Forum - View topicINTEREST: Zombie Land Saga's Lily Becomes Example in U.K Parliament Talks on Twitter Abuse
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whiskeyii
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While I have absolutely no idea how you'd go from associating transphobia in TERF circles to just general violence against women (unless we're specifically talking about violence against transwomen), I will say that I do think TERFs push some innocuous sounding but potentially harmful ideas, just not against women specifically. The idea I hear most pervasively from TERFs is that children shouldn't be on hormone therapy because no/few long-term studies have been done on the effects they may or may not have on children's bodies, and somehow this equates to the kid eventually becoming sterile. But to my mind, even if that were true with a 100% sterilization rate, I would still opt for trans kids to have access to hormones if they want them because trans kids are at a much higher risk of suicide and self-endangerment due to gender dysphoria. For me, the choice between the risk of death and the risk of sterilization is obvious: I'll pick the option that'll keep the kid alive. But you hardly ever hear TERFs talk about greater risks of depression or suicide when they talk about how delaying hormone use is for the good and/or safety of a given trans kid, and I find that disingenuous at best, downright dangerous at worst. |
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Mad_Scientist
 SubscriberModerator  Posts: 3011 |
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And it's about more than just the term TERF. The latin prefix "cis" is the counterpart to "trans", with trans meaning "across, on the other side," etc", and cis meaning "on the same side", etc. Cisgender is simply a counterpart to transgender, and is not a derogatory term. Yet weirdly enough, TERFs tend to ALSO object to the word cis/cisgender, and accuse it of being a slur, and try to ban it's use. Quite simply, it's about controlling the language trans people are allowed to use, as well as ensuring that trans people are constantly othered. We could switch to a different term than TERF (and some have tried, as the term TERF half the time isn't even accurately used) and if a new term caught on, suddenly it would be a "slur." But yeah, TERF is not a slur anymore than "racist" or "bigot" is a slur. It takes more than just a word being used in derogatory manner for it to be a slur, or else literally every single insult ever would be a slur. |
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LyingMuse
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What timeline are we on?
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AkumaChef
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Exactly. And the simple fact is that any sort of "group"--whether self-identified or not--will *always* be "othered". I'm not saying that is a good thing, or attempting to justify that it's acceptable, I'm saying it's a simple fact that we can observe without exception throughout human history so the sooner we come to grips with it the better. It is something that we will never be able to stamp out no matter how hard we try. We, and I mean humanity as a whole, constantly use group labels whether we realize it or not. We talk about other races, other sexual orientations, people of other social classes, people with different levels of wealth, people who choose different religions, styles of dress, listen to different music, have different hobbies, etc, etc. I have listened to activists speak against one set of group labels (race, gender, sexual orientation), all the while talking about how those labels are offensive and prejudicial, only to use their own set of equally inaccurate labels ("the rich", "1%ers", "the governmnent") and be completely blind to the fact that they're doing it. |
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AmpersandsUnited
Posts: 633 |
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A lot of people are quite hostile when it comes to Lily for some reason. I've pointed out how all the production material and staff members refer to Lily as a boy and not transgender and have gotten angry threats and insults for doing so. Seeing the character now being associated with death threats against people is just saddening. For some reason Zombieland Saga has a really toxic fandom in the west. |
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shabu shabu
Posts: 79 Location: Tokyo |
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I am sorry AmpersandsUnited that sounds very bad. Here in Japan this news has reached us as well and we are also disappointed to see Masao being used a symbol of hate by people. It is saddened to hear in the west things are troubled. Here was a discussion we had two days ago on the article. http://blog.livedoor.jp/goldennews/archives/52072995.html Zombieland Saga was meant to spread joy not hatred. I hope things can get better for you. |
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Mad_Scientist
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 3011 |
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It seems you have some misinformation I'm afraid. An official artbook said that Lily had the body of a young boy but considered herself a girl, which is literally saying she's transgender, just in a clunky and somewhat unfortunate way. Some people saw the word "shounen" next to her art and decided to take this out of context as a "checkmate LGBT", despite the fact that in context it actually supports the fact that she's transgender. So you're wrong about the official material saying she's not transgender. It says she is. There's a lot of misinformation about Lily out there. For example, around the time the episode came out, the official twitter retweeted a voice actor talking about how excited they were to play a character in Zombieland Saga, referring to the character as male. People then took that as official proof that Lily was male and not transgender but didn't bother to actually look up the character this voice actor was actually playing (spoilers: it wasn't Lily so them calling the character a boy is meaningless towards Lily's gender.) And this was not accidental, but a deliberate and malicious attempt to spread misinformation and lies, for the sole purpose of hurting transgender people excited by the portrayal. It was part of a coordinated attempt to harass trans folks and drive them out of the fandom. And it got very ugly, and yes that meant that some trans folks/allies lashed out harshly. Seems you got caught up in this. People must have assumed you were part of disinformation campaign, part of a harassing mob spreading deliberate lies to hurt trans folks. That sucks, and I'm sure that wasn't your intent at all, right?
I agree, though a part of your post caught me as curious. You refer to Lily using her old name, the name she clearly does not like, the name she literally abandoned. Lily is Lily and her focus episode makes it very clear that's how she wants to be referred to as. Just struck me as a little weird. Also, to clarify, Lily is not being used as a symbol of hate. It's actually quite common to take cute anime girls and include them in memes where they say things like "f*** off Nazis" or "racists go into the trash!" and so forth. Sometimes these memes can be a little weird, and it's possibly to go too far and misuse them, but they're not really meant as an expression of hatred, but of solidarity among oppressed folks dealing with racists/bigots/etc. Some hatred is there (I mean who doesn't hate Nazis right?) but the bigger thing is the banding together of the oppressed in solidarity under a cute mascot. And that's what the Lily meme was. Side note, and this is not directed to anyone individually but to the thread as a whole, because in the past Zombieland Saga threads have had this problem. Do not, under any circumstance, refer to Lily or other characters/people as a "t***". This word is a slur and is not allowed on ANN. An earlier post I let slide by because it was talking about how different words' meaning can change over time and not directly calling anyone it, and the word has innocent non-slur meanings unlike some slurs. But yeah, don't use that word for people/characters. |
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