i hope he’s changed! and i’m glad people being shitty to trans women using femboys as a cudgel no longer have such a high profile tool to use! but i need people to understand this
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As a cisgender straight(-ish) male, I feel the need to inject my opinion into this discussion.
That’s it. That’s the post.
Honestly, I know I’ll get downbeared for this, but I disagree
The woke transgender communist cabal is DESTROYING hexbear folks
As a cisgender straight(-ish) male, I feel the need I feel the need to say, I have no idea who this person is and I really don’t understand what anyone is talking about!
It’s an incredibly mild complaint compared to how harmful this behaviour was but I am also annoyed by how F1nnster hid taking HRT. Trans people don’t need to be out but their whole channel was about being a cis man on T who was just that girly which obviously was a lie. I tried to shake some sense into countless boymoders who were dooming because they were “manlier than a cis guy” and would not believe she was lying about not taking HRT.
At least this video will hopefully put an end to all the cope from insecure trans girls beating themselves down using him as a cudgel but probably not.
I’m genuinely disgusted by that. I’m almost more angry about that. F1n spent all that time making money off of being “just a guy” who looked more feminine than most tgirls do on HRT. Being “just a guy” who was prettier than your girlfriend, while on HRT???
Imagine being a beauty influencer who makes their whole shtick about loving your natural self while hiding the work they’ve had done.
'Cause the trap ideology thing is somewhat explainable by being egged on by chat and dealing with complex internal identity shit while having no real trans community irl. Doesn’t change the responsbility that comes with having a platform but we also don’t live in a society that acknowledges that that kind of responsibility even exists.
I’m 4 years HRT and 2 years post FFS and he’s prettier than me with a more feminine face. Considering how insecure I am it hurt that a cis guy could do that just for fun and leave me in the dust. That kind of direct lying is not appreciated.
tgirls
can you change this? it’s a term I mostly see in fetish/porn and it’s kind of a slur. leaving it up as other mods might disagree.
Why do you think the public was entitled to know he was taking HRT? People come out when they want to come out. I think it’s disgusting that you’re criticizing a gender-fluid person for not coming out when YOU wanted them to. And he is well within his rights for expressing his feminine side while still calling himself a guy.
the reason is very clearly stated there, which is that the entire thing his channel was based on was that he was an ordinary cis guy who looked like that and it’s now clear that was untrue. he was something used against trans women by transmisogynists regularly. either “why can’t you just be a feminine man, like him” or saying he was prettier or some other similar bullshit
And he is well within his rights for expressing his feminine side while still calling himself a guy.
of course! i do not begrudge anyone who does that. however, in addition to the above, he on several occasions made videos* that heavily leaned on some super transphobic tropes, about the idea of an attractive women secretly turning out to be a man as this big twist. that shit gets people killed irl, so him doing it as a joke for content is both in poor taste and also perpetuating that idea that tricking men is what we do as trans women. and it’s also his whole gimmick to begin with, and that was how i heard about him. he was the streamer/youtuber who looks like a girl but is a man, that was his thing. the fact that he was lying about that for months, maybe longer, is something that it’s perfectly reasonable to be mad about for a whole host of reasons
*
I see those titles and I see someone attempting to explore their identity, albiet in a out-of-touch streamer way and with clickbaity headlines. Anyone who used him as ammunition against other trans people would’ve just clung onto something else as a weapon if he didn’t make his content the way he did.
Stop sowing division in the trans community over something petty. I think the way he made content potentially had a positive impact on many gender-nonconforming people, because he showed that you don’t have to identify as trans in order to explore your identity and how you express yourself.
You’re upset that he “lied” about being on HRT? Did you tell everyone right away when you started HRT? I would imagine you told people when you were ready. Fin was still figuring out his flavor of gender-queerness and probably didn’t want to be pigeon-holed into being called a transwoman by his community. He probably thought it was nessessary to reinforce the idea of “I’m a guy, but I look like a gal.” through his videos so much to avoid that.
I see those titles and I see someone attempting to explore their identity, albiet in a out-of-touch streamer way and with clickbaity headlines. Anyone who used him as ammunition against other trans people would’ve just clung onto something else as a weapon if he didn’t make his content the way he did.
