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white trans people stop identifying with Orientalist depictions challenge
Okay so I am going to make this as… short and clear as I possibly can but essentially, Orientalism is the way the colonial West depicts the East.
Orientalism was first coined by Edward Said in 1978 with his book, “Orientalism.” Essentially it’s a critique of how the white West portrays the East (the Orient) as this exotic yet dangerous place while simultaneously fetishizing its people. It’s the way Western white scholars or artists depict the people in the “Orient” and how this single monolithical depiction of the East can build up harmful stereotypes as there is nobody to counter-claim them because of their “credibility.” The book goes into a lot more detail, it explains why the East is portrayed as it is by the colonial West, how a lot of white people view the East as something they can fix and unfortunately it’s still very prevalent today.
It’s why Hollywood tends to put that piss yellow filter on geologically Eastern countries, or why Asian or African countries are often depicted as a monolith or why Sci-Fi and Fantasy genres are the way that they are. There is this fear of the East but also this perverted interest in their culture through a colonial lens.
So why am I bringing this up? Have you heard of the Orientalist art movement?
It was an art and academic movement where the West scholars and artists would travel to the East (mostly Southwest Asia) and depict these regions and their people through their white Western lens. Often hyper-sexualizing their people in grotesque ways, writing cheap penny novels depicting Southwest Asian men as sexual predators, fantasizing about Harams, drawing women in skimpy innacurate outfits often tailored to the Western gaze and boil down to “pale woman in skimpy thinly veiled outfit does sexy belly dance.”
What I’m trying to get at is that these Western “credible” people would go out of their way to dehumanize and portray Eastern people and cultures as their “costumes” or “leisure.” The East became the colonial West’s carrier as they profited off of them.
These depictions are of course… innacurate, but they still live on. A lot of media nowadays, especially Fantasy and Sci-Fi media, portray these rich and diverse cultures as "very sexually charged people,” and “dangerous, but for us to conquer and fix”
So where does gerudo link come into this? And why did I make this statement?
There’s this… weird phenomenon especially on the internet where people tend to over-sexualize or effeminate men by putting them in these Orientalistic outfits. If you’re active in Fantasy spaces, then chances are you’ve seen characters in thinly veiled clothes, this weird sensual bikini or gold ornaments to “sexualize” them (this is especially common with Southwest Asian or North African coded characters).
Why is it bad when white trans people identify exclusively with these depictions?
Because you’re not identifying with the character’s gender as you think you are, you’re identifying with years and years worth of racist and dehumanizing depictions of our cultures. Drawing men in gold ornaments or “sexy ‘middle eastern’ bikini” outfits isn’t as progressive as you think it is.
If anyone’s interested, I didn’t know where to put this but here’s an article from 2012 by Serkan Gorkemli called “’Coming Out of the Internet’: Lesbian and Gay Activism and the Internet as a ‘Digital Closet’ in Turkey” where they state that LGBT+ acceptance was hindered in the late Ottoman Empire because of Orientalism.
Link: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/jmiddeastwomstud.8.3.63?seq=1
Here’s Dror Ze’evi detailing that point further in “HIDING SEXUALITY The Disappearance of Sexual Discourse in the Late Ottoman Middle East” where he discusses the slow gradual disappearance of sexual discourse and identity throughout the history of the Ottoman Empire.
Finally if you’re curious, here’s the link to Edward Said’s Orientalism
https://www.eaford.org/site/assets/files/1631/said_edward1977_orientalism.pdf
Since this post blew up overnight for some reason I want to make things clear.
I made this post SPECIFICALLY because a white person tweeted that Gerudo Link was very “gender” and a bunch of other white people flocked to agree and it was my last straw lmao. I’ve seen this happen with other characters, this notion that if they show some sort of skin (especially with male characters) they’re very “gender” which you know, you do you, but I’ve seen this applied to Orientalist depictions which is where my problem relies. If you’ve never seen it happen, great for you! Doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen though :)
Why did I say white trans people specifically and not white people in general, and you know what you’re right! Orientalism is something every white person should be aware of. However in this case, like I said, I made this post for this specific topic, that I have personally seen happen. I want LGBT+ white people to know that they are not exempt from racism. I want you all to know that just because you’re trans that does not mean you cannot be racist nor can you understand what being BIPOC and trans is like when a big reason why LGBT+ is now seen as “taboo” in many countries is because of colonialism and Westernization.
“Am I not allowed to enjoy ____ anymore?” Nobody is saying that you cannot enjoy whatever piece of media you enjoy or that we want to “cancel” them, what I am trying to get at is that as a Southwestern Asian it’s literally impossible for me to go through a fantasy or sci-fi series without seeing any sort of Orientalist depiction (this doesn’t have to be just the hypersexualization or belly dancing aspect of the theory btw, Orientalism is bigger than that, that’s why I provided the PDF). I just want you to be critical of what you consume and identify with, and to question why you identify with racist depictions if you do.
Lastly, if you want “coherency” or “professionalism” then go check the sources or do your research. This is just a bite sized tumblr post and I owe nobody an Academic level essay on this topic. I started the research for you, go and read the sources I provided as a start if I’m too “unfollowable”.
thanks a lot for this post. i think the white people questioning if this “really” is a pattern need to fully absorb the truth of - no, the reason you as a white person has never seen this happen before and therefore don’t believe this to be an issue is NOT because you happen to surround yourself with magically good white people, but because you’ve seen it, not thought wrong of this behavious, and ignored it. perhaps even partaken in this behaviour yourself without contextualising it as harmful
i never saw the tweet you did, but i’ve seen so so many other white trans and/or GNC people fetishize orientalist depiction of particularly women as their “ideal gender” for years and years, and its not like i seek out these behaviours intentionally
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