EDIT: Some folk were concerned that the original version of this comic had dialogue that was implying that trans men were lesbians (specifically superlesbians). I have modified the comic slightly to try to amend that. You can see the original version here.
New Comic!
First of all, I want to welcome anyone who’s here after finding me through Monday’s comic. That really took off and I’m glad you all seemed to like it!
But Men is something I’ve been meaning to write about for a while (also, Butt Men. I’m getting around to it). Basically it’s the phenomenon of women/genderqueer/trans people talking about things that relate to them, and a guy coming along and trying to make the conversation about men. I guarantee you that any discussion you see online around feminism/gender stuff has some idiot guy saying ‘but men!’. And you want to just be like ‘dude. seriously. can you not have a conversation be about you for once?’. There’s a much longer and more complex post about this coming, I promise.
Good to see you all here, though. I hope you stick around.
Erm. I realise that there’s a horrendous irony in a man coming and criticising this comic, but whilst the first eight panels are great, the last one looks as though you’re describing trans guys as superlesbians, which is a mite offensive.
I imagine that it’s probably just an unfortunate coincidence of unrelated comments, but even the suggestions that trans men are part of the women’s conversation rather than over there with the other guys buys into the idea that they have magic women-understanding powers because they’re not really real men.
Hey – I’ve addressed the transmen!=superlesbians thing below. It was certainly unintentional.
I am very soon going to be writing a blog post that discusses in part the inclusion of trans men into groups that do not include cis men. Stay tuned!
Just for clarity, did you just have a character call trans men “superlesbians” or does it just unintentionally appear that way?
Because if it was intentional? No. Just no.
Hey – one or two people have asked about the trans men/superlesbians juxtaposition.
The last panel is emphatically not meant to imply that transmen are superlesbians. I was just trying to represent topics of conversations and identities within the group, like in the first panel.
That said, if a trans man ever came to me and said ‘I’m a trans man and I’m a superlesbian’ then that’s fine with me. Identity is complicated.