Stop sowing division in the trans community over something petty.
ok well this “petty” stuff causes real world harm and, i would like to say again, GETS PEOPLE KILLED. these ideas that he’s leaning into and perpetuating get real trans women killed! that is by far the most important thing here, even if there’s a bunch of other shitty things going on here. this is not sowing division, this is not petty, this is something that causes actual harm! like, in ways that aren’t just a streamer feeling bad because all these trans women think he’s one of them
the people using him as a cudgel against transfems would have found other ways to attack us, but having someone so high profile is a uniquely potent form of ammunition that i have the right to be bitter about! i am mad about this shit! i am not advocate we burn him at the stake, i am simply saying i haven’t forgotten it and i’m still angry!
I think the way he made content potentially had a positive impact on many gender-nonconforming people, because he showed that you don’t have to identify as trans in order to explore your identity and how you express yourself.
good for them! i’m happy for anyone who feels that way! there are some in the comments of this post, i’m glad they found that way of learning to express themselves. i take issue with the phrasing “you don’t have to identify as trans to x” because as mentioned transphobes often make that argument using him as an example, and the idea that pressure exerted by people suggesting people questioning their identity identify as trans could be a real problem compared to the massive, overwhelming pressure exerted by our transphobic (and especially transmisogynistic) society is both patently ridiculous and a transphobic trope
but as mentioned i’m genuinely happy for anyone who felt like they understood themselves better thanks to his content
You’re upset that he “lied” about being on HRT? Did you tell everyone right away when you started HRT? I would imagine you told people when you were ready. Fin was still figuring out his flavor of gender-queerness and probably didn’t want to be pigeon-holed into being called a transwoman by his community. He probably thought it was nessessary to reinforce the idea of “I’m a guy, but I look like a gal.” through his videos so much to avoid that.
you’re right, i didn’t tell everyone right away! i bet you think you’re real smart for that one! the difference between me and f1nn5ter is that i was not selling myself as a cisgender man who looked like that, dealing with all those other tropes i’ve discussed and also (as has been brought up by a bunch of other people here) giving people a lot of body image issues when they compare themselves to him because if a CIS DUDE looks like that why can’t i look better when i’m on hrt
but that’s hardly the most important point here. it sucks, but the important point is him repeating these deeply harmful tropes. i don’t care if he had a hard time with people assuming he was a trans woman (as i mentioned earlier the idea that people pushing him in that way make a big impact comparatively is ridiculous, but i’ll roll with it) the trap stuff is inexcusable to me. you cannot do that shit for so long without someone informing you why it’s a problem, i refuse to believe no one told him to cut that specific shit out
and it doesn’t matter anyway because there’s no fucking way he was titling the videos like that to make himself feel better about his gender, that’s bullshit and you know it. the videos were titled and thumbnailed like that because leaning into scandalous transphobic tropes gets clicks. and i am allowed to be angry at him for that! you’re acting like i have any power over him when i’m a broke removed in a different country expressing my frustration over the shit he’s done that’s hurt me and my friends and those like us. fuck off
Thank you for speaking the words in my heart and for educating and shutting down the normalization of transphobia and the sexualization of trans women. It’s so frustrating to see people try to shut down legitimate concerns by displaying their ignorance in the material conditions of trans women.
Why do you think the public was entitled to know he was taking HRT?
It’s messed up in the same way that workout influencers deny being on steroids when they are. It gives people messed up body image issues because they are being told that they can achieve something that is actually impossible. This is a reaction that a lot of people in the thread are actually having.
There are differences of course:
A. There’s more social pressure to hide being on HRT than steroids.
B. Not mentioning something is different than denying it.
So, I think we can acknowledge that he had reason to hide it and that he’s not required to disclose it, but we can also acknowledge the harm it causes in the discourse when it comes from such a prominent person.
Its worth noting that he’s been on HRT for 6 months and people were leveling him against trans women well before that.
Anyway as i said in my top level comment, I think this attitude is wrongheaded even if your bitterness is understandable, because it supports forced outing.
Its worth noting that he’s been on HRT for 6 months and people were leveling him against trans women well before that.
