u/Sea-Ad-4811

Nicole confirmed on her Q&A in the official DC Discord Server that there would be more stories addressing the Jay-Nia conflict in the future!! She had also confirmed he wasn't a villain but moreso someone she has a lot to deal with.

They are both also aligned closer together in terms of what it means to be a hero and what goodness means despite their animosity.

Also confirmed: Nia is currently living with the Secret Six, so that's Nia, Lori, Thomas, Floyd and a Waller who doesn't know herself. Jay is completely off the radar.

I would like to start his by prefacing a few things.

1.Intersectionality

People conceive of marginalized identities as separate from one another. Disability, Trans rights, Gay rights, Women's rights, Racial Equality are all viewed as different issues to cover with varying levels of priority. Those who are interested in discussing these topics quickly become aware of "intersectionality", where we view privilege and discrimination through multiple identities rather than one.

But, the effect of these combinations of identities on people's experiences have been simplified. As Kimberlé Crenshaw has said using the example of the experiences of black women, misogyny and racism don't simply come together, they create something entirely new.

2. Every form of oppression has different frameworks and approaches

Intersectionality shows how living with different identities can lead to newly formed methods of social oppression, the new thing is formed because all the identities mentioned above need varying approaches.

Decolonization is Not A Metaphor by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang explains how colonialism impacts different groups differently. The settler-native-slave triad model to understand North American colonialism is used to explain this.

If you haven't read it(I read it like, 2 hours ago), it talks about how the strategies taken to eradicate indigenous people and the strategies taken to suppress and use black people are different with varying end goals, and the liberation of one group of people cannot be achieved using the same methods as the other. Indigenous folks want their land back. Black liberation, struggle and freedom often involved the acquisition of land which ultimately contributes to Indigenous colonization. To liberate both demographics would require an acknowledgement of people's role in colonialism.

Similarly, the queer struggle and the colonial struggle while occurring due to imperialism, each require different approaches. They can't be lumped in together.

Unfortunately, the Jay-Nia-Jon story does treat oppression due to Nia's trans identity, and Jay's subjugation at the hands of U.S's colonization as comparable, which leads to the story undermining the impact of colonization.

Now onto the main thing:

A Conflict Undermined

Media likes to keep marginalized stories separate. If it's a queer story it's gotta be queer, not about racism, or vice versa, if it's about disability it can't be about caste or class, etc.

DC Pride, AAPI Month specials, BHM specials etc. These offerings for diversity demand the creatives to tell stories confined to these identities, which is attempted, leading to a lot of DC Pride specials ringing hollow. We deviated from this pattern of queer characters showing up only for Pride with Nia, Jay and Jon's story

The three met each other for the common cause of saving Gamorra. The foundation of Superman: Son of Kal-El is anarchist rebellion and going against status quo to liberate a colonized country. While they were queer, they had another cause to fight for.

Gamorra then became the center of conflict for a DC Event. Sara Nakamura, President of Gamorra was assassinated to create political chaos in an already unstable Gamorra allowing the United States to move in to colonize the country. Jay was then shot and taken as political prisoner. Later, we find out that the plans extended to Jay's assassination as well at the hand of the U.S., along with a plan for a genocide of Gamorran citizens.

Nia, was complicit in all this, forced as it was. As Absolute Power and Secret Six went on though, the above events slowly started fading to the background, often spoke in vague terms. Jay and Sara's names weren't even spoken, and neither had appearances. Jay was labelled a terrorist, dangerous enough to raise the Justice League's hackles. He lost his family, his love, his friend, and his country.

Meanwhile, we were seeing more stories and insights on Nia in the aftermath of Absolute Power. We see her guilt, her exclusion from the Justice League, her subsequently missing her gender reassignment surgery, and her heartbreak/sadness over her conflicting romantic feelings for Jon. We see her willingness to risk her life, saving Clark and the Justice League at the expense of her family, and losing her life saving Jon, and her suicidality.

