Literally nobody is running around demanding that feminine cis dudes transition into women. Literally no one. Nobody is pressuring cis men to live as trans women, but the reverse sure as fuck is true.
Imagine thinking that the second a trans woman throws on a skirt, everybody and their dog trips over themselves to tells her how much of a female girl woman lady she is. Imagine thinking that trans women are so accepted in society that in the rush to correctly gender us that they’re affirming the womanhood of anyone who could potentially be a transfem.
The majority of people can’t wait for the chance to call transfems men, so I highly fucking doubt literal actual cis men are struggling to be labelled as male lol
IMO whats happening here is simple. people see trans women make egg jokes (which are essentially someone saying “haha i used to do that and so did my friends”). however, a trans woman is, in terms of social capital, the worst gender you can have. so to compare someone to a trans woman is the most gendered insult you can throw out. Now, because we want to be ostensibly accepting of trans people, we need another framwork to say its not ok to do this: misgendering. And so the egg joke gets interpreted as actual pressure to transition, complete with wording that sounds like if you asked ChatGPT to write SFW sissification. Which is ridiculous, but makes sense if you want to explain why a trans woman going “hahaha i used to do that when i was repressing” makes you deeply uncomfortable.
Cheat Code #3 for accommodating disabled characters in sci-fi/fantasy:
If you want your setting to be accommodating, change the environment more than the person.
i.e.: On a worldbuilding level, if you want to portray a society that keeps disabled people in mind, then that needs to be reflected more broadly, even without your disabled character on screen. Because this means that your society was considering disabled people as part of itself when it was figuring out what’s necessary.
If your computer takes voice commands, it should also have an optional keyboard in case someone can’t speak.
If your magic school has multiple floors, it should have a teleporting rune circle for those that can’t take the ever-changing stairs.
Whenever you have a feature you’re adding, ask yourself—"If my character couldn’t use this, what would they do instead?“ And if the answer is "they’d have to wait until they could” or “they need someone else to use it for them,” then your setting isn’t accommodating. An accommodating setting always has an actionable answer to that question.
And as a bonus, if you follow through with it, oftentimes you’ll end up with a more interesting world and story overall. Spells most people can speak can be written in ancient elven instead? That means you can have a character sneak a spell into a magic-banned city by writing it on their hair ribbon, and that it’s possible that a book might be a self-generating spell on its own. Your spaceship has textured lines on the walls to let blind people navigate without guidance? Not only can you make it look artistic (different colored paints, glowing patterns), but now your engineer can make it to the warp core when the power’s out and oxygen’s finite.
Don’t limit yourself just to what’s needed in the moment. Figure out interesting alternatives to your setting’s features, and your world will automatically feel more alive.
For those who don’t know: Ikumi Nakamura is the woman who was senior artist on Bayonetta, and designed the titular character along with Hideki Kamiya. Their greatest moment of bonding was over their insistence that Bayonetta keep her glasses on at all times.
Nakamura cannot go to horny jail. She is the warden.
BASHIR: You’re misunderstanding the point; yes, she’s a Barbie girl in a Barbie world, but her life is merely plastic. It isn’t real.
GARAK: Ah, but therein lies the paradox. If life is a creation limited only by imagination, then what is the difference between true or imagined happiness? Some, my dear doctor, would even call it “fantastic.”
QUARK: look you two either need to order something or get out