Yeah, the problem here isn’t the nondisclosure, it’s that people tie acceptability as a trans person to “passing” and hold that over our heads. Putting this in scare quotes because passing as it is commonly understood doesn’t mean “looks like a cis woman”, but “meets a conventional, cishetnormative standard of beauty women are subjected to.” What people in this comment chain rightfully complain about would have been thrown at them regardless of Finnster’s hormone status, because it’s just plain old transmisogyny. We’ve been judged by how fuckable we are to cishet dudes since at least the days of Ray Blanchard, when that consideration *was a direct part of if we were allowed to take HRT in the first place." We’re talking about straight guys here. When an AMAB person tells them she’s trans, wants to live as a woman fulltime and wants to access gender affirming care, the first thing these hogs wonder about is frequently “would i tap that”? And they often do not care about actual passing in the sense of “could i live stealth?”, either, knowledge of our AGAB is a core part of chaser fantasies. Most of them will lie about all of this, but their lies are never particularly convincing. How hot we are by straight guy standards becomes the focal question in whether we’re allowed to exist or whether we’re too confusing to be allowed even as a guilty pleasure.
Finnster has not created this mindset, he has become successful because his presentation matches such narratives, because his content fits into a deeply transmisogynist attention economy. This is something he has, ofc, deliberately utilized - but the main problem here is that he has played into invalidating “trap” discourses and the fetishization of fem-presenting GNC people, when he came out about what really isn’t relevant here at all. All of the really problematic shit he’s done works just the same for people who are open about taking HRT, as we see from the entire debacle around “transmaxxing” communities in incel spaces.
We cannot expect transphobes to argue honestly. We cannot expect them to understand how HRT works, or how any other part of transitioning works, or how various gender identities work, and we cannot expect these guys to think with anything but their dicks. That’s the problem, not if somebody piggybacking on their perception of genderqueerness needs half a year to make jokes about how the E makes his nipples hurt.
Fair point. I try to be gracious and attribute it to ignorance instead of malice. I don’t know much about him but I’d dare say he’s insulated from the dangers that many of us face due to fame and fortune (relative). As I understand it his chat has also egged him on to do various things, not that it’s an excuse, but I think the fame may have made him a bit more impressionable. But at the end of the day, when you’ve been bimbofied ignorance comes with the territory
Hopefully some day he’ll be able to recognize it and reconcile it. I’m just glad that he can’t be a useful idiot for nefarious persons now.
I get it, but I still like him
F1nnster sentenced to 15 months community service and a fine of 50% of Twitch donations in the relevant period, by the SCOTTIES (Supreme Court of the Trans-Intersex-Enby Soviet), on the charge of perpetuating harmful stereotypes about trans women for monetary gain.
“I had it coming by all means. Coming out as genderfluid has not absolved me of responsibility for my actions, although it has for the better changed the way I materially relate to the world and my own past, and likewise how the world relates to me and my past in turn.”, F1nnster was quoted as saying in a highly publicized press conference after the hearing.
They continued, “In hindsight I deeply regret all my actions and clearly see the harm that I personally caused in my selfish pursuit of fame and money under the inhuman ideology of liberal capitalism. I will graciously and dutifully accept the reparations I must pay to make up for everything I did and ensure that I will not commit any act so despicable or heinous ever again. I understand that some people might never forgive me, and they are in their right to never forgive me just as I am in my right to ask for dignity even as a convicted criminal. Long live the TIES and long live the Revolution.”
When reached out for comment, Chief Justice Alicia Athena McRlwain said, “Yeah, F1nnster made a pretty good apology all things considered. Poor kid getting into this mess so young! But justice is justice, F1nnster harmed real people and has to fully account for that somehow. The community service isn’t even that hard, honestly, but I’m still glad that F1nnster is taking it so well. We’ve definitely seen worse reactions from other convicts.”
beautiful
how do we not have a crying thumbs up leslie feinberg from that one kelly edit? i need to be able to respond with it here
This one?
im going to stay out of this struggle session because i understand theres parasociality involved here and im not being rational. plus ive long moved beyond even being a passive fan of his.
ashley is wonderful though and will die on that hill
buuut… it was heartwarming to see comments (in youtube comment section of all places) of all the transwomen and men and enbies that discovered themselves thanks to Finn’s channel. as well as many formerly straight people that realized they are bi or pan (myself included but more like thought i was gay af).
lots of fuckery for $ and clicks. capitalism sucks.
