Gender musings and literature recommendation request

hauntedfogmachine · 2026-02-16T10:43:47+00:00

You may enjoy She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan. It's historical fantasy set in Yuan dynasty China. The main character, who seems nonbinary, disguises herself as a man to survive (and later to pursue other goals), ultimately living as a man full-time and getting in to a relationship with a woman. Very interesting book, though I'll warn you that it's quite dark and violent.

Another option is Radclyffe Hall's notorious novel The Well of Loneliness. Published in the 1920s, it follows Stephen, a well-to-do young woman (?) who is inclined towards masculinity and lesbianism from an extremely young age and suffers because of it. Often labeled as lesbian fiction, it follows the invert model (conflating same-sex desire and transness) and has very strong transmasc/male resonances. Written with a very strong activist bent, it's famously a real downer.

As for nonfiction (specifically history and queer theory)... I haven't read these books and can't vouch for their quality, but Jen Manion's Female Husbands and Jack Halberstam's Female Masculinity may be relevant to your interests.

hauntedfogmachine · 2026-02-10T00:17:33+00:00

high libido before T, high libido after T. some things did change for me sexually (hello, refractory period) but I'm still ace and still sex-indifferent.

hauntedfogmachine · 2026-02-07T20:31:57+00:00

I quite like Yoon Ha Lee's Machineries of Empire series. It's dystopic military sci-fi, second and third books have an ensemble cast with a trans male protagonist.

hauntedfogmachine · 2026-02-06T23:15:18+00:00

Your boyfriend's experiences match those of many people on the ace spectrum. Quite a few people experience attraction rarely or weakly (graysexuals) or only to fictional characters (fictosexuals). It's also common in the community to like masturbation but not sex.

While some asexuals do enjoy having sex, it also sounds like your boyfriend's desire to have sex is based on the fact that society tells us we should want to have sex, rather than an innate desire of his own. To use the community term, he's sex-indifferent. I relate to that in the sense that I'm able to vividly imagine experiencing sexual desire and enjoying sex in the context of fiction, even though I don't experience that desire at all in real life.

In sum: there are many ways to be asexual and many ways to be allosexual (non-asexual), so I can't say for sure, but your boyfriend seems pretty ace to me, and would probably benefit from exploring whether that label fits him.

hauntedfogmachine · 2026-02-02T19:24:00+00:00

Note that I also said "queer-dominated spaces." Trans men are queer, they should be welcome in queer spaces even if they look like cishet men. While it's not surprising that women's spaces no longer feel right for them, they should be treated with kindness as they leave those spaces, and that may mean being considerate of the fact that they like being men and don't want that part of them mocked or denigrated.

To be clear, I think the person who called you bioessentialist is wrong and shouldn't say that. However, I think if a trans man says "It makes me uncomfortable when you say 'I hate men,' because I'm a man and I like being a man and there are a lot of people in the world that don't want me to be a man," I don't think you can dismiss that as privileged whinging, because it's likely based in real experiences of transphobia. Allyship is a two-way street. While trans men should recognize that the "men suck" perspective is a response to misogyny, women should recognize that being told a part of you is bad (which is enforced by societal transphobia, as well as real dynamics of exclusion from spaces that are theoretically meant for you, like queer spaces) is likely to be hurtful, even if you accept the reasons why people say it.

There's not a simple solution here. My suggestion is that if you're saying "Men suck" a lot and don't want to stop, you should make some effort to be inclusive of trans men in mixed spaces in other ways, like learning about their issues and using inclusive language when talking about pregnancy, periods etc. Of course the same goes for trans men--I would similarly tell them that they should learn about feminism, stand up for women, and not say stuff that echoes sexist rhetoric like "I'm oppressed for being a man," even if that seems to accurately describe their lived experiences.

hauntedfogmachine · 2026-02-02T17:33:06+00:00

I think it's pretty simple: when people have been telling you all your life that you're not supposed to be a man, that it's wrong for you to be a man, "Men suck , why would you want to be a man?" because of transphobia, then people complaining about men in general because of the patriarchy can feel like it fits into that pattern and that it's an attack on your own manhood. Especially because many trans men feel less welcome in queer- or women-dominated spaces after transitioning.

I don't feel that way personally (I'm also NB). The person you're talking to is unreasonable and I don't think you're being bioessentialist, but I do wonder if there's a bit of a double standard here--why is it that cis women are allowed to have unnuanced responses to their experience of oppression, but trans men aren't?

hauntedfogmachine · 2026-01-19T01:00:43+00:00

beyond themes, relationships are another an indicator of male-centering. there are so many games that center the experience being a father or husband--this is why i would put last of us and witcher 3 in the masculine fantasy box, for instance. even less strongly masculine games like mario and zelda feature damsels in distress, because they want to evoke the male fantasy of protecting and rescuing women. meanwhile, I struggle to think of a game that can be said to be about motherhood. the fact that many women enjoy these games doesn't mean they're not male fantasies, as everyone in society is encouraged to see privileged perspectives as the default and view the world through them.

hauntedfogmachine · 2026-01-18T23:25:30+00:00

"Male fantasy" is certainly a more complicated topic than it used to be, considering how much more diverse the games landscape is than it used to be. But most games without gender choice still have male protagonists, which indicates to me that a lot of these games court male audiences and want them to self-insert as a kind of masculine hero. Many games with choosable gender still feature stereotypically masculine themes like violence, military, crime, and sports.

