@lux-magazine.com: "Policies designed to maintain “women” as a protected category in sports often endanger those women most in need of social protection. Yet if we were to listen to the voices in the Global North leading the charge to “save” women’s sports, it is exactly these most vulnerable women — overwhelmingly poor, racialized, #gender non-conforming, and #queer — against whom sports must be defended.."https://lux-magazine.com/article/gender-in-sports/

"Trans former judge plans to challenge gender ruling at European court": https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9qw2149yelo

Representation matters. That we HAVE a trans former-judge, somebody both well-equipped AND motivated to escalate this important challenge to the ECHR, is hugely fortunate.

We need more representation (of trans people specifically, but many other groups too, and perhaps particularly in the intersections) in positions of power, expertise, and authority. To defend the human rights of all of us.

Wishing you luck, Victoria McCloud.

#note #gender #trans #identity #laws #news #uk #europe

Via: https://danq.me/2025/04/29/trans-former-judge-plans-to-challenge-gender-ruling-at-european-court/

Currently thinking about the gender differences when a parent-kid relation is shown prominently in manga. So far I'm here, please correct me if I'm wrong:
- most of these relations focus on mum and son and are pornographic (that's a whole other subject ). Now let's check the remaining non-porno titles.
- when the relation is positive, we see more dad-kid (brave single dad doing his best) than mum-kid relations. Actually, maybe there's even more grand parent-kid than mum-kid relations.
- when the relation is negative, the dad-kid relation can be overcome for the character to grow and the mum-kid relation is more likely to break the character.

What do you think? Please share, I'd love to get other's opinions and examples!

Réservez votre soirée du 16 mai! Événement unique: deux livres paraissent, en même temps, sur la littérature jeunesse française, par des chercheuses anglophones. On parlera genre et guerre froide avec Julie Fette (Rice University, USA), autrice de Gender by the Book: 21st-Century French Children’s Literature (Routledge, 2025) et avec Sophie Heywood (University of Reading, Royaume-Uni), Children’s Publishing in Cold War France: Hachette in the Age of Surveillance and Control (Bloomsbury, 2025) https://magasindesenfants.hypotheses.org/16026 #litteraturejeunesse #bookdiplomacy #gender #feminisme @litteraturejeunesse

#WordWeavers 2504.28 — Do you pick the story, or does the story pick you?

My characters speak to me. Yes, I hear voices in my head. They demand I write their stories. They often show up when I'm writing other stories as this or that interesting person, or when I'm playing with an unusual idea. As a recent example, I stumbled onto a set of women's rights / gender equality prompts and misconstrued the French word for March, Mars, for the planet, you know, that red one? The character of May Ri popped in and demanded I help her fight the good fight to finally bring down all the badness happening in our society today. I wrote her web-novel in thirty-one days.

The story picks me. Definitely. The best ones drag me along kicking and screaming, and writing furiously.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing

#gender #fiction #writer #author
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion #RSstory #RSMarsNeededWomen

#WordWeavers 2504.27 — Would you ever want your MC’s life?

I realize that everybody's life is difficult, not just the people in the stories I write. Safety doesn't imply that life is good or easy. My general answer is that were I one of my MCs with no more than a dream-like impression of my current self, in most cases I'd like being them. It would be an exchange of my disabilities and fears for their disabilities and fears, along with their capabilities and goals. Since I am already a Walter (Wanda) Mitty as an author, I could live with that.

Devil-girl: She's autistic like me, so I could relate. I appreciate her bravery, brawn, and brains, not so much the terrors she lived through nor the PTSD or physical injuries she deals with. As her love life heats up, her life becomes a lot more attractive.

Thorn Rose: She's a brainy over-achiever with plenty of love and support from her friend Streak. She will become an astronaut, so that's a plus. That she has the main series antagonist (an absolute ruler) trying to train her for her unstated goals, her life is a bit intense, but with Streak's support I'd do it.

Streak: For him, Thorn is his one true love and she's never stinting. It's not easy being a guy in their society, but the roller coaster ride he'll go through being with her—supporting her when her meager supply of common sense fails her as it often does—might be well worth the ticket price.

