It really breaks my heart when I think of the TIFs who may be in the situation I was once in.

I was extremely dysphoric, and in some ways, I still am. I grew up being treated so differently to my brother, just because I was a girl. I felt like it would be impossible for me to do many things as a woman (so I must have been male). I wasn’t diagnosed with autism, because I was a girl, and felt the reasons I was so different from my peers in many ways must have been because I was in fact a boy. I felt the fact that I was logical, not emotional, and interested in information rather than shopping or makeup meant that I was a boy, because I was told a girl couldn’t be those things. When I talked about the clothes I wanted to wear - a suit, because I thought it was cool - my mum jokingly asked me if I wanted to be a boy. When I didn’t want to wear dresses or skirts because they made me feel exposed, or wouldn’t wear heels because they hurt my feet, I thought it must have been because I was a boy. I hit puberty early and was sexualised and abused at an early age, I developed an eating disorder for the same reason that I wanted to transition: I wanted to be all straight lines, I did not want any part of me to be something that would draw the attention of men to me.

I was extremely online at the time and couldn’t relate to any of my peers at school. It was only a matter of time before I started identifying as nonbinary and then as a transgender man. It feels like the issue must be even worse now, with the effects of the pandemic and social media like TikTok on isolation.

I was lucky in that my parents were not accepting, even though I couldn’t fathom this at the time. I would have gladly medically transitioned had I the chance and I am so grateful I did not. I am also lucky in that I grew up with a staunchly feminist mother who provided a base for me to look further into issues of society through a feminist lens.

Coming to the conclusion that the issue was a societal one - that I could be a woman and still be myself, that the way I felt was not some individual issue, but instead a consequence of a society which pushes a sexualised, degraded image of women and girls - genuinely saved my life. When I identified as trans, I fully intended to kill myself as I thought it would not be possible for me to transition while my parents were alive - and even if I had been able to transition, I would have wasted all the years of my life living as a girl.

I still struggle with my mental health, but I am doing so much better than I ever was then. Recovery actually feels possible now. I no longer blame my body for everything that has happened to me, and it is so liberating.

in her bedroom. june 1992.

Gyns, I’m in dire need of some new (fiction) media, I’ve only been reading/watching non-fiction and I need a break. (I’m also thinking of potentially making a masterpost of media recs for female separatists, if there aren’t any already).

Does anyone have recommendations for TV shows/movies, anime/manga, or novels, about women, written by women? My only other condition (than women-made, women-featuring) is that I want zero-to-as-few-as-possible-men in it, I think the upper limit for men for me is Derry Girls (which is a show I love). I’d also rather avoid too much in terms of men being plot important or major characters - I love Gone Girl (for example) but I want to read stuff about women living on their own, female friendships, and of course lesbians.

That’s really it, I’d give examples of stuff I’ve watched but I’d rather keep this as broad as I can.

Anna Haifisch

I need to see BDSM haters go on rants about the evils of capsaicin

there’s literally no way to be anti sex work without being anti sex worker

Björk photographed by Spike Jonze, 1995

Lingua Ignota (Kristin Hayter) @ BASILICA SOUNDSCAPE, Hudson NY, 2019

source: collaborativemagazine 📸: Richard Lovrich

Marian Seldes, referring to Anne Sexton in "Anne Sexton: A Biography"

idk abt yall but im actually quite hopeful for the future. more women in trades, more women are aspiring to own property without a man, more women are accepting their autonomy as full and complete human beings without the need for a male to own them…. idk like the internet shows all the wackjobs all the time but there’s a substantial amount of women in real life working hard for THEIR future (and not their future husband’s or kids) and it’s just really inspiring to me

“But feminists who organise against pornification are not arguing that sexualised images of women cause moral decay; rather that they perpetuate myths of women's unconditional sexual availability and object status, and thus undermine women's rights to sexual autonomy, physical safety and economic and social equality. The harm done to women is not a moral harm but a political one, and any analysis must be grounded in a critique of the corporate control of our visual landscape.”

—Gail Dines and Julia Long. “Moral Panic? No. We are Resisting the Pornification of Women.” (2011).

idk about you gyns but I find it very disturbing that despite the fact that men have lived in close quarters in intimate relationships with women since the dawn of time, ptsd only got recognised as a problem once men got it. when you think just how many women in abusive relationships or have been raped have ptsd, how high the ptsd rates are in women, and that then men who supposedly loved them simply did not notice and/or care. and now ptsd is primarily associated with wartime shellshock. genuinely mortifying.

women should lift weights because it prevents osteoporosis in old age and makes you a more capable person in everyday life please shut up about butts and waists and hourglasses i'm going to fucking kill

So sick of women's bodies being treated like an economic resource- as just a number of potential babies, future workers who can fuel late-stage capitalism and line the pockets of a select few wealthy men in power, while our own futures are suspended.

So sick of women's bodies being treated like a social resource- that there's a "need" for prostitution and porn in order to stop sociopathic men from enacting their depravity on the rest of the female population. That some women need to be abused in order keep men placated and subdued, so that there exists the illusion of social cohesion. That it would be unfair to ban prostitution because disabled men, incels, and sex-addicted men might otherwise be deprived.

So sick of women being treated like a political resource- that women are expected to perform activism with our bodies. That we need to expose our bodies to trans-identified males in spaces where we are vulnerable, compete against them in sports, that lesbians are expected to have intercourse with trans-identified males in order to validate them.

Women are not a fucking resource. We don't exist to validate men, we don't exist to uphold society. Take your economics, your politics, your social theories, and fuck off.

Remember there is a *huge* difference between the argument "Media will make you violent" and "Media you consume can have an effect on your actions and outlook"

We know that things like right-wing TV or misogynistic podcasts have an effect on the end user over time, even if it may be slight or totally subconscious.

We understand that people can be radicalised by an echo chamber or algorithm. This does not mean it will work on everyone, or that it will work to the same extent!

If a person has a strong understanding of the forces in play, they can reject the information based on their own experiences or beliefs. But younger people are more likely to not have that experience, and are therefore more susceptible to the effects. So when we are discussing children as young as 9 accessing violent pornography, you have to consider that is their only exposure to sex. They have no experience or knowledge that it is wrong or harmful. They cannot reject it easily.

And when you add in the extreme hormone dump from orgasm, that is very, very easy way to train a mental pathway for life.

"Pornography will not suddenly make you a violent sexual criminal!" But it will reinforce pre-concieved notions, it will create a notion where there is a lack of understanding, and it will change your perceptions over time. Especially if it is violent, coercive, and misogynistic.