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So. This morning (or, possibly, last night... didn't check the time) Hyel posted about the sign-up sheet post at Femslash Ficathon 09.
Her post was talking about how the mods had included a rule about "no het or m/m pairings" (it *is* femslash, after all) which was followed by another rule stating that canonically trans characters are fine and dandy but that "genderswap" fics (and similar) are totally not.
Sounds fine so far. Gender-Swap fics, as far as I know, tend to be A Bad Thing for some-possibly-lots-of trans folks, specifically because that genre tends to ignore stuff like what it actually feels like - to paraphrase Pat Califia - to be stuck in "the worst, most cumbersome, drag-costume ever" in favour of getting to the hawt, hawt (suddenly het-looking) sex.
The problem lay in the examples the mods chose.
In a well-intentioned (<*cough*>roadtohell<*cough*>) attempt at inclusivity and giving trans characters more exposure in fandom... they included a trans man as one of their examples of canonically-trans characters.
A trans man.
In a femslash ficathon.
the implications of this are not exactly hard to see.
So a bunch of people sent notes to the mods calling them on it and explaining why it was a problem.
The mods made a new post about the situation, wanting to be able to talk about what they'd wanted to accomplish by doing this without having the discussion get burried in, e.g., the comments thread of the original sign-up post.
And, yeah. No surprise here. There are cis people coming out of the woodwork going "All these people complaining about transphobia are trolls! Trolls, I tell you!" <*cue headdesk on my part*>
But the mods *are* paying attention.
I'm happy to see that the offensive rule in question has since been edited to read as follows:
- You may request fic about transgendered women, such as Carmelita from Dirty Sexy Money or Alexis from Ugly Betty, in this ficathon. In other words, you may request fic about any character who canonically identifies as a woman.
So, good.
Her post was talking about how the mods had included a rule about "no het or m/m pairings" (it *is* femslash, after all) which was followed by another rule stating that canonically trans characters are fine and dandy but that "genderswap" fics (and similar) are totally not.
Sounds fine so far. Gender-Swap fics, as far as I know, tend to be A Bad Thing for some-possibly-lots-of trans folks, specifically because that genre tends to ignore stuff like what it actually feels like - to paraphrase Pat Califia - to be stuck in "the worst, most cumbersome, drag-costume ever" in favour of getting to the hawt, hawt (suddenly het-looking) sex.
The problem lay in the examples the mods chose.
In a well-intentioned (<*cough*>roadtohell<*cough*>) attempt at inclusivity and giving trans characters more exposure in fandom... they included a trans man as one of their examples of canonically-trans characters.
A trans man.
In a femslash ficathon.
the implications of this are not exactly hard to see.
So a bunch of people sent notes to the mods calling them on it and explaining why it was a problem.
The mods made a new post about the situation, wanting to be able to talk about what they'd wanted to accomplish by doing this without having the discussion get burried in, e.g., the comments thread of the original sign-up post.
And, yeah. No surprise here. There are cis people coming out of the woodwork going "All these people complaining about transphobia are trolls! Trolls, I tell you!" <*cue headdesk on my part*>
But the mods *are* paying attention.
I'm happy to see that the offensive rule in question has since been edited to read as follows:
- You may request fic about transgendered women, such as Carmelita from Dirty Sexy Money or Alexis from Ugly Betty, in this ficathon. In other words, you may request fic about any character who canonically identifies as a woman.
So, good.
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