Tumblr crosspost (17 November 2020)
Mar. 6th, 2024 04:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anghraineI got some genderbending discourse on my dash, and it remains so weird to me.
This particular take was about how genderbending is inherently gender essentialist and I’m just ???????????
I mean, I can’t speak for everyone who writes genderbent fic, but I have written a lot of it. And for me, it only works when I don’t see the genderbent character as having an essential gender at all; otherwise it couldn’t be changed without making them a fundamentally different person (though no more so than many fandom changes). I once contemplated m!Leia and my brain just about broke.
In fairness, I’m pretty much projecting my own experience onto a lot of my faves and I accept that. I have never felt that I had an essential gender or even really understood gender, just that I have been assigned female and treated as female. I’ve certainly resented it at varying points in my life, but not enough to do anything about it. I just live my female-adjacent-ish life and it’s not quite right, but not quite wrong, so … whatever.
I honestly think that people often characterize gender in terms of what gender you feel like and not how much you feel it, but for me, it’s this mix of “what is gender anyway?” and “eh.” And yeah, there’s probably some repression going on there, but in any case, I deal with it through imagining apparently cis male fictional characters with the experience I have (no essential gender + some not-quite-comfortable social influence), and then converting it to something even closer to mine.
So it’s really weird when people are like … actually, taking ostensibly cis male characters and giving them your wtf experience of gender is gender essentialist and you’re not allowed to process your experiences that way.
I know people will keep doing what they’re doing, of course. But so will I.
Tagged: #hmm #my gb fics are different but have common themes that ... feel very obvious but weren't even obvious to me for awhile #me: why is all my genderbent fic so issueficcy #also me: hmm not sure but i don't think i care
This particular take was about how genderbending is inherently gender essentialist and I’m just ???????????
I mean, I can’t speak for everyone who writes genderbent fic, but I have written a lot of it. And for me, it only works when I don’t see the genderbent character as having an essential gender at all; otherwise it couldn’t be changed without making them a fundamentally different person (though no more so than many fandom changes). I once contemplated m!Leia and my brain just about broke.
In fairness, I’m pretty much projecting my own experience onto a lot of my faves and I accept that. I have never felt that I had an essential gender or even really understood gender, just that I have been assigned female and treated as female. I’ve certainly resented it at varying points in my life, but not enough to do anything about it. I just live my female-adjacent-ish life and it’s not quite right, but not quite wrong, so … whatever.
I honestly think that people often characterize gender in terms of what gender you feel like and not how much you feel it, but for me, it’s this mix of “what is gender anyway?” and “eh.” And yeah, there’s probably some repression going on there, but in any case, I deal with it through imagining apparently cis male fictional characters with the experience I have (no essential gender + some not-quite-comfortable social influence), and then converting it to something even closer to mine.
So it’s really weird when people are like … actually, taking ostensibly cis male characters and giving them your wtf experience of gender is gender essentialist and you’re not allowed to process your experiences that way.
I know people will keep doing what they’re doing, of course. But so will I.
Tagged: #hmm #my gb fics are different but have common themes that ... feel very obvious but weren't even obvious to me for awhile #me: why is all my genderbent fic so issueficcy #also me: hmm not sure but i don't think i care