*shakes my can of links at you*

[elyusion]

This time it's assorted things about gender and sexuality, and then a bunch of entertainment stuff you can enjoy.

What Is It like to Have a Gender Identity?, an academic article by Florence Ashley. You sadly need access through an institution to read it :( The one perk of being in college...
I'm trans, but I have a genital preference. What should I do? by Devon. I already knew this, but I'm sharing it because I want everyone on earth ever to know this. Preferences will always exist among people, so when something has multiple variations of course people will have favorites. But you don't have to be weird about it. And in this case, it might be less an attraction to genitals and more a presumption of what you think people with those genitals like to do with them. Free yourself from the chains of the cisheterosexual's regime's thought...
Irrelevant, but a long time ago I was confused by all the discoursing about lesbians and genital preferences and trans women, because I assumed most trans women had vaginas, because I thought bottom surgery surely couldn't be that expensive. I was 12 and so optimistic about the world.
The Beautiful Failure of Being a Man by the same guy as above.
Heterosexuality Questionnaire to send to all your beloved straight friends and family <3
Sandy Stone on Living Among Lesbian Separatists as a Trans Woman in the 70s by Zackary Drucker
A tumblr post which kind of goes into the same thing as the genital preference article, about assuming what's normal and what's not and subtly forcing "vanilla" things on people.

Dear Rebeca is a horror mystery VN. Not that scary, but definitely has vibes. I played it in Spanish! Whiiiiiiiiich means that as a result, I don't remember much from my playthrough months ago. Yes, this has been on the "share on DW" backlog for a good while.
Yasuji Murata's Monkey and the Crabs is a 5 minute Japanese cartoon from 1927. It's an adaptation of a folk tale, like so many old cartoons are, which has nice animation and a unique way of anthropomorphizing the characters. I enjoyed it, so maybe you will too?
This site used to be a place where you could read all of Sugar Sugar Rune for free, but I've waited so long to share it that that's no longer the case... regardless, it has some nice color illustrations with the Sugar Sugar Rune cast! That's cool, right?
However, you can still read some Ciao comics for free here! You know, Ciao, the magazine for little girls? Who ran Kirarin Revolution and Mirumo de Pon and Revolutionary Girl Utena (!?!?!?) and stuff? Yea, them.
endless.horse.
I have yet to play it myself, but Puppy Love Story, a game for the Casio Loopy, has an English translation now! This is the first game for that console to be translated. If you play it, you should tell me how it is.
"Tomorrow a Bride" by Tatsuhiko Yamagami & Hiromichi Kinjo, a one-shot, was translated by Baxter Burchill. Give it a read.
Living gecko hunting the pointer of a mouse.webm
And here's Wikipedia's list of obsolete occupations in case you feel like getting rabbit-holed.

Comments

[paperghost]

> Preferences will always exist among people, so when something has multiple variations of course people will have favorites. But you don't have to be weird about it. And in this case, it might be less an attraction to genitals and more a presumption of what you think people with those genitals like to do with them. Free yourself from the chains of the cisheterosexual's regime's thought...

No, I have to completely disagree with this and I really don't really like that article. Being told to question something that is a basic factor of physical compatibility (even if dysphoria means they won't use them or are open to XYZ) is not nearly the same as beauty standards (ex. cis straight men requiring shaving and makeup) or bullshit like "racial preferences". LGBT people are not under "normative" assumptions about sex and bodies under heteronormativity, a lot of us have actively "questioned" these things and tried to change it. Articles and sentiments like this ironically fuel a lot of rifts among the community, it's why I personally am not comfortable in these spaces.

[elyusion]

I'm going to precede what I'm about to say with: I may be missing your meaning here, or maybe I'm lacking knowledge in something you have a lot of experience in.

I'm not sure what traits make up "basic" compatibility, to be fair, but I feel like I've questioned why I'm attracted to nearly every thing I'm attracted to. I don't understand why genitalia should be different than wondering why I prefer certain hairstyles or heights or builds or fingernail shapes (lol) or anything else. And I'm not sure why you think LGBT people aren't under normative assumptions about sex and bodies when we all grew up in a society. Even if someone has questioned certain things already, there could be blind spots. So people write things and hope others read them so that the reader also questions something they may never have thought about too hard.

I've questioned my own preferences, but questioning them didn't usually change them. I only want people to consider that they might hate certain acts more than the genitals themselves, but if you think about it and still go "no, I just don't want to see XYZ in bed at all," that's fine too. Ultimately the article is about knowing your limits and preferences, but offers the reader knowledge that they may not have had earlier. It could change their mind, or it could simply make them more informed about what they like. I think it's great to be able to know yourself better like that.

So I don't understand how an article advocating for people to think about their preferences more deeply, and for them to be able to articulate what specific acts they like and don't like, could cause rifts among the community. I assume you must know something I don't. This sounds sarcastic, but I mean it genuinely, since you sound really passionate about this and I just feel confused.

[paperghost]

> So I don't understand how an article advocating for people to think about their preferences more deeply, and for them to be able to articulate what specific acts they like and don't like, could cause rifts among the community.

It's just frankly traumatizing to grow up gay or bisexual, spend your entire life growing up under homophobic narratives that same-sex attraction isn't real, is a fetish, can be changed, you're only like this because of [Freudian narratives about abuse or your relationship with your parents], that you're going to hell, etc., only to enter LGBT spaces and be told the same thing in a different lens. It is homophobic regardless of the academic wording about questioning your "preference" (genitals are not just an optional preference like height or hair color) and how you need to unpack a basic facet of your sexuality, or being written off as a pervert who only likes genitals.

I've dealt with a lot of intra-community homophobia regarding genital preference (and no I was not "rude about it" like some people claim, I literally keep this to myself) that I don't find to be in good faith and closer to coercive rhetoric in an academic lens rather than combatting transphobia. It's retraumatizing rhetoric to witness as someone who has gone through homophobia-driven sexual abuse, and is why I frankly avoid LGBT communities and people who see this as an intellectual exercise and not gross display of liberal homophobia. (Transphobia, even, since this isn't even a cis thing. I know T4T people who have gotten shit for this.)

And if you can't see that, I don't know how else I can explain it. Maybe it doesn't matter to you and that's valid. I'm really uncomfortable with this way of thought so I'm just going to have to leave then.