Well now I feel bad about having my egg broken by a “how to prank your friends by making them think you’re a woman” WikiHow article
whatever journey you took to self discovery is a good one. just because wikihow did an article playing into transphobic tropes does not make you bad for finding something in it
i knew a trans woman whose egg cracked when she watched silence of the lambs and saw herself in buffalo bill, your wikihow article is totally fine
Oof to that last one
I mean, I realized I was trans after the news aired a really transphobic piece about some athlete (I think it was drag racing?) getting a sex change, when I was a kid. sometimes you just need to hear that being trans is an option and you don’t hear anything else. but like that and my dad’s general queerphobia convinced me to repress rather than come out then, so it does have consequences.
Idk I’m genderfluid and bisexual too so looking like F1nn5ter is kinda goals for me, I get why people don’t like them but I do. I think their relationship with Icky is also really cute.
I’m worried I’ve just had my brain melted from years of seeing transphobic and queerphobic people and transmedicalists online, but I’m scared that there’s an undercurrent of “being gender-fluid (or hell, a femboy) is Wrong” to these criticisms even though I know there probably isn’t. I’m not even a fan of finnster or whoever (in fact they kind of give me pick-me bigot queer vibes) I just read bad vibes everywhere even when there isn’t any.
i can definitely see that. i think this rhetoric could easily shift into that but i personally feel it’s stayed on the right side of that line (though obviously i am one of the chief people talking about how f1nn5ter is bad so if anyone thinks i’m on the wrong side of it please let me know) because everything i see has been talking about the specific ways his content has caused harm, mostly with specific examples of people it has harmed
but as i said if you have concerns about transmed rhetoric on c/traaaa please report it and we’ll do our best to deal with it, even if it’s from a mod. we try to have a zero tolerance policy about that shit
“being gender-fluid (or hell, a femboy) is Wrong”
i understand but i don’t see anything that makes me think there is, its about him purposefully playing to the bigoted side of the femboy culture for views. He was being transphobic and he should be bonked for such.
I never gave any thought to him other than thinking it was nice he helped normalize gender non-conforming behaviour. A bit disappointing to hear he leaned into this kind of thing.
I mean I feel like it’s a little more than disappointing since for years I was asked by people why I could just “be like him” and asked “oh, are you a trap like finnster?” He’s genuinely fostered so much fetishization of my identity and existence that I cannot and will not forgive him until he shows the community support for once in his career, and in a consistent way. He’s built a career on sexualizing downplaying transness to a decision you just make one day, and the “I decided not to get the surgy today guys” meme is genuinely unforgivable, considering that it wasn’t even a one-off. I’ve tried watching his streams, but the chat is so toxic that I get blinded by the Hitler particles. That’s not a mistake. He fostered a toxic community for profit. If I bring up these issues, I get replies that tell me I’m being “too woke” or that is should just not be offended, oftentimes alluding to the idea that I’m an illegitimate woman. Maybe it’s changed since the announcement, but I fucking doubt it.
I’m so fucking tired of being told I should sell sex or do live streaming, and I think it’s pretty fucking evident where they get the second idea from.
I feel that this attitude has a problem, a double edge to the sword of the criticism. And thats that it basically supports forced outing of closeted public figures.
Its similar to the “queer roles go to queer actors” rhetoric (though I think unlike your criticisms of F1nn, that idea is just straight up wrong because of the forced outing issue), or the stuff discussed in Sarah Z’d video about queerbaiting accusations towards celebrities.
In this case, I think the side of the sword your criticism is on is sharper. I do completly disagree with the people saying he has a responsability to disclose HRT immediatly though, for this reason.
That there are one or two people itt who criticize finn not disclosing that he’s on HRT earlier is a minor sideline of this discussion, and if you feel the usual male need to insert yourself into a debate you only understand on the surface level, you should have stuck to that comment chain.
As a reminder for you and the 4 people who upvoted this: The main problem called out itt, and in comrade @[email protected]s comments earlier in the thread discussing finnster’s coming out vid, has always been how finnster has deliberately perpetuated the most harmful transphobic stereotypes, the ones that regularly lead to trans women getting murdered by men: The idea that we’d be actually just guys who try to trick other men into sleeping with them by disguising as girls. This is the “trap” narrative that is the motive for the majority of transphobic murders, which are usually perpetrated by men who have slept with or have made advances towards a trans woman and then freak out and turn to violence because they feel tricked and feel their sexuality has been called into doubt, which can only be restored by violence against our sister.
