You are NOT going to bring me down today DaBaby! My incredibly gay, incredibly trans ass was just offered a JOB that is FULL TIME and IN MY FIELD OF STUDY and includes HEALTH INSURANCE and RETIREMENT BENEFITS, HOUSING, UTILITIES, OPPORTUNITIES FOR CONTINUED DEVELOPMENT AND EDUCATION, and COVERAGE FOR SOME PERCENTAGE OF MEALS!
❤️ Bless
I thank you so much for your reply William! You really articulately put another completely valid relationship one can have with their pronouns, and how taking the time to understand and empathizing with others can take us a lot way towards having affirming and uplifting interactions with other. I encourage cis people navigating challenging transphobic assumptions within themselves and the bubbles of their lives to really take in a lot of the perspectives non-cis people are offering in this comment thread. It’s really important to understand the in-group diversity of trans people and their perspectives. And it’s really important to approach these conversations with empathy, care, and (RESPECTFUL) curiosity and open-mindedness.
Sending love, William!!! 💖
❤️ Bless
Hi jams thanks for your reply please understand that when I am talking about “cisnormative people” and society generally, I am not talking about you specifically. I tried to put disclaimers in all my posts on this thread clarifying this, even though it’s a little cumbersome to have to do that. But I neglected to on this reply so I’m sorry that what I said felt like a personal snub towards you.
What I am referencing in the pattern of a cisnormative society trying to classify trans people into easily digestible categories for the benefit and comfort of cis people generally.
I understand that someone’s gender doesn’t matter to you more than ABC…XYZ other attributes about them, and in a vacuum that would be wonderful as a be all end all. The reality though is that transphobia is the norm, and that if a trans person’s gender is something that we try to ignore, that fosters an environment where transphobia continues. My wish for the cis people of the world is to reframe that well-intentioned perspective into one of “appreciation” and “empathy”.
You should care as much about my gender as I do because I care as much about your gender as you should. It is important to me to refer to you correctly because that is a form of care and courtesy I can extend to you as my fellow human that honestly costs so little time and energy of me. That gesture may not be important to you in a world that validates your gender without giving you much grief; im not in your shoes, so I can’t know. I can’t tell anyone’s gender for certain by looking at them, so it’s important for me to refer to those people as they want to be referred, because to the people for whom the world does not validate their gender without giving them so much grief, that kind of gesture can make their day. The values I hold for myself conclude this is a very low-stakes high-reward way to spread positivity in the world.
And some cis people may not realize it, but cultivating that kind of atmosphere in general interactions with people has the consequence of widening the umbrella of “man” and “woman” so that cis people can be afforded the opportunity to approach manhood and womanhood on their own terms rather than on the terms antiquated gender norms have historically set for them. For some cis people this won’t make a difference. I think for a large number of them though, they will appreciate having more leg room to express themselves and set the terms of their own identity, even if they can’t realize it in this moment.
In that sense, these kinds of gestures are positive feedback loops.
❤️ Bless
Rhetorical questions for the cis people in the audience:
What if engaging with someone who uses a complex set of pronouns for reasons that are difficult for you to understand was not viewed as an obstacle to be sped through to reach a place of comfortable normalcy again? What if it was instead viewed as an opportunity to savor getting to extend care and empathy and understanding to the complex humanity and life history of someone different from you and the magical diversity of the human experience, which in turn afforded you an opportunity to consider your own complex humanity, your own life history, and your own place within the magical diversity of the human experience? What if that also gave you a chance to reflect on your relationship with your gender, your sense of self, and the way society has tried to define you without receiving any input from you, even if these thoughts don’t bubble up to the forefront of your consciousness on nearly as frequent a basis as they do for most trans people? What if you lingered for a moment on a part of yourself that doesn’t line up with who society thinks you should be? What if through that reflection you realized the way that the pressure we all feel to rush back to a sense of comfort and normalcy is part of the problem? What if you saw the revaltory power in sitting and engaging with the discomfort you feel?
I believe that is about as good of a thought exercise I can think of to give you to help you bring you as close as I can to seeing this issues through at least my transgender eyes and show why this shit matters. lol. Hope it helped someone. ❤️ Bless
The strategy you should employ in this situation is to get to know the trans person in question and the way they like to be referred to. Much like English grammar itself, trans people don’t all fall into a predictable, memorizable pattern. We are individuals with complicated histories and complicated relationships with the self and the world that tries to define us. Ask them: “Hey! Not a big deal or anything here, but I see you use multiple pronouns. I sometimes talk about you in the third person, so I wanted to ask, do you have a preference for one of those? Do you prefer people to change up what pronoun they use for you over the course of a conversation? Is it situationally dependent? Don’t feel pressure to go into a lot of detail with me if you’re not comfortable. It just matters to me that I refer to you in a way that affirms you.”
