Apropos the last point, I would also like to add on that it is incredibly difficult to draw up a universal ruleset for what depictions constitute fetishizing/offensive or not. It's highly contextual, and individual.

I have seen trans artists and writers get accused of fetishizing/oppressing themselves for art they've made, about themselves, especially if that art features trans bodies or sexual content, and that's kinda fucked up.

Like, one person might find an erotic depiction of a feminine non-op trans guy fetishizing, while someone else might find it affirming. The creator might've simply wanted to explore their own body type as something desirable, something many trans people intensely struggle with, but risk getting swarmed by the purity police for it.

So often, queer artists and writers end up having to out themselves because they get accused of being cishets fetishizing/misrepresenting queer identities, when they're really just trying to explore and express themselves through art.

The solution to stopping fetishization has never been to obsessively check if the creators of "potentially problematic" content have the "correct" identity, and are therefore "allowed" to produce it, or that the audience has the "correct" identity to be "allowed" to consume it.

Saying "if you aren't gay, you shouldn't be consuming or making gay content" has the same kind of energy as telling a kid "if you aren't a girl, you shouldn't be interested in girl stories"; both hold this idea that the experiences of different groups of people are so fundamentally different as to hold no genuine connection to one another, so the only interest across lines has to be some sick voyeuristic fascination. (Who does that sound like?)

And that's just so wrong. And actually a little dehumanizing?

Many groups of people can relate to feeling like your love is forbidden. That your sexual desire (and wanting to be desired) is shameful and wrong. That you are considered inherently lesser or even dangerous for some part of who you are. There are a lot of thoughtful articles out there about why queer themes might resonate with other groups of people (and vice versa), because we can in fact relate to each other even if we're also different. And maybe that's a good thing?

And just as a personal opinion; I don't give a shit what content one creates or consumes involving fictional characters and their relationships as long as you respect the humanity of real people who share those traits.

it also empowers people who Do intentionally target trans mlm/nblm when you give them a system that they can exploit. when we have terfs and radfems and transphobes in general arguing that trans mascs are Really all women fetishizing Real gay men (either encouraging people to detransition or presenting trans mascs as predators to demonize and harass them) then we have to step back and look at the framework they’re working off of and Why it can be so easily exploited to demonize people who didn’t do anything wrong.