Hi- Er, This Is My First-ever Writer's Strike, How Does One Not Cross A Picket Line In This Context?

So I've seen this circling in both TERF circles and in trans circles...

"Stop saying this is a genocide against trans people, that's disrespectful to Jewish people!"

First, it is perfectly accurate to call something a genocide when politicians are openly saying at rallies "transgenderism must be eliminated". That is calling for genocide!!

Second, there is more than one way to commit genocide; it doesn't just mean "forcing them to wear symbols, rounding them up and murdering them in camps". Genocide includes inflicting great harm to a group of people with the intent of erasing them from existence. Many different groups of people have had genocide committed against them, including the indigenous people of the Americas.

Denying trans people the right to transition, making it illegal to talk about trans people in school, forcibly detransitioning trans people, forcing them to live in the closet, forcing them to be sterilized in order to transition, labeling "living with a trans person" as child abuse so you can take away their children, and making it illegal to openly identify as trans, are all acts of genocide. They are all designed to destroy trans people.

fat bodies tutorial!

ALRIGHT SO my pal @kalreyno wanted help with drawing fat characters and as a fat artist i felt like i could give a bit of helpful insight on that. there’s also been a lot of complaining about “boo hoo fat characters are hard to draw so i can’t include them in my work Ever” goin on lately so if that’s your case then this is for you too!! and also just for anyone who would like help with fat bodies in general, ofc. anyway, let’s get this show on the road!!

let’s start with some common misconceptions. these are the two main attempts at chubby bodies i run into, so i’ll focus on them. 

the Anime Chubby i see everywhere, and it’s just……so wrong in many ways. first of all, there is almost no additional body fat compared to your average thin character - except for where it’s added in “attractive” places (breasts, hips, thighs). the breasts are way too perky, and don’t have the realistic shape fat would give them (though how to draw accurate breasts is another tutorial all on its own lmao). there is still a thigh gap, which usually only happens in very thin people, and bones are still visible on the surface of the skin, which also rarely happens in fat people.

the Michelin Man is better in some ways, but still not that great. it’s a slightly better attempt, but basically all that’s done there is taking a thin character and blowing them up, while giving no thought to fat distribution. the thigh gap is usually still present, and they look a lot more hard than soft - and fat is very soft and pliable.

here’s a chart on how fat usually distributes (if you can’t read my messy writing, “1. next to no fat, 2. moderate amount, 3. most of the fat distribution”). basically, the more muscle an area has, the more prone it is to develop fat, such as the abdomen, thighs, and upper arms. it’s important to note that fat sits on top of muscle, and that it does distribute in different levels, and not evenly across the body as shown in the Michelin Man. 

now, here’s an accurate fat body with all of that kept in mind!! notice how the fat isn’t only kept to aesthetically pleasing areas, and how it sits realistically on the character’s body. their breasts sag a lot more, which happens even in thin people with larger breasts, and the nipples are pointing more downwards than straight out. there is no thigh gap in sight, there are no bones in sight, and most importantly, they have fat rolls, which are very important in drawing a convincing fat character!! as far as i know i’ve never met a single person with no rolls at all, and everyone has them, whether thin or fat - they’re just more prominent and more consistently present in fat people. pay close attention to where they are and how they’re shaped.

here are a couple of drawings showing how fat is affected when sitting vs stretching. as seen in the first, the fat specifically on the stomach is distributed a lot more evenly and stretched out, so it becomes “flatter”. the love handles are still pretty visible, though, as well as the fat on the thighs and arms. the breasts are raised with the shoulders, and the fat on the shoulders and near the neck forms rolls as it’s being pushed together. 

in the second, there is a lot less room for distribution, so the fat is all pushed together. the breasts sag and the stomach forms rolls and spills into the lap. a good analogy for the way fat works is to liken it to a water balloon, and thinking of how its shape would change when resting flat on a surface, hanging off of a ledge, held upright, etc.

here are a few extra tips i find a lot of people miss!

first on the top is the hip/pubic region. the first circle is showing the way the bellybutton is folded in fat people, as opposed to stretched out in thinner people. the second is the stomach fat spilling over onto the pubic region and creating a separation in the two areas, which is something that’s missing in a lot of art. in addition, the pubic mound also gains fat, making it round as seen in the profile drawing i did up there (i’ve heard people refer to it as fupa?). the last in the hip region is the lack of a thigh gap. i can’t stress this enough!!!! if you’re trying to draw a convincing fat character, make sure their thighs are pretty much always touching!! for reference, mine literally don’t separate until my feet are about 2ft from each other.

the bottom right is showing the double chin, which a lot of people are afraid to draw!! fat does distribute itself here too, and there’s nothing wrong with it, so don’t feel like you shouldn’t give fat characters a double chin in your work for fear of it looking like a caricature.

in the bottom middle, it’s showing how fat affects different types of breasts with the presence of more or less breast tissue. 

lastly, at the very right are stretch marks with their usual locations and directions, which i also can’t stress enough!!!!! i sometimes forget to add them honestly, but they’re so important in accurately portraying fat characters, as they literally come from the skin being stretched from fat being gained (and they’re also just rlly neat lookin like why wouldn’t you lmao). some people have less and some people have more, feel free to experiment with them!

the last thing is body types!! there isn’t one single way for a person to be fat, so feel free to experiment with shapes once you’ve learned the basics!! 

so there you have it, a tutorial on how to draw chubs!! now go forth and make some accurate fanart or some rad fat characters, because the world could always use more of both. hmu if you have any questions or concerns, and thanks for reading!!

