Emma Corrin and 'homophobia'

[IdgieThreadgoodeIsMyHeroine]

Emma Corrin claims to have experienced homophobia since 'coming out' as non-binary.

Emma Corrin is in a relationship with Rami Malek.

Make it make sense.

It became clear during the boxing brouhaha that some people think that expecting a woman to have XX karyotype and no testes is buying into gender norms. Seriously. Mad times.

If someone at a football match started yelling out that xyz player was a queer, took it up the arse, whatever these rude football chants might say...then they would be accused of homophobia, even if they player wasn't out as gay/wasn't even into men. So I think calling someone gay slurs/insults is homophobic regardless of the sexuality of the victim.
If the person is using it to insult someone. It's basically saying that by using 'gay' as an insult you are inherently homophobic.

I still think she's an attention seeking irritant though.

There are indications that this stretches back to the 1970s and probably prior to that. This is from another thread and these 'gatekeeping' discussions always remind me of the final sentence here.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4281733-The-Trans-Umbrella-Is-Older-Than-You-Think?reply=108674196

This too, from the Gay Liberation Front journal - Come Together - issue 11: Lesbians Come Together. It's from a piece by the GLF Transvestite, Transsexual and Drag Queen group, originally published in 1972:
A more central question is how to relate to other women. When we talk about our hopes and fantasies, it becomes apparent that what we want above all is to be accepted as women, primarily by other women. But will we achieve this by looking for ways in which we share experience with regular women or by developing a unique transvestite consciousness?
Sometimes the second approach seems real militant and proud, at other times it seems a cop-out, accepting the prejudiced view that we're not women, that we're some freaky third sex (or fourth or fifth?). Possibly we can find some light by considering the situation of black women and gay women, who develop black pride and gay pride, but still explore their feelings as women. Think how much more inspiring and beautiful the women's revolution will be when it joyously includes all women. Think of a Holloway demo with transvestite, transsexual and drag-queen women, gay women and heterosexual women, black, yellow, brown and white women, working women, housewives and career women. Certainly, whatever course we take as transvestites, transsexuals and drag queens, we must first destroy the trap wherein regular women set up standards by which they accept or reject us . (my bold)

https://archive.org/details/cometogetheryear00walt (from page 164)

😂😂😂😂. No. No one sees Emma as a man.

Oddly enough also Emma Corrin has only ever played female characters.

And following on from that, if trans characters should only ever be played by trans actors, then in fairness a non-binary actor such as Emma Corrin or Emma D'Arcy should never be cast as an actual female, only ever as a non-binary character.

No, it's fine. Because of course they are actual females, and characters worth playing are all 'nonbinary' (ie not purely depicted as feminine or masculine stereotypes). The identity label and pronouns they choose has no bearing on that reality.

Indeed!!

When you still get the occasional poster who believes the statement made by a male athlete that ‘their testicles don’t make them less of a woman’, your thoughts on people’s perception of reality go places dark and deep.

When you still get the occasional poster who believes the statement made by a male athlete that ‘their testicles don’t make them less of a woman’, your thoughts on people’s perception of reality go places dark and deep.

Plumbing the depths of shallow thinking

Bloody hell @NonLinguisticRhetoricIsMyKryptonite I'd read that many moons ago but had managed to forget it. Lays plain a few things about this huge farrago.
Certainly, whatever course we take as transvestites, transsexuals and drag queens, we must first destroy the trap wherein regular women set up standards by which they accept or reject us . (my bold)

The reductio ad absurdam of this is that acting shouldn't exist, as a part should only be played by the person who it was. So bye bye fictional plays as the characters never existed, and bye bye historical ones as everyone is dead.

It totally misses the point of, um, acting.

No, because the sort of person who will force themselves to see Corrin as "a man" is not the sort of person who would give a gay couple homophobic abuse. If you can't cope with gay, you definitely are not on board with trans.

Now, this is where many FWR regulars will want to jump in and explain that gender ideology is homophobic in practice, which is also true.

At first glance my two statements would appear to contradict each other so I'm going to unpack this.

There many different voices and perspectives making their opinions known around trans activism and LGB rights, and ascribing motiviations to others gets very messy very quickly - person A may wrongly accuse person B of the same thoughts as person C because B&C C both disagree with A.

Corrin may well have had homophobic abuse from people with traditional ideas about gender and sexuality, but this abuse would be centered on her gender non-conformity (not being "butch" but rejecting traditionally female presentation) so would take the path of "she's cut her hair, wears a suit and she's not smiling and giggling for men, she must be lesbian". Nothing to do with Corrin's relationship being "a man" with a man, because while those people would indeed also abuse gay men, they would not see Corrin as a man in the first place and therefore not perceive the relationship as gay.

Surprisingly, despite the LGBTIAQ+ rhetoric some TRAs and trans commentators have said very homophobic things about (to use their concept) "cis" gay people. The key thing here is that the venom is directed at specifcally cis gay people because they are seen as gatekeeping or as pulling the ladder up. These people might (try to) see Corrin as "a man" but would not target her with homophobic abuse because she's the type of "gay man" they like. This abuse is homophobic because they are weaponising the language that most insults the group they are angry with rather than because they are motivated by conscious homophobia, if you see what I mean. (Unconscious yes, undoubtably).

