shithowdy:

i’m getting a lot of salt and angst over that post almost entirely from young, white artists so i’m just gonna drop one statement on it.

obligatory “i’m white”. obligatory “i’m not the best artist and am still always learning”. obligatory “i was a beginner too”. fact of the matter is, though, that what i brought up in that post is not endemic only to beginner artists. it’s something i see very technically skilled people doing, and it demonstrates a very fundamental flaw in the notion of “aesthetic”.

altering a character’s features as portrayed in their canon (or god forbid, an actual real actor) so their complexion is creamier, their features are narrower, and their hair is smoother is a deliberate choice. art is translating lines and shapes into something cohesive and recognizable. you choose to make those lines.

if you are using the wrong ones, you lose cohesion.  stylization does not mean recognition is lost. 

the situation described by my post can range anywhere from ignorance to the notion that the human face is not a template with interchangeable potato head parts all the way to a malicious belief that non-white features are ugly.

i’m not making accusations one way or another.

but i am saying that it’s very, very noticeable and the hurt you might feel by me calling you a fucking gremlin doesn’t really compare to people seeing themselves be erased in art. i am not engaging anybody directly over the matter because quite frankly 90% of the angst on that post is from teens. get better. use references. don’t be defensive when someone points out offensive behavior.

and that’s all im gonna say on the matter! 

sosyebabe:

What you got made fun of in school for?

ikalam-hla:

psshaw:

hobbitkaiju:

So much of the Euro-American understanding of being trans (or anything other than 100% constantly identified with your assigned gender) focuses on discomfort. 

Some people take this idea to an extreme and claim you can’t be trans unless you hate your body and want every surgery available to you. As many other writers have said before, that’s not true. It’s perfectly possible to be trans with only mild dysphoria or none at all. It’s perfectly possible to be trans and have a mental map of your body that looks just like the one you already have. 

But I’d like to push even harder against the idea that trans=discomfort. I’d like to offer this: sometimes the exploration of one’s gender can be motivated by pleasure rather than discomfort. 

Let me give an example. Let’s say there’s a person named Cal. Most people think of Cal as a boy, and Cal’s all right with that. So far as Cal’s concerned, a boy isn’t a bad thing to be. But sometimes, Cal likes to imagine being a girl and being treated as a girl. Those fantasies are always accompanied by feelings of pleasure, satisfaction, anticipation, and warmth. Eventually, having had these thoughts for years, Cal asks people to use ‘she’ pronouns in private and to refer to her as a girl. Cal does this for another year before claiming the label “trans”. 

Some people would say a person like Cal can’t be trans because there’s no dysphoria, self-hatred, distress, or even discomfort. There’s just a pleasure-based preference. But why is distress necessary? Why are trans people supposed to be defined solely by our pain and self-hatred?

It’s my opinion that defining trans people solely by discomfort is an aspect of transphobia. The idea behind trans=discomfort is that being anything other than 100% cis is so awful that no one would do it unless the alternative were unlivable. Think about that: defining trans people solely by their experiences of discomfort means believing that being trans is so awful that only misery could drive us to it. And to me, that sounds like the thinking of someone who really hates trans people.

So I’ll come out and say it: sometimes transition or self-exploration of gender is not just about lessening discomfort, but is about improving and deepening the pleasure we take in our lives. 

“Think about that: defining trans people solely by their experiences of discomfort means believing that being trans is so awful that only misery could drive us to it.”

I feel like it’s worth mentioning that positioning the discomfort trans people feel as inherent to their transness shifts the blame for said discomfort away from the people and systems who are often responsible for it.

learningtoacceptchange:

danekez:

horrorcutie:

Just because you did something wrong in the past doesn’t mean you can’t advocate against it now. It doesn’t make you a hypocrite. You just grew. Don’t let people use your past to invalidate your current mindset.

Hypocrisy is when you do something after you’ve condemned it.

Growth is when you condemn something because you’ve learned from your mistakes.

THIS