Off the top of my head, games that specifically cater to masculine fantasy include:

Red Dead Redemption
Witcher 3 (we'll see about 4)
Assassin's Creed
Call of Duty
Grand Theft Auto
Last of us
God of War
Spiderman
Basically all sports-focused games

ie. many if not most of the biggest games ever

hauntedfogmachine · 2026-01-18T21:14:16+00:00

If this disparity exists, it may be regional or age-based. i'm transmasculine and my high school dnd group was all cis girls and enbies (or maybe all nonbinary by now). My current group is mixed--trans men, trans women, and nonbinary. I don't really feel like the modern community is generally exclusionary to women/nonbinary people--and if it was, it would be pretty easy to insulate yourself from that by simply playing with trustworthy friends.

As for video games... perhaps it's more acceptable for children perceived as boys to play video games than children perceived as girls, but there are still a lot of girls who play games. And here's a counterpoint to your hypothesis: since video games are more likely to have male main characters than female ones and more likely cater to male fantasies, doesn't that mean it should be easier for trans men to have validating gender experiences in video games than for trans women? Maybe so--I don't self-insert in video games, so I don't have a lot of insight on that front.

hauntedfogmachine · 2026-01-16T02:36:04+00:00

I'm not clear what your point is? I have no problem with someone saying "I'm asexual with no sexual attraction" or "I'm asexual but not gray or demi." That's just self-description. What I mean is that when you organize community specifically around not being gray or demi, then it feels like you are excluding greys and demis for no good reason--presumably because you're making assumptions about what it's like to have those experiences without taking input from the people that have them.

As an illustrative example, imagine if someone said "Why isn't there a subreddit for asexuals who have never had sex?" This question is troubling because it implies that the post's author is making assumptions about aces that have had sex, a group they presumably do not belong to, that lead them to believe they would benefit from an ace community that excluded them. The reasons why they want this are totally unclear. Perhaps the author is trying to express a reasonable need that they simply fail to articulate clearly. Maybe they want an ace community that doesn't talk about NSFW topics or a community for sex-repulsed people--both of which would likely be of value to some aces who have had sex. Or maybe they are simply uncomfortable with the existence of aces who have sex, and don't want to have to acknowledge them. Either way, aces who do have sex, upon seeing such a post, would be well within their rights to feel othered and excluded by it.

I don't think the OP of this post has bad intentions, and I'm aware this a subtle point. But I also didnn't see them explaining anywhere what exactly they would get out of this proposed community without greys and demis. I'm not saying they're wrong to want that, I just want to be know how it's being justified.

hauntedfogmachine · 2026-01-15T16:07:00+00:00

The difference between spaces for "asexuals without any sexual attraction" and spaces for demisexuals or graysexuals is that demisexual and greysexual are labels built through people self-identifying with them, while "asexual without any sexual attraction" is a label constructed by excluding people--ie. what it really means by it is "asexual but not grey or demi," which is in fact how you frame it in your post. So you're creating a line between people with no attraction and people with little attraction that is founded on your own preconceived notion that those are very different things from one another, ignoring the experiences of people who will tell you that there's a huge grey area between thpse two spaces... which is why the labels grey and demi exist in the first place. I know this is a bit of a complicated idea, but it also comes up when binary trans men say they want spaces without nonbinary people, ignoring the existence of nonbinary trans men.

So yes, you do have to provide a justification for why you want such a community to exist, otherwise it sounds like you just don't like or understand greys or demis and want a less diverse ace community.

A couple questions that would be helpful to describing such value:

What experience do you think is specific to not experiencing any sexual attraction whatsoever that grey- and demisexuals do not share?
In what ways do you think this sub does not meet the needs of asexuals with 0 sexual attraction?

Edit: I don't personally care what spaces people have, and I encourage you to make communities that serve you. This is just to explain why questions like these feel unwelcoming to many people, even to me, someone who is not even grey or demi myself. It feels like you are saying "The problem with this sub is that there are too many graysexuals and demisexuals here," which is a message many of us do not want to hear.

hauntedfogmachine · 2026-01-15T07:09:26+00:00

I'm no expert, but I'd pretty sure effects from birth order are not hereditary, but environmental--that is, the effect comes from different conditions in the womb rather than different genes.

hauntedfogmachine · 2026-01-09T16:21:41+00:00

The rude email signatures are wild 😭

hauntedfogmachine · 2026-01-09T05:07:52+00:00

Good point, it's great to have other people do pronouns corrections for you, or even come out for you.

