Forced Feminization WTFery

Call me crazy, but "forced feminization" roleplaying boards like The D+X Institute strike me as super duper transphobic. I mean, sure, they're effectively fantasizing about being trans. But I don't think that's quite the same as respecting trans people as actual human beings the way cis people are "actual" human beings.

Overall, I'm not totally comfortable with the way transgendered people and gender dysphoria tends to get hypersexualized. The whole "it's all about chicks with dicks and how naughty and forbidden that is," because it wouldn't be naughty or forbidden if--deep down--people weren't still really attached to the transphobic idea that all of this is deliciously threatening. If trans people were just normal people, there would be nothing racy or titillating about becoming one.

There's also the fact that "forced feminization" seems to carry the same overtones as rape fantasies. "I want this, but I'm not allowed to want it because it's naughty and bad. Therefore I think it'd be swell if the choice wasn't mine and I wasn't accountable for it." Lots of women enjoy a good rape fantasy without actually having the conscious opinion that sex is bad, just as I'm sure lots of people on this board get off on forced feminization without having the conscious opinion that trans people are bad. More likely they're actually congratulating themselves on how cosmopolitan they are for creating a scenario where "but for the grace of God," go they themselves.

But y'know... just as there are implications that rape fantasies are reflective of anti-sex pressures on the people who have them (even if the people who have them wouldn't classify themselves as anti-sex), I get a real vibe that this whole thing is reflective of anti-trans pressures on the people playing there.

Maybe I'm prattling on about something totally obvious, but I'm trying to articulate this in a sensible way and I don't know if I'm succeeding.

I understand that the people on this board are--more likely than not--here to get their rocks off and not to explore the sociocultural implications of how the media (including erotica) portrays trans people. The hypersexualization is, whenever it happens, quite dehumanizing in the end.

Considering how rough trans people have it even now... I think they've been dehumanized enough. So this board bothers me.

But again. Fantasy is fantasy. People can fantasize about non-consensual sex without thinking it's right. I'm just not sure people can fantasize about being forced into a trans lifestyle without recycling a lot of old transphobic tropes. I think I'd be too worried about the cultural forces I was strengthening to truly enjoy a board like d-and-x.org.

That's the only drawback to being a progressive social scientist. Certain things become less fun once I start considering who is or might be harmed by them. Because, whatever people may say about me behind my back, I don't actually like people being hurt. The fact that I'd even have to sit and think about whether this is feeding into something nasty kills any potential fun... even if I were to decide in the end that I'm overreacting and being paranoid and nobody cares but me.

How do people feel about this? Trans issues get neglected a lot, and I don't want to do that to them. I don't want to miss a huge chunk of the injustices people perpetrate on each other, but I must admit that I'm not very good at considering these issues (or at least, I don't feel like I'm on steady footing here). Feedback?

Fight or Flight

Odd dilemma. I'm trying to convince some guy on a forum that it's not cool to blame POC when they get--disproportionately, to a white person--angry about being marginalized. Saying, "I would have more sympathy if the guy weren't so angry/hostile/etc." has never really done wonders for civilized discourse.

My problem is that I want to vent about this, and the most socially-conscious people I know (the people who will intuitively know what I'm getting at without me having to explain all over again why victim-blaming is shitty) are POC. And, quite frankly, I don't want them to feel like they have to deal with this guy. A couple of them stepped in on their own to say, "wtf no," but the last thing I want them to feel I'm doing to them is saying "HEY COME HELP ME FIGHT RACISM! *bounce bounce* =D IT'LL BE FUN AND THEN YOU CAN GIVE ME A COOKIE AND I'LL BE ONE OF THE GOOD WHITE PEOPLE." This is a stupid thing to do.

So I'm ranting here. What the fuck, humanity. The fact that it still needs to be explained that, "No, you shouldn't punish a child of color for punching a kid who threw racist insults at him and who hit him first," in any social setting at all... it's just sad. When a relatively-privileged white girl can look at what you're saying and tell you, "Please stop placing further barriers to POC defending the legitimacy of their personhood," then you know it's glaringly obvious.

I'm not an expert at this shit. Quite frankly, as a white person, I think the best that I can do is say that the experience of being that marginalized is so huge and so comprehensively awful that I'm just not gonna get it. And as a result, the fact that I or this other guy or whoever else wouldn't have been upset enough to give a violent racist who attacked him a bloody nose? Doesn't mean shit. We don't know enough to be upset to a realistic degree. The best we can do is know we don't know, and try to have a little fucking empathy if we can.

