Most people who point to others who are wrong in the same way are using a minor version of the appeal to popularity. They basically asserting that they can vote what is and is not reality and that objective truth is irrelevant. If there are more of them who are wrong than you who are right, they figure that means they become right and you become wrong.
Weeb revolt over trap censorship
- Thread starter Specter Von Baren
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*sigh* I read this entire thread and it is demoralizing how some people are so defensive over not being able to say a slur...
Something that I expected to come up be a more central point of the discussion, however, was the serious rates at which gender-non-conforming people experience violence. The rate at which trans/GNC people experience harassment and violence is staggering, and Black trans women in particular are the majority of those who are killed because of their gender. Add into this the "Gay and Trans Panic Defense," which effectively legitimizes violent hate-motivated homicides against LBGTQIA+ individuals and allows defendants to assert the defense in order to avoid a murder conviction, resulting in lighter sentences for those who effectively commit a hate-motivated murder. The defense remains available in most jurisdictions, with the few jurisdictional prohibitions on it only being enacted within the last two years, and all prohibitions within the last six years, and in the US has been successfully deployed as a defense against murder conviction as late as 2018.
"Trap" in its use to describe a usually AMAB (assigned male at birth) individual is inherently linked to the culture that created that panic defense, whereby trans and GNC individuals are portrayed as preying on cis-gendered individuals (generally men, though recent bathroom bills also rely on the trope), and, because of that implication of predation, endorses a potentially violent response by generally (but by no means limited to) male individuals.
I'm also going to go on record that if someone personally identifies as a "trap," then that is their decision and should be respected in the same way that many older trans women sometimes refer to themselves as "trannies" or "transvestites:" They get to use the word to describe themselves, but that is the beginning and ending of the legitimate use of the word in the same way that the N**** has different connotations depending on who is speaking it. Even within the trans community, the use of the word is pretty much limited to self-promotion of sex workers. Sometimes your use of the word is simply not acceptable when it is by others because it's linked to dehumanization in a way that simply isn't present when used by an individual to describe themselves.
To conclude this, I'm going to talk about the word "yellow." Yellow generally refers to a color and can still be used today in a variety of linguistic purposes without issue. But there is one use that is considered taboo in the same way "trap" is in the process of being applied to: racism. Referring to anything Asian as "yellow" is a racist statement, and the association of east-Asian people with yellow pervades media of a certain age. "Trap" should be treated the same: okay when referring to a device or maneuver designed to covertly ensnare, entrap, or kill; not okay when referring to the gendered appearance of another person.
There's another conversation to be had about fragile masculinity and the toxic trope of associating violence with masculinity (which in turn further stigmatizes GNC people), but that is a much larger conversation than this thread is clearly capable of.
Something that I expected to come up be a more central point of the discussion, however, was the serious rates at which gender-non-conforming people experience violence. The rate at which trans/GNC people experience harassment and violence is staggering, and Black trans women in particular are the majority of those who are killed because of their gender. Add into this the "Gay and Trans Panic Defense," which effectively legitimizes violent hate-motivated homicides against LBGTQIA+ individuals and allows defendants to assert the defense in order to avoid a murder conviction, resulting in lighter sentences for those who effectively commit a hate-motivated murder. The defense remains available in most jurisdictions, with the few jurisdictional prohibitions on it only being enacted within the last two years, and all prohibitions within the last six years, and in the US has been successfully deployed as a defense against murder conviction as late as 2018.
"Trap" in its use to describe a usually AMAB (assigned male at birth) individual is inherently linked to the culture that created that panic defense, whereby trans and GNC individuals are portrayed as preying on cis-gendered individuals (generally men, though recent bathroom bills also rely on the trope), and, because of that implication of predation, endorses a potentially violent response by generally (but by no means limited to) male individuals.
I'm also going to go on record that if someone personally identifies as a "trap," then that is their decision and should be respected in the same way that many older trans women sometimes refer to themselves as "trannies" or "transvestites:" They get to use the word to describe themselves, but that is the beginning and ending of the legitimate use of the word in the same way that the N**** has different connotations depending on who is speaking it. Even within the trans community, the use of the word is pretty much limited to self-promotion of sex workers. Sometimes your use of the word is simply not acceptable when it is by others because it's linked to dehumanization in a way that simply isn't present when used by an individual to describe themselves.
To conclude this, I'm going to talk about the word "yellow." Yellow generally refers to a color and can still be used today in a variety of linguistic purposes without issue. But there is one use that is considered taboo in the same way "trap" is in the process of being applied to: racism. Referring to anything Asian as "yellow" is a racist statement, and the association of east-Asian people with yellow pervades media of a certain age. "Trap" should be treated the same: okay when referring to a device or maneuver designed to covertly ensnare, entrap, or kill; not okay when referring to the gendered appearance of another person.
