#AmWriting: “Autobiographical ‘#sissy memoirs’ explicitly reflect on the possibilities for reclaiming #sissiness: childhood pain drives radical self-acceptance culminating in “the sissy triumphant, enraged, jeweled by an elegant crown of his own devising” (Doty, 1999: 106). Deliberately embracing the margins, the adult sissy gains the right to conspicuously flout social rules in a theatrical, glamorous and often playful self-reinvention.” #GenderStudies #QueerStudies #TransStudies #PornStudies

#AmWriting: “An essential part of the policing of gender involves shaming. Yelling ‘#sissy’ at someone lets them know that they have failed to maintain the appropriate standards — but also discourages social engagement unless they can ‘fix’ their nonconforming behaviour. This shaming is performative: identifying and denouncing #sissiness is in fact how young men-in-the-making prove to themselves and others that they are sufficiently manly” #GenderStudies #QueerStudies #TransStudies #PornStudies

#AmWriting: “Grant (2004) has documented how fear and anger at #sissiness became institutionalised in modern capitalism. Pre-industrial households kept children in the women’s sphere regardless of gender, but in urban contexts the need to distinguish boys from girls had become pressing. Child-rearing thus “recast [little boys] as men in the making” (p. 830); any attachment to #femininity was seen as sickly, failed and disordered” #GenderStudies #QueerStudies #TransStudies #PornStudies #sissy