Maybe if you don’t know the person well you can stop after the sentence where you ask them if they have a preference.
My wish is for more cis people to see this as an act of care and understanding, not as like some awkward, impersonal thing they have to resolve as quickly as possible because it’s uncomfortable. The world is inherently uncomfortable when you are trans, and I think any moment where cis people can acknowledge, empathize with, and share in that discomfort, it lessens the discomfort for everyone going forward.
(The wish I expressed about cis people isn’t about you explicitly. It’s just a rhetorical food-for-thought exercise for cis ppl reading this to think about haha)
❤️ Bless
Certain trans people don’t like the idea of translating the gender binary into a gender tertiary with just three sets of pronouns for people instead of the original two. Their perspective, a large portion of which I am inclined to agree with, is that such a strategy still continues to placate and abet cisnormative people’s desires to place every person in a box. Non-binary isn’t just a “third gender.” It’s a catch-all term for a wide array of gender identities and presentations that both mean things at a personal level for individuals and sometimes have a cultural component. Neopronouns already exist as well, and the people who use ze/hir or xe/xem or it/its or others already receive a lot of flack and a lack of respect for those pronoun choices.
What needs to evolve is the basic respect and care cis individuals have for working towards learning how to refer to their trans family members, friends, and colleagues. One’s pronouns need to be treated with the same level of respect and care by others as like getting someone’s name’s pronunciation and spelling right. This is not a problem that the English language is ill equipped to handle. It’s a problem that previously upheld values and norms are ill equipped to handle, and it’s those things that need to change.
❤️ Bless
Trans friends who see this and that above comment resonates with you: please meet more trans people whether it’s online or in person if you’re vaccinated and you’re doing all you can to stop the spread of this delta variant. Make trans music. Make trans art. Get to know your transness. Learn to love it. Learn to be proud of it. Learn to flaunt it inasmuch as it doesn’t harm your safety or job/housing security.
You deserve more than to be tolerated by cis people. You deserve relationships and friendships and social circles where you can thrive and be seen on your terms. Where your comfort is valued. Where respecting your personhood isn’t a chore or an obstacle to be overcome. I speak from so much personal experience when I tell you compartmentalizing the trans-est parts of yourself and sawing off your edges to make cis people feel safe and comfortable and unchallenged around you does not make them like you more or make them make efforts to grow out of their own transphobia. That is a choice they have to make. If it was a matter of trans people articulating transphobia well enough so that cis people could understand it, it would have been eradicated long ago. Cis people have to make a conscious choice to challenge transphobia in their families, friend groups, and workplaces. Trans people can’t do that work for them no matter how much some of us wish we could. You deserve support, sanctuary, friendship, and an environment where you can freely blossom into the person you want to be. Please find that space for yourself. Please find those friends who will help guide you to that place. You deserve it. ❤️ Bless
(None of this is a condemnation of specific people here, it’s just come to my attention through emails and Twitter DMs I’ve received that at least some closeted trans ppl and ppl early in their transition attach value to what I say so I just wanted to leave this message here if any of them come upon this. Love and light to all.)
I’m obviously not representative of all trans people here but I’ll just give a bit of my perspective and peeps can take what they want from it.
There was a point in my life before now where I went by “whatever pronouns” before switching to “they/them” exclusively.
I was in a situation where I only knew maybe one or two other trans people period, and so basically the entirety of my social circle was cis. A number of them were well-meaning, but some of them were ignorant about trans stuff and no amount of patient explanation was going to make them put any effort into understanding my situation.
I said “I go by whatever pronouns” to those people bc I was incredibly fearful of being seen by them as a “difficult trans person.” I thought being a trans person who is ok with being “he”d would make me more palatable to cis people who can sometimes be defensive or even worse hostile or even worse than that self-flagellatory even if you just politely remind them they’re painting you as masculine even though you are non-binary.
