Wha?

[ivyblossom]

Okay, HP fandom. You have some splainin' to do. Victoria Bitter? Really?

Comments

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I understand the trans community getting pissy about the terminology, but give the way fandom tends to fawn over the mens, protraying oneself as a man in fandom has huge advantages, many of which thanfiction appears to have exploited. Also: god I don't really want to show respect for this person. :/

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

ALL OF THIS. And yeah. I feel like if I refer to VB as 'he' then I'm somehow diminishing all the real, not-crazy transpeople.

[folk.livejournal.com]

I feel that neither you, nor I, nor Ivy, get to say what's a real transperson, you know?

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Oh agreed. I just won't believe anything this person says. I won't believe that he's trans, or that he's not trans, or that he's american, or that he's irish, or that he's read the books or not read the books. Honestly. Completely unbelief.

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it's just that in this case I question EVERYTHING about this person, full stop. But your point is taken, and I sort of agree. I mean, it's out of respect to the other transpeople we know that I would do either way. I don't want to lump them in with this...creature...but really, I have nothing invested in the pronouns thing.

[folk.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but this is like people making fun of Nick Griffin (our local far-right party leader) for having one eye. It's not that he isn't an irredeemable fascist thug, it's that the fact that he has one eye isn't relevant. And I realise that there's an additional dynamic with the gender imbalance in fandom (boy howdy, do I realise it), but still, even if you have to think of it as showing respect for transpeople in general, please do.

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

In that case though, there is at least a fact to work with. I'm not arguing that we use female pronouns. I certainly wouldn't want anyone feeling diminished (other than...the person in question). But I really not convinced yet that this person is trans, or irish, or living in his car, or whatever else he's said. Since we really can't know anything concrete about each other in fandom, as soon as you start deliberately, demonstrably lying about EVERYTHING, it all comes up for question.

[folk.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know, but as I said to Ash, I don't think that any of us get to decide whether thanfiction is an Acceptable Transperson. There is SO MUCH wrong with this whole thing that, you know, let's just use the pronoun he wants us to use and be done with that part of it.

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Doing what he wants. How it must burn some people. Like that girl who lost thousands of dollars.

But yeah, I take your point. Actually I saw we do what other transfolks want rather than what he wants. :/

[folk.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's the crux of the argument that I was trying to make. I truly don't care what he himself wants. I care what other transfolks think of us by our actions.