Again. If a white person is calling you out on the implications of what you're saying, you've probably already gone so far over the line that people who've experienced real discrimination noticed loooong ago, and long ago wrote you off entirely as beyond redemption--at least redemption by them.

I don't want a cookie. Not wanting victims to be shit on for defending themselves doesn't make me awesome. It means I have half a damn conscience. I want people to stop failing so hard that it takes a member of the privileged race to tell them they're out of line. But that's not going to happen. So now I want a nap and a vacation from other people.

What pisses me off most, I think, is knowing that I can walk away from this whenever I want because I'm white. I can choose not to engage in this, and whether I'll even pay attention to it is completely optional. So I don't feel like I deserve to walk away just because I'm tired of it and getting angrier than I want to be right now. What gives me the right?

"Leave me alone!!" "Wherever you go, everyone's connected."

Communities!

So, for a while now I've been sort of searching for an online roleplaying community that fits my needs, and the answer so far has been to spread myself rather thinly across many boards.

First, there was RPGWorldWorld, which is very much the anchor of my internet wanderings. It's where I started, and despite its slow activity and general lack of focus on play-by-post roleplaying, I think this one would hurt the most if it died. It was home, even if I eventually had to strike out elsewhere.

So then there was Hidden Realms, a very active forum with one of the tightest and most consistent fantasy settings I've seen. The writing is great, which generally makes it worth it to deal with one of the more corrupt staff establishments I've had the misfortune of being stuck with. To their credit, some of the staffers realize there are problems, and they have my gratitude and my sympathy that they're still being represented by a powermongering schemer and a couple of that person's flunkies. IC the place is great. OOC? Don't even bother.

An even more glaring example of the above is The Gungan Council, to which I will not even link. It is the only board that I have straight-up left due to the abusive behavior of several staffers combined with the enabling behavior of those who still have consciences left. Mind-blowingly active, but the OOC community is so foul that I am literally confused and offended at the very idea of participating there ever again.

After leaving TGC, I joined Chaos Theory. Eventually I became a staffer there, and helped keep our postcount up and some kind of a flow of new members through frequent activity drops. This forum is a high-maintenance girl, and a real pain in the ass to keep active. But she's my baby, and I still think she's got the potential to be the best Star Wars roleplaying forum around (if we could just break a few bad habits and convince a few more users to come where they'll be treated better).

And then! Yes, and then. I joined The Jedi Praxeum (not linkable because all the urls I have for it are dead). Chaos Theory was wearing me out, and I wanted to take a vacation someplace where I didn't feel under so much pressure to keep the place alive. Unfortunately, the hardline conservative member base and the irrelevance of all plots that did not glorify the site owner and his characters made me feel like this wasn't the place for me either.

Realizing that OOC community was extremely important to me, I started looking for places to discuss some of the things that matter most to me. Religion, politics, etc. I joined MysticWicks, a Pagan community so immense that I can spend most of my time in a single subforum and never feel a lack for things to talk about.

During the 2008 American Presidential Election, I also joined VQTE. It's a political community that's still getting on its feet, but it has an extremely attentive admin, which I've learned makes all the difference in the world. I post here partly because the place has a great atmosphere so far, and partly because I know how hard the admin is working, and I want him to know he's not doing it alone.

Then a player I met through TGC and occasionally still speak with through Chaos Theory linked me to another board. Empyrean Fates has that great gritty urban scifi/fantasy vibe that everybody loves, and an approval process to ensure that nobody has to write with half-assed undeveloped characters. The main admin seems chill as fuck, and the rules show a sense of self-reflective humor that I find refreshing and encouraging.

But you've seen how many boards I'm on. Whether I actually have time for this place as long as I am holding on to RPGWW, working to improve HR's political climate, sustaining CT with what sometimes seems like duct tape and sheer force of will, as well as participating on a religious and a political board, as well as being a very active blogger... I think I may have a full plate.

But we'll see. Next time I need a vacation, I may pop over to EF. I already have some ideas of cool things I could do there. All I lack is the will to table some other projects for my own sanity, so that I can recover some of the mana I've been spending all over the damn internet.