Rainy Days: Despite being the main Reluctance Series antagonist, she's also an MC in some stories. Being able to watch and participate in the history of humanity while never aging beyond being 24 years old is enticing, especially at my age. She witnesses achievements and the fall of civilizations, sometimes being an agent of their decline. But she has family, repeatedly, again and again, but lives to see everyone eventually die. It's hard, but it is an opportunity to experience everything without breaking, and since memories always fade, even the old is new again, eventually. Her goal keeps her going: saving humanity from extinction, something she must work at daily because [spoilers], knowing full well that any mistake could end life on Earth. Okay, I'd take this one. Everybody's life is difficult, but real meaning is a rare and scarce commodity.

May Ri: Don't get me wrong, I love this character, but her life is full of lots of ups and downs. What she goes through is the wringer, and because I just wrote this story, it's visceral. I'm thinking No on this one.

Wintereyes: Her life is hard. She lives from the age of 7 to 21 as a member of a wolf pack she has befriended. She is exceedingly kind and indomitably brave in that, so much so that she befriends a dragon. It's because of her kindness (and the magic it evokes) that she always has friends that are there for her. I'd like to experience that, despite the hardships and the trials I know she will go through.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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#WordWeavers 2504.26 — Does your MC have good or back luck?

Luck is not a word in the language of any character in the Reluctance Series. Literally. Neither do they have a word that can express the concept of the supernatural or the divine. When an unfortunate event or a surprising success takes place, they will say, "Chance or skill?" The MC's totally take credit for being oblivious or having achieved something, and look for interference from people or real world events as chance may have it. They would see someone talking about "luck" or "wishing it" as we do as mentally ill, and this is a plot line in Reluctant Moon.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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#Italy #antifa #gender #history

"Sitting in a quiet library researching for my book, *Women of War*, headphones on, I pressed play on the first of the digital archival collection of oral histories from Italian anti-fascist partisans, as they were called, fighting the Nazis during the German occupation of World War II. The image attached to the recording showed an elderly woman named Lidia, who started by talking about her childhood under the oppressive Fascist regime.

'I’m going … give me the gun,' Lidia said a few minutes into her testimony. I held my breath as she explained that her partisan band had just received intel that the Nazis were going to 'mop up,' as Lidia described, an area of fellow partisans and residents with heavy artillery. Someone had to warn them. She grabbed the gun and hopped on her bicycle.

'I met this German patrol. What could I do? They ordered me to stop. I pulled my gun and started to shoot. I shot while I was riding the bicycle; I shot as long as I could carry on until I reached the right place and informed all the others. After that we spread the news quite quickly. I managed to get through all these bullets … I made it. The battle went well, and they survived.'"

https://people.com/my-grandmother-anti-fascist-women-of-war-essay-exclusive-11722109

#WordWeavers 2504.25 — How long does it typically take you to draft a novel?

I dislike the word typical. I am neither neurotypical nor typically autistic, nor am I a stereotypical author. Mostly, drafts get done when they do. The limiter on my productivity is how difficult the subject is; sex complicates every relationship. Most of my novel length works seem to take 10 to 14 months, and I know this is way too slow. My internal self-censor keeps pulling the hand brake. My aim is to complete 2 to 3 works a year. I am not there yet. Not even close.

My fastest draft took me 31 days to write from conception to "the end" and is 32 chapters long. That was Mars Needed Women, but it's a novel by fiat more so than length. Each chapter had to be short and packed with events, so it feels like a novel. Since the first draft, it's expanded from 23K to 33K in length, and I've got to finish already that flapping epilogue a tragedy in the story demanded. I've got beta readers chomping at the bit and I want to release it by the end of this month.

Prior to that, I it took me three months to complete a 70K SF space opera, and I did that writing (generally) four hours a day four days a week.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2504.26 — What kinds of conflict do you find the most compelling?

People who are attracted to one another but for social reasons can't show it. Better is when characters have to be together, have to interact. People are so weird. And fascinating. As a shy #actuallyautistic person I've observed them intently all my life. Yes, I've participated, too. I love to explore relationships of all sorts. Remember being shy doesn't mean shy people don't want to communicate.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2504.27 — What does a session of writing look like for you?

