r/ShenComix • u/YoungShitheel • 8d ago
To those Transvestigating Shen
https://youtube.com/shorts/ob1ZwUI-Zqk?si=PzgUkN9tOB8AGDJnThis has probably been done to death, but I feel like this video has a pretty good message in relation to what I've been seeing in some of this sub.
That being;
I don't think it's our place to care about whether or not Shen is cis, a repressing trans person, or some secret third option.
I'm sure those telling him to stop "repping" aren't doing it out of genuine malice. They probably just don't want someone to go through what they must have on their way to finding their true selves.
Yet my point still stands.
Whatever he is, it's HIS BUSINESS. Leave mothafuckas alone.
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u/EightEx 7d ago edited 7d ago
Shen is great and until he says different he's a cis guy. It doesn't matter and we don't need to get into weird debates about someone else's life. If Shen comes out I'll be right there to welcome them to the community, if Shen is Cis and that never changes I will always welcome a good ally. Its not impossible for a cis person to write a good trans character after all. And the frankly idiotic and weird hate for The Boy from Venus is insane to me. Being mad that Audrey isn't transfem shows an issue with the person thats mad, not Shen or the character. Part of our growth as a world has to be removing the notion that enjoying clothing and having mannerisms that society considers femme and girly makes you not a man. Gender is a spectrum, clothes have no gender and I'd expect the trans community to understand that.
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u/LaviniaHerbert 7d ago
Part of our growth as a world has to be removing the notion that enjoying clothing and having mannerisms that society considers femme and girly makes you not a man. Gender is a spectrum, clothes have no gender and I'd expect the trans community to understand that.
You say this as if it's some great queer wisdom, but do realizethat's what people tried to tell me when I was trying to figure out if I was trans—what a lot of people try to say to a lot of trans eggs.
Folks who don't want us to transition say things like, can't you just be a girly guy? Just because you like pink and ponies doesn't make you a girl! Etc. And like—yeah, I know that neither pink nor ponies nor dresses etc. are necessarily feminine, and gender is a spectrum, and clothes don't have to have gender, and if Audrey says he's a boy, then he's a boy. But don't say it's some grand failure of trans folks on our part to think things that look like clues might be clues. Saying in public about a real-life alive person that we think there are clues is a problem, inasmuch as it inevitably becomes parasocial and weird and unfair to the real-life alive person themselves. But to say that it's somehow un-trans of a trans femme to look at fictional character Audrey and really raise an eyebrow—that's too much, and that's not fair to us after all we've gone through.
For whatever it's worth, I like Boy from Venus and am happy for both Audrey and Val. I just want to see what's next with their dynamic and am enjoying content about two cool characters, one who happens to be a girl and another who happens to be a boy.
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u/DragoKnight589 6d ago
I get where you’re coming from. I always say that gender has no user’s manual except the user’s own discretion.
It’s valid to identify as a gender and wear clothes that don’t conform to it. It’s valid to interpret a desire to wear certain clothes as a sign you might be the gender those clothes would conform to. But other people can’t make the call for you.
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u/LSD_SUMUS 5d ago
I can see the parallels that make people think Audrey is trans, and if it’s true I trust Shen to incorporate it in the narrative in a good way, but imo, this series is about Val unlearning her prejudices against men, and it’d feel weird if the character driving that narrative was actually a woman
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u/Meadowbytheforest 6d ago
It feels like you are treating "being cis" as the default.
How is that really any better than assuming someone is trans unless they say otherwise?
Can't we just say "we don't know yet"? He currently goes by he/him pronouns, that is what we know, and that might change.
IDK, I just feel like we don't need to label him anything.
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u/Lingwista321 6d ago
> It feels like you are treating "being cis" as the default.
I mean it is. I know the genderdysphoria bible, I read it, I know that hypothesis, but even by numbers alone - yeah, being cis is the default for better or worse.
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u/HillInTheDistance 8d ago edited 8d ago
You're absolutely correct.
If shen wants us to know anything, we'll be told. Ain't my friend , Ain't my family. Just the author of comics I like.
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u/Lordofthelounge144 8d ago
It's one thing if you knew the guy personally. It's another when your a random interent stranger that thinks he's not as masculine as a man should be.
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u/TotoShampoin 6d ago
Even so, "not as masculine as a man should be" is toxic as hell, not only for the guy, but for everyone else
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u/Larry-Man 7d ago
Even if you know him personally you can just mind your own damn business until he tells you otherwise.
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u/cat_prophecy 8d ago
Why the fuck would anyone even care?
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u/Aethelrede 7d ago
Because they think Shen is a traitor for making a comic about a GNC cis man instead of a trans woman, so they are trying to make him look like a hypocrite by claiming he is actually a trans woman himself.
There are other related reasons, but that's the current one. There is a group of trans women who despise GNC men, especially cis men.
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u/cat_prophecy 7d ago
I almost wish I had the time and energy and mental illness required to give even one iota of a shit that. No one passes the purity tests these days.
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u/Aethelrede 7d ago
I don't get it either. GNC men used to be called "transvestites"; I use the old slur because the "trans" part is significant. GNC men, including drag queens, used to be considered transgender (of course, that term wasn't used back then). And the vast majority of people still think they are the same thing; the transphobes love using drag queens as part of their "ooga booga trans people are trying to convert your children" bullshit, even though drag queens aren't even trans!
So the hatred against them on the part of a (small but vocal) minority of trans women baffles me. Are they envious? Do they think GNC men are taking something from them? Perhaps they think that GNC men can somehow retain male privilege without going into the closet (that is one of the TERF arguments against trans women and it's just as much bullshit.)