EDIT: someone pointed out the bad wording in the tutorial. thank you for bringing it to my attention and sorry for offending anybody. i’ve updated the tut, so please reblog this one!

Continuing my post about why I'm tired of TERFs: Come the fuck on. I spent most of my life back when I thought I was a cis girl being made to feel like shit because I had to get repeated surgeries on my breasts because of a chronic condition. It was other women who told me to reconsider if I wanted to "ruin my tits" and "mutilate myself" and if I couldn't just put up with the unbearable chronic pain it caused.

It was also women who told me I should consider plastic surgery if I ever needed to get a mastectomy, which is something I'll need sooner than later. I was a MINOR when I got told this.

It was ALSO a woman who told me that even if my condition has a 4% chance of turning malignant, I should not get the mastectomy that could reduce that to almost a 0%, because "So many women regret it later".

Now I decide that feminity is not for me, that I'm tired of putting up with it after being told a thousand times about how I'm doing it bad, and now I'm betraying womanhood. I have to hear how they keep talking of any breast surgery as mutilation and "ruining a perfect healthy female body" but I'm the evil one for finding that being non binary suits me better.

All while TERFs repeatedly show they'd rather work with the far right to take everything from trans people, the same groups actively also harm women. They devote their entire existence to harming trans women, who are some of the fiercest fighters for women's rights, and then go silent when pro-lifers fuck up bodily autonomy.

Who in the actual fuck is actually betraying womanhood here?

🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️Happy Trans Visibility Day!!! 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️

Hate have say this but

NOT TOUCH OTHER PEOPLE DISABILITY THING PLEASE

Should not even have be please, should be good and know but somehow not.

Person in Aiden class before today *grab* Aiden laptop with AAC and Aiden had *physical* grab back because person start press random button on Aiden AAC.

Then! Person get *mad* because Aiden not want person play with Aiden *voice* like *toy*

This not good, and wish person know more good but guess Aiden have say too.

Reminder that this is NOTHING like the Holocaust so please don't say it is. This is a definite genocide tho.

Gender Dysphoria in Transgender Kids Is Not Caused by 'Social Contagion,' Study Finds

Contrary to a previous study that claimed gender dysphoria in youth is a product of social trends, researchers found that many transgender youths are subject to bullying and suicidal thoughts

Before you say “Duh,” remember they are using the social contagion lie to make life saving health care from children and teens.  Studies like this can be used in court to fight for the rights of children in our community.

So I’ve been enjoying the Disney vs. DeSantis memes as much as anyone, but like. I do feel like a lot of people who had normal childhoods are missing some context to all this.

I was raised in the Bible Belt in a fairly fundie environment. My parents were reasonably cool about some things, compared to the rest of my family, but they certainly had their issues. But they did let me watch Disney movies, which turned out to be a point of major contention between them and my other relatives.

See, I think some people think this weird fight between Disney and fundies is new. It is very not new. I know that Disney’s attempts at inclusion in their media have been the source of a lot of mockery, but what a lot of people don’t understand is that as far as actual company policy goes, Disney has actually been an industry leader for queer rights. They’ve had policies assuring equal healthcare and partner benefits for queer employees since the early 90s.

I’m not sure how many people reading this right now remember the early 90s, but that was very much not industry standard. It was a big deal when Disney announced that non-married queer partners would be getting the same benefits as the married heterosexual ones.

Like — it went further than just saying that any unmarried partners would be eligible for spousal benefits. It straight-up said that non-same-sex partners would still need to be married to receive spousal benefits, but because same-sex partners couldn’t do that, proof that they lived together as an established couple would be enough.

In other words, it put long-term same-sex partners on a higher level than opposite-sex partners who just weren’t married yet. It put them on the exact same level as heterosexual married partners.

They weren’t the first company ever to do this, but they were super early. And they were certainly the first mainstream “family-friendly” company to do it.

Conservatives lost their damn minds.

Protests, boycotts, sermons, the whole nine yards. I can’t tell you how many books about the evils of Disney my grandmother tried to get my parents to read when I was a kid.

