A list for anime fans that are sick of how gay anime tends to cater to straight peoples fantasies. These are more mature and have an actual plot/are made for queer people.
Antique Bakery - Shoujo comedy otherwise titled “Seiyou Kottou Yougashiten: Antique” and 西洋 骨董 洋菓子店 in Japanese. It has 12 episodes and also a live-action adaptation! It follows the lives of four men working in a bakery. The owner and waiter, Tachibana, comes from a rich family and was kidnapped as a child. Haunted by nightmares of the experience, he decides to open up a cake shop. Yusuke Ono is the patisserie, and went to highschool with Tachibana. He’s known as “the gay of demonic charm” because men often fall for him regardless of their orientation. Eji Kanda is a former and injured young boxer with a major sweet tooth working as Ono’s apprentice. Finally, Chikage Kobayakawa is a childhood friend of Tachibana sent by Tachibana’s family to keep an eye on him. He’s very clumsy and struggles with training to be a waiter.
Bloom Into You - School romance anime titled “Yagate Kimi ni Naru” and やがて君にな in Japanese. 13 episodes long with an English dub available. Yuu Koito is a freshman who’s never experienced feelings of love. When a junior high student confesses to her, she feels nothing and delays her response, entering highschool without giving a reply. While there, she meets Student Council President Touko Nanami, who shares her lack of romantic feelings. Touko encourages her to turn the junior high student down, and the two girls bond over their similarities. Things seem to be going well until Touko admits that she’s developed feelings for Yuu.
From The New World - Psychological Sci-fi drama titled “Shinsekai Yori” in Japanese. 25 episodes long with an English dub available. Though the two female love interests are featured below, the show also has two male love interests and all the main characters are heavily implied to be bisexual. Following an outbreak of psychokinesis in 0.1% of the population, a transformation sweeps rapidly through the world. The ability to manipulate matter sends earth into an era of chaos and violence before the psychic humans are finally able to cobble together a fragile peace by isolating themselves from society and creating a new world for themselves thats bound by comolex rules. Inside the town of Kamisu 66, 12 year old Saki Watanabe has just awakened her powers and is happy to rejoin her friends- Satoru Asahina, Mamoru Itou, Maria Akizuki, and Shun Aonuma- at a special academy for people with powers. Things arent as happy and peaceful as they seem though when Saki begins to question what happens to those without powers..
No. 6 - No. 6 is a science fiction dystopia taking place in a city known only as “No. 6”. Shion is a privileged boy from an elite family, on the right track to becoming a well adjusted and functioning member of society when he meets a boy named Nezumi, on the run from authorities. When he gives him shelter and is discovered, his entire world is cjanged and the privileges his family had are stripped from them. Years later, after finding a mysterious body, the two men are reunited. English dub available, 11 episodes.
Revolutionary Girl Utena - Titled “Shojo Kakumei Utena” and 少女革命ウテナin Japanese, Utena is fantasy/romance anime set in a school called Ohtori Academy. It follows a girl named Utena Tenjou, who’s always dreamed of being like a prince. She meets Anthy Himemiya, a strange girl referred to as the “Rose Bride” who is dueled over by the school’s student council in hopes of winning a tornament and gaining the power to “revolutionize the world.” The romantic relationship between Anthy and Utena is more explicit in the film, but the Anime has several more explicitly queer characters and moments. Family and sexuality are two of the most reoccuring themes throughout the show. English dubbed, 39 episodes + 1 film.
Simoun - Titled シムーン Shimūn in Japanese, 26 episodes available and only English subtitled. Simoun is a planetary romance/coming of age Anime taking place on an earth-like planet named Daikuriku. The people born there are all born female. In the nation of Simulacrum (a land with a monopoly on helical motor tech that other lands covet and wage war against) all girls grow up until the age of seventeen, before travelling to the “holy place” and selecting their permanent sex. Simulacrum is defended by airships known as “Simoun” that can only be piloted by priestesses known as “Sibyllae” which are girls who havent chosen a permanent sex. Doing so prevents them from piloting the ships. This story follows the girls as they nake important decisions regarding their futures while a war is waging.