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u/Hushpuppyy 7d ago
GNC men are inconvenient for their narrative. "Just be a femboy" is often leveraged against trans women to dissuade them from fully transitioning (and mainly getting in estrogen) so some of the more toxic groups take out their anger on GNC men for existing.
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u/Aethelrede 7d ago
Ah. Yeah, I can see that being frustrating. But turning on GNC men is exactly what the transphobes want.
Thanks for the insight.
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u/vorarchivist 8d ago
people love to pick into, theorize and gossip about people's lives, for example all celebrity news
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u/LifelessHawk 8d ago
The unemployed chronically online group gotta spend there wasteful days doing something
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u/TheAutumnLeafeon 3d ago
I kept seeing people on Tumblr calling Shen an egg and I chimed in and said we shouldn't make assumptions about real people's gender identity. I got dogpiled...
This quote is still relevant to this day:
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u/Chibirin26 8d ago
any possible eggs will hatch when they are ready, not when enough strangers point them out.
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u/batgirl-but-not-dc 8d ago
a common thing ive seen on tumblr is more popular posters getting harassed about being eggs, eventually coming out as Trans, and talking about how they really hated all the egg stuff and that it definitely set back their own transitions (one of them was Jenny Chongoblog on tumblr, shes in the sonic livedubbing stuff).
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u/_9x9 7d ago
im not popular but this happened to me. I asked for advice on reddit when I was younger cause I didn't really have queer community and the smug insistence that I was definitely an egg and would see one day set me back a lot. Acting like you know better than someone about themselves isn't going to help. I don't actually hate egg culture. Its just best applied to fictional characters, or to the pasts of people who are already out (with their permission).
Saying people could be trans is fine. But acting like you know them isn't.
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u/pinksoul_32345 7d ago
as a counterpoint, though, i know a good number of other trans ppl on tumblr who have outright said that if their friends/the broader trans community didn't point out their shared experiences and push them towards at least considering transition, they would have died in the closet. and others who expressed regret that the people in their lives let them figure it out for themselves "when they were ready", leading to years of completely needless suffering/repression.
my take is that while yeah speculating on the inner lives of celebrities/microcelebrities in general based solely on their work/posts is parasocial as hell, rarely productive and imo a little gross, and that if they're trans that's probably something for their actual friends/loved ones who know them personally to help with; i think the "egg prime directive" does more harm than good. it's different from person to person as to what kind of outreach will be effective, but with the massive amount of social pressure and propaganda to not transition coming down on them from every angle, letting an acquaintance/friend/family member you think might be trans "figure it out for themselves" could also simply lead to them killing themselves.
again, the parasociality of it all leads to ppl assuming they know these figures better than they actually do, but, given that, i can't rly blame trans girls for reaching out to someone they think they know well, because being a closeted pre-realization trans person really, really fucking sucks, actually
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u/Wallso2010 5d ago
Would I be satisfied with an answer? Probably. Not gonna get one by trying dissect what is only a fraction of Shen's life, lowkey don't take gender that seriously anyways :3
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8d ago
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u/YoungShitheel 8d ago edited 8d ago
To be honest with you and not be an asshole that reacts with images instead of an actual response,
I believe that people put Shen into a box by speculating on this sorta thing
Sure, he shares similarities with pre-transition people or "eggs" as you say
But, I mean, I share similarities with black guys my age, does that necessarily mean I'm a black guy in secret?
(Right that might actually be kind of a dumbass argument now that I think of it)
The point being though, I believe one can share similarities/similar thoughts to trans people without being one themselves. For instance, Shen could be something completely different than a tgirl. Just because he's been doing the speculation doesn't automatically mean he is 100% without a doubt trans.
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8d ago
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u/AwkwardInsurance4970 8d ago
I think part of the issue is people expecting Shen to confirm it. I did make note of your "probably would have said something", but I noticed a lot if people outright seem to think he would most definitely say something. It feels strangely like the internet can be so entitled to people's gender identity. I never liked it.
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u/YoungShitheel 8d ago
That response wasn't very fair to you. I apologize
Lack of reading comprehension on my part. I can probably write a better reply if I just sat down and read it better but I'm at the gym rn
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u/Neutral-Feelings 7d ago
There were people calling you immature, but I'd like to let you know: You're cool. You can see the flaws in your own arguments and work to rethink them, and you have the ability to concede and apologize when you think it's necessary. It's a skill people lack these days so I just wanted to say I appreciate seeing it.
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u/thecraftybear 6d ago
People are doing WHAT
Seriously, who are those people. I wanna talk to them irl. See if they're really that fucked up or just that stupid.
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u/TheEasternTwink 6d ago
Is the secret third option evil squid? I hate those, but yeah I agree if they cis trans or what have you let em live, people write stories about super humans aliens and what other stuff, ofc a cis guy can write story about women
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u/Trick_Yard_4609 7d ago
not what transvestigation is. i agree that public speculation is inappropriate, but transvestigation is its own much more serious thing than calling someone an egg on reddit.
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u/Aethelrede 7d ago
Claiming someone is trans when they have not identified as such is bad, regardless of the motivation. Intent isn't magic, wanting to help someone does not justify identifying them as trans against their will.
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u/Trick_Yard_4609 7d ago
i'm arguing definitions. transvestigation is a batshit conspiracy theory about female celebrities being replaced with trans body doubles, or having already transitioned and hiding it. it's a meaningfully distinct phenomenon.
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u/Aethelrede 7d ago
I stand by my statement. Trying to out someone is bad no matter what the reason.
After all, a rumor that someone is trans when they aren't is harmful regardless of why the rumor was started. All of the people talking about how Shen must be trans are no different from people who claim that Jamie Lee Curtis is trans. Intent does not justify it!