And beyond both of this, there's the homophobia/misogyny underpinning the whole concept of trans identities, the unspoken assumption that if you are not "man enough" (or woman enough), you are actually a women (or a man). This intersects with the traditional first group in the assumption that gay men are "feminine" / feminine men are gay, and gay women are "masculine" / masculine women are gay. But this is never said out loud by TRSOH, and again would not surface as homophobia towwards a trans gay "man" because the gay trans man persona is fitting into this world view not challenging it.

(Apologies @franceslucia if your post was satire and I just springboarded an essay off it! But it's a good essay regardless).

That's odd, because when it comes to trans people, it doesn't matter what other people think they are, all that matters is what they think they themselves are. Apparently.

Noooo! No new words please! It’s bad enough seeing people mangle the perfectly adequate words we already have .

Noooo! No new words please! It’s bad enough seeing people mangle the perfectly adequate words we already have .

I'd much rather people did come up with new words, because the misappropriation of the ones we had renders them meaningless.

We have two perfectly good existing words. Solipsistic egomaniac.

I was going to be much more vulgar and say I believe Emma is a stupid and obnoxious twat, but yours version sounds much better :)

Meh, there's a non binary gnat's chuff between the two descriptions.

Is this true in all cases though? I mean that in these cases (and Dietrich in particular) the male clothes only ever make a woman look more feminine and highlight her appeal to men?

And does this mean that a more androgynous woman is less female, or that clothing worn to attract women rather than men is desexualised (you seem to use 'sexuality' to only refer to sexuality aimed towards men)

I'd argue that Dietrich was somewhat androgynous so it wasn't simply a case of highlighting sex appeal to men (tho that was obviously a big element). Hinting at bisexuality (which was ofc an actual part of her private life) was part of her persona since her days in the Berlin cabaret (see her film Morocco or song 'Wenn Die Beste Freundin' especually)

Old thread but this is a funny one.

If someone believed Emma to be a man they could be homophobic about her relationship regardless of her actual sex or identity.

However Emma is blatantly and obviously female in person. She even uses a female name so someone couldn't be homophobic about the couple if they haven't met and just went on names. The only people who /could/ be homophobic about Emma's straight relationship are trans true believers who think she isn't a woman because she says she isn't.

Everyone is non binary. Nobody totally conforms to gender stereotypes. I am so sick of the tedious me me me of it all. It’s so boring.

I suppose the only scenario would be an either stupid or short-sighted homophobe who saw Corrin as a feminine gay man. Some women, eg. Winona Ryder for one, have claimed they received abuse when mistaken for feminine gay men. But this doesn't seem like it would happen a lot.

I know this is an old post but curious: do you think a butch or at least somewhat masculine/androgynous woman could not be a model/highly styled then? They're not mutually exclusive.
Take Erika Linder for instance- lesbian, career took off when she posed dressed as young Leo Dicaprio (looking pretty convincing imo) and she's since modelled masculine & androgynous clothing.

https://uk.pinterest.com/pin/791718809467046999/#:~:text=Erika%20Linder%2C%20contacted%20us%20on,Terry%20Richardson%20and%20Bruce%20Weber.

Or back in the 90s, Jenny Shizimu is pretty hard not to see as butch or at least androgynous and she modelled that kind of stuff (Calvin Klein etc)

www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/66660/1/lesbian-visibility-week-2025-jean-paul-gaultier-jil-sander-vivienne-westwood#:~:text=ALL%20HAIL%20JENNY%20SHIMIZU&text=Arguably%20the%20most%20influential%20and,both%20Madonna%20and%20Angelina%20Jolie.

It seems (could be wrong) that some on this thread would argue that women with feminine features or somewhat androgynous ones that could maybe pass as or at least resemble a feminine man/teen boy could not be butch? Unless I'm misunderstanding?

Or is that you think androgynous styling and/or looks is not gnc enough to qualify as butch, esp if done in a modelling environment?

I would somewhat agree - I've seen some lesbians argue that even if they weren't bisexual, women like Cara Delevigne, Loli Bahia or Kristen Stewart have feminine or at the most boyish features so masculine clothes just accentuate their femininity, and therefore they aren't butch. I do see the point, but in some ways in cases like Linder and Shizimu I would argue that they could be.

Not really got an opinion on Corrin, except that she's disgusting for pushing binders.

Sorry for the revival for stuff not directly related to EC! It's just that I've recently been reading Eleanor Medhurst's history of lesbian fashion & it made me think about the what kind of look & features is defined as 'butch'.

This is interesting : ofc we know Twiggy is straight & the outfit wasn't an attempt to hint at ambiguous sexuality- in her heyday her androgynous look was often remarked on but that isn't the same thing.

But let's say the woman in that photo wasn't Twiggy and was actually a lesbian who wanted to dress in a trad masculine way. Would they be butch? I'd argue no as that hairstyle is feminine, others might think her facial features are anyway too feminine to qualify. I'd probably agree.