leftmusing - Tumblr blog

leftmusing · 11 months

Text

“When you grow into adulthood without the role of a father figure, one often discovers there are lessons that need teaching; things like how to patch up a hole in the plaster wall before moving out of a rented space, things like which IPA to order at a bar. Things like how to shave, how to win a fight, or how to engage in small talk with men who transiently appear in your life about the football game last night. How to feel strong, how to be strong, how to pretend that you're strong when you're not, how to not be strong at all - lessons that would do well to be imparted by a father figure.

A lot of it is pretty trivial. Jobs or skills that I frequently learn on YouTube by kind-hearted strangers uploading instructional videos on practical day-to-day fixes, emotional lessons that I learn from my mother instead. Really, I'm doing okay. I'm getting by. The life lessons embroiled with masculinity have been ones I've taught myself and now, I'm able to make peace with that. There is one thing however, that I still wish a father figure could guide me through, and that is the simple yet equally loaded topic of how to be a man.

How can I teach myself to be a man, if I wasn't born as one?”

#monad.txt #original writing #transgender #ftm #trans man #dysphoria #tw abuse #reflective writing

6 notes · View notes

leftmusing · 1 year

Text

unironically people need to learn to say “they haven’t done anything wrong i just find them annoying”

125K notes · View notes

leftmusing · 1 year

Text

i’ve been sitting on this post for a while. it’s something i feel needs expressing on tumblr but moreover, it’s something i feel that i need to express.

sex offenders, pedophiles, and rapists don’t deserve the death penalty.

sex offenders, pedophiles, and rapists are not exempt from your radical prison abolition.

when you fight for the abolition of punitive incarceration and the death penalty, you fight for sex offenders, pedophiles, and rapists. you fight for everyone.

there’s nuances to this. and it’s a difficult fucking conversation to have. it’s difficult when you’re a victim, it’s difficult when you’ve witnessed atrocities people can commit, it’s difficult when you have a passion for safeguarding and community protection. it’s difficult to treat people who act without compassion, with compassion, but to achieve the goals that prison abolitionists, socialists, anarcho-communists and the general communal left want, you have to.

before you get your panties in a twist, hear me out. there are different points and different levels to this conversation that need to be discussed and need to be understood.

let’s first look at mistrials, false accusations and bias within the justice system.

there is an ugly, lengthy history of western justice systems accusing bipoc and queer people of sexual offences and using that to perform lynchings and chemical castrations, and to incarcerate in inhumane conditions. sexual offences are an easy, convenient thing for the courts and the justice system to levy against minority groups, as it evokes the strongest reaction from the public seeking punitive justice dopamine, and gets people the most angry and impassioned in opposition to these groups.

take a look at the attack transgender people are under at the moment, for example. what’s the go-to accusation? grooming. because that is the one surefire way to get people banding against you, even if the claims aren’t true. let’s take a look at the vast and troubling history of systemic racism and false accusations of sexual offences coming hand in hand, accusing innocent black men of sexual assault against white women to feed the twisted misrepresentation of poc that justice systems were enforcing.

that all still happens today. systemic racism is far from over, especially in the justice and prison systems.

it’s why it’s so important to understand that false accusations come left, right and centre from prejudiced cruel intent, meaning that death penalties and brutal prison sentences can be handed out to innocent people for the sake of furthering an agenda of division and discrimination.

however, we also need to look at those who did commit the crime.

it is absolutely vital to the upholding of a remotely civil society that we also bring this conversation to the people accused of sexual offences, pedophilia and rape who did do what they are accused of.

feels bad, doesn’t it? of course it does. these aren’t easy conversations to have or easy realities to face. but as a left, as a movement, we need to be less reactionary than the right.

so let’s take it step by step.

there are many reasons why a person may end up committing sexual offences. none of these are justifications, but explanations of behaviour is important when we approach this from a sociological point of view.

sometimes, sexual offences come from a cycle of abuse. it’s what somebody may have grown up with and been socialised with and then, because of a lack of intervention when it was needed in their life, they go on to perpetuate these abusive cycles.

sometimes, sexual offences come from social isolation. things like mental ill health, poor psychosocial development, being ostracised from peer groups due to innocent differences. this can lead people to commit sexual offences as a way to reclaim social control or lost years of appropriate sexual development. this could also, like before, be stopped by appropriate intervention from relevant services.

sometimes, sexual offences come from socialisation. people may get sucked in to a social group or sector whilst still developing and begin to internalise the behaviours of those around them. this is especially prevalent in upper class, white, cisgender men. this could also, again, be prevented by intervention from services, appropriate education and a reviewed division of funding from government bodies.

sometimes, sexual offences come from incarceration. people may go to prison and become socialised to the violence happening around them, and then go on to carry out that violence — often, acts a person would never have committed before socialisation into punitive incarceration. you guessed it — this could be prevented by appropriate intervention from services, but also, by dismantling the punitive justice systems that breed this sort of recidivism in the first place.

sometimes, sexual offences come from nothing.

