Stop saying characters who act slightly different are autistic.
Stop saying characters that are both male and friends are gay.
Stop saying characters who don’t act like their gender norms are trans.
Stop saying characters who never mention anything about sex are asexual.
Because these “headcanons” keep harmful stereotypes from finally dying off.
Nope.
I’m going to say it.
Marginalised kids who, in their hunger for any scrap of media representation, latch onto the smallest hints that their beloved characters might be like them, are not responsible for any part of their own marginalisation. Ever.
If someone looks at a character and sees a reflection of themselves and it makes them feel good to pretend that the representation that doesn’t actually exist for them is there somehow? Good for them.
It’s respectability politics garbage to tell marginalised kids that they need lots and lots of evidence that their favourite characters are like them before they’re even alowed to imagine it, just in case someone higher in the kyriarchy sees it and thinks, “Ah! This stereotype is Now Officially Confirmed and I can Be Oppressive with a Clear Conscience.”
Stop blaming marginalised people for their own oppression 2kEver
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