There's another conversation to be had about fragile masculinity and the toxic trope of associating violence with masculinity (which in turn further stigmatizes GNC people), but that is a much larger conversation than this thread is clearly capable of.
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Though unsurprising. Republicans are still arguing for it to be okay for them to call black people the N-word.
Unfortunately, the bigots believe that this is an acceptable status quo. No less than a half-dozen have told me so themselves without the slightest hint of shame. You can't try to tug on the heartstrings of people who don't see victims as human beings.
I would add that we also need to have a serious conversation about how widespread and accepted that sort of abusive behavior is in the gaming scene. In fact, these forums are reminding me of why I stayed out of gaming forums for years: gamers are assholes.
Nah you can go ahead. I'm not sure what you're meaning here so I'd like to see what you have to say.
For the sake of discussion, what most self-professed MANLY MEN TM are thinking of when they talk about masculinity is the warrior paradigm of masculinity, though how closely they cleave to it is a matter of the individual. Warrior masculinity exalts men to be courageous in the face of pain, hardship and even death. They must be unafraid of feeling pain. Likewise, they must be unafraid to inflict it. So an ideal warrior has to balance concern and awareness of his own safety with his training to disregard that of others. Warrior masculinity is born out of militarized societies and in a post-industrial world its relative virtues are no longer as applicable.
There are also 3 big fears and anxieties behind warrior masculinity that can and often do encourage destructive behavior. First is the fear of failing to live up to the standards of warrior masculinity, especially so if the man in question believes the masculine is meant to hold power over the feminine. Those martial artists who turn their bodies into living weapons? The marksmen who can hit a gnat's ass at 100 meters? That's a full-time job. It's not a lifestyle everyone can be happy with. But the more rigidly a man thinks of masculinity, the more he's going to notice the parts where he's failing to live up and not necessarily through any fault of his own.
Second is witnessing the above-mentioned destructive behaviors in other men. This is why a lot of guys react with hostility to the discussion of toxic masculinity. They're trying to reconcile their beliefs and self-image with the fact that many men become abusers because they think that's the masculine way. They see their own ideas taken to an extreme, maybe even inevitable conclusion and no matter who you are... that's scary. It takes an amount of willpower to not look away. I'm sure each of us can recall how we felt the first time we saw something wrong, reprehensible or even horrifying committed in the name of values we profess.
Third is a little more subtle. Aggression, domination and strength are only one side of the coin of warrior masculinity. The other is self-sacrifice. And we live in a late-stage capitalist world that has only one commandment to its followers: Thou shalt consume. So as you can imagine, that creates some cognitive dissonance. One of the most common and regrettable side effects is that men are less likely to seek help when they need it and end up suicidal more often as a result. They feel compelled to project this Man of Steel persona that doesn't get sick or injured or hurt and thus doesn't need anybody's help. Approximately 20% of American men are refusing to wear a face mask during this pandemic, and many of them say it's because they fear that it makes them look weak or afraid. These are usually the same people who demand that everything open back up regardless of the risk to public health. They're trying to demonstrate consumerism and a heroic willingness to risk their own health to do it.
We've all met someone like this. The roid-raging gym rat, the rich man's son who watched Fight Club and didn't get it, Donald Trump. Their dissonance becomes even worse because despite their belief that they are projecting a hyper-masculine image to the world, that's not what the rest of us see. We see insecure man-children, dead beat dads, abusive fathers and husbands... and more than anything, we can see when they're scared. We recognize their bluster as over-compensation. To put it another way, a rich man doesn't need to tell you he's rich.
The most obvious way this is reflected in the gaming world is online abuse and harassment. If you really watch the competitive gamers, you notice the ones who are the best tend to avoid the trash talking and bravado and bluster. They just play. And yet below them are scores of hopefuls, rookies and wannabes who think that as soon as the action starts, so should their mouth. And the trash talk doesn't just get coarse, it gets taboo and personal. This is the reflection of warrior masculinity, or a parody thereof, that emphasizes violence, force, domination and inflicting pain as essential masculine traits.
The result is a lot of guys who are dominated by insecurity and fear and ramp up their aggression to compensate. Most of us can remember a time where we kept doing something dumb because we thought we weren't doing it hard enough for it to work. Same principle here. So it creates a feedback loop in which they are seen as weak and afraid, try to dispel that image through bluster and force and as a consequence only look weaker and more frightened.
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Wow you guys really still going at this. Straights are fucking gross.
The people making it a big deal are the people throwing a weeks long tantrum[/quote]
1) The manga is significantly different than the anime
2) If you know nothing about either the anime or the manga, you probably shouldn't opine about how trans or non-binary people feel about it. Especially when it isn't hard to find transgender and non-binary people writing about it.