and guess what? those people shouldn’t be killed either. it’s very, very fucking rare that sex offenders, pedophiles and rapists have absolutely zero developmental, social or psychopathological reasons to commit the crimes they do. in fact, i wouldn’t be shocked if it was completely impossible to behave like that with no precursor to it. but even if it’s possible that somebody becomes a sex offender for absolutely no reason, they still shouldn’t be killed.

why?

because it solves nothing.

killing criminals doesn’t fix a fucking thing. it doesn’t reduce crime, that’s for sure. it sure as shit doesn’t help intervention services offer preventative care before it’s too late.

the death penalty being used for sex offenders does nothing but worsen the problem. punitive justice does nothing but worsen the problem. because then, if there’s somebody engaging in thoughts or behaviours and earnestly want to try and stop, they won’t, because they’ll have been taught by the justice system that they’ll get killed or incarcerated for decades if they do.

even people who haven’t offended but are struggling with thoughts will believe that coming forwards could put them on a watch list, could lead to false convictions, etc. the more inhumanely our justice systems treat sex offenders, the less come forward seeking prevention and support, which means an increase in sex crimes and an increase in overall severity.

there needs to be a whole different approach to this. because when the left demand vitriolically that all rapists and pedophiles be killed, it comes from a place of emotion and a desire to stop bad things happening.

but if we want to actually stop these offences from happening, we need to be more compassionate. tough pill to swallow, right?

norway is a fantastic example of a country that’s reformed their punitive justice system to a rehabilitative one and has seen absolutely fantastic results. the maximum sentence in norway is 21 years in facilities that focus on rehabilitation, resocialisation, therapeutic approaches and understanding.

their recidivism rates dropped to 20%, one of the lowest in the world

and those incarceration laws? they apply to everyone! all the most grisly crimes, the most violent people, the sex offenders and rapists and pedophiles, they’re all included in this. no sentence greater than 21 years. no death penalty. no punitive incarceration. and look — it works. people change, people can access support, people can do the time for their crimes whilst knowing that they still have an opportunity for a second chance which means there’s more motivation to better themselves.

the left need to get less reactionary about this topic, and we need to do it very fucking quickly

these are difficult conversations and i know this from experience. but they’re conversations the left needs to be having when talking about prison abolition and rehabilitation. those conversations need to include everyone. it is so vitally important that those conversations include everyone. all people means all people, even the ones we hate or think are evil or are traumatised by.

rehabilitation for all.

#monad.txt #tw sexual assault #tw rape #tw pedophila mention #leftism #politics #sociology #prison abolition #prison systems #transformative justice #rehabilitative justice #long post #micro essay #mini essay #activism #left wing

11 notes · View notes

leftmusing · 1 year

Video

What a drag.

2K notes · View notes

leftmusing · 1 year

Text

this is a screenshot from my instagram story

hey people :) i'm putting together a zine on cancel culture, focusing specifically on queer/leftist communities and the infighting that happens. as part of this, i'm looking for any queers/leftists who may like to contribute with completely anonymous stories of their experiences being cancelled, with a huge emphasis on protection of privacy and safety.

all contributors will receive a percentage of eventual sales from the zine :) financial logistics not yet worked out!

the project is in its baby stages right now, but anyone who'd be interested, please fill out this google form and DM me here or on my instagram (which would be preferable if possible!)

please share!

#monad.txt #politics #leftism #anti cancel culture #cancel culture #queer politics #infighting #sociology #activism #zine #looking for contributions! please share!

15 notes · View notes

leftmusing · 1 year

Text

like, no, it shouldn't be normal for 15 year olds to be posting sexually graphic language to publicly accessible domains online. no, it shouldn't be normal for 14 year olds to be pinning posts with a pastel list of 10+ different mental disorders and expressing that they're hypersexual. no, it shouldn't be normal for 13 year olds to be posting on tiktok that they must have a personality disorder because the algorithm showed them quirky gen z adults that summarise the diagnostic criterias in 30 second entertaining snippets. no, it shouldn't be normal for 12 year olds to be calling themselves neogenders that are described as actual psychosis symptoms with a childlike, pastel, attractive flag. no, it shouldn't be normal for under 16 year olds to be on internet spaces where their posts, details, intimate life anecdotes and vulnerabilities are not just publicly accessible by anyone and everyone, but is actively recommended to anyone and everyone by the algorithmic machine.

we need to create online spaces where teenagers can explore themselves, speak freely and authentically and exist comfortably without it being.... this. because this is not safe. not just for general internet safety, but for long term development both academically and socially.

we wanna protect queer kids, right? then we don't poison them with the same websites that broke us as children. websites that are now so much worse in terms of development ill health.

show up for queer kids and start opening up a dialogue about how to enable them to authentically and safely self explore, instead of beefing with actual children who you don't agree with or being publically reactionary, lame and pathetic towards people who's minds you'll never change

we really need to start looking at more comprehensive ways to ensure thorough internet safety.

these days, i find myself desensitised and used to seeing things that are downright worrying, scary, and developmentally stunted because of how normal it's become for social media companies to value profit and revenue over the safety of minors online. more and more, i see younger and younger teenagers posting drastