Where did all the Weird Nerd Women go? by Eliza Mondegreen

[NonnyMouse1337]

Long, but interesting, interview by Eliza Mondegreen about the kind of dynamics that arises within online spaces for hobbies & interests that are mostly popular with women.

https://genspect.org/where-did-all-the-weird-nerd-women-go/

Some snippets:

Nicole: Every hobby I have is saturated by gender identity and this started way back in the early 2000s.

The spaces where I’ve spent a lot of time online tend to be female-dominated spaces dedicated to shared interests like writing, drawing, theater, and fandom. Let’s start by establishing a kind of baseline for what these communities are like. Most people probably understand that the women drawn to these types of activities are often obsessive neurotics. That can make these spaces difficult to navigate socially —which is zero fun when you’re Autistic, by the way—because people tend to be sensitive and terrified of confrontation unless there’s safety in numbers. We’ll get to that. At their worst, these spaces bring together a bunch of people who are terrified of rejection, brooding about whatever offense someone has committed but not doing anything to work it out. Not everybody is like this, but it can feel like that sometimes.

These spaces can also be highly sexualized, and the TIFs [trans-identified females] I know are hypersexual. Some are too afraid to have sex with real people, but others have multiple sexual partners and bring sex into all kinds of conversations. If you prefer non-sexual content, even asking where you can find that kind of content will result in you being shouted down by hypersexual women for judging them for liking sex. But it isn’t just that they like sex. It’s that there’s no sense of boundaries and the mere suggestion that some boundaries should exist is considered prudish and conservative.

I get the sense that these spaces are full of people who live unfulfilling lives. Working in food service or retail is not fulfilling. Some of them do have partners—generally their partners are also mentally ill—and/or children, but that isn’t enough. They don’t feel like they’re succeeding at anything. And even those who are very talented wind up unfulfilled creatively and dependent on receiving a steady stream of positive feedback, which is unrealistic to expect when there is so much creative content out there.

I know I’m making it sound like these spaces are completely awful all the time, but they’re not! There’s a lot of camaraderie and fun. My fellow mentally disordered disaster women can be brilliantly entertaining, creative and interesting. And it’s possible to somewhat insulate yourself from the more dramatic and toxic elements. But you can’t understand why gender took hold in these spaces unless you understand the drama and toxicity.

That's so interesting. Some older women I know are into this and have been not-women for a really long time (IDing as men or NB). You can't have a discussion around it.

The short answer is: I wanted to understand why women like me–weirdo nerds with Autism diagnoses who love to write and draw–were so likely to decide we weren’t women.

I really relate to the section after this.

It's sort of funny how some autistic women go digging into gender ideology and end up realising it's complete nonsense because so many things don't logically add up, while some autistic women seem to fall down the rabbit hole completely and think that because they feel some sort of disconnect between themselves and societal expectations of womanhood, it must mean they are "not women".

To be fair, many moons ago when I was younger I felt the same. I was very isolated and depressed and relied on various online spaces and communities. But thankfully I seem to have missed the whole transgender craze. Not sure how.

Some interesting info about the bizarre world of slash fan fiction.

Back in the early 2000s, the more mainstream nerdy writing and illustrating spaces were very homophobic. There was a lot of antagonism between the mainstream nerd spaces and the more niche 'slash' fans who wrote fan fiction depicting gay relationships. Even the slash fandom could be blatantly homophobic. It wasn’t uncommon for women to write disclaimers about how homosexuality was a sin before sharing art or fiction about gay relationships.

There was also a lot of misogyny, even in female-only spaces. Like, very hostile to female characters existing at all. Women would wish violence upon female characters for having the audacity to star in their favorite TV series or pair off with their favorite male character. So if you dared to write about female characters, you could expect your work to be torn apart.

As society as a whole became more accepting of gays and lesbians, so too did these online spaces, which helped move slash into the mainstream in nerd-creator spaces. At the same time, a new culture around social justice was also taking hold. There was a lot of interest in examining media from a social-justice lens. In some ways, this just shifted problems that already existed onto a new terrain. Female characters were still more harshly criticized than male characters, but now these criticisms were framed as “Oh, the woman writing this female character is a bad person who has internalized misogyny.” Meanwhile, slash fans got accused of “appropriating” gay male culture. Sometimes, these criticisms came from gay men, who pointed out the ways that gay characters written by female authors didn’t line up with their experiences. But most of the time, the criticism came from women attacking women they didn’t like. Over time, this culture of criticism pushed more women into writing male characters because they were less likely to be attacked. Even if you wrote a boring male character, your fellow female creators would shower you with love and praise. If you wrote slash, you might be criticized for fetishizing gay men. But it turned out there was a way around that.

The first handful of women I knew who transitioned were all hardcore slash fans, who underwent medical transition and claimed to be gay men. These women became some of the most vocal critics of other slash writers because now they were authentic and nobody else was. More and more people began to claim not to be women: they came out as nonbinary or demiboys or something. Even if they don’t go all the way, these identities still provide shelter from criticism for writing gay male characters. And identifying as trans means they can say, “Oh, that’s why I never write female characters, because I’m not a woman and it’s triggering.”

It's sort of funny how some autistic women go digging into gender ideology and end up realising it's complete nonsense because so many things don't logically add up, while some autistic women seem to fall down the rabbit hole completely

I think it works in a similar way with religion, and I’m reminded of the very unpleasant way my religious upbringing focused on the utterly horrible ways in which martyrs died, particularly female ones.
My school house was Clitheroe, and we were expected to memorise details of the way in which Margaret Clitheroe was pressed to death. It was seen as a worthy end. Not nice at all, and I only felt free of it decades later.

I think I’ve misinterpreted slash fiction! But martyrs were definitely romanticised and thought of in a personal way.

The numbers of trans identifying females who are also autistic females and gay females tells a story. Sadly, it looks like a lack of understanding of autism presentation in females and of the effects of internalised homophobia is contributing to female suffering. People look for tribes and young women are no different, online forums have acted as a proxy for lots of people who find social mixing difficult and it seems to be rife with TRA's desperate to radicalise them. We need to embrace this group when they are young enough to be helped with feelings of loneliness and isolation.

Bloody hell that's grim!!!

Interesting read.

"But, as time went on, it became harder and harder to believe. It was upsetting to realize that I’d spent years arguing that women could be weird nerds… only for all the other weird nerd women to say “Oh, no, we’re not women, actually.” It was easier to go with it when it was just the occasional slash-obsessed person coming out as trans and wanting to look like a J-rocker. But it came to the point where, whenever I joined a new fandom discord or a discussion forum or something, I’d know that everyone would be female and that none of them would put she/her in the pronoun field.
^^
Actually, at one point I caved. I joined a discussion group and I felt so awkward being the only person to use she/her that I put he/him. I justified this to myself by thinking, but we all know that everyone in this fandom is a woman, so it doesn’t matter. Anyway, it turns out we do not all know, which I found out when someone asked for advice and I gave it and everyone said, “Wow, how could you be so insensitive, you can do that because you’re a man, but we’re AFAB [assigned female at birth], so we can’t.” These trans-identified women then took it upon themselves to spend the next several months educating me about the female experience. (And I never told them the truth, because I’m an asshole and wanted to see if they would ever catch on. They didn’t)."

And this...

"The people I knew who medically transitioned already had the worst mental health of my peer group. Unfortunately, many of their mental health problems are such that modern medicine would not be much help, even if we restructured all of society to be more accommodating, and therapy and psychiatric medications more accessible. A lot of these people were already medicated to manage their mental illnesses but that didn’t mean they were anywhere near healthy or stable. Medical transition seemed to make their problems worse rather than better. They ruminated more and more over how they were perceived, became more and more self-conscious, and more prone to catastrophizing. Several of them ended up with eating disorders they didn’t have before they started transitioning. These are the kinds of things that made me question what I was being told about gender."

And I never told them the truth, because I’m an asshole and wanted to see if they would ever catch on. They didn’t)."

Yep yep yep, once you clock this, proof that people cannot genuinely consistently believe the things they claim to, I don't think there is any going back. Just day after day, proof that people, at best, haven't thought it through for more than 30 seconds, and at worst are just straight out saying any words they think they can get away with regardless of what it actually means for them.

I have seen this so many times.