Sweet Blue Flowers - Coming of age romance Anime titled “Aoi Hana” and 青い花 in Japanese, 11 episodes and only English subtitles available. The story follows Fumi Manjome, a lesbian high school girl and her close childhood friend Akira Okudaira. It follows both girls and their friends as they enter highschool and face new struggles and challenges such as dating, coming out, and realizing others in their lives might be queer as well.
Wandering Son - Titled “Hourou Musoko” and 放浪息子 in Japanese, subtitled only, 12 episodes long. The story follows two young transgender children from elementary school all the way through high school. Shuichi Nitori is seen as a boy, but she longs to be recognized as a girl. While in the 5th grade she encounters Yoshino Takatsuki, who everyone believes to be a girl but is actually a boy. The two bond over their similarities and become close friends. Wandering son touches on many topics from pubery related worries to binding to transphobia.
Whispered Words - Titled “Sasameki Koto” and ささめきこと in Japanese. 13 episodes, only subtitled available. The series follows Sumika Murasame, a 15 year old student secretly in love with her female best friend, Ushio Kazama. Ushio also likss girls, but only cute small ones- which Sumika is definitely not. The two friends get to know another two girls in their class who are a couple, and contemplate starting a “girls club” for lesbians. The series tackles several topics surrounding sexuality and gender.
Yuri!!! On Ice - Titled ユーリ!!! on ICE in Japanese. English dubbed, 12 episodes. Yuri on Ice is a sports-comedy Anime series about figure skating. After a crushing defeat in The Grand Prix Final, 23 year old Japanese figure skater Yuri Katsuki returns to his hometown and puts his career on hold. But after a recorded version of him performing a routine by his idol, Victor Nikiforov, pops up online, his entire life changes. Victor shows up at his family’s hot springs and offers to coach him.
i hate how they market alexa as a ‘member of the family’ like that’s SO fucking blatantly insidious and terrifying also if i wanted an untrustworthy/cold/emotionless machine in my life i’d just talk to my fuckin father
It’s my opinion that like if a white supremacist/Nazi is going to be reformed. They need to do so willingly. The only times I’ve heard of successful rehabilitation of fascists is when they made the conscious decision to no longer be one anymore and seek atonement. People who try to like hug and change fascists that don’t want to change are fucking morons
Correct. I was crypto-facist for a few years, and the people trying to hug me didnt change me because at that point I wouldnt have listened. It was only when I started to see the movement for what it was that I was finally able to listen.
I’m not derailing your addition but I’m horrified you’re only 18. When did you become a fasc?
Yeah trust me it *is* horrifying. I’m ashamed of who I was and I think my only atonement is to talk about how damn easy it is to become one when you’re young.
This is gonna be a long post.
For a little bit of background, I am a mixed race person, half brown and half white. I was raised in a Muslim family and am still closeted around them.
I started to have issues with Islam at around 12 or so, when I first started to get the idea that I might be gay. Now I never would have admitted that was my reason. If you had asked me I probably would have said “logic” or something. Because of that I went hard into atheism and atheist circles.
Now people hate to admit this but ex-Muslim spaces are predominantly right wing. Ex-Muslims often see the left as “too tolerant” towards a religion that hurt them. This was the only community I had though, and I read through everything. I was 13.
The other thing that people hate to admit is that, especially when you’re young, being mixed race is so damn hard. If I acted “too white”, following my mother’s German/Austrian traditions, I was accused of hiding my true nature. But if I acted “too brown” I was just another camel jockey. So I hid my “Indian” customs from others and tried passing as white. Especially online.
So I’m not saying this is all youtube’s fault or anything. I was raised to believe that the brown half of my family was lesser and stupid. And with my hatred of Islam, I believed it doubly.
Then came Anita Sarkeesian. I was watching pewdiepie and from there my recommendations were all set. If I’m remembering the pipeline it was pewdiepie - Philip Defranco - Chris Ray Gun (sp?) - Thunderfoot - Sargon - etc. But I was pretty much acquainted with all of the right wing youtube of the day.
