alias_sqbr

Heh, yeah, I think we both pretty much agree on everything :) (well everything relevant) And yes, totally, gay men can be misogynistic and I understand people being on the lookout for that.

First off: this is DEFINITELY not an OTW thing, it's just that the OTW has prompted discussions of fandom as a female space and that stirs up all this other stuff.

Second: I'm in a somewhat odd position in fandom since I'm not really "in" any specific fandoms, I pretty much just read fanfic and metafandom and the ljs of various people I know and like (often for non-fandomy reasons or because they lead me to the good fanfic) So my experience may not be very representative. Also the fact that I see my geeky "home" as male dominated science fiction fandom rather than female dominated fanfic fandom probably affects my judgement.

That said....

The thing with the exclusionary talk: it's generally pretty subtle,a subtext implied during discussions about other things, such as fandom as a female space. I'm not saying there's people loudly proclaiming that we should kick all the transexuals out of fandom or anything. It's rather like the subtle "lies of omission" racism I've seen in feminism: a group of (mostly) well meaning, pro inclusiveness people are not going to be deliberately oppressive or spout a bunch of politically incorrect insults or anything, but we're not immune to simply not noticing how our behaviour affects other people and then getting defensive when called on it.

Since I'm a straight cisgendered woman I'm not the best person to notice these negative effects myself, but I have noticed the knee-jerk defensiveness and refusal to even stop and listen and try to figure out if anything bad is happening when gay men etc complain. Given that most men who complain about fandom are unjustified misogynists I realise that this defensiveness makes a lot of sense, but I still think we have to be more careful.