I more and more began to realize that if given the choices between “he” and “they”, 99.9% of people are just going to refer to me as “he” because they view that as “easier” and working to refer to me by “they/them” was viewed as a chore for them. From the cis lens that may be viewed as a rational, logical, neutral choice, but for baby trans me, it just kind of confirmed the inherent transphobia and cisnormativity of the world. This pronoun choice that I made to try to express patience and understanding towards cis people in my life (this ironically being inside a world that affords very little patience and understanding to trans people) they basically treated as an excuse to continue the status quo of calling me “he” as they had always done, expending no effort to contend with and come to know my transness. That was because in their eyes, they saw me as a man. If given a choice or opportunity to see me in a different light, it was more comfortable for them to just see me as a more complicated man than as a trans person. That was painful for me bc I had hoped saying I go by “he/they” would result in me being they’d at least some of the time, but it honestly never did. I had to switch to they/them exclusively and become that trans stereotype that cis people imagine trans people as in their head and be really sensitive and snippy about my pronouns to get people to refer to me as they. I had to beg my cis female friends to hold people they were talking to accountable to calling me “they” if I wasn’t present in the room and people were talking about me in the third person. I had to explain to them that when I ask to be called they, a certain subset of cis people dismisses what I say and brushes it off as not a serious request just because I’m trans. But when those same cis people observe my cis female friend refer to me as they, it has a reverberating effect, and they see it as something “normal people do” if they observe someone who they see as “inside their in-group” doing it.
I don’t want to act like this is the experience of all people who use multiple sets of pronouns, bc non-binary people are as diverse a group as any. But I can imagine it being difficult for Halsey navigating the pronoun process in an industry dominated by cis people, the majority of them being cishet men. I can imagine this process being doubly difficult for them bc they were pregnant, an act coded as feminine by society. I can imagine it being even more frustrating that a significant portion of the article literally being about their pronoun usage, and the article never challenges themselves to go beyond the status quo of referring to them with she/her pronouns. Even if that is not semantically wrong given halsey’s stated use of she/they, I can imagine it kind of stinging that halsey’s “they” part is masked over in situations like these bc the “she” part of themselves is more palatable and easy. I can imagine it also sticking in their craw that the magazine would get woke points for “being non-binary inclusive” while still treating Halsey in such a cis-normative way in the context of the article. Especially when they could have done more to treat this as a powerful moment in the effort to de-gender pregnancy and parenthood. Probably Halsey feeling misquoted with regards to their comments about race and their relationship to their black parent doesn’t help either.
But yeah, my pro-tip to the cis people in this comment section actively trying to challenge transphobia in their daily lives: a trans person who uses multiple pronouns generally will really respect and feel more safety and camaraderie with you if you make an effort to do more than just refer to them with the pronoun that aligns with what they were assigned at birth, even if semantically/literally/technically it’s an ok pronoun for you to use for them. If you make an effort to use one of the other pronouns they use, it shows that you’re making an effort to contend with and understand their transness. A tragically high number of cis people in their lives make no such efforts probably. A tragically high number of trans people (although let me emphasize again not ALL of them by any means) who say they are fine with being referred to as their birth pronouns possibly are ok with being referred to in that way in the hopes it won’t isolate them from the cis people in their lives, not because theyre super jazzed about being referred to with the language of the gender they were assigned at birth and seen as that gender by those they interact with in their daily life.
❤️ Bless
(UGH! I forgot about my comments getting messed up when I type less than three as a heart emoji here. OOPS!!!!!)
I was going to add that I miss everyone here too! Lately, I've mostly just been listening to underappreciated trans artists that I've met through twitter, so that's been the better forum for articulating my music thoughts, especially since I'm mutuals with most of my gum buddies! But similar to the rest of the internet, LDR discourse draws me in like a fly to one of those bug zappers, so I decided to post a tirade lmao.
Thanks for the really kind words about my albums! A new one is on the way! I'm working on it. It samples contemporary christian songs. It's about overcoming internalized shame ingrained from growing up within evangelical purity culture re: queerness and transness through finding queer/trans community and falling in queer love. It's gonna have a lot of songs and a lot of features. IDK when it's gonna be ready, but I'm so proud of what I have so far and I can't wait to share it with everyone. :)
Sending love and light your direction, and I hope things are going well with you! ❤️ Bless
(Right! I can't use less than three as a heart emoji in my comment here I always forget that lmao.)
Sending love and light your direction, my darling little masked provocateur! Praying things are going well in your neck of the woods! ❤️ Bless
Sandro, honey, I'm going to be honest here, I have no fucking idea what TNOCS is, but if it helps you to contextualize a "comment" I made about "new Lana Del Rey songs" which I posted in the "comment section" of an article about "new Lana Del Rey songs" by projecting the label "TNOCS" on it, then go for it, love!
