Ariel Schrag is the author of Adam and has a long history of being transphobic and lesbophobic in her work. Avoid this film at any cost. It will likely be marketed as a great lgbt film as the novel and her other books were marketed as great lgbt books. Please do not fall for it and don’t let her have any money. I’ve had the misfortune of reading some of it and it is truly horrible stuff. Please do not support Adam or Ariel Schrag in any way.
For those not in the know, or who need a refresher, Adam is the film about the cis man who pretends to be a trans man in order to date a lesbian
On top of the plot, there were lots of actual trans actors who got roles on the set, not knowing what project they were working on and they reported being treated poorly by the production crew including being misgendered.
Please don’t support this film and take care of yourselves, everyone. It’s being sorted under the Comedy and LGBTQ+ categories. -Mod C
i’m an adult (between 18-25); i don’t mind if minors interact with my blog but you should be aware of the age group that i’m in!
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you can unfollow me at any time, no need to let me know
you can send me asks about anything! doesn’t have to be mogai related (though of course i dont have to answer an ask if i dont want to for whatever reason, and pls respect my boundaries)
aside from this comic being really cute and honest, it also points out this really huge glaring problem in the gay community in relation to trans-men.
in my experience with a lot of gay men, they have this extremely purist view when it comes to what being a “real man” is, which is bad enough when you have different gay subcultures (bears, gymrats, etc) who have different specific definitions of what a “real man” is.
however for the most part, many gay men seem to agree upon a point of leaving trans-men not only out of their gender, but out of their sexuality as well and I have a real fucking problem with that.
i’m pretty open about things that relate to my sexuality, and i myself identify more or less as a homosexual, but i’ve found the worst part in the gay community is dealing with this bullshit. eventually i found that i at least have the luxury of telling guys to fuck off if i don’t meet their standards, but i know that’s a lot harder for folk when they seem to have the entire population of homosexuals more or less invalidating not only their gender, but their orientation as well.
with all of that said, i just ask this. if you happen to be a cisgender homosexual, like myself, don’t tell other gay men that they aren’t actually gay if they’re dating or have had relations with a trans-man because that’s a load of fucking bullshit.
more important, under any circumstance do not tell a trans-man they’re not a man or that they aren’t allowed to like other men who are homosexual, be they cis or trans.
idk if this has been posted yet but i read this thread by @teamarimo and found it SUPER interesting and thorough and thought it’d be good to share it
This is good, just wish it wasn’t posted as a Twitter essay, they’re so hard to read.
[Caption: a series of tweets by twitter user @teamarimo. It reads:
the debate on who can use the terms “butch/femme” keeps coming up so i
did a ton of research & i’d like to weigh in on the issue. i’ll post
sources at the end
too many people credit anne lister (a historical lesbian) with coining
femme in her journals but she was speaking french and “femme” has been a
french word forever
going in chronological order of gay words in the english-speaking world,
“lesbian” began as a synonym for tribade. “tribadism” = scissoring;
both words meant women who slept with women & the sexual act itself.
this was long before IDpolitics
so lesbian/tribade was something you did, not something you IDd as, bc
they were labeled by their sexual activity since IDpol hadn’t come
around yet. there was no concept of who was or wasn’t exclusively
attracted to women. that’s why bi women are closer to lesbians than bi
men
tribade dominated the 17th-mid 19th centuries until sapphic & lesbian took prominence. it wasn’t until 1892 that a neurologist used bisexual to describe sexuality. from then until the 1960s, bi was used only in academic contexts. it still wasn’t an identity yet
bi women have always been here but shared community with & organized
under “lesbian” until (and even into) the 60s. before then, any text or
study that said “lesbian” meant gay & bi women unless it (on the
rare occasion) specifies otherwise, so context matters
butch/femme began in gay bars in the 40s-60s. women-only gay bars were
frequented by lesbian & bi women. so for the first decades of
butch/femme history, “lesbian” includes bi women bc there was no bi or
“women-exclusive” yet & they were at the bars, participating in the
culture
in the 70s, lesbian separatism begins with 12 white cis lesbians, the
furies. They suggest that women engage “only (with) women who cut their
ties to male privilege… as long as women still benefit from
heterosexuality, receive its privileges and security, they will…
at some point have to betray their sisters, especially lesbian sisters
who do not receive those benefits.” demon TERF sheila jeffreys says “our
definition of a political lesbian is a woman-identified woman who does
not fuck men.” this marks the split between bi & lesbian women
lesbian separatism others bi women who shared space, identity &
oppression with lesbians centuries prior. it deems trans women as
inextricable from male privilege they (don’t) have. it others lgbt woc
who share oppression with men & therefore can’t exclude men from
their politics
tldr it’s bad lol. with events like stonewall (1969) & increasing
anti-gay violence in the 70s, anyone with proximity to heterosexuality
in gay spaces was viewed as a threat & shunned. so bi groups begin
to pop up, since they had no place in straight or gay communities
anymore
in the 80s, 2nd-wave bi organizing was feminist bi orgs forming bc
lesbians posited bisexuality as anti-feminist. by 1988, LGB officially
separates lesbian & bi. now lesbians are invested in specific
lesbian history & everything before the 60s says “lesbian.” see the
problem here
texts with the word “lesbian” before the 60s are also referring to bi
women but modern meanings of old words are applied to them, &
consequently, bi women are denied a massive chunk of our history,
including butch/femme culture
in the 60s, ball culture emerges in houses created as safe spaces for
black & latinx queer youth. the genders are butch queen, femme
queen, butch & women. here, butch & femme embody: the
intersections of race, gender & sexuality; the freedom of it; and
the resulting persecution
in the 70s, lesbian separatists say any form of masculinity harms women,
materializing against butch & trans women. femmes are framed as
wanting to reap benefits of heterosexuality while still toying with
women (this is heavily wrapped in biphobic rhetoric too, if you can’t
tell)
butch/femme is framed as heteronormative, anti-lesbian &
anti-feminist. so androgyny is proposed as the lesbian ideal. now
lesbian feminism is centered on white, middle class, androgynous
lesbians at the expense of working class + nonwhite lesbians, bi women,
and butches & femmes
butch/femme fall out of popular use, only kept alive by the same working
class & nonwhite women who are ousted by white lesbians.
butch/femme usage among queer youth of color includes lesbians &
nonlesbians as it had since 60s ball culture & since 40s gay bars
with gay & bi women
it’s interesting that people say butch/femme is for lesbians only when
the beginning of lesbian as an exclusively-woman attracted identity
& the downfall of butch/femme go hand-in-hand. it was queer youth of
color who kept that culture alive, lesbian or not
white lesbian TERFs who demonized the culture embraced it again when
genderfluidity became trendy in the late 80s. they claimed it as theirs,
and stripped it of its history with bi women, trans women & queer
youth of color that they wanted no association with
so that history was lost among many, and now well-meaning lesbians who
definitely are not TERFs don’t even know butch/femme’s roots in race,
trans/gnc identity, & class struggle, or its origins among gay &
bi women as one group
tldr: TERFs suck, bi & lesbian women’s history is inextricable, and
bi women were using butch/femme before the bi identity even existed.
historically, “lesbian” encompassed a set of behaviors & became an
identity later
hi here’s a trans lesbian (homojabi@tumblr) saying exactly what I just
said from a trans perspective for the “everyone’s trying to steal from
lesbians” crowd. I’m going back to sleep
Yeah no what the fuck is this. This isn't coming from some cis dude, this is a Trans man who doesn't need more fake genders and sexualities ruining the look of ACTUAL trans and not straight people. Quit trying to be special, you're making other people look bad
hi anon, if you search my blog for the tag ‘fenasks’, which this ask will be tagged with, you’ll see another ask like this one which i’ve answered, and other blogs have commented on. read that if you like. short answer: it’s not hurting anyone and our “fake” genders and sexualities aren’t “ruining the look” of other queer people.
I recently heard the news that Adam by Ariel Schrag will be getting a movie. I read the book myself about a year and a half ago and I cannot stress enough just how problematic it is.
Adam is a book about a cis boy pretending to be a trans man in order to trick a lesbian into dating him.
Adam goes to New York to stay with his lesbian sister for the summer, and while he’s there he meets trans men who consider themselves lesbians. At a party he meets a lesbian he thinks is pretty and in order to get into a relationship with her he lies and tells her he’s a pre transition trans man. Let’s make a list of some of the highlights from the book, shall we?
At the very beginning of the book his sister and her girlfriend visit home and Adam and his friend spies on them having sex.
Almost all the trans men in the book identify as lesbians, implying that they are still women because they haven’t transitioned yet.
Adam, a cis straight boy, tells a lesbian that he is a trans man to trick her into dating him.
Incidentally Adam is 17 I believe, pretending to be 21. His girlfriend is in the 23 range, I don’t recall exactly.
There are explicit sex scenes, the first of which involved Adam using an ace bandage to hold his erection down and using a strapon to have sex with her.
In the second one he claims to be using a strapon but is, in reality, using his actual penis.
Which is fucking rape.
The book doesn’t try to justify this, it somehow manages to do something worse.
This second scene is one of the last in the book. After he pulls out he lays down next to her and confesses that he’s not trans. She responds “I know.”
She says after they first had sex she started fantasizing about him as a “real guy” (yes quote) and that the image stuck in her mind and she started subconsciously imagining him with a penis.
And it gets worse.
So he goes back to ohio and she sleeps with other girls (because for some reason she decides not to break up with this cis 17 year old who lied about his identity literally raped her) and one night he gets drunk and calls her a bitch and a fucking whore and whatever, and THAT’S apparently the point she thinks that maybe they should break up.
And one day they message eachother to catch up i think maybe he graduated at this point idk but hes planning on visiting his sister in new york and they wanna meet up and
She tells him about her new boyfriend.
Get ready for it
Cis. Man.
So. We have
An underage cishet boy lying about being an adult trans man in order to trick a lesbian into dating him!
A scene in which he actually rapes her!
The lesbian in question becomes attracted to cis men making Adam, essentially, conversion therapy!
Do NOT support Adam (2018)
Ariel Schrag used to sometimes be in my high school for some reason, so I’ve met her in person and let me tell you with just one look at her it becomes obvious that she sees trans men as an advanced form of butch women
The replies on this post is atrocious. I’ve seen at least two truscum trans men say “as a feminine trans boy, this comic is false, no REAL trans man would dress like this!!!1!1”
Dudes. Y’all are aware that not every trans man is alike, right?? You don’t all dress the same??? So what if this man likes showing off his belly, or likes a pink shoulder bag? Why do y’all allow cis men to be GNC but not trans men?
can’t talk about periods because it “triggers” trans women
can’t talk about their vaginas because it “triggers” trans women
can’t talk about issues in other parts of the female reproductive system because cissexism, transphobia and it “triggers” trans women
can’t talk about how they don’t like penises because it hurts trans womens feelings
can’t talk about their attraction to female body parts because not every female has [insert body part] and it may hurt trans womens feelings
has to overcome her sexual boundaries because penises are “female organs”
[insert more]
It would be a constant walk on eggshells. They would be always at risk of getting called a cisbian/cissexist/transphobe and so on. We know how gendershits react if you say the “wrong” things. It can be very dangerous.
So who benefits from all this?? Hint: Not lesbians
I’m a trans woman in a relationship with a girl.
- When she talks about her period, I listen. If she is on her period, I offer her support and try to make her comfortable in any ways I can. I’ve thought a thousand times about how I don’t have a female reproductive system, I’m quite used to it – the word ‘period’ isn’t going to upset me. All it means is I can’t talk from experience about periods, so I might start to feel uncomfortable in social situations where such discussion is taking place.
- We have frequent discussions about vaginas, the female reproductive system, issues that target women with a female reproductive system, and about the female body and how beautiful it is. It doesn’t trigger me. At most, it makes me slightly impatient for the later stages of my transition.
- My partner doesn’t particularly dislike penises, but if she told me she doesn’t like them, my response would be something like “me neither.”
- If my partner’s sexual boundaries excluded penises then I would be fine with that, there are plenty of other ways in which to enjoy each other’s bodies.
And the whole egg shells things – Yes, there are many sensitive issues that I have, and I do often get upset about things while my girlfriend is around. For example I was watching her get dressed, and I noticed how well clothes fit her, then I got upset about how my proportions don’t lend themselves so well to female clothing. But I wasn’t there calling her transphobic for getting dressed in front of me? I wasn’t blaming her for how I was feeling? Everybody has sensitive issues, it would be difficult to find a partner who doesn’t have at least a couple of issues that might come up in day to day life; just because trans women may have a concentration of these issues around certain areas doesn’t mean we aren’t viable as female partners?
I’m not saying every trans woman is the same as me (though, looking at other comments people have made, many of us seem to have a similar outlook), what I’m saying is that any number of these supposed reasons may or may not apply to any given trans woman, so they aren’t not reasons enough to rule out trans women as potential partners.
It still stands that for a lesbian (or anyone who dates women) to say, outright, that they don’t date trans women, is transphobic. Even if your standard of woman, or the types of women you’re attracted to might rule out many trans women, there are thousands of trans women whom you wouldn’t know aren’t cis without being told, so to rule those out just because they’re trans is definitely transphobic.
To conclude, all your points are flawed and you need to learn some things.
I’m a cis girl attracted to girls. I am in a relationship with a trans women
- When I’m on my period curled up in pain, she curled around me and tells me she would take the pain away if she could. She gets me a hot drink and chocolate and watches films with me. I don’t hide it from her, she knows how her body works and she’s getting use to how mine works. Not every women has periods, trans or cis.
- We are in a sexual relationship of course we’re going to talk about vaginas, aside from this we talk in general if she has any questions I’ll answer them.
- I don’t have an issue with penises. If I did there are plent of other sexual ‘adventures’ you can have with people.
- Why can’t I talk about an attraction to ‘female’ body part? She’s with a girl she clearly appreciates them too!
As the women above stated my girlfriend has somethings she will get upset about, I know what these are and try to minimise her upset. I know she thinks she’s too tall and wishes she was closer to my height. No matter what happens she can’t change her height, I tell her how amazing her height is, I try to help her accept who she is. She’s got beautiful long legs every time we are out and she’s got her legs out and heels on people approach her and tell her how jealous of her legs they are, sometimes it’s small steps to acceptance that helps her.
Stop generalising trans women. So what if someone other than you benefits from something?
I love my gorgeous girlfriend.
Many many many women love transwomen, again as the lady said above refusing to date a trans person is transphobic. End of story.
❤️read the comments & ignore irrelevant twefs
An excellent illustration of some straw arguments often played out by TERFs.
