If I find out about ONE MORE “progressive” artist who draws exclusively PiV sex and says it’s representing trans folk, but then none of their characters are actually trans, they have no dysphoria, no actual connection to a gender other than the one they were assigned at birth, they’re literally just cis people who use different pronouns for the heck of it, I’m going to KILL MYSELF.
Are there people that actually do that?
YES, and every time I remember they exist, I get PRESSED AS FUCK about their terrible treatment of trans issues.
(forgive me for ranting further)
You can totally draw trans folk engaging in PiV sex without being gross about it–and that would actually be progressive, that would be some real, honest shit, because, too often, trans folk are viewed as incapable of engaging in sex. People think that, due to our dysphoria, we just. Can’t have sex pre-op. We can and do, we’ve just found ways to cope with the dysphoria during intercourse.
(tmi but as for myself, my dysphoria has gotten worse as I’ve aged, so I can no longer comfortably engage in any sort of sexual activity with others; but that’s just me)
But there are certain artists who only ever draw PiV sex, and who only ever make a character trans for the sake of drawing non-heterosexual PiV sex. Then they turn around and try to play it off as, “OH NO THEY WERE ALWAYS TRANS!!! IT’S PROGRESSIVE! I’M REPRESENTING QUEER FOLX!!!”
It’s super obvious to everyone around them (who isn’t blind or completely uneducated re: trans issues) that, no, they didn’t make that character trans for a good reason, or even just because they enjoy making trans characters–they specifically made them trans so they’d have an excuse to draw PiV sex.
Because they give these characters NOTHING in common with real trans folk. They strip the characters of any sex dysphoria, turn them into nymphomaniacs with personal space issues, and only ever bring up the fact that they’re trans to either 1) shield against criticism, or 2) remind everyone that this isn’t NASTY EVIL HET SEX, it’s Q U E E R SEX.
We never hear about their transitioning goals. We never hear about their struggles with sex dysphoria. We never hear about how transphobia has affected them. We never hear anything about any issues that real trans folk face and, frequently, openly discuss. They cut these characters off from trans communities, they never so much as whisper about trans communities or our history.
They are literally made for fetishistic porn that the artist then tries to pass off as subversive and progressive.
people aren’t angry about comey getting fired because he’s a good guy who got dinged by a bad guy. actually he’s one hell of a dirty cop, and people have been pissed at him for a while – notably because he did a big reveal on clinton’s emails during the election, timed to distract from trump’s pussy-grabbing tape, but didn’t reveal that trump’s campaign was also being investigated until after the election. in other words, he did spin control and character assassination work for trump.
so yeah, no, he’s compromised and he deserved to get fired. six months ago.
why are people angry now? well, this very obviously dirty cop was getting off scot free until he investigated trump. and then suddenly the smear job he did on trump’s behalf is worth firing him over.
that’s why it’s such a big deal. trump’s white house is full of hydra goons, and they’re the right wing’s precious babs until they ‘turn traitor’ by trying to fight crime or serve the public. and they’re no longer even trying to hide it.
I want us to have actually saved these species, but I notice I’m confused about. Aren’t most of these numbers below a healthy gene pool size? Basically, aren’t they all going to have major problems due to inbreeding and eventually die out because of it?
Please tell me how this works.
They’re probably going to be unusually susceptible to being wiped out by something, and will likely be weaker than if they had more genetic diversity, but I don’t think they’re likely to just die out from their own inbreeding unless the original founder population was already sick. IIRC, Australian dingos are so closely related that the founding population was probably smaller than that of the species mentioned above, because getting dogs to Australia is hard.
However, I am Not A Biology. Like, really really not. Someone with a better understanding of genetics and founder effects should definitely let me know if I have this all wrong.
First of all, the minimum population sizes they’re citing are *in the wild*. For a few of these, the population in the wild was unsustainably low, but there was a large enough captive population that genetic diversity could be maintained.
(Why don’t we count wild and captive populations together? Among other reasons, there are some few species that are totally extinct in the wild and aren’t likely to be reintroduced any time soon. We have over a hundred Hawaiian crows in captivity, but every time we try to reintroduce them their natural predator–the Hawaiian hawk–kills them. Apparently they defended themselves against hawks by mobbing them, but that’s a learned behavior and there are no Hawaiian crows alive that were taught it. Last I heard, researchers were trying to teach the crows that behavior. Not sure how that’s been going…)
@sinesalvatorem is absolutely right about low genetic diversity being an issue, though. If all the individuals in a population are genetically similar, you’re going to have issues with individuals getting two copies of recessive deleterious mutations, all individuals being similarly susceptible to a strain of infectious disease… fun stuff.
There’s a lot of active management–when numbers get that low, we tend to keep a very close eye on any genetic disease-appearing things, and then try to prevent that. The prairie chickens in Wisconsin, for example. There isn’t enough contiguous prairie land left in WI to sustain a big enough prairie chicken population, so conservationists have to transfer specific birds between populations for mating. (Sounds like a fun job.) Or, I’d assume, whatever strategies (ethical) dog breeders use to reduce genetic disease in really inbred populations.
Even when there’s a bottleneck, the effects might not be disastrous. The northern elephant seal was seriously overhunted until the late 1800s. At one point, there might’ve been fewer than fifty left, and because of their social structure/mating habits the effective population size (i.e. the number of individuals that actually contribute genetic material) may have been substantially lower. After hunting them was prohibited (and that was, at least at first, the only intervention), the population size increased pretty quickly. By the 1970s there were tens of thousands of individuals. I think it’s over a hundred thousand now, but don’t cite me on that.
Compared to the southern elephant seal, a closely related species that wasn’t hunted nearly to extinction, their genetic diversity is way down. But they seem to be doing fine–the population got to a stable level within a few decades (pretty good for a slowly reproducing species!), and it looks like it’ll stay stable as long as we don’t start hunting them again and climate change doesn’t affect them too much.
Some of these species will require an indefinitely long period of observation/management to maintain stable population sizes. Others will go extinct anyway, whether because of the effects of inbreeding or because their original ecosystem has changed so much that their niche is now absent or better filled by some other species. But a small population size isn’t necessarily a death sentence. (Extinction sentence?)
TL;DR there may be few or no individuals in the wild but a pretty good number in captivity; active management helps to ameliorate the effects of inbreeding; even significant inbreeding doesn’t necessarily lead to extinction.
Yay, thank you! This is very much what I wanted to know. @fermatas-theorem, if this is also what you wanted to know.
I am Silver Tongue, I am an artist. I have many characters and you can check out my art in the art tag. I occasionally practice witchcraft though I don't do anything too complicated. I am girl 2 and don't know what else to put here.