"Blue Banisters" is really pretty.
"Textbook" has good parts and then grating parts. I like the steel guitar and the hook.
"Wildflower Wildfire" oh my god those drums at the end are AWFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL I really hate this song oh my god I'm sorry. It has like each season of American Idol/The Voice's token not-like-other-pop-girls singer, and you would just think someone who has supposedly defined this genre would be beyond making songs like this. Like it literally feels slapped together. I'm not like trying to pit pop girls against each other or whatever, but this album and Chemtrails... are shaping up to be pretty clear analogs to Taylor Swift's folklore and evermore --> attempts to project the character each artist represents in more of a storytelling context. And it's just so obvious how much more successful Taylor Swift is at this concept, not least of which because Taylor Swift brought THE SONGS to both of those albums, whereas Chemtrails had like maybe 3 good songs, and really only 1 of these 3 songs is good. But I think more importantly is that Taylor Swift writes from a way more genuine, caring, and loving place even on her more angry and sour songs. Whereas Lana writes from a very sour and angry and defensive and sardonic place, even on songs where she doesn't aim for that vibe. And I honestly think that Lana thinks writing from that kind of place is relatable. I think she believes that "sad girl" pop which is really in at the moment draws from that energy, which is why she believes herself to be one of the more influential pop voices of the last decade, but I beg to differ. When I think of sad girl pop that has shown to have pop appeal: Lorde, Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, and to some extent Phoebe Bridgers, girl in red, beabadoobee and others, none of those artists really pull from the Lana playbook IMO. Those artists write some of the most genuine lyrics that are in no way sardonic or pretentious or affected. Because of this, I think they have way more in common with Taylor Swift's discography as a whole. I think Lana's discography post-NFR has way more in common with what makes Kanye's post-TLOP output obnoxious and off-putting, or even like what makes reputation Taylor Swift's worst album. All of those albums were written from a place of acrid bitterness and overly indulgent self mythologizing. And nobody is really wanting that. From my perspective, what pop music listeners desire from "sad pop" --and what makes those "sad girl pop" singers I mentioned so en vogue right now IMO-- is an acknowledgement of the fucked up reality we live in and how the human experience, which is at its core loving and good but flawed, has to contend with that reality. How it wants for better. How it seeks for understanding and to be seen on its own terms. How it even has a sense of humor about the state of the world and our lives, because if we can't laugh about it we want to cry. That's why Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream" and Gaga's "The Fame" era shit isn't hitting anymore, because those albums existed in a fantasy world that only the richest and most privileged among us experience. But that's also why no Lana singles in recent memory are hitting either because she's not understanding the vibe of right now right, and is taking "depressing" in the wrong direction of where people are actually at.
And it sucks bc she has it within her to get it. "White Dress" from Chemtrails... was stunning. I think "Blue Banisters" is a solid showing. She nailed it a number of times on NFR. But she just chooses to sing this pretentious, bitter, schlock for the rest of the album, similar to like fkacody is describing where she just "SINGS a book of poetry." And then she has the audacity to get mad at the pop girls of the moment who are getting it.
Anyways rant over. ❤️ Bless
I have been waiting for this album for a long time, and it’s everything I wanted and more! No one else does it like Makonnen, and I hope this album is the one where people give him his flowers for the immeasurable impact he’s had on the pop and rap music of today.
I was saying on twitter how on this album he doesn’t just ride on the coattails of his past success. He still pushes the envelope. I’ve never heard a song like “I Can See It In Your Eyes” and what he does with his vocals in that song is simply magical. I want “What You Tryna Do” played at my wedding.
I had this random thought last night that he strikes me as the millennial Daniel Johnston based on his really raw and unfiltered And formless sense of vocal melody and lyrics that just feel so free and human.
❤️ Bless
Same. Previously I loved “Open” so much I thought I’d want it played at my wedding if that was ever in the cards for me. Knowing this, I will never be able to listen to it again. Absolutely disgusting. My heart goes out to her.