And finn has repeatedly made content that plays into this, he has built an audience around this, cultivated a toxic fanbase full of people with such misinformed transphobic ideas stuck in their heads, and has done NOTHING to correct this, which is inexcusable. You can be a cis crossdresser or genderfluid or figuring out and experimenting with your gender or be a closeted trans woman or literally any other gender identity and sexuality without producing clickbait that exclusively piggybacks on the most deadly kind of transphobia. THAT is the point being discussed here. THAT is what finnster is being called out for. It’s right in the image attached to the OP. There are extensive posts itt explaining this, there are screencaps of these videos’ title cards, there are several harrowing firsthand accounts of transphobic harassment our comrades have been subjected to by people directly referencing finnster.
It’s really not needed and downright insulting to completely ignore all of this just because you want to have a say in this debate.
In this case, I think the side of the sword your criticism is on is sharper.
Do you think that maybe this meant that I actually agree with OP’s main point, but just wanted to point out a potential side problem? That in fact was NOT just about the disclosing HRT thing?
Btw i commented on this thread because a trans person came to me privately saying how much the discourse in here was upsetting them but they didnt feel like expressing their thoughts because their on a Hexbear break. And when I mentioned this discourse to my transfemme friends in other circles, quiet a few of them said they view F1nn as a proactive ally and disagree with the discourse in here. And funny enough I acutally brought up OP’s screenshots of recent F1inn videos in response to that. So I’m literally actually pushing OP’s point elsewhere.
So maybe dont assume I was just like mansplaining or whatever (note that autistic communication comes off as “splaining” when it isnt meant that way quiet frequently). What it actually was is that I have a pathological, autistic need to speak up for people who have opinions but are not able to express them themselves. A friend came to me to express discomfort privately and that put me in defense mode.
That there are one or two people itt who criticize finn not disclosing that he’s on HRT
Yeah and one of those people was also a man (or has he/him in his bio, but likely me also has other pronouns in their bio…, my current gender status is questioning actually, which really speaks to the entire problem here funnily enough!) and you didnt feel the need to accuse them of the same shit so.
Do you think that maybe this meant that I actually agree with OP’s main point, but just wanted to point out a potential side problem? That in fact was NOT just about the disclosing HRT thing?
In hindsight, yeah, sure. idk if it’s as obvious as you think tho. You see, i’m neurotypical myself and when i see a post on here that - as you admitted yourself - sounds an awful lot like mansplaining, how much benefit of the doubt am i supposed to give it? I already took half a dozen mean jabs out of my original comment, it took me for fucking ever to write because i was trying not to be too harsh on you specifically, the reason that post was snide and scolding and not just a manic yelling fit was that i did a ton of compartmentalization and taking a deep breath and bottling things up and i did all of that in spite of my last therapist (the one i went to because my country forces psychotherapy on trans people when we want to access any kind of medical transition through the healthcare system) telling me not to mask like that when something upsets me because it’s so obviously harmful. Because it means i have to keep a ton of stuff i should vent inside instead. You know how autism, emotion regulation and being confronted with injustice can interact, right? I can’t remain silent when i see a post i interpret in the way i interpreted your post. I just can’t.
I get where you’re coming from, it’s actually cool to hear that you treat the subject like this irl and i’m really, really sorry about the assumptions i made about your gender, i can’t stress that part enough. I’m just saying that when i see a post like yours on this comm, i’m normally less hesitant to call people names than i was when i saw it was written by you and not some rando walking in from the lemmyverse.
Is it ok when we leave it at that? Maybe i’ll drop by in the comment chain about HRT disclosure, i see your concerns in that regard although i haven’t fully made up my mind yet on where i stand on that subject in this case. But is it ok when we just let this particular exchange slide and be done with it? I find it really stressful, you probably do so as well, and i think we’ve both made clear where we come from with this. I’m deliberately not saying disengage, it’s ok if you still have something to add, but i hope it isn’t necessary and that we’re even.