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Ok so you are very confused if you think the culture of anime that came up with otoko no ko because some people in japan find it cute or funny for men to be exactly identical to girls if they dress a certain way is linked in any way with the people who would make a defense in order to kill those cute characters.
Also, traps are not portrayed to be tricking the men, it is always the men who put their expectations on them. The traps the majority of the time are just expressing their maleness in a very unique way.
Trap is a slur when used against random trans people who don't even look like they're female in the first place, sure. What I'm saying here is, like with yellow when not used to describe Asians, it is also ok to use trap in its proper context and the fact that it can be used as a slur is not the same as it being a slur irrespective of context. Surely we do still call things yellow and we do not treat the word as a slur because it can be misused as such.
Well, I did just describe what I know about it so you could inform be about what I'm wrong about or I'm missing by not seeing the full picture yet. It's not like I cloaked myself in the mantle of expertise regarding ranma, I clearly stated I've not seen it yet.
But I will say, I do find it interesting how you are now specifying that it is more so the manga that those people like, when before it was left ambiguous which would most likely mean the inference is you were talking about the anime.
Either way, once I watch it we can revisit this if you don't feel like explaining what you mean further. And if you want good trans chars in anime, go for Steins;Gate, Luka is a great char.
No idea, this is the thing with new age speak XD.
What I assumed it meant without any knowledge is that you exorcised the demon of transphobia from the word trap so now it is holy again and falls within the stringent confines of the church of SJWs or something along those lines.
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Usually it talking about what contexts certain words can be used in, like traps could be used for anime stuff but not in an insult setting. It’s taking into account how and why a word is used, not just blanket banning a word. A similar example would be the ‘n’ word. Usually it’s not acceptable to use it but can be under certain circumstances
As to ‘new’ it’s been around since we talked about the ‘n’ word and when it should be used. It’s also a response to Political Correctness. It’s gives way more nuance and also attempts to say that, even if a word used to be PC, how we can reuse it. (I would say that rehabilitation would include speaking to people who misinterpret a word used in different contexts, instead of saying their wrong and not explaining things.) Because blanket banning is generally bad
Edited add a sentence for clarification
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Right ok, so I'm more in the camp of being unconcerned with whether anything is pc or not and firmly believe anything can find a context it can be used in without being rude by definition, but I definitely don't mind doing what you describe either. What I disagree with is the notion that anything "needed" rehabilitation in the first place, that the term was at a bad place and was unsuitable before it became rehabilitated through our efforts here. No, it was always fine, some people just mad.
Luca Steins;Gate, a character I only know about because of the firm insistence from the weeb community that he isn't trans, is one of those "accidentally good" trans representations.
In that, canonically, they aren't trans, but that only stops the weebs.
That's not exactly right or wrong. The basic premise in steins;gate is that the chars can send text messages to the past to affect the present but there's unforeseen consequences and it really spirals out of control.
There's various timelines/parallel selves of the chars outside of the main character (well, he has a couple too but we don't see em as much in the main game and aren't the focus, Zero touches on that more) and in one of those he ends up affecting the world such that Luka really becomes a cis "she" (as in, is born female due to interfering with her mother during her pregnancy) whereas in every other parallel world he is a guy who looks, sounds and acts and dessses exactly the same as he does when he is a female in that one world line, but is actually a dude despite being that way.
But yeah, the loop where Luka is born female is not the one that the big overarching future fuckery crisis is averted in, so we sadly sacrifice his happiness for the greater good by moving to a different time line.
The really brilliant part about the character is that Luka is always the same. All the time spent worrying about what gender he is doesn't end up mattering at all, Luka is just Luka, gender doesn't matter, Luka's always himself either way. And he's a cool char.
Right. Your "good trans character in anime" isn't trans. Like I said.
Easy to read that way, but isn't. Like the Hyena in Seton Academ, who would be a fantastic transgender male character
EDIT: scratch that, the manga (mostly, kinda) stopped being shitty about that right after I stopped reading. It's still mediocre/bad for a variety of reasons, 90% of which is its shitbag protagonist and the rest of which is a combination of shitty racism allegories, sex comedy in a high school, and scat jokes, but credit where it's due
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"Crossdresser" is probably the word you're looking for.
"Trap" has unfortunate connotations, and is problematic, but so are many terms that are used in porn/fetish communities(and prolly should stay there).
I also saw effort to replace it with "femboy", but you can see that also might have its problems.
"Trap" has unfortunate connotations, and is problematic, but so are many terms that are used in porn/fetish communities(and prolly should stay there).
I also saw effort to replace it with "femboy", but you can see that also might have its problems.
No you didn't get the point, Luka wishes he was born female in the canon ending, the only time he isn't male but wishing to be female is in that one world line that gets abandoned because the evil guys were gonna win in it.
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