Secret Six showed the fracturing romance between Jon and Jay.

We're not talking about Gamorra anymore. Gamorra was already set dressing when SOKE was happening, though it was much better at centering the voice of the oppressed through Jay. As the story went on, Gamorra's safety & the impact of the colonization faded to the background and it became battle grounds for generating plot lines and angst for American heroes. Jay was written out of Absolute Power, with great emphasis placed on Nia's guilt and self-sacrifice.

Move to Innocence:

Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang write about 'move to innocence' where people part of a colonial project, out of the guilt, try to justify their actions.

>

Later, we see Jay's anger, and Nia reaching out. While the story is clear that what happened in Gamorra was unjust, Jay's reaction is....not received well. Jon and Jay often argue, Lori mocks Sara's death. While Jon did say something hurtful to Nia, he was empathetic to her the rest of the run. The same goes for Lori.

On text, these characters often tell Jay (or to each other) he is in the right but when interacting with him or when Jay takes initiative regarding what to do about Waller or Gamorra, he is rejected, often with a level of hostility.

Lori tells Nia Jay is right, but she continues to mock him despite playing a role in the fall of Gamorra. Nia doesn't trust Jay and turns hostile when he states Waller is not responsible, the country is. Jon tells Jay off when he wants to fight the U.S.

All of these characters, while acknowledging Nia(and Lori's) part in colonization, ultimately begrudge Jay for not forgiving them because of their moves to innocence. In a Doylist sense, the story has provided these American characters, involved in colonialism, the perfect excuse to be absolved of their guilt. Nia's trans and was forced to do it, lori had a bomb in her head. "I had no power, I couldn't do anything".

>

Sympatheis were starting off low and continue to dwindle for Jay. Nia, while ostracized and definitely in trouble, gets empathy from Taylor, Oliver Queen(also responsible for Gamorra, moreso than Nia), Jon. They all know to varying extents she contributed to something horrible but are ultimately reaching out to her.

Jay's objectively in the right for being angry, for killing the soldiers who were involved in the plans to colonize his country, for not being forgiving or even receptive to Nia. The narrative says it, but emotionally speaking he is policed and pushed away.

Are we seeing the problem?

Jay, Nia, and Privilege

Nia's struggle as a trans woman in modern times has been set to the backdrop of colonization. While Nia is trans, she is also a white American who passes well and was directly responsible for colonization. No amount of claims to innocence is going to negate that. Blood is on her hands. The narrative wants us to see Nia as powerful, narration and exploration of her powers emphasize this, even if she is inexperienced. She repeatedly immobilizes Jay with minimal effort.

Jay is a gay refugee, and his struggles are centered entirely on his identity as a freedom fighter and victim of colonization. While Nia has played a direct role in Jay's oppression, Jay has nothing to do with Nia's oppression. And as established before, Jay is meant to be seen as weaker than Nia. I don't want to stretch it and this is more, an inkling of doubt than anything else, but positioning Nia as a potential love interest specifically with the context of the colonization story also undermines his character in an effort to elevate Nia.

The way Jay is queer is not the same as the way Nia is queer, and it's not just because gay and trans. It's because Nia is white, powerful, and an oppressor while Jay is a brown asian guy who has zero support systems and is oppressed. The colonization makes the manifestation of his intersectionality too different from Nia's.

Conclusion

Look everyone online is pissed off about Dream Girls #2 rn. People have been pissed since Absolute Power: Super Son. After about a year, the DC fandom has reached a boiling point.

People in the DC fandom are not nice about Jay. Racism, colorism, queerphobia, lookism, hang-ups about a decade old decision regarding volcanoes and time jumps. Most people are lukewarm, or hostile about Jay and Jon being in a relationship. But tides have turned. As off the end of Secret Six, people still don't want Jay and Jon to be together but because JAY is clearly in the right.