Unless the person is a noted and public transphobe, in which case it's totally justified. But Shen is not a transphobe.
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u/Trick_Yard_4609 7d ago
you are not listening to what i'm saying. both things are bad. but transvestigation is a specific conspiracy mindset, not just a portmanteau of the words "trans" and "investigation". it very straightforwardly not what people do with shen. also, you're less principled than i am! not only do you make an exception on this stuff if it's someone you don't like, but you're specifically doing it so you can use calling someone trans as an insult? gee, thanks, whatever would we do without your unswerving allyship 🙄
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u/Aethelrede 7d ago
You are not listening. I understand the distinction you are making, I simply do not agree with you. The reasons for outing someone (correctly or not) are irrelevant (except in a very special case, which I don't think has ever happened. There have been lots of homophobic gay men, though, and that shit needs to be called out.)
And identifying someone as trans when they do not identify as such is not an insult, it's fucking harmful!
Calling me transphobic for insisting that people do not have to conform to your definition of gender is irony and hypocrisy of the highest order.
It's ironic, you have adopted the tactics of the TERFs and use them against GNC men and enbies. I would pity you, if you weren't trying to hurt people.
Go on, call me a transphobe for denying the gender binary. It's what your group does.
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u/Trick_Yard_4609 7d ago
i'm not saying it's ok to say these things about shen, you illiterate!
-> "i agree that public speculation is inappropriate" <-
i said that in my first comment! right there! at the top! you ignorant boob! and you literally said "Unless the person is a noted and public transphobe, in which case it's totally justified." so you ARE fine with doing it in some cases! i'm actually not, in any circumstances, because i think calling a transphobe trans to piss them off is using an accusation of being trans as an insult, and that is transphobic and fucked up! so i'm more committed to your alleged principles than you are!
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u/Aethelrede 7d ago
Interesting how you keep focusing on the side issue and not the main point.
I ask again, is it ever okay to treat a GNC man as a trans women? If not, then what are you arguing about? Seriously, that's the issue at hand, that people are saying that Shen is actually a trans woman in denial. I believe this is bad. If you also believe it to be bad, then we are in agreement.
As to the other point, if, for example, I found out that JK Rowling is actually a trans woman, you can be damn sure I'd be screaming that to the hills. Just as I have no problem with outing gay men who advocate against gay rights. There is nothing more despicable than a hypocrite and traitor.
But eh, if you would not out JKR, in this purely hypothetical situation, well, that's between you and your conscience. I would judge the sin of outing someone to be less than the sin of letting that person continue funding the eliminationist transphobia, personally. Of course, as I said, I haven't heard of any trans women who are stupid enough to be transphobic. There are trans women stupid enough to be bigoted against GNC men, though.
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u/Trick_Yard_4609 7d ago
you did not ask about whether it was ok to call a GNC cis man a trans woman before. you are apparently as incapable of reading your own comments as you are mine. but since you ask, no, obviously it's inappropriate if a person has told you who they are, for you to then unilaterally override that. i literally did not once say otherwise.
as for the JKR trans woman thing, i think we're talking at crossed purposes. i am saying, "JKR is a cis woman, calling her trans or accusing her of being a secret trans woman is transphobic, because it assumes that being trans is more of an insult than her materially contributing to the harm and deaths of trans people". you are saying "if i found out JKR was a post-transition trans woman, i'd out her", which is a completely different thing. also a really weird hypothetical to fantasise about, frankly, that borders on what transvestigation actually is.
also, there are plenty of trans women who are transphobic. women can do anything. including bad things.
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u/Aethelrede 7d ago
You said, "it's inappropriate if a person has told you who they are, for you to then unilaterally override that. i literally did not once say otherwise."
Indeed you didn't say otherwise. That's the problem.
You see, it is irrelevant whether a person has "told you who they are", you shouldn't assign a gender to them. You should never assign a gender to anyone, ever. But according to your own words, it's only inappropriate if they have told you who they are. Since you put that qualifier on there, it must mean that it is appropriate to assign a gender to someone as long as they haven't told you their gender.
Which is hilarious, because that's exactly what I've been accusing you of all along.
Whether you actually mean what you wrote, didn't understand what you wrote, or revealed yourself as a troll by accident, I can't say, and it doesn't matter. The fact that you don't even realize you just owned yourself makes it even funnier.
Your comments about JKR are incoherent, I have no idea why you brought up pre-op vs post-op, that's utterly irrelevant.
Anyway, your English is so bad I can't actually tell if you are a troll or not, but you made me laugh, so I'll grade you a "D" class troll. If you want to get better, you need to write more coherently. And if you aren't a troll, you have my pity.
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u/rougetrailblazer 7d ago
shen is shen. that's all. i refer to shen by they/them pronouns until i find any others that they go by. if shen is trans, that's cool, but i don't care if they aren't. i just like the art they make, everybody who likes shen's art should just calm down and stop transvestigating in general. it's stupid as hell.
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u/Gold_Ad8225 5d ago
This isn't what transvestigation is or means btw. Like can we pretty please not draw a false equivalence between
predominately trans people seeing things in a person that makes them think that person is trans
and
the psychotic obsessive behavior of people who hate trans people and want to kill them going about drawing lines over people's pictures and claiming every celebrity and political figure is trans because the ruling elite forces you to transition to humiliate you and control you
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u/YoungShitheel 5d ago
Chill I didn't know transvestigation was anything other than investigation that someone is trans
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u/GreeneyesCB 4d ago
You are correct. The person you are talking to has the silly notion that the identity of a person changes what action they are doing.
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u/Acrobatic_Feeling16 4d ago
It is a more specific term. Transvestigating is trying to prove that someone is stealth passing.