Funnily enough, I found her through Thunderfoot. That got me into antifeminism, and more specifically, GamerGate.
I was primarily on the subreddits KIA (Kotaku In Action) and TIA (Tumblr In Action). Both made fun of the SJWs. I kid you not, I would gleefully wait for “Sanity Sunday”, where the people would talk about how feminism is disgusting, cultural appropriation is fake, the wage gap isnt real, etc. I would scroll through this tag for hours.
I got most of my youtube recommendations from those subreddits. This led me from GamerGate to more fascist lines of thinking, such as watching videos about why BLM is a terrorist organization, why all muslims were evil rapists, and why I was fundamentally right to reject my Indian heritage and follow my “correct” heritage.
From here I delved into “race realism”, and I believed it all. I had to. This was the only community I had felt safe in. One of the fash guys even offered to shack me up at his house if my parents kicked me out for being atheist. I was 15.
To say that again, I was 15 and believed that white was right, blue lives matter, “we wuz kangs”, etc. I never would have called myself a fascist or a Nazi. How could I? I used my brown skin as a token, so that people could point to me and say: “See, we aren’t misogynistic and racist! We have this brown girl right here.” But I believed in all the things the Nazis did. I’m not going to pretend I didn’t. I will never pretend I didn’t.
But then something happened. I admitted to myself, and to a few others, that I was gay. And suddenly, the homophobia that I had molded myself in, it didn’t fit right. I happened to, by accident, click on the reddit thread of GamerGhazi, the opposition to GamerGate. And after a long bout of introspection I found out that they were accepting of gay people, that the things I had been experiencing were common, that maybe, just maybe, we didn’t need a white ethnostate.
I don’t want to be dramatic but that accidental click saved my life.
From there it was a road of recovery. I deleted all my old accounts, made new ones, and started to read leftist theory. I found better friends, cut out old people. So now, just about two years later, I’m healing.
I think that’s everything. I probably got some times and dates wrong because I’ve been trying to move on from it. But if you need more info or anything like that, please let me know.
Controversial Truths About Ancient Egypt Masterpost
The pyramids were built by contemporary workers who received wages and were fed and taken care of during construction
The Dendera “lightbulb” is a representation of the creation myth and has nothing to do with electricity
We didn’t find “““copper wiring””” in the great pyramid either
Hatshepsut wasn’t transgender
The gods didn’t actually have animal heads
Hieroglyphs aren’t mysteriously magical; they’re just a language (seriously we have shopping lists and work rosters and even ancient erotica)
The ancient Egyptian ethnicity wasn’t homogeneous
Noses (and ears, and arms) broke off statues and reliefs for a variety of reasons, none of which are “there is a widespread archaeological conspiracy to hide the Egyptian ethnicity”
The carvings at Abydos aren’t modern machines but recarvings over old carvings. Sure they look like them but if you can read hieroglyphs and know that Ramesses II will even usurp the carvings of his own father just to be a little shit
‘No soot on the ceilings and walls of the Dendera temple!’ is actually because of extensive restoration works and not because Egyptians were in on shit like Baghdad “batteries”
While the Egyptians were fine-ass astronomers they didn’t align any of their enormous and/or important buildings to modern star constellations, because constellations look very different now than they did ~5000 years ago
The pyramid is the simplest, sturdiest shape with which to build and many different cultures discovered this in their own time. There were never any weird fish humans/aliens involved
The sphinx of Gizah is only an approximate 5000 years old; the 10,000 year/rain erosion nonsense is proven hokum
Speaking of that particular sphinx, the Napoleonic expedition is not responsible for its missing nose
Akhenaten was not a “heretic” by contemporary standards
Ramses II appropriated a lot of his predecessors’ buildings/reliefs and isn’t really deserving of the epithet “the Great”
The Battle of Kadesh ended in a stalemate (twice)
While they had feline deities throughout their history, Egyptians didn’t actually worship cats themselves. This was a later Greek/Ptolemaeic addition
It was not, in fact, practice to shave off eyebrows after cats died; Herodotus lied about that
Herodotus lied about a lot of things and many misconceptions about ancient Egypt can be traced back to his Greek ass
I can’t believe I forgot my favourite Hill to Die On
Seth was not the god of “evil”, and despite his chaos providing a foil to order, he wasn’t completely villified until very late in Egyptian history, when he became associated with despised foreign enemies
Hats off to the few of you who’re reblogging this with tags saying you’re going to check my claims later. You make me not entirely despair of this hellhole.
