FURRY ART CAN HAVE WOMEN?

“Pen and inkwell”

“I'm lucky enough to live close to the Camargue, a perfect place to photograph pink flamingos (Phoenicopterus roseus). This image shows a flamingo searching for prey in a muddy pond. The photograph was taken late in the day, with light cloud cover. Positive exposure compensation produced the high-key effect. The result reminded me of a paintbrush covered in ink.”

by Jonathan Lhoir (Belgium).

2023 European Wildlife Photographer of the Year

The other nice thing about the Joy of Cooking is that the baking recipes are actually quite decent. So you have a book that's half batshit insanity about how to skin an eel with pliers (I'm not joking about that btw), and half nice gingersnaps and soda breads. It's so weird and charming.

Wait while we’re all being unhinged about, like, stew. We all obsessed over the Joy of Cooking as children right. Right

[Image description: text reading, Lovely video. I have a little personal anecdote that slots surprisingly neatly into the themes of this video.

71 years ago, my grandfather took a cycling trip around the perimeter of France with a friend. He kept a diary, meticulously documenting the events of almost every day. Last month, my brothers and I embarked on the same journey, following in his footsteps. I'd avoided reading the diary beforehand, so every day I'd read about his experience at the same time that I had them myself: the places he'd visited, the food he'd eaten, the people he'd found, and at the same time we'd see the same sights. Some days we were ahead of him, some behind.

After a few days, I realised that something very surprising was happening. 71 years later, and 40 years after the death of this man we never knew, we stopped talking about him in the past tense. It took me a while to notice it, but it slowly became more obvious. We'd say things like "he's just 10 kilometres ahead of us now" or "he's over there as he's taking that photo". Seven decades, suddenly erased - an experience that felt almost out of time - and in those few days he felt closer and more alive than he ever had before. It was a strange experience, and something I doubt I shall ever have again. End image description.]

[Image description: large-font text reading, Your kindness also needs boundaries. /End image description.]

Know this and know peace

lunar eclipse with mars opposition. moons like a mangalsutra.

Yeah and another fun thing is when someone speaks to me and I understand perfectly what they said but I can't for the life of me identify what language it was in

What they don’t tell you about speaking multiple languages is that your brain does not in fact have a box labeled Spanish and another one labeled German. Instead it has a box labeled “Not English” and sometimes when you’re talking or writing in one of the languages you speak it will just start pulling random words from that box.

[First image description: a hand holding several trading cards with pictures of middle-aged men on them. This image is a hyperlink to an article in the Tokyo Weekender, titled Middle-Aged Man Trading Cards Go Viral in Rural Japan Town. /End first image description.]

[Second image description: three trading cards with images of middle-aged men on them. The writing is in Japanese, which I can't read, but two of the men are pictured with a light bulb and a bus respectively, so I think they are an electrician and a bus driver. /End second image description.]

[Third image description: text reading, We wanted to strengthen the connection between the children and the older generations in the community. There are so many amazing people here. I thought it was such a shame that no one knew about them," she said in an interview with Fuji News Network (FNN). "Since the card game went viral, so many kids are starting to look up to these men as heroic figures." The plan worked. Kids have started attending local events and volunteering for community activities -- just for a chance to meet the ojisan from their cards. Participation in town events has reportedly doubled since the game launched. /End third image description.]

Tokyo Weekender

Middle-Aged Man Trading Cards Go Viral in Rural Japan Town

A trading card game consisting of real-life ojisan (middle-aged men) are going viral with kids in the city of Kawara in Fukuoka Prefecture.

One of my favourite parts of working with kids is like… Very Gently subverting their idea of gendered topics… Like if a girl goes ‘no, sharks are a boy thing’ and you go “UM ACTUALLY THATS STUPID AND INCORRECT” they get freaked out, but if instead u go “Are you sure? Cause I think sharks are awesome, here’s a scale picture of a Megalodon” it’ll blow their tiny mind and they’ll be shitting themselves over it for days. 100% effective, 10/10 recommend

[Image description: tumblr post tags from @mettaworldpiece reading: #misogynoir #transmisogynoir #passing #antiblackness #ppl who say things like this do not consider antiblackness #ALL black ppl are degendered and hypergendered at the same time that is how Black men can be fetishized for their sexual organs but still #be denied manhood and called boys #for Black women womanhood is held as conditional #as in it is placed on them whether they identify w it or not can be stripped away w no consideration for the person affected #even the concept of passing comes from 'white-passing' or from raciallized Black ppl who could move thru white society w/o feeling #the violent conditions of antiblackness #for me there isnt a person who doesnt know im trans as soon as I open my mouth #that does not mean I move with safety when not speaking tho as misogynoir conditions people to take their toll of every Black woman #they come into contact w #for example the suburban constructions who got mad when I walked past their catcalls did not know I was trans #but that didnt stop them from acting like they were going to swerve and run me over when I tried to walk past to work /End image description.]

u look like a giant buff woman idk what u mean "dont pass" lol.

So I wanted to respond to this one, not to evaluate my features as “passing/not passing” but to talk a bit on racialization and transness as a larger Black trans woman. I am going to be speaking on the experience of cis women in addition to trans women.

Yes, I’m 6’2” and 260lbs. There are plenty of cis women my height/weight or larger/taller! It is not inherently a trait of solely trans women to be large. But this also means that I don’t always pass, because a lot of cis women who look like me don’t pass all the time either no matter what they do.

In this outfit running errands, I got hit on a bunch, gendered appropriately a bunch, and honestly felt the most femme I have in a while. Meanwhile, I still had a man start screaming at me on a metro train because he could see up my dress while I was sitting and “I DONT WANT TO SEE THIS MAN’S UNDERWEAR!”

Often, assumption of masculinity for largeness, for height, is something that gets inflicted on tall cis women as well, moreso if they’re an athlete or otherwise buff or “unfeminine”. Many end up with a complex about it that affects their comfort presenting anything less than high femme even as cis women by adulthood, because it’s implied they have to “make up” for their height/frame by being more feminine.

So despite this not being something limited solely to trans women, it does get significantly amplified on trans women when we have other features or traits that may affect it, such as voice, visible stubble, etc.

On top of that, Black women are often racialized as “more masculine” bc of systemic societal antiblackness. While it can happen to anyone that visibly reads as a Black woman, it gets notably worse the darker your skin is and the larger you are. I’m very lightskinned, so while I still experience it, it’s also not nearly as bad as it would be for someone much darker than me with my build.

So for larger Black trans women, we get a double whammy of “passing” tribulations, as we get the misogynistic assumption of “the larger you are, the more masculine you are” and the misogynoiric assumption that as a Black woman, we are inherently more masculine.

Both of these factors are completely out of our control as larger Black trans women. They aren’t something that can be changed by anything we do to try and “pass” because they are baseline societal bigotries currently - fuck, Megan Thee Stallion is quite literally one of the most beautiful cis women on earth while also being larger and she’s still CONSTANTLY accused of being a man/masculine online even in some of her most “feminine” presentations.

So when I say that I “often don’t pass” I’m not commenting on my features, what I think “outs me as AMAB”, etc. im commenting on the baseline societal transmisogynoir that states that someone who looks like me, transfemme or not, often does not pass.

Many people will still gender me appropriately from the jump, hit on me, catcall me, otherwise treat me like a woman - but just as often I will be categorically excluded from even possibly passing for people who have engraved these social bigotries to heart, and recognizing that doesn’t affect whether I’m “valid”, whether I’m attractive (bc I’m a fucking Goddess and stunning), etc. but affects my SAFETY and the likely of experiencing transmisogynistic or transmisogynoiristic harm or violence.

Passing is not about whether you are attractive or not, it’s about safety.

Window Reflections - Kristie Bretzke , 2024.

American , b. 1950s*

oil on linen panel , 20 x 16 in.

*1978 Education graduation