If people were using photos of Shen to insist he was a transgender man based on the width of his collar bone, that would be transvestigating Shen.
This is different.
I don't like the pressure it puts on him to make a personal matter so public, but I almost understand trans women's misplaced desire to guide someone along.
It's still a violation of privacy that will either make a cis man feel deeply uncomfortable, or make an unrealized trans woman repress further. There isn't really a positive result to be had from violating the prime directive.
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u/GreeneyesCB 3d ago
No, this absolutely is a case of transvestigating someone, you're just not doing it from physical features.
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u/Acrobatic_Feeling16 3d ago
"It's transvestigating, it just lacks all of the things that that word means."
...Nobody is theorizing he's a stealth trans man.
So it isn't transvestigating.
He's being accused of being an egg.
Which is a different, distinct bad thing to have happen.
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u/GreeneyesCB 3d ago
It's an investigation into whether someone is a trans woman, your insistence seems to be based on the extremely toxic idea that there is merit to the idea that he's actually a trans woman and you refuse to accept the term to downplay the severity.
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u/Acrobatic_Feeling16 3d ago edited 3d ago
I am forced to ask what on Earth you're talking about.
"It's an investigation into whether someone is a trans woman"
And seeing as no one is accusing him of being a stealth transgender person who has already transitioned, it doesn't fit any way the word "transvestigation" has ever been used by people other than you.
seeks to be based on the extremely toxic idea that there is merit to the idea that he's actually a trans woman
I don't find the existence of trans women toxic, being one myself.
The toxicity is that it is not anyone's business, and not anyone's place to speculate.
There's no evidence he is, and if there was it wouldn't be relevant to the fact that to speculate or pressure him is a violently violating act.
Either a cis man is sexually harassed by his fan base, or a trans woman represses the idea due to external pressure.
It's a violent act to theorize, regardless.
What isn't a violent act is to admit that men becoming women is something that is conceivably possible, conceptually.
And you are delusionally insisting that unless I reject the concept of a man becoming a woman wholesale, I am "downplaying" the exact type of sexual harassment that pushed me back into the closet for many years.
Which is nonsense.
The idea's "merit" is irrelevant to the fact it's barbaric in a paparazzi like fashion. And saying that the existence of trans women, in general, cannot rule out any individual man's future identifiers...is not synonymous with endorsing speculation. 🙃
Literally any man on Earth could have a stark realization some day. Acknowledging that is neutral.
Thrusting the idea of it upon Shen however, or ANY individual man who does not REQUEST public opinion in regards to such things as part of a soul searching process, is cruel and violating. He has publicly stated he is in therapy for matters regarding gender, which is only relevant in that it makes clear this is an especially vulnerable topic for the masses to be beating him to death with.
You might as well argue that if I insist an accidental death is manslaughter rather than murder, I must love downplaying murder.
It is silly to pretend that using a fake, totally unused definition of the term "transvestigation" is the only way to communicate how serious a transgression this is on Shen.
They are brutally interrogating a man about his most private feelings about himself. That remains nightmarish regardless of your poor vernacular.
The fact is it just doesn't fit anyone's use of the term "transvestigating" but yours. Saying an apparent cis woman is a trans woman functioning "stealth", or an apparent cis man is a trans man functioning "stealth", as transphobes look for witches to burn...that is transvestigation. TERFs using skull width and shoulder breadth to spew conspiracy theories is transvestigation.
This is a different violation of privacy by predominantly, the transgender community ourselves.
And knowing what these words mean is not an endorsement of the harassment and sick speculation Shen is being subjected to.
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u/GreeneyesCB 3d ago
It's neither silly nor unused, you literally see several people in this very thread use it. So that's intellectual dishonesty. Then you misconstruing my sentence into a completely different meaning is more intellectual dishonesty and you literally confirmed with your analogy that you're downplaying it. It's not an accident.
Have some self-reflection.
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u/Acrobatic_Feeling16 3d ago
"You literally confirmed with your analogy that you're downplaying it."
I mean, I know lying is required for your argument to function. But it should be less blatant than this.
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u/Acrobatic_Feeling16 3d ago
...Listen, I get it.
The idea that any person could some day identify as Trans is "toxic" to you. A fundamental transphobia your point relies on foundationally.
The irony is, you are watering down the term to downplay the severity of what it refers to when used correctly.
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u/Gold_Ad8225 3d ago
No, it's based to the intention that being trans is a bad thing, and that a famous or influential person is trans, already transitioned, and hiding it, in connection to a broad conspiracy theory, and that this person should lose their influence due to being trans.
The intent of a trans person thinking someone who hasn't transitioned is trans but hasn't come to terms with it in a hateful and transphobic society is universally the opposite of that. Because they want to help.
There is zero similarity unless you're evil and dumb
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u/GreeneyesCB 3d ago
You believe that intent is what determines if something is a transvestigation, that is not true, it is the action. The harm done is the same.
You can't claim "zero similarity" if the only thing that is different is intent. It is extremely ignorant and shows a lack of reflection on what harm your behaviour can cause.
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u/Gold_Ad8225 3d ago
No, I know what transvestigation is because I'm not a liar
And so do you.
There is no similarity between investigating people to prove they're trans, but not sharing that info, in order to harm them
and
Suspecting someone might be trans but hasn't yet come to realize it
Stop lying
My behavior? Harm? Stop making shit up you fucking creep
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u/Gold_Ad8225 3d ago
You are a disingenuous creep
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u/GreeneyesCB 3d ago edited 3d ago
I made a pretty basic and obvious point. There is nothing disingenious or creepy about it.
You sound like an extreme weirdo.
OMFG, yeah no wonder you hide your account with the insane shit you post.
"I don't believe your real life experiences ... but I'm totally not a bigot" - yeah right.
