into the WhatsApp and Telegram channels and forward a message to a any queer groups you're in on those apps.

Share this post on Bluesky.

Or just share the survey link one-on-one: survey.gendercensus.com

We have gained about 500 mailing list subscribers this month, which is EXCELLENT in this department!

Shares here on Tumblr are also obviously always welcome, and here is the end-of-survey page with all the sharing links.

This year we're not reaching as many participants as the two previous years:

So every little helps, even if you only share it with one person!

Thank you so much everyone. ✨ This survey is powered by people connecting with their people and I love that for us.

You should be able to add anyone you want on your health insurance plan.

You should be able to sponsor the visa of anyone you choose to move to your home country.

You should be able to name anyone you choose as the legal-from-birth legal coparent of any child you give birth to.

You should be able to apply for student aid on your own at any age.

You should be able to add anyone you want on your health insurance plan.

You should be able to sponsor the visa of anyone you choose to move to your home country.

You should be able to name anyone you choose as the legal-from-birth legal coparent of any child you give birth to.

You should be able to apply for student aid on your own at any age.