Maybe I'm Just In A Mean, Petty Mood

Maybe I’m just in a mean, petty mood, but with all the disappointment in Rebirth it does my heart good that the artist at the little anime convention who boycotted Keith Giffen and JL3001 over an assumption, who was excited for the new Blue Beetle book will in sticking with her social justice principles have to now boycott Blue Beetle because Giffen’s on it baby!!! Almost makes me want to pick it up in support if not for it being ersatz New52 versions of Jaime and Ted.

Since no one has taken my challenge to come up with actual evidence that Keith Giffen is transphobic, I went back and reread the Giffen interviews myself. He states that the Guy in a girl body plot was not meant to be a trans story. I believe him. Re-reading the comics themselves I’ve concluded that Guy before the reveal was portrayed as a man who doesn’t understand what is to be a woman and is misguided with well-intentions to jump on the strong woman, feminist bandwagon. Wouldn’t you if you woke up one day and lost your male privilege and your body is smaller and weaker? Yes estrogen weakens your muscles and ability to lift. I hang out with trans-women who attest to this. When I transition my strength will increase with testosterone. This is why transpeople are banned from the Olympics. Hormone replacement therapy is legally considered the equivalent of taking steroids, fair or not. So Guy not understanding all the bodily and hormonal changes going on with him will naturally act moody, claim sisterhood then realize he said something he has no business saying as a man and try to pass it off as the hormones. No that’s not how hormones work, but he’s set in his ways enough to think that he ought to identify with his physical body even if he knows he has no right because he’s Guy inside and is still a chauvinist and people expect him to be like that. There. That’s the psychology of a stupid body switch plot. I get it. Some don’t because they want to read whats on paper literally without context and wonder why it doesn’t line up to their trans experience, which is valid, I get uncomfortable with plenty of things that were not meant to be geared towards my experiences and I can explain why it bothers me. It’s not the trans journalists and fans that I have an ax to grind with. It’s the allies with their pretend trans friends. No I’m not saying all allies rallying against this story don’t have trans friends, but sometimes I wonder. Sometimes I wonder if certain allies are jumping on the behalf of trans bloggers and activists they read and then try to speak for trans people like me or my associates in the community because they just assume I’m ignorant of my own rights or feelings without ever realizing they’re like Guy Gardner or maybe Keith Giffen and are ignorant of their own intentions and feelings on the situation. I mean I can’t tell people how they should feel about a story, but it offends me when someone assumes Giffen’s intentions because they met him once and he was a jerk so a jerk must be hateful to all outsiders because... because this story is problematic to her social justice sensitivity. Talking about grasping at straws to build a strawman out of Keith.

I had to lose my little niche book outside the new52 so tptb can cater to haters who can’t stand or have any business reading genetic overwrite plots because they insist it has to be an accurate, sensitive trans plot and it better be done with 20th century science because the 30th century fictional science used is too creepy and improbable to relate to. It’s comics guys. Are sci-fi/fantasy writers barred from exploring body switching and genetic overwrite if it’s between a man and woman from here on out until trans-representation is perfected? Or do we ban all portrayals and explorations because it can be problematic with any kind of body shaming or racelifting? If you’re overwritten with the genetics of someone whose basically the same race, gender, height, weight, etc. you’d still complain because it’s personality raping and that’s triggering and insulting to real rape. Alright I agree, but banning story elements is a slippery slope and for twenty shitty portrayals of this theoretical topic their yields a thought provoking one. Just saying. Cloning is offensive to individuality, cell regeneration is offensive to disabled people, so is cyborg stories, so is robots offensive to humankind. Where do we draw the line in what we can and cannot speculate and how we tell it? Okay I’m getting away from the topic.

One things for certain though, whether presumptuous, artist alley girl doesn’t support her favorite character because of Giffen or breaks her pact and picks it up, it’s a victory. A petty, spiteful one. The book will succeed or crash and burn without her support or it will prove her a hypocrite if she picks it up after all.