This fandom, has not be nice to Jay. Like ever. Neutral at best, racist at worst. But I've seen a lot of people going "hey that's fucked up what's happening to Jay" recently in other places.

It's hard to articulate why, because the Jay-Nia dynamic is a mess of intersectional identities and fandoms haven't much experience dealing with that. I actually had a positive reaction to DG #2 but as I sat with it, it went from nice, to uncomfortable, to "oh god no". People have had BIG reactions to it.

This is my attempt at articulating why.

It's probably childish to expect a comic company in America to acknowledge its role in colonization to an extent where some reparations are offered even in fiction. But, Pandora's Box on this plotline has been opened. There's no imperative to address it, but if we want Nia to be a hero again, Gamorra and Jay must be written about directly, and extensively to the same extent Nia and Jon's stories have been told.

The romantic conflict is out of most everyone's minds. The pertinent story to be told here, is that of colonization. As my friend put it, yeah Nia missed her bottom surgery but there's trans people in Gamorra who can't get access to any form of gender affirming care because of her involvement.

The consequences of these actions which have been shoved to the very back so no one; not the writers, readers or these American characters- have to think about what colonization really means.

It means theft, millions dead, forests razed, resources stolen, famine, starvation, assault, and decades if not centuries of damage.

(copy and pasting from r/lgbt_superheroes because I do not know how to repost and insert text into a post. hopefully it doesn't get taken down this time. sorry mods)

I would like to start his by prefacing a few things.

1.Intersectionality

People conceive of marginalized identities as separate from one another. Disability, Trans rights, Gay rights, Women's rights, Racial Equality are all viewed as different issues to cover with varying levels of priority. Those who are interested in discussing these topics quickly become aware of "intersectionality", where we view privilege and discrimination through multiple identities rather than one.

But, the effect of these combinations of identities on people's experiences have been simplified. As Kimberlé Crenshaw has said using the example of the experiences of black women, misogyny and racism don't simply come together, they create something entirely new.

2. Every form of oppression has different frameworks and approaches

Intersectionality shows how living with different identities can lead to newly formed methods of social oppression, the new thing is formed because all the identities mentioned above need varying approaches.

Decolonization is Not A Metaphor by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang explains how colonialism impacts different groups differently. The settler-native-slave triad model to understand North American colonialism is used to explain this.

If you haven't read it(I read it like, 2 hours ago), it talks about how the strategies taken to eradicate indigenous people and the strategies taken to suppress and use black people are different with varying end goals, and the liberation of one group of people cannot be achieved using the same methods as the other. Indigenous folks want their land back. Black liberation, struggle and freedom often involved the acquisition of land which ultimately contributes to Indigenous colonization. To liberate both demographics would require an acknowledgement of people's role in colonialism.

Similarly, the queer struggle and the colonial struggle while occurring due to imperialism, each require different approaches. They can't be lumped in together.

Unfortunately, the Jay-Nia-Jon story does treat oppression due to Nia's trans identity, and Jay's subjugation at the hands of U.S's colonization as comparable, which leads to the story undermining the impact of colonization.

Now onto the main thing:

A Conflict Undermined

Media likes to keep marginalized stories separate. If it's a queer story it's gotta be queer, not about racism, or vice versa, if it's about disability it can't be about caste or class, etc.

DC Pride, AAPI Month specials, BHM specials etc. These offerings for diversity demand the creatives to tell stories confined to these identities, which is attempted, leading to a lot of DC Pride specials ringing hollow. We deviated from this pattern of queer characters showing up only for Pride with Nia, Jay and Jon's story

The three met each other for the common cause of saving Gamorra. The foundation of Superman: Son of Kal-El is anarchist rebellion and going against status quo to liberate a colonized country. While they were queer, they had another cause to fight for.

Gamorra then became the center of conflict for a DC Event. Sara Nakamura, President of Gamorra was assassinated to create political chaos in an already unstable Gamorra allowing the United States to move in to colonize the country. Jay was then shot and taken as political prisoner. Later, we find out that the plans extended to Jay's assassination as well at the hand of the U.S., along with a plan for a genocide of Gamorran citizens.

Nia, was complicit in all this, forced as it was. As Absolute Power and Secret Six went on though, the above events slowly started fading to the background, often spoke in vague terms. Jay and Sara's names weren't even spoken, and neither had appearances. Jay was labelled a terrorist, dangerous enough to raise the Justice League's hackles. He lost his family, his love, his friend, and his country.

Meanwhile, we were seeing more stories and insights on Nia in the aftermath of Absolute Power. We see her guilt, her exclusion from the Justice League, her subsequently missing her gender reassignment surgery, and her heartbreak/sadness over her conflicting romantic feelings for Jon. We see her willingness to risk her life, saving Clark and the Justice League at the expense of her family, and losing her life saving Jon, and her suicidality.

Secret Six showed the fracturing romance between Jon and Jay.

We're not talking about Gamorra anymore. Gamorra was already set dressing when SOKE was happening, though it was much better at centering the voice of the oppressed through Jay. As the story went on, Gamorra's safety & the impact of the colonization faded to the background and it became battle grounds for generating plot lines and angst for American heroes. Jay was written out of Absolute Power, with great emphasis placed on Nia's guilt and self-sacrifice.

Move to Innocence:

Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang write about 'move to innocence' where people part of a colonial project, out of the guilt, try to justify their actions.

>Janet Mawhinney analyzed the ways in which white people maintained and (re)produced white privilege in self-defined anti-racist settings and organizations.8 She examined the role of storytelling and self-confession - which serves to equate stories of personal exclusion with stories of structural racism and exclusion - and what she terms ‘moves to innocence,’ or “strategies to remove involvement in and culpability for systems of domination” (p. 17). Mawhinney builds upon Mary Louise Fellows and Sherene Razack’s (1998) conceptualization of, ‘the race to innocence’, “the process through which a woman comes to believe her own claim of subordination is the most urgent, and that she is unimplicated in the subordination of other women” (p. 335).

Later, we see Jay's anger, and Nia reaching out. While the story is clear that what happened in Gamorra was unjust, Jay's reaction is....not received well. Jon and Jay often argue, Lori mocks Sara's death. While Jon did say something hurtful to Nia, he was empathetic to her the rest of the run. The same goes for Lori.

On text, these characters often tell Jay (or to each other) he is in the right but when interacting with him or when Jay takes initiative regarding what to do about Waller or Gamorra, he is rejected, often with a level of hostility.

Lori tells Nia Jay is right, but she continues to mock him despite playing a role in the fall of Gamorra. Nia doesn't trust Jay and turns hostile when he states Waller is not responsible, the country is. Jon tells Jay off when he wants to fight the U.S.

All of these characters, while acknowledging Nia(and Lori's) part in colonization, ultimately begrudge Jay for not forgiving them because of their moves to innocence. In a Doylist sense, the story has provided these American characters, involved in colonialism, the perfect excuse to be absolved of their guilt. Nia's trans and was forced to do it, lori had a bomb in her head. "I had no power, I couldn't do anything".

>Mawhinney’s thesis theorizes the self-positioning of white people as simultaneously the oppressed and never an oppressor, and as having an absence of experience of oppressive power relations (p. 100). This simultaneous self-positioning afforded white people in various purportedly anti-racist settings to say to people of color, “I don’t experience the problems you do, so I don’t think about it,” and “tell me what to do, you’re the experts here” (p. 103). “The commonsense appeal of such statements,” Malwhinney observes, enables white speakers to “utter them sanguine in [their] appearance of equanimity, is rooted in the normalization of a liberal analysis of power relations”

Sympatheis were starting off low and continue to dwindle for Jay. Nia, while ostracized and definitely in trouble, gets empathy from Taylor, Oliver Queen(also responsible for Gamorra, moreso than Nia), Jon. They all know to varying extents she contributed to something horrible but are ultimately reaching out to her.

