The Outfit

so, did I ever tell you guys about the time my roommate accidentally simulated gender dysphoria in VR?

My gender today is a potato pie.

"if you want a HP shirt/necklace/earrings/whatever, make your own!!" except if you wear it in public, you're still promoting jkr

"if you want to read the books, just get them from your library!" except libraries pay attention to what people take out, and you are still supporting an author if you library their books

"just play the games!" money goes to her for that

"well, just stream the movies!" she gets money for that

"well, you can always only tell your friend group about HP--" your friends are people! you are promoting HP to other people!

JKR is transphobic. She hates trans people. Just the other day she tweeted something transphobic--specifically, transmisogynistic. In the past she's been transphobic to all types of trans people. She's also bigoted in many other ways.

There are better series. There are other series. Stop coming up with ways to keep the books and fandom alive.

Trans lives are more important than harry potter.

Hey if you’re into TTRPGs at all, or really wanna help trans youth in Texas, I highly recommend checking out this bundle on itchio! You can get nearly 500 games, tools, and supplements, a nearly $3000 value, for FIVE DOLLARS! Please consider donating to a great cause and getting a ridiculous amount of games!!!!!

My gender today is a very colorful bird of unknown species.

i’m thinking tonight about masterpieces. michelangelo looked at the sixtine chapel and saw; nothing to preserve. virgil wanted his aenid burned and forgotten; only to be saved at the behest of an emperor who thought it flattery. kafka instructed his friend to burn everything he’d ever written - too personal was it, too unfinished.

they were ignored.

instead, their work was taken and held and published and thrown to be gawked at. instead, an emperor, a pope, a friend, took from within the cavities of them their choices; their art.

tumblr rolls out post+. twitter rolls out tip jars. youtube takes half of what creators earn. on social media, there is a ko-fi or a patreon and a polished face in every bio. i show my poems to my mother and she asks if I will publish them before she says anything else. emily dickinson instructed her sister to burn her poetry.

her sister did not listen.

we are a community, says tumblr, we should give back to creators. my last poem had 50 notes. six of those were reblogs that weren’t mine. i lie in bed at 2am and stare at my bright phone screen and the way netflix’s library grows thinner and thinner. the first ad on tumblr that i can reblog is for amazon. amazon takes more than half of what authors earn.

kafka’s friend took barely finished work and hammered it into structure. he is the only reason we know of him.

my father wrote a book and a play when I was barely big enough to reach his knees. when i try to talk to him about writing, he shrugs.

no one wanted to publish it, he says. so i don’t write anymore.

i am filled with poems I have never published, books I haven’t written. There are little snippets of them scattered throughout my life. I link to my ko-fi on my tumblr.

-

asked capitalism of the artist: what is art, if not for consumption? who does art benefit, if it is not consumed? why create at all if you do not market it? who are you, frothing at the mouth about someone publishing someone else’s poems? who are you to hate your magnum opus? what is art, if not in relation to its reception? if no one sees it, how is it art?

said the artist, baring their teeth: it’s mine.

JKR literally wrote a manifesto against nonbinary people and trans men, and smeared autistic people while she was at it, so can y'all please stop acting like the JKR bullshit is somehow an issue unique to trans women only?

Stop acting like this isn't a community-wide issue that affects ALL trans people. Especially autistic trans people.

Our trans brothers & nonbinary siblings in the UK deserve better than this. Stop forgetting them. Stop erasing them.

My gender today is the man in the closet I yelled at for a full 15 minutes in my sleep once

My gender today is a burnt out firecracker suddenly exploding again.