Here are some vetted Egyptological books/sources (that are by and large appropriate for a lay-audience) you can find most, if not all of the above:
Lehner, M., The Complete Pyramids
Wilkinson, R. H., The Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt
Hornung, E., The One and the Many: Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt
Dunand, F. & Zivie-Coche, C., Gods and Men in Egypt
Kemp, B., Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization
Bard, K., An Introduction to the Archaeology of Ancient Egypt
Stevenson Smith, W., The Art and Architecture of Ancient Egypt
Kitchen, K. A., The Life and Times of Ramesses II, King of Egypt
Sweeney, D., Sex and Gender (in Ancient Egypt)
McDowell, A. G., Village Life in Ancient Egypt:
Laundry Lists and Love Songs
Te Velde, H., Seth, God of Confusion
Guys do me a solid and reblog this version instead of continuously asking for sources on the other versions thanks
The thing about Seth is that he is half of a whole. Not only in the sense of “without chaos there is no order”, but also in that the Egyptians liked to see joined in their king both the aspects of Horus (faithfullness, respect for parents) as well as Seth (strength, cunning).
Hatshepsut describes herself as follows:
(…) as I wear the White Crown, as I appear in the Red Crown, as Horus and Seth have united for me their two halves, as I rule this land like the son of Isis (Horus), as I have become strong like the son of Nut (Seth). (After Sethe & Helck, 1906)
Turner (2016) likens Seth to a minister of foreign affairs rather than a foreigner himself. He served a purpose, even as he was worshipped by the Hyksos, the invading foreigners - foreigners who were eventually driven out. Only after Seth “failed” to aid in the driving out of further invading foreigners did he become villified.
As for the appearance of the gods: certain gods were portrayed with animal heads, but this does not mean that the Egyptians thought of their gods as being anthropomorphic with an animal head tacked on - it means that the gods had two (or more) distinct forms, and that they could appear as either.
Hathor, for example, was portrayed as both a cow and a woman, as well as a woman with a cow’s head, or a ureaus snake, or a lioness, or the cow’s head (with feminine characteristics) seen on columns. There is a statue on the Louvre that shows four of these forms side by side:
The iconography of the gods is, as Hornung (1971/1982) puts it, “an attempt to indicate something of [their] complex nature.” So in our example Hathor can appear in many forms, indicating her many-faceted nature. She’s not simply a woman with a cow’s head; she can be in the woman and she can be in the cow.
The gods are portrayed this way to communicate the nature of the gods to the illiterate members of society (the great majority). No one really believed that Khepri was a guy with a dung beetle for a head.
I love how people are reblogging this without a care for how transphobic it is to look back at a figure in history and declare that they could not possibly be transgender, despite all the evidence to suggest it as a possibility.
No one is trying to claim they know with absolute certainty that Hatshepsut was trans or even queer, it is impossible to know since we cannot ask her. But looking at the evidence, it is beyond anyone reasonable to deny that she is “queer” amongst her peers–other female rulers of Egypt.
“Regardless of how she might identify today, however, the reality remains that she was born female and chose to rule as a king - no female pharaoh before or after her ever felt the need to rule as a man to legitimize their claim.”
“Based on the records available to us, it’s simply not possible to know what was in the heart of a pharaoh who ruled over 3,000 years ago. Much like sexism made her the Lady Macbeth of Egypt in the 20th century, cisheterosexism could very well be preventing modern academics from understanding the full picture of who Hatshepsut was.”
Although I’m pretty much done arguing about Hatshepsut, I want to once again point out that there’s absolutely no transphobic intent behind the statement in my original post, and frankly I’m getting sick of people suggesting this or outright accusing me (and anyone who reblogs this) of transphobia. 90% of Tumblr absolutely loves its kneejerk responses and it really shows.