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u/Gold_Ad8225 3d ago
You didn't.
You know what transvestigation is, and you know that it isn't trans people suspecting someone might be trans but they haven't come to realize it yet
Your life experiences have nothing to do with this
But I guess you proved you're a creep seeing as you're trying to stalk me
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u/Plain-Intern-3608 3d ago
WTF is this BS?
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u/Gold_Ad8225 3d ago
Somebody who knows what words mean and isn't disingenuous to justify treating trans people like transphobes
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u/Lawrence-of-Liberia 2d ago
“Black people can’t be racist” type of argument
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u/Gold_Ad8225 2d ago
No more like
"Thing done for the purpose of hurting people, executed with hatred and malice, founded on the idea that the person is lying about who they are is bad"
vs
"Thing done for the purpose of helping people, executed with empathy and solidarity, founded on the idea that you see something in common with that person and yourself in a society that tries to suppress that thing is good"
There's literally nothing similar here.
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u/grand_nad 1d ago
transphobes think they're helpiing a trans person "get out of their delusion" intention does not change effect, you can hit a person while wanting to help them and it's still as moraly bad as hitting them for evil
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u/Gold_Ad8225 1d ago
No, no they do not. People who transvestigate are not doing so because they think it will help trans people. They are doing it because they think it is salacious and scandalous to be trans, and they feel they are being ruled by perverted freaks who want to harm them and make illegal their way of life, turn them and their kids trans, and kill god.
There's not a single thought in their head about help.
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u/acclimateOrdie 7d ago
That's not what transvestigation is. I'm not saying this is okay, but misusing the term transvestigating like this causes a lot of harm. Taking a term that is specifically used in a transphobic context and applying it to the trans community in regards to their speculation towards a cis guy is a gross misappropriation.
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u/FastPresentation3679 7d ago
Im gonna straight up disagree with you. I forget the specific phrase for it, but its like saying "Asian people are good at math." Its still a racist sterotype even though its positive. Trying to discover weather shen is trans (if)before they come out is transvestigation, even if its done in a supportive tone.
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u/Dr_Fragenstien 7d ago
If “transvestigation” is “scrutinizing everything available to find out if someone is trans or not” then it absolutely is. They’re doing the exact same thing they hate other people doing to them, but they justify it because “it’s for a ‘good’ reason” and “I’m one of the good guys”. It’s still creepy, gross, an invasion of privacy, and will end up determining whether they “deserve” to be treated with decency or not. Just because it’s “not as bad” doesn’t make it okay.
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u/thevvitchhazel 7d ago
If someone is in "gender therapy" and posting content which has a lot of red flags for repression then I do think it's fair of trans people to encourage that person to accept themselves.
The world is absolutely full of shit telling people not to transition. Don't act like a handful of trans people on the internet trying to encourage people to resist that negative programming is the issue.
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u/Aethelrede 7d ago
You're assuming that becoming trans gender is the only possible outcome for gender therapy. He may decide he's a GNC male. He may be nonbinary.
What you are trying to do is force him to conform to your expectations, which is exactly what transphobes are doing.
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u/thevvitchhazel 7d ago
Any therapy that encourages people not to transition is abuse
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u/Aethelrede 7d ago
"Any therapy that encourages people to transition is abuse" -- literally a TERF argument.
Insisting on a gender binary makes no goddamn sense, for trans women OR feminists. The logical end of your argument is that trans women shouldn't exist.
In the case of TERFs, their hatred of trans women blinds them to the way their actions add their oppressors. I have no goddamn idea why trans women would turn on GNC men and enbies.
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u/pinksoul_32345 7d ago
"Any therapy that encourages people to transition is abuse" -- literally a TERF argument.
yes, changing the words in the sentence often changes the meaning of the sentence
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u/utsu31 6d ago
Where did they insist on a gender binary? Or do you think non binary people don't transition or something?
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u/Aethelrede 6d ago
They aren't referring to NBs. This is an ongoing conversation across Reddit, there is a group that is actively trying to disparage GNC men (and by extension NBs). I've been told that the very existence of GNC men is a deliberate insult to trans women.
Most of them aren't quite that blunt, they use various circumlocutions to hide what they really mean. T his person was using the same rhetoric as that group, I doubt that was a coincidence.
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u/YoungShitheel 7d ago
???
One can discover they're non-binary or something other than trans via gender therapy
What the fuck kind of a take is this?
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u/Bragunetzki 7d ago
Non-binary people are trans
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u/YoungShitheel 7d ago
I should've been more specific then. I meant binary trans people. Ftm and mtf
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u/thevvitchhazel 7d ago
Someone who survived conversion therapy and active repping.
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u/Aethelrede 7d ago
People tried to force you to conform to the gender binary, so now you're trying to do the same to others?
Insisting the Shen can't be GNC male is exactly the same as insisting that men can't be women.
You do give me an inkling of why a (small) group of trans women hates GNC men so much. Doesn't make it any less stupid.
Now, of course, you will accuse me of being transphobic because I oppose forcing people to choose a specific gender. Despite the overwhelming irony.
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u/YoungShitheel 7d ago
I feel like there's a pretty sizable difference between therapy for gender dysphoria and CONVERSION THERAPY
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u/Plenty_Leg_5935 7d ago
In oractice there isn't, vast majority of "gender therapy" is just mild form of conversion therapy in disguise
Like 60% of the west actively does not believe in trans people, how common do you think therapists who help you explore your gender identity in good faith without prejudice are??
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u/RainingBats 7d ago
Genuine gender therapists do exist. I went to one, was given a safe space to fully think about how I felt about myself for the first time and then she helped me start medically transitioning when I decided I was ready
I understand a lot of people have had bad experiences but do consider for a moment that you might be projecting your negative experiences onto this total stranger. We do not know what Shen's experience was
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u/Plenty_Leg_5935 5d ago
I never said otherwise, i explicitly said its just most of them
For practice that doesnt matter, you don't recommend someone to play russian roulette just because most of the chambers are empty
With actual doctors its a risk you take because its the only way to formally transition, there's absolutely zero reason to do that with practitioners you go to for solely your peace of mind. Any queer space is better for that than them, and I'm saying that as someone generally done with the bs and drama of babyqueer groups
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u/YoungShitheel 7d ago
West where? I don't live in the usa
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u/Plenty_Leg_5935 7d ago
....The Geopolitical West as a whole
This isnt me assuming you're familiar with the cultural subdivisions of the US, this is me using an extremely prevalent (and as far as I know global) term from sociology
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world
I'm not american either, i used the term specifically to emphasize that its not just a US thing
EDIT : changed the wiki link, didnt realise they had one for it directly
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u/YoungShitheel 7d ago
I'm sure those telling him to stop "repping" aren't doing it out of genuine malice.
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u/Aethelrede 7d ago
I disagree, some of it is genuine malice. The hatred I've seen aimed at GNC men by certain elements of the trans woman community is shocking. They are particularly annoyed because he's writing a comic about a GNC cis male, which they believe should be a trans woman.
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u/Shaeress 7d ago
I think it's worth pointing out signs of repression and I think considering one's options about gender identity and presentation is a positive thing.
As such it's useful to say "this sentiment is a sign" and Shen has displayed many of them over a very long time. They've clearly done some of it on purpose too. This is worth pointing out regardless of what Shen does with the information themselves, but because there are likely a lot of people that recognise themselves in those comics, and I think it's important that we as a society accept that one common reason that one might have funny gender feeling is the possibility that one is trans. A sentiment that is highly repressed and persecuted in this society, making it extra important to point out that is a normal and acceptable conclusion that has useful solutions to pursue.
One way that this has been and continues to be repressed and persecuted is the widespread existence of therapist who will "help" patients rationalise these feelings and to surpress them more. That "everyone just feels like that" and that we can just get over it and move on and manage it. It is not normal for boys to go around thinking and wishing one was a girl a lot. Thinking one would be happier, that being lesbian would be the best, that life would've been better if born a girl. These are not thoughts normal cis boys go around having a lot. They are not itchy, nagging, persistent ideas.
Shen has said they're in some sort of gender therapy. A lot of this therapy is straight up conversion therapy. It's bad and evil. And just like when gay kids get sent to "Christian camp" we have to point it out, we have to point it out here. I hope the therapist is cool and good. I don't know about Shen personally and it's always a bit weird when individual celebrities become specific in discourse, but broadly speaking we must acknowledge these possibilities.
Obviously Shen is the only one that can know for sure for themselves, but public people sometimes get public discussion and there are a lot of people watching. Trans people do exist. There are signs. There is repression. It's better for trans people to transition if they possibly can. It's good for trans people to be able to. A lot of gender therapy is repression training and conversion therapy that will doom any trans person to years of depressed self hatred.
Good luck to Shen and to all their readers that have felt it too.
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u/YoungShitheel 7d ago edited 7d ago
Imma have to respond to this when I'm back from school but I'm assuming you are referring to Shen with they/them because you believe that he isn't a cis man/someone who goes by male pronouns, right?
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u/Shaeress 7d ago
That's a weird assumption of you to make. I just haven't seen them proclaim any pronouns in particular, there aren't any on their profile.
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u/dulunis 7d ago
I agree, but that's not what transvestigation is.
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u/YoungShitheel 7d ago
Isn't it when you investigate if someone is trans or not
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u/TerrorMeter 7d ago
It's when you decree that a celebrity has secretly already transitioned because their clavicles or whatever, like the conspiracy theorists who swear that Michelle Obama isn't cis. It's not about whether someone wants to transition and is repressing
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u/PanFriedCookies 1d ago
it's part of a conspiracy theory that the liberal elite are all trans people on top of being satanic baby eaters. transvestigators will analyze the angle of their target's brow, size and shape of their jaw and cheekbones, shoulders, overall proportions with these phrenological charts of "normal" male and female bodies in order to prove they're actually stealth trans people. it's a very specific word that refers to a very specific subculture within the terfosphere.
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u/NoQuantity1847 7d ago
a lot of the people that are doing it have a very weird kind of brainworms that we as a system almost got infested with 😭
during our short stay in r/nart4 we noticed a lot of both dislike towards and egg calling of Shen and it was... weird. should've tipped us off earlier to get the hell out of there
if anyone from r/nart4 is reading this, please stop hating cis people like that, you aren't doing that much better than 4tranners in that regard :/
- Haxus
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u/greyghibli 6d ago
That’s not what transvestigating means.
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u/Aaa1070 6d ago
Gender denial is like transvestigation but the other way around.
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u/YoungShitheel 3d ago
Gender denial as in he's in denial about himself or the community is in denial about him
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u/LustBunnOfForests 8d ago
Sees a new gender queer thing Shen does pop up.
Turn to my girlfriend, as a trans girl: Y'know, I don't know if Shen hasn't figured stuff out, or has and is fucking with everyone for fun. Either way, good soup.
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u/Aethelrede 7d ago
You do realize the genderqueer doesn't just mean "trans woman", right? He might be GNC male, he might be nonbinary, he might just say fuck it and just be Shen.
The assumption that questioning one's gender should lead to transitioning (the whole egg concept) is faulty, and encourages an odd gender binary.
