Contact me - marensdasein@gmail.com
Today has been rather dull for me so far. There's nothing new on my radar I want to talk about, but I started this blog with the intent of posting daily so post I shall. in times such as these I have a notes app that I've taken to writing a few sentences into whenever I hit an interesting though I'd like to expand upon later. Looking back on those I came across this gem: "I think maybe I was so into My Little Pony as an outlet for my femininity." That sure seems like an interesting topic so here we go
For those of you who have only met me in the past... 5? years or so, you might not be aware that I was, and to some extent still am, a pretty big fan of the 2010s reboot of My Little Pony. I wouldn't say it consumed my life from about 2011 to 2017ish, but I bought merch, went to cons, watched new episodes weekly, started some fanfics, abandoned all of them, and so on. It was, what I would call, my primary fandom. Certainly, it's more than fair to say, I was a part of that odd phenomenon in internet culture termed "Bronies". I won't go into the culture and controversies of the fandom (the fandom really isn't without its toxicity) in this post, but what is important here is there was a community of predominantly cis men that supported each other for engaging with a franchise intended to appeal to young women. Enter me a transfem egg who is aware of neither of those terms being exposed to this community where femininity expressed by men wasn't shunned, but celebrated. While I wasn't (and still am not) in the habit of chatting with strangers on the internet the atmosphere of "love and tolerance" (as was basically our slogan back in the day) was deeply felt.
Then over the next few years the show itself began to support me. As an example I want to draw attention to Big Macintosh. He was the older brother of one of the main characters of the show (Applejack). He was a big masculine farm boy who didn't speak much. For the first season or two all he said was "Eeup" or "Nope". However, perhaps as a deliberate nod to the show's growing male fanbase, at the beginning of the second season he was shown to prize and cherish a young filly's toy doll. While this was obviously played as a joke the show never harped on it as somthing embarrassing or shameful and Big Mac carried on being the strong, silent, masculine figure he always was. A few seasons later, however, a rather complicated plot led to Big Mac adopting a drag persona (Orchard Blossom) in order to help out his and Applejack's younger sister Applebloom. In adopting this persona something quite magical happened: he became quite talkative and expressive. This really stuck with me at the time, and still to this day as does a portion of a Facebook post made by Big Mac's voice actor about the episode:
"My character on MLP doesn't say much. He thinks a lot, and feels a lot, but feels compelled - for various reasons - not to speak unless pressed. He doesn't feel free, perhaps, to be his inner self out loud. Among the things (desperation/loyalty/love) that put him in a dress is freedom. He feels liberated. He can TALK and be the person he always felt he couldn't be."
The whole post is worth a read its an incredibly heartfelt and genuine post in support of the trans community. Anyway, suffice to say My Little Pony and the brony community certainly gave me the support I needed to feel comfortable with the idea of exploring my gender identity. Not that I want to lay my egg cracking entirely at the feet of a serialized toy commercial and the far from morally spotless community of terminally online guys it managed to attract. The actual work of exploring my gender identity really began in earnest a year or two after that iteration of MLP ended in 2019.
I dont think the timing of that is coincidental. I started this post with only the first sentence of what I wrote in the notes app. The rest of it is: "Basically, a way of expressing it [my femininity] while also externalizing and distancing myself from it. It was somthing that would allow me to feel feminine by indulging while not having to admit to myself that I am, and want to be, feminine." This is what I found most conceptually interesting when looking back at my notes app. One of the things underdiscussed from within the brony community that was largely invisible to its members (or at least invisible to me) was a subtle undercurrent of homophobia and misogyny. It didn't manifest from feelings of repulsion, like one might expect, but rather from insecurity. There was an automatic defensiveness in the community to the idea of being seen as gay or trans for enjoying a show for little girls. It was ok to like the show and even express yourself in feminine ways, but you always had to keep in mind that you were a cis-het guy. This wasn't so pervasive as to be a universal attitude, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't share in that insecurity. This worked in conjunction with a kind of soothing effect on the gender dysphoria that I had already taught myself to bury under layers and layers of denial, and irrational rationalizations. In a way indulging my femininity with My Little Pony worked as a sort of opiate that distracted me from putting in the work exploring my gender identity. Ok, that's perhaps a bit harsh. A serialized toy commercial can't be reasonably blamed for stunting my personal development anymore than it can be blamed for kickstarting it. I'm sure had I continued to engage with the comics, and the fandom after the show ended with the same devotion with which I engaged with the show when it aired, I probably still would have come out as trans around the same time. Self-taught denial is powerful, but not all powerful. However, I do think its safe to say that I would have felt my gender dysphoria more deeply and more readily and maybe had seen it more easily for what it was had I not been unconsciously self-soothing with MLP. Maybe, If I hadn't started watching it in the first place I would have come out earlier, then again, maybe not. MLP and its associated fandom did offer me some kind of support and a safe place to express femininity. Guess it's just one of those complicated mixed up things.
Contact me - marensdasein@gmail.com