Literally reading this as I’m finishing the Allen v. Farrow miniseries. These kinds of men are literally everywhere. ❤️ Bless
Why do EDM dj’s foreshadow the worst trends? I think I remember this EDM duo Cazette being the first artist to release a spotify exclusive album. 2012/2013 me thought that was cool at the time bc I was an EDM apologist, but now I’ve grown weary and tired. ❤️ Bless
If y’all are looking for albums to support on bandcamp Friday, may I please suggest any of the ones in this thread? All lovely releases from lovely people! ❤️ Bless https://twitter.com/wrendovelark/status/1367863993658933254?s=21
Happy weekend everyone!!!! 💖💖💖 hope that everyone has been well. I’ve been depressed, but I’m trying to dig myself out of it. I had a job interview to be a veterinarian’s assistant that I think went well! I’ll find out the results next week. Crossing my fingers I think a job like this could really be the key to me improving my mental health.
In other news, I made a new Wren Dove Lark album. It’s short: 7 songs, 6 originals and 1 cover. But it’s a plunderphonic pop album about depression. A lot of y’all may have seen me post about it on twitter, but I thought I’d post about it here bc it’s become a tradition at this point lol. Would love to know what y’all think. ❤️ Bless
https://wrendovelark.bandcamp.com/album/-
I credit Jaime Brooks with helping me realize the role and the value of piracy in fostering a robust, artist-centric music ecosystem.
I don't think we're going to get anything of this kind through whatever channels exist now. It's going to come about through eventual gravitation towards some of these open-source decentralized platforms like Mastodon and Funkwhale and ones that don't exist yet. Music listeners are going to have to en masse stop tolerating the streaming giants. Artists who are big fish are going to have to take a stand.
❤️ Bless
LITERALLY. In north Georgia ppl are literally viewing the pandemic as just an obstacle they will overcome to do whatever shit they want to do, and damn any person, thing, or rule that tries to also get in their way, and the numbers just keep going up.
I’m just existing here till I get the vaccine. Y’all please pray or manifest or burn sage or send positive vibes that I get this fish hatchery job so I can move into my own place. ❤️ Bless
Yall who think accountability is a finite process with a definite endpoint after which the wrong-doer returns to their previous level of likability and popularity (which they're also somehow entitled to), rather than an ongoing process requiring lots of thoughtful reflection and restorative action without the expectation that all is forgiven and everything is back to normal, are the more insufferable ones if I can be frank.
Y'all are acting as if celebrities being criticized for wrong-doing that in part had some pretty serious material unjust consequences on the lives of two women's careers and living situations, by people on the internet is like the 9th circle of hell or something. I promise he is going to be ok.
❤️ Bless
Well, then each one of those interviews will be an amazing opportunity for him to continue the accountability process. It will a chance for him to show men from his generation that answering for what you've done/contributed to is not the end of the world. The burden of proof that he's changed is on him. I can't imagine that any of these hypothetical interviews will be a fraction as painful as what the early to mid 00s media put Britney and Janet through in part because of the role he played in framing the narratives around them.
A lot of your comments on this thread are catastrophizing as if things will never be the same and that if the very marginal amount of accountability Justin has chosen to take here is not considered enough by the society at large then basically all men are doomed in this "new reality...." that's first of all a really harsh condemnation of all men that they've done something to this degree or worse to a woman... second of all it's just a distortion of reality. Taking accountability for something and recognizing that it's not just a one-and-done thing that you apologize and everything is back to being ok and fixed and you're back to your prior level of likability...it's an ongoing life-long process... that's a life skill that we all need to learn. He's not going to die. He's still going to be a millionaire. He's still got his wife and kids. He has the propensity each and every day to make decisions that make him a better person and the world a better place.
Like vaguely apologizing 15 years after the fact now that public opinion is on the right side of history and he's facing social pressure is like the bare minimum he can do in this situation. Like it's good he's owning up now. Better late than never. But are we supposed to give him a cookie for this? I really don't think so. This is the first step one takes to being better than the Kid Rocks, Ted Nugents, Azealia Banks, Kanye Wests, Elon Musks, Hillary Clintons, and Morrisseys and countless not-famous assholes who double-down on their wrongness and nastiness when faced with the fact that they have done something that's not okay. Even those people have the propensity to change if they choose to do different, but they'll deserve to face scrutiny as well, and the burden of proof will be on them to show they've changed. ❤️ Bless
I just had to back ursa up cuz those of us with minoritarian music views gotta stand together lol.
And I prefer this kind of conversation to lazy regurgitated takes about taylor’s motives for re-recording albums framed as some kind of moralistic anti capitalist stand when in reality they can’t just own that they don’t like her music and leave it at that. Lol 😂
Taylor Swift is about as close to a “real one” trying to do right by artists instead of the industry as you’re going to get in mainstream pop music right now besides maybe Lil Nas X.
❤️ Bless
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