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u/LustBunnOfForests 7d ago edited 7d ago
Yes? I never said that Shen was trans femme?? I just specified that I am a trans woman because it's the internet and I wanted to make sure people knew I was queer to avoid someone jumping on me for no reason, but here we are, apparently.
I am well aware that "Figuring things out" and "gender queer" does not mean "hasn't realized they're a trans woman". I was making a joke about how the process of figuring out one's gender and Knowing But Fucking With People For The Bit are similar and inscrutable. You decided to be mad for no reason and read words that I straight up did not type.
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u/Aethelrede 7d ago
Perhaps I judged you too harshly. Let's back up a second, because I'm genuinely interested in understanding your point of view. Please note that this is not intended to be a "gotcha" moment, I am baffled about how (some) trans women view GNC men and enbies and am hoping for some enlightenment. Also note that every time I use the word "joke" in this post, assume it is in paranthesis, because I don't think any of it is actually a joke.
You say you were making a joke implying that a GNC man is actually a trans woman and either doesn't know it or is just claiming to be GNC to fuck with people.
How would you feel about a joke implying that a trans woman is actually a femboy / drag queen and either doesn't know it or is just pretending to be trans to fuck with people?
It's exactly the same joke, except one targets GNC men and the other targets trans women.
Do you think the joke about trans women actually being drag queens is okay? If not, why is a joke about GNC men okay?
You see, trans used to encompass both trans women and GNC men, and I'm trying to figure out why that changed. Any insight you can provide is greatly appreciated.
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u/LustBunnOfForests 7d ago
You say you were making a joke implying that a GNC man is actually a trans woman and either doesn't know it or is just claiming to be GNC to fuck with people.
Forgive me for apparently being illiterate, but where the hell did I say that? I do not know why you are fixated on the idea I think Shen's gender is one way or another. I don't know, no one does. That is the joke I was making.
I was making a joke about how gender-queerness, regardless of what your gender ends up as, has moments that are virtually indistinguishable between "I know my gender, but I'm not saying shit and keeping people guessing for fun" and " 'This is totally a thought everyone has had, right?' - person saying very gender-queer thing unknowingly". That's the joke I was making. I do not know how that's such a foreign joke that I needed to spell it out, and I fundamentally do not understand why people are being so aggro over inventing a sentence I did not say to be mad at instead of just reading the words I wrote,
trans used to encompass both trans women and GNC men, and I'm trying to figure out why that changed.
I genuinely don't know. I know people who are non-binary who use trans as a label for themselves, I know people who are non-binary who hate that idea. I'm not a wizard. Other than "Gender-queer" I did my best to avoid using labels and terms for other people because I don't know.
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u/Aethelrede 7d ago
This is tiresome. Here is a quote from your own comment: "I was making a joke about how the process of figuring out one's gender and Knowing But Fucking With People For The Bit are similar and inscrutable".
Suggesting that there are trans gender people or GNC people who "Know...[their gender but pretend not to in order to] Fuck with People For the B it" is transphobic as shit. The mere fact that you would even believe that people would do that makes it clear you don't take gender identity seriously. No trans gender person or GNC male would ever pretend they didn't know their own gender just to fuck with people (unless you were referring to yourself? That would explain a great deal).
And making a joke that it's hard to tell the difference between someone figuring out their own gender and this hypothetical person who fakes gender confusion for fun is fucking vile.
You are either a transphobe or bigoted against GNC men; I'm inclined to the latter, because suggesting that GNC men are actually trans women who are pretending not to be is a common lie among that group of trans women.
Anyway, the fact that you lied about what you wrote makes further conversation pointless. I do suggest in the future if you are going to claim you didn't say something you should go back and edit the comment where you said the thing.
Yet again, the similarity between your little group of haters and TERFs is shocking.
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u/LustBunnOfForests 7d ago
Suggesting that there are trans gender people or GNC people who "Know...[their gender but pretend not to in order to] Fuck with People For the Bit" is transphobic as shit.
I think you are fundamentally misunderstanding the message there. I'm saying that until anything is confirmed in any way about Shen's identity, no one knows shit, ((which, by the by, you are assuming that Shen is a GNC man and not say; Gender Fluid, Agender, or Non-binary among many other things that fall into genderqueer.)) and that's funny to lean into to poke fun at an audience for wanting to know. I'm not saying anyone's faking being questioning, I'm saying leaning into the fact that one's gender is inscrutable instead of confirming anything is a good bit. It might also be that Shen doesn't know, but I don't know. Either way, it's fun to see this unfold in the comics.
You are either a transphobe or bigoted against GNC men
Not a transphobe. And I'm literally saying that it's funny to fuck with people's perception of your gender for the fucking bit. That was the premise of the original joke. I am trans and have introduced myself at functions as "She/Her, but if the bit is funny enough, I'll roll with it". That's the energy I'm talking about in the original joke.
because suggesting that GNC men are actually trans women who are pretending not to be is a common lie among that group of trans women
Again, when have I implied Shen is "actually a trans woman"? Unlike you, I have mostly, if not entirely, avoided even using pronouns for Shen because I am unsure (none of Shen's socials have pronouns in bios).
I do suggest in the future if you are going to claim you didn't say something you should *[n't] go back and edit the comment where you said the thing.
Three hours later I saw a typo and fixed it. What I edited: changed " has' " to " hasn't ".
And if you're gonna come marching back in here to cherry pick something that could be construed as "mean if you squint" again, I'm just going to block and report you, because you have chosen to to take everything I say in the worst light humanly possible since I made my first clarification.
