Talk:Homophobia in Fandom

I started to create this as Homophobia, but then changed my mind -- the empty article, "Homophobia" needs to be deleted. Sorry about that! --Sherrold 16:08, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm really not sure about the statement "(Note: when we talk about the "author" we're am not referring to the actual human being but to the NARRATIVE PERSONA as it comes across through the writings.)", especially the "we" in it. Certainly when I talk about "the author" or about the possibility that an author is homophobic, I am talking about the actual person. I might talk about a story (rather than either a character or an author) as homophobic if I meant that the narrative seems to support homophobic ideas which I'm not sure the author intends, but if I say an author is homophobic, I mean ... well, that I think the author is homophobic.

If you want to make that distinction, can you attribute it to a specific source (yourself or someone else) rather than just saying "we"?--Penknife 19:29, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure how to phrase this, but for quite some time after I came into online fandom all the "slash theory" seemed to stress endlessly how it was "heterosexual women" writing m/m slash, and that it wasn't about gays. It made me feel rather odd (as a non-heterosexual fan). I mean, that it wasn't just the usual implicit default assumption that fans were heterosexual (as happens almost everywhere), but that such an emphasis was put on it in meta explanations.--Ratcreature 20:38, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

There were numbers cited in one of the early academic works that focused on the percentage of straight women in fandom, and that number just kept being reiterated, even after that changed. But I don't remember the article or the percentage, just Katherine talking about the study and how things changed. --rache 20:45, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if it contained statistics, but Warrior Lovers (Salmon and Symons) included a lot of this kind of outdated theory. There was a recent discussion about the book here http://accioslash.livejournal.com/87877.html?thread=2836549#t2836549

--Aethel 20:34, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

re. reworking of 'in meta': Arduinna, thanks! That's so much better. <3 --lian 16:03, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

I reworded the meta section slightly. Some trans fans prefer to emphasise the fact that they're trans rather than just being folded into "men" (which most people would read as "cisgendered men"), but saying "male and transgender fans" reads as if transguys are not male, so... --Kyuuketsukirui 11:36, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Biphobia

"I tend to think bi-ignorance, rather than biphobia, but what do I know?" is upsetting to me. Logically I think it's meant as an explanation, but it feels like an excuse to me. Isn't all prejudice basically ignorance?

I haven't said anything before now, because I have no examples of fanfic with blatant biphobia - I try my best to stay away from it. I do believe that bisexuals are often portrayed both in source material and fandom as inherently more "slutty" and likely to be unfaithful than monosexuals. Bisexuals are sometimes portrayed as narcissistic hedonists who don't care about the gender of the person they fuck, because the other person simply does not matter to them, or as manipulators who don't care about gender because it's all about exerting influence over someone else.

Krycek (The X-Files) and Lex Luthor (Smallville) come to mind as examples of manipulators, and I believe I've read some narcissistic Blair Sandburg (The Sentinel) and Ray Doyle (Pros) fic too, but I'm just hopeless at remembering authors and titles. I don't think I've ever read any bisexual non-vampire Willow (BtVS) fic, she's relentlessly monosexual both in het and gay relationships - which echoes the character's internalized biphobia in canon, but I don't think that's why fan writers are portraying her like that. Nora Charles 17:47, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I've reworked the biphobia section to incorporate some of these issues (and remove the "what do I know?" statement, because I don't think articles other than user pages should be in first person) -- see if that helps. If you want to add some of the specific examples of characters that you're bringing up, that would be great.--Penknife 19:32, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, it's great :-) I'm sorry, I have no specific examples, but if I find any, I will be sure to add them. Nora Charles 20:22, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I wanted to add a little snippet to the biphobia section about a phenomenon that I've noticed on twitter in some fandoms regarding responses to bi headcanons, and I wanted to make sure it sounded okay before I added it to the page (I have the citation links saved and will add those when i make the addition). Here's what I have so far:

"In addition, posts that headcanon characters as bisexual will sometimes receive comments arguing that the character is a completely different orientation. This tends to be in the form of people arguing that the character’s canon opposite-sex relationships are proof that they are definitively straight."

This would go after "but there are still stories in which the author seems to be treating "gay" and "straight" as the only two possible choices for sexual orientation", and before " Some fans also feel that characters in fanfic who are identified as bisexual...". How does that sound? TheVioletHowler (talk) 01:23, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Fandom as a queer space

I know there was some discussion about framing these articles (race and fandom, Misogyny in Fandom) more positively, or at least neutrally, rather than as "racism/sexism and fandom", would people be interested an article talking about fandom as a queer space, a topic which I think deserves to be explored, and incorporating this into that? --Betty 16:42, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree that fandom as queer space deserves an article, but I don't think the homophobia article should be incorporated into that. There'd probably be a section for the homophobia in the queer article, but I think the conflicts and such deserve their own page, not all mushed together. For example I think transphobia and the conflicts over that, and the criticism "genderswap" stories as trope face vs. stories reflecting transgender people in a more realistic way could probably fill a page of its own too. (Is there already a page for that? I searched for transphobia and nothing came up.)--Ratcreature 17:59, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, those are all good topics which deserve pages. Perhaps once they happen, there can be a page which links to all of them and gives an overview, but now that I think on it, ATM, I think such a page would be very unbalanced, in what it would omit. --Betty 00:57, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

scope too narrow?

Currently the page seems to be about homophobia in slash fandom. Does anyone want to add sections or frame it to make it clear what other examples of homophobia in fandom are out there? If we want to keep the focus, should the page be renamed to Homophobia and Slash Fandom?--aethel (talk) 01:20, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

This comment is a few years old but I think reorganizing the page to add more sections talking about the different ways that homophobia appears in fandom is a great idea. There’s a few examples I want to add of homophobic behavior that don’t quite fit into any of the existing sections, so I would definitely be willing to help with adding and rearranging sections.

This is what I think would be a good way to organize the page would be:

First would be a section discussing “general” homophobia. Things like fans expressing homophobic viewpoints over the concept of queer representation, homophobic jokes about actors/creators/fans/etc, communities banning discussion of homosexuality, and other broader topics like those.

After that could be a section detailing how homophobia can show up in fic writing, with the current “in fanfic characters” and “in some slash authors” sections being moved and reworked to fit here. This section could specifically talk about subconscious biases or ignorance about how homosexuality works can influence a fic author’s writing.

Then last could be a section specifically about homophobia in relation to shipping, talking about how fans of slash ships are treated in comparison to fans of het ships in the same fandoms, etc.

Since reorganizing the page would be a major thing, I’m going to try to contact the gardeners and see what they think about updating and reorganizing the page before doing anything further. TheVioletHowler (talk) 23:53, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

I do agree that this page needs an update, and I'm a bit concerned with some of the references and links that aren't really adding a fannish perspective to the page. (TV tropes and Wikipedia's MSM page) Also why is Chip n Dale Rangers the only fandom been called out for homophobia and in so much detail? That feels like it would be more appropriate on the fandom page.

I think we could change the sections, to focus on topics rather than the origin of the homophobia. This would also provide authors with more general topics for including new information. For example, here's just a rough summary of some sections we could have, using only the information that's currently on the page:

1. A section on tropes/warnings used by authors - They're Not Gay, They Just Love Each Other, Internalized Homophobia and Period/Canon Typical Homophobia
2. Homophobia in Submission Rules (for the zines and early websites)
3. Homophobia in Fandom (a general summary of how accusations of homophobia can arise in fandom, the details of any specific controversy should be on the fandom/ship war/ship page)
4. Biphobia in Fandom (same as above)
5. Transphobia in Fandom
6. Fandom Demographics & Homophobia (if we can't fit this in somewhere else)

We can also address the discrimination of slash and femme slash readers, I've seen a lot of people saying that if you read slash (BL, Yaoi, M/M) and don't read femme slash (Yuri, F/F) you are prejudiced, misogynistic or even fetishistic. And when the opposite happens, I see a lot of people saying that it's phallophobia, misandry or even right as if reading slash was wrong and reading sapphic content was better, giving preference to one over the other. I see this a lot in the Brazilian fannish community. Things like that also happen to us foreign fandoms (i.e. yours?) --Ellakbhesse (talk) 06:42, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

(Nods) I think that can be included in a homophobia in fandom section, because its like TheVioletHoweler said, there are often accusations of homophobia related to shipping practices. I have made some changes to the first half of the page and I'm going to wait a few days before making any more changes, to make sure no one disagree with the direction of the page.

(ETA Just realised, we'll probably want to call the Homophobia in Fandom section something different, because Homophobia in Fandom is the name of the page)--Auntags (talk) 23:17, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

regarding the Chip n Dale Rescue Rangers being the only one called out, i personally was planning to add more examples of fandoms that have notable reputations for homophobic behavior/rhetoric being more common so that it doesn't look like one fandom is being singled out. If there are more examples of homophobia in that fandom then on an examples list, a short paragraph summarizing the attitudes/behavior the fandom is known for could be added to the example list. On another note, i've been thinking for the 'Homphobia in Fandom' section that something like "Fannish Discussions" or "Fannish Attitudes toward queerness/homosexuality" or something along those lines. And then after that section could be the "Hompohobia in Shipping" section. TheVioletHowler (talk) 17:37, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Found time to take a look at the page and this talk page too, and thought I'd voice a few of my own thoughts.

• Transphobia in Fandom already has its own page so probably having a brief summary and a main article link would be enough. For consistency's sake, there should be a similiar thing on that page about Homophobia in Fandom.
• I'd also like a section on Lesbophobia in Fandom. If either that or the Biphobia section get big enough, they could get their own seperate page.

Currently run out of spoons to add anything else, but I'll get back to it later when I get the chance. -- OfMonstersAndWerewolves (talk) 22:36, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Ooh, I did have an idea this morning about having something about the co-opting of legitimate lesbophobia discussions by TERFs/GCs, and how that impacts fandom. Perhaps including that in the Transphobia in Fandom section perhaps -- OfMonstersAndWerewolves (talk) 23:06, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay. I didn't mean for anyone to feel like they couldn't edit the page while we were waiting for feedback! The sections have been added. And feedback and new edits are welcome!

There may be a lot of overlap between the homophobia, biphobia and lesbophobia sections. A long time ago, slash just meant any not straight ship. And femslash/poly ships were also banned under the old submission rules. But if we are planning to build those sections into their own pages, I think a little duplication is to be expected. I also think its fine to add examples, with different examples in the different sections. But the Chip n Dale example was actually calling out one message board and that community appears to have banned everything but g rated discussions. It didn't seem like it was relevant to the topic of the page, but I'm open to correction on that one!--Auntags (talk) 23:14, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Awesome. I went ahead and expanded the Homophobia in Fan Communities section to describe some of the patterns of behavior I've noticed over the years. I do have a question: for the shipping practices subsection, should that be covering things like homophobia/homophobic rhetoric in shipping discussions/ship wars, how slash pairings and shippers are treated by the general fanbase, and things like that? Or should those be in the main section? TheVioletHowler (talk) 07:10, 10 December 2022 (UTC)