When we later moved to Florida, I realized just how many queer people work at Disney — because historically speaking, it’s been a company that has guaranteed them safety, non-discrimination, and equal rights. That’s when I became aware of their unofficial “Gay Days” and how Christians would show up from all over the country to protest them every year. Apparently my grandmother had been upset about these days for years, but my parents had just kind of ignored her.

Out of curiosity, I ended up reading one of the books my grandmother kept leaving at our house. And friends — it’s amazing how similar that (terrible, poorly written) rhetoric was to what people are saying these days. Disney hires gay pedophiles who want to abuse your children. Disney is trying to normalize Satanism in our beautiful, Christian America. 

Just tons of conspiracy theories in there that ranged from “a few bad things happened that weren’t actually Disney’s fault, but they did happen” to “Pocahontas is an evil movie, not because it distorts history and misrepresents indigenous life, but because it might teach children respect for nature. Which, as we all know, would cause them all to become Wiccans who believe in climate change.”

Like — please, take it from someone who knows. This weird fight between fundies and Disney is not new. This is not Disney’s first (gay) rodeo. These people have always believed that Disney is full of evil gays who are trying to groom and sexually abuse children.

The main difference now is that these beliefs are becoming mainstream. It’s not just conservative pastors who are talking about this. It’s not just church groups showing up to boycott Gay Day. Disney is starting to (reluctantly) say the quiet part out loud, and so are the Republicans. Disney is publicly supporting queer rights and announcing company-supported queer events and the Republican Party is publicly calling them pedophiles and enacting politically driven revenge.

This is important, because while this fight has always been important in the history of queer rights, it is now being magnified. The precedent that a fight like this could set is staggering. For better or for worse, we live in a corporation-driven country. I don’t like it any more than you do, and I’m not about to defend most of Disney’s business practices. But we do live in a nation where rights are largely tied to corporate approval, and the fact that we might be entering an age where even the most powerful corporations in the country are being banned from speaking out in favor of rights for marginalized people… that’s genuinely scary.

Like… I’ll just ask you this. Where do you think we’d be now, in 2023, if Disney had been prevented from promising its employees equal benefits in 1994? That was almost thirty years ago, and look how far things have come. When I looked up news articles for this post from that era, even then journalists, activists, and fundie church leaders were all talking about how a company of Disney’s prominence throwing their weight behind this movement could lead to the normalization of equal protections in this country.

The idea of it scared and thrilled people in equal parts even then. It still scares and thrills them now.

I keep seeing people say “I need them both to lose!” and I get it, I do. Disney has for sure done a lot of shit over the years. But I am begging you as a queer exvangelical to understand that no. You need Disney to win. You need Disney to wipe the fucking floor with these people.

Right now, this isn’t just a fight between a giant corporation and Ron DeSantis. This is a fight about the right of corporations to support marginalized groups. It’s a fight that ensures that companies like Disney still can offer benefits that a discriminatory government does not provide. It ensures that businesses much smaller than Disney can support activism.

Hell, it ensures that you can support activism.

The fight between weird Christian conspiracy theorists and Disney is not new, because the fight to prevent any tiny victory for marginalized groups is not new. The fight against the normalization of othered groups is not new.

That’s what they’re most afraid of. That each incremental victory will start to make marginalized groups feel safer, that each incremental victory will start to turn the tide of public opinion, that each incremental victory will eventually lead to sweeping law reform.

They’re afraid that they won’t be able to legally discriminate against us anymore.

So guys! Please. This fight, while hilarious, is also so fucking important. I am begging you to understand how old this fight is. These people always play the long game. They did it with Roe and they’re doing it with Disney.

We have! To keep! Pushing back!

Every time there's something about "straight passing" couples being not experiencing homophobia then bi people get pushed further away from their rightful community. Also this idea that trans men can perfectly pass and gain all privelages of a cis man.

People really need to take a good look at how much emphasis they place on the supposed "privelages" that someone who appears more cis and straight or male has over other LGBT people.

"Passing" in any way is entirely conditional and can be taken away the instant something slips or a stranger scrutinizes you enough. Walking on eggshells and hoping you aren't found out and risk facing violence is not this great privelage you may think it is.

Remember the trans panic defense? That realizing a sexual partner is trans is used as a defense to murder them? So they "passed" until they didn't, and it actually led to them being killed. Passing did not protect them.

Also there's this idea that any couple that appears to be man + woman will never get clocked as queer. That they can never be queer. That bisexuals don't have the same level of queerness as a lesbian woman or a gay man. But they do. They can be flamboyant, butch, femme, anything that any other queer person can be.

seeing other trans people be happy and enjoy being trans is not a threat to you. to doubt their transness because they're (perceived as to be) not as miserable as you is, however, a threat to them. - transmonstera

[IMAGE ID: "to measure the validity of other transsexuals by their misery is to hold the cissexual narrative higher than your own right to joy" in bold white text. the background is a number of yellow measuring tapes and rulers. the base of the measuring tapes has a sad face sticker on the side. the background is solid black. END]