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u/Aethelrede 7d ago
That last part is certainly true. I have had multiple arguments with people over Shen and GNC men in general over the past few weeks, with people accusing him of pretending to be cis, and calling him bad names for daring to draw a GNC cis male character. The language you used is very similar to the language they used, so I assumed the worst. It seems that our priors were so different that our posts were mutually unintelligible. At any rate, if you want to block and report me, feel free, but I won't block you. It is quite possible we'll cross paths on some less complicated and controversial topic, and I'd hate to rule out the possibility that we might agree on something. Without any sarcasm, I hope you have a nice day.
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u/Trick_Yard_4609 7d ago
don't bother, this person was also yelling at me while refusing to read anything i was saying too. i think they just assume anyone not enthusiastically agreeing with them 24/7 is some basement-dwelling caricature of a 4tran user they have to epically own to defend GNC cis men
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u/notquiteparadox 8d ago
Yeah it’s his business until he starts putting his repper propaganda comic in our feeds
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u/Samaein 8d ago edited 8d ago
Is it transvestigating or is it egg culture in action?
Cuz just saying, egg culture saved my life and had a positive impact on every trans person I know.
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u/jancl0 8d ago
Egg culture is transvestigating, just with a leftward lean. That's exactly why so many people have a problem with it. I am sure with absolute certainty that you are at least partially aware of the bad reputation egg culture has specifically because it is exactly what transvestigating is, by definition
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u/Samaein 8d ago
Oh I'm completely aware of the bad reputation it has but I don't give a single fuck about it because it fucking saves lives
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u/jancl0 8d ago
It also kills people, for exactly the same reasons. You are placing an identity onto people who do not accept that identity. It's a gamble, you're banking on the fact that they eventually will. I don't think we should be giving chemotherapy to everyone who comes into a doctor's office with a cough, just because it "saves lives", that's a terrible justification
It isn't your life when you do it to others, maybe "I don't give a single fuck" isn't the right mentality to have?
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u/Samaein 8d ago
Show me a single instance where egg culture forced anyone into a medical transition and not just pushed them into exploring a social transition and maybe talk to a therapist about it...
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u/jancl0 8d ago
That's not what I said.... at all...
Egg culture is literally an act of misgendering. You don't think misgendering kills people? You are choosing to ignore the identity that someone is presenting to you in order to impose your own idea of what their identity should be, that can seriously, seriously fuck someone up, and I think you know that, you're just only thinking about it in one direction
There are better alternatives to egg culture, you just presented 2 of your own. Egg culture is gross, regressive, and unnecessary
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u/YoungShitheel 8d ago
TRUTH SUPERNOVA
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u/jancl0 8d ago
OK bro idk what you're doing but this is a bit much
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u/Samaein 8d ago
Are you 12..?
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u/YoungShitheel 8d ago
I mean I'm Gen Z. I'm technically still a kid as well. A lot of people my age use stickers/gifs like that.
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u/Samaein 8d ago
Egg culture is literally saying "I used to think/do this now I'm a girl". You're conflating things.
I'm "choosing" to notice the patterns I've displayed once, talk about it with other people who displayed exactly the same pattern and then just sit there and think "aaaany minute now".
I think you and I don't have the same definition of egg culture.
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u/jancl0 8d ago
There are two words in that phrase. We aren't talking about eggs, we're talking about egg culture. That's not recognising patterns in yourself, that's applying those patterns to other people, that is literally, by definition, what makes it a culture, and that's the behavior people are referring to when they use that phrase
Us having two definitions of the term doesn't mean that both are valid. But I also don't think our definitions are actually as different as you're pretending, absolutely nothing you've described so far is in line with just saying "I used to think/do this now I'm a girl", that's such a disingenuous framing
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u/YoungShitheel 8d ago
Would you not say the two go hand in hand?
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u/Samaein 8d ago
Not really. There's a difference between being like "myep I said/did/thought/felt the same thing and 5 years later my shell cracked" and being like "Ha! You draw yourself as a girl YOU'RE TRANS!!!!"
But even if it was... it remainst that I'm not dead right now thanks to it and many of the trans people I know would say exactly the same and the rest would say they're not in a psychward thanks to it instead.
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u/YoungShitheel 8d ago
I'm sure those telling him to stop "repping" aren't doing it out of genuine malice. They probably just don't want someone to go through what they must have on their way to finding their true selves
Whatever he is, it's HIS BUSINESS. Leave mothafuckas alone.
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u/Glitchy-Mech 8d ago
You’re trans tho. Egg culture makes real people uncomfortable so we gotta ban it
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u/Samaein 8d ago
Real people..?
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u/Glitchy-Mech 8d ago
Sarcasm. That’s how I read these reactions generally though. Cis feelings could get hurt and they’re the only ones to count
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u/pinksoul_32345 7d ago
i know multiple other trans ppl who have also straight-up said that they would have killed themselves if their circle/the broader community didn't push them to consider transition, and many others who've expressed regret over the years of unnecessary suffering they went through because they were left to "figure it out for themselves" but god forbid a cis person is uncomfortable for 10 minutes
says a lot that they keep equating so-called "egg culture" to transvestigation, i.e the actual violent fucking witch hunts being conducted against us. oh sure, we can go exist off in the corner somewhere if we survive childhood and figure things out for ourselves, but how dare we ever imply that one of them might be a nasty freak like us, amirite?
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u/Amidst-ourselfs123 8d ago
If Shen is or Isn't Trans is None of my buisness
Same goes for Toby Fox, Same goes for Pyro [i don't even have to specify If it's cynical or Tf2, it's been done to both]
All of these have produced great representation, Funny stories and general enjoyment. That's more than enough for me to like them
The Awnser to If Shen is trans, to if Toby is Queer or if Pyro is a girl wouldn't change anything... it would be nice to have a definite Yes/No, but we're human... there is no definite Yes/No
Hell, F1nnister... who actually WAS trans, may not be trans the way you expect them to be