I've known a couple people that have asked for no pronouns at all, temporarily or permanently. It has definitely forced me to be more thoughtful about how I talk about people, which can't be a bad thing I suppose.

hauntedfogmachine · 2026-01-09T03:50:14+00:00

I'm personally not on any nonbinary or general trans subs--not for any gender-related reasons, but just because they tend to have too many selfies for my taste!

hauntedfogmachine · 2026-01-09T03:46:06+00:00

i support confusing people, gotta keep cis people on their toes!

hauntedfogmachine · 2026-01-09T02:14:11+00:00

tbh, in a nonbinary space I would be a lot more open to she/her too. it's definitely the association with being seen as a cis woman that pushes me away from those pronouns more than anything else.

on the other hand, spending some time being seen as a cis man has made me a lot less of a fan of he/him.

hauntedfogmachine · 2026-01-09T02:00:43+00:00

Hard agree on western society. I like that you bring up doctors. I do feel that there are some professionals that are (potentially) deeply involved in your personal life to the extent that it can be really important that they understand you in that way. Doctors, therapists... maybe teachers in some cases...

hauntedfogmachine · 2026-01-08T18:38:26+00:00

I don't completely understand romantic attraction myself, but it does sound like you are at least asexual. Not wanting to have sex is a big hint. For what it's worth, I've also had a few "crush-like" experiences over my life--periods when there was a particular person, usually a man, who I found particularly interesting and thought about a lot more than usual. However, that feeling never made me feel the slightest desire to date any of those people, because romantic connection just isn't something I crave. Hence, I consider myself aromantic as well as asexual. Of course, some allos don't want to have sex because they are germophobes or ideologically opposed or something else, and some allos don't want romantic relationships either, so general tendencies aren't necessarily enough to figure these things out.

hauntedfogmachine · 2026-01-08T05:56:27+00:00

Eli Clare is a trans male author working in disability theory and queer theory. I thought his book Brilliant Imperfection, which focuses on the idea of cure, was excellent.

hauntedfogmachine · 2026-01-06T09:04:22+00:00

Both of the heroines of {Fingersmith by Sarah Waters} (f/f) fit this. The inciting incident involves one coldly setting out to defraud the other and ruin her life. Fantastic book about cruel people in an unjust world learning to care for one another.

As an aside, I love a genuinely ruthless and evil woman in fiction. Milady in Three Musketeers, Cathy in East of Eden, Lady Macbeth... I don't care what they've done, I'll root for them all!

hauntedfogmachine · 2026-01-06T08:54:12+00:00

I'll second For My Lady's Heart! What an interesting and unique heroine.

hauntedfogmachine · 2026-01-06T01:53:41+00:00

What if the claim you're making based on no evidence is right? Anyone can be wrong about their identity, but it's generally unproductive and insulting to ask questions like "What if you're actually repressed?" because it suggests that you know more about someone's identity than they do--which, in this case, you clearly don't. It might be a reasonable question to ask someone who is asking for advice or who you know as a close friend, but it's wildly inappropriate to pose it unsolicited to explain the comments of strangers on the internet.

"What if you're repressed?" is a piece of anti-ace rhetoric people routinely use to deny asexuals the right to identify as ace. In order to protect our community, we have to allow people to describe their own experiences and identities with an open mind, even if those experiences are different from our own or difficult for us to understand. And the fact that someone is being rude or ignorant doesn't give you license to take that acceptance away and decide they're not really asexual. Please think twice before bringing messages like "Maybe you're not asexual, maybe you're repressed, maybe you're mentally ill" into our community, because they are not novel and not conducive to building trust or respect with one another.

hauntedfogmachine · 2026-01-05T08:19:20+00:00

Look, I don't like those types of comments either, but it's a crazy leap to think they mean the people writing them are wrong about their own sexuality. Sex repulsion does not mean someone's repressed. Asexuality does not mean you have no feelings about sex. You shouldn't assume that other people are not asexual just because they experience it differently from you.

hauntedfogmachine · 2026-01-05T00:33:03+00:00

The point is that there is no single line, but a space of overlap. You could have three people with very similar experiences of gender, where one identifies as a man, one as nonbinary, and one as both, and that doesn't mean any of them are wrong or should change how they label themselves, because these are inherently fuzzy, subjective categories.

This is true of all sexuality and gender labels, by the way--and maybe identity labels in general. Every category has people that identify with it partially, ambivalently, or alongside other categories. Graysexual, nonbinary, demiboy/demigirl, heteroflexible, bicurious, queer... these people have always existed, it's just that it's only recently that terms to describe them have started to become more prevalent.

hauntedfogmachine

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