Jay's objectively in the right for being angry, for killing the soldiers who were involved in the plans to colonize his country, for not being forgiving or even receptive to Nia. The narrative says it, but emotionally speaking he is policed and pushed away.

Are we seeing the problem?

Jay, Nia, and Privilege

Nia's struggle as a trans woman in modern times has been set to the backdrop of colonization. While Nia is trans, she is also a white American who passes well and was directly responsible for colonization. No amount of claims to innocence is going to negate that. Blood is on her hands. The narrative wants us to see Nia as powerful, narration and exploration of her powers emphasize this, even if she is inexperienced. She repeatedly immobilizes Jay with minimal effort.

Jay is a gay refugee, and his struggles are centered entirely on his identity as a freedom fighter and victim of colonization. While Nia has played a direct role in Jay's oppression, Jay has nothing to do with Nia's oppression. And as established before, Jay is meant to be seen as weaker than Nia. I don't want to stretch it and this is more, an inkling of doubt than anything else, but positioning Nia as a potential love interest specifically with the context of the colonization story also undermines his character in an effort to elevate Nia.

The way Jay is queer is not the same as the way Nia is queer, and it's not just because gay and trans. It's because Nia is white, powerful, and an oppressor while Jay is a brown asian guy who has zero support systems and is oppressed. The colonization makes the manifestation of his intersectionality too different from Nia's.

Conclusion

Look everyone online is pissed off about Dream Girls #2 rn. People have been pissed since Absolute Power: Super Son. After about a year, the DC fandom has reached a boiling point.

People in the DC fandom are not nice about Jay. Racism, colorism, queerphobia, lookism, hang-ups about a decade old decision regarding volcanoes and time jumps. Most people are lukewarm, or hostile about Jay and Jon being in a relationship. But tides have turned. As off the end of Secret Six, people still don't want Jay and Jon to be together but because JAY is clearly in the right.

This fandom, has not be nice to Jay. Like ever. Neutral at best, racist at worst. But I've seen a lot of people going "hey that's fucked up what's happening to Jay" recently in other places.

It's hard to articulate why, because the Jay-Nia dynamic is a mess of intersectional identities and fandoms haven't much experience dealing with that. I actually had a positive reaction to DG #2 but as I sat with it, it went from nice, to uncomfortable, to "oh god no". People have had BIG reactions to it.

This is my attempt at articulating why.

It's probably childish to expect a comic company in America to acknowledge its role in colonization to an extent where some reparations are offered even in fiction. But, Pandora's Box on this plotline has been opened. There's no imperative to address it, but if we want Nia to be a hero again, Gamorra and Jay must be written about directly, and extensively to the same extent Nia and Jon's stories have been told.

The romantic conflict is out of most everyone's minds. The pertinent story to be told here, is that of colonization. As my friend put it, yeah Nia missed her bottom surgery but there's trans people in Gamorra who can't get access to any form of gender affirming care because of her involvement.

The consequences of these actions which have been shoved to the very back so no one; not the writers, readers or these American characters- have to think about what colonization really means.

It means theft, millions dead, forests razed, resources stolen, famine, starvation, assault, and decades if not centuries of damage.

All art is political, some with intention, others not. If you're reading a queer story, the politics are intentional and no writers are clearer about this than Nicole Maines and Jadzia Axelord.

The Big Two Comics and every other media company inserts a queer character into stories(less frequently these days) without consideration for the politics which would shape the experience of the character, which makes them land hollow. That's why you and most people don't get obsessed with Bunker the same way you do Nightwing. Yes, it's the appearances, but every fandom is filled with fans of some passably attractive cishet white boy who have three seconds of screen-time. The issue is appearances yes, but there's more. Most stories are made in a manner which doesn't question cisheteronormativity or the experience of being a POC, and so the world-building and premise of these stories are inherently built to accommodate and magnify the white, straight, cis experience. When you place a queer character and/or a person of color in the context, they cannot exist without being diminished.