Unfortunately, “no female pharaoh [sic] before or after her ever felt the need to rule as a man to legitimize her claim” is an incorrect statement and does not reflect the reality of Hatshepsut’s rule or that of, say, a Sobekneferu or a Tawosret.
Basically every female monarch of Dynastic Egypt had themselves referred to as the masculine ni-sw.t-bi.ty, the Middle Egyptian for “king”; not just Hatshepsut. The Egyptian language grammatically does not allow for that specific title of “king” to take feminine markers. They legitimately can’t do anything but refer to themselves with a masculine marker if they want to use that title (and they do, because they are king).
Additionally Hatshepsut, in the text “The Birth of Hatshepsut”, does refer to herself as “Her Majesty” - Hm=s in Middle Egyptian. The word Hm, “Majesty” can take feminine markers. The only times Hatshepsut uses masculine markers to refer to herself is when she grammatically cannot do anything else. Every other time she used the feminine markers. The same goes for the other queens.
Tawosret for example had a combination of male and female epithets, and both she and Sobekneferu had themselves, like Hatshepsut, portrayed with emblems of the king, such as the nemes-headcloth. Sobekneferu is listed as “king” (masc.) in at least one of the contemporary king lists.
The statue of Tawosret with a combination of male and female epithets, where she refers to herself as ni-sw.t-bi.ty (king (masc.))and sA-ra (son of Ra)
Bust of Sobekneferu portraying her with the royal nemes-headcloth
Scene from Tawosret’s tomb in which she refers to herself with the title sA-ra, son of Ra
Titles of Tawosret: “King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Daughter of Ra, Beloved of Amun, Son of Ra, The Powerful one, Chosen of Mut”
All arguments for Hatshepsut being transgender hinge upon the fact that she sometimes used masculine markers to refer to herself, and that she allegedly had herself portrayed as a “male” where no other Egyptian female monarch did so. Those arguments just don’t stand up to scrutiny. She refers to herself with sometimes masculine markers; so do other queens. She has herself portrayed with the emblems of office; so did the other queens. These emblems of office such as the false beard are, as an aside, a marker of royalty and kingship, and not necessarily of masculinity. Hatshepsut’s statues (and, to keep to our examples, those of Tawosret and Sobekneferu) read as female as per the strict rules of Egyptian art:
Statue of Hatshepsut where she’s depicted with breasts and wearing a wrap dress, traditionally female markers in Egyptian art
Hatshepsut does not seem to be queer even among her peers - instead, she functioned exactly as was expected within contemporary social and cultural boundaries (apart from taking on a traditionally male office, but no one really took issue with it until long after her death - originally her damnatio memoriae was attributed to her successor Thutmose III, but there is no evidence to support this defacing of her monuments happened prior to Amenhotep III. Tawosret had the worse deal, as she likely was dethroned after a period of civil war and immediately scratched from the record by her successor Sethnakhte).
The bottom line of this discussion is that we cannot project modern gender constructs upon a culture that did not have those same gender constructs. While I fully believe that historical representation of LGBTQIA+ individuals is important, we have to do so within the cultural and historical framework of the society that individual belongs to, and not simply apply a modern Westerncentric term to a famous historical figure based on an incomplete understanding of the evidence.
I’m saying we can’t claim Hatshepsut was transgender because there is no unequivocal evidence to give her a label with a purely modern definition. You’ll notice that I did not claim she was therefore cisgender, because this too is a gender construct inherent to modern Western society, and not to Pharaonic Egyptian society.
Transgender people exist, and they are valid, and I would never deny nor have I ever denied any of them the right to express themselves the way they want to express themselves. There are individuals within the historial record which we might refer to as either losely or closely corresponding to what we now call “queer”, but Hatshepsut was not one of them, this based upon the evidence, and our understanding of Egyptian society and Hatshepsut’s person. If you’re interested in learning more about Egyptian individuals in a relationship with an individual of the same sex, check out (the tomb of) Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep.