I sit down at a desk, start up my treadmill, or start pedaling my pedal desk. I then open Scrivener on whatever device happens to be there. I start composing. With the treadmill, I stop to write down the sessions stats at the completion of a walk, then start again.

That's composition, of course, which to many is synonymous with writing.

I find that it is easiest and most efficient to revise is using Scrivener on the Mac, as it allows me to have multiple views, access tools I need that only exist in the Mac version, and to use a feature that allows me to highlight my weasel and hedge words as I edit (a combination of a RegEx search and a feature called collections). In that case, it's definitely multiple monitors and multiple windows, and a lot of either reading text out loud or using the Speak feature I set to ⌘-F12 to have the computer read it to me. Yesterday I moved the Mac to the treadmill because I needed exercise as a twofer.

I don't often go somewhere to write, but I do visit the in-laws house or rarely write at a coffee shop (Philz), outside where I don't need to wear my KN95 and can drink my decaf.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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#WritersCoffeeClub #WCC 2504.28 — International Workers’ Memorial Day! How important is class or caste in your writing?

While I skip using caste in my stories (I have no experience with it), class (as in aristocrat, plutocrat, midde-class, homeless) shows up relatively often. Such distinctions are tools for the characters to get what they want and weapons to protect themselves. Class is a known social contract in society. Class distinctions work solely by agreement of terms by the classist and the classless. Events like the French and Marxist revolutions happen when the agreement breaks down. Class is a great shorthand for me as an author; it allows me tap into the stereotypes the mind of the reader. For example, let's talk about a princess. Princesses, indeed any royalty, are rarely as portrayed by Disney. Having brought up the stereotype, I can place it on a pedestal… and proceed to take a sledgehammer to the marble, or polish it like the brass not gold it is.

I employ class in the background of the devil-girl's various storylines. She's a middle-class girl elevated stratospherically in station at 5 years old, then ruthlessly trained. Not realizing it's an earned thing because of her capabilities, she rebels and runs away when she can be mistaken as adult. She goes through being homeless to using her capabilities to become somebody in her own right, but she gets used a lot (because she is capable) by the highest of the high, the monied, and the oppressed. Class generates story; the structure gives me opportunity to discuss women's issues and gender in a different light.

To be clear, class is only one of many tools.Moreover, the above was an analysis of my writing. I'm not one to plot or plan out these things. I just tell the story of a person who has such attributes and watch to see how it plays out.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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“This meeting condemns the Supreme Court ruling defining the term ‘woman’ with respect to the Equality Act as being based on ‘biological sex’, which they refer to as a person who was at birth of the female sex, as reductive, trans and intersex-exclusionary and biologically nonsensical."

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/healthcare/article/resident-doctors-british-medical-association-supreme-court-ruling-biological-sex-krv0kv9k0

It's a UK association but the resources work for everyone.

"Distinction is a support organization which is aimed at helping people who want to or who are supporting their partner that is Transgender, Non Binary or Gender Fluid."

https://distinctionsupport.org/

"To take #equality seriously, we must accept that rights matter in relation to both #sex and #gender, though not necessarily in the same contexts. We must accept, too, that we need to defend rights for all individuals, whether they define themselves by sex or gender."

https://observer.co.uk/news/opinion-and-ideas/article/kenan-malik-column-trans-rights-supreme-court

#sexualequality
#womensrights
#transrights
#societalrules
#UKpol
#equalityact
#Equalityact2010
#genderrecognition
#biologicalsex
#LawFedi

"The UK Supreme Court’s transphobic ruling on the definition of 'woman' last week is a defeat for all women—even, ultimately, the self-described feminists celebrating it, and the women who will gain in the short term from their alliance with the carceral state."

~ Sophie Lewis

#trans #UK #gender #women #GenderEssentialism #authoritarianism
/1

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/supreme-court-trans-ruling-analysis-uk/

Female bonobos find strength in numbers, teaming up to fend off males in the wild, a new study finds.

@AssociatedPress reports: https://flip.it/POWYbL

#PennedPossibilities 656 — How forgiving is your MC?

You get to make a mistake once, so long as you didn't badly injure or kill someone. She will correct the mistake, and ensure that you understand what went wrong and why it was a mistake. Don't repeat your mistake. Don't try to lawyer your way out of it. Don't be a fool.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

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