The stories that do land, are the ones which take this into consideration. Nia and Taylor are written with this in mind.

Nia and Taylor's origins show them having a deep admiration for superheroes. Their desire to be heroes is tied to their gender. Nia's Naltorian heroes were all women, and only women could attain dream powers. So when she awakens her powers, she has a chance at fulfilling her dreams, and it is an affirmation of her identity. Taylor's journey is more classic; coming into oneself's powers is the same as becoming a hero, it's very reminiscent(intentionally) of Clark's beginnings. In the grander scheme of things, they have fairly typical origin stories.

Nia started off good, associating with Superman for her first big mission, but unlike Jon or any of the recent deluge of nepotism heroes, she has no privileges or legacies to protect her from malicious actors. Her vulnerability in the hero community is subtext about her lack of community in a very cisgendered world. The superhero community is, as I mentioned before, built on existing social norms. Much like any queer person, Nia as a trans girl is entering a very cis "workplace". Well-meaning as the JL or these workplaces are, they are built to keep going without disrupting the current system, carving out little spaces to stuff in marginalized identities. This means the queer individual is forever in discomfort, meant to adjust and accommodate.

Taylor though, has a bit more of a community through her girlfriend and her friends in A-Town, but she and Nia are in the same circumstances with the JL. No legacy, no background, entering what is an age-old system(in a Doylist sense).

While Nia is moving more independently, without any ardent aspirations in the comics to join the Justice League(though she would enjoy it), Taylor is clearly focused on gaining their approval.

Dream Girls #2 comments on how the existence of JL and its rules goes against the very nature of their work as vigilantes, but the JL is hypocritical in its existence. To be approved of as a hero by JL is symbolic of gender affirmation and the chance for an existence without constant questioning. In reality too, breaking certain social norms is more approved than others. You can tell the world you're "trying for a baby" but if you start saying "I've been having sex in my queer relationship" it's suddenly fucking weird.

The Justice League is like a multi-million dollar company touting inclusivity on pride moth with their social media posts, but then you see their hiring process and demographics and you realize that they at best have the politics of a white liberal. I am sure most writers these days in DC think they're being progressive but the reality of DC Comics as a company and their bigotry is reflected in the writing for their teams and their heroes.

Metatextually speaking, Taylor and Nia's very existence as trans women breaks the norms of society(i.e., the Justice League). This inherent deviation from the norm is represented by how strange and difficult their powers are to control.

Taylor had managed to follow these arbitrary rules the JL has come up with. She has been assigned to Carol, who mentors her but is also a way to keep Galaxy's powers in-check. Controlled.

The Justice League decides to kick Taylor out when they realize she's too powerful. As mentioned before, to come into ones power = to be ones true self. Controlling the powers = controlling the self. While League uses Nia as an example to say "we don't approve of rule breakers", the reality is they don't approve of anyone they don't know and doesn't already fit into the metatextual cishet white norm.

Oliver Queen has been accepted with open arms despite:

• Collaborating with Waller
• Betraying the Justice League
• Directly and indirectly hurting League members
• Doing nothing to stop the colonization of Gamorra
• Not apologizing for it
• Signing off on a contract which destroyed a neighbourhood

This is because he's familiar, and he's a cishet white man so in the metatextual sense he has not broken the norms of the League. In fact he is a founding member and a pillar of their norms. Clark, Aquaman, The Flashes, Zatanna, etc etc. are all the same. Nia and Taylor are feared not because they pose any unique danger, Nicole and Jadzia are using them to show the fear of trans people in regular society is completely groundless.

Both of their stories started off making it seem like these two have space in the Justice League and simply working hard and doing good is all you need to do get into these spaces. The reality is it's not. And I think it asks a pertinent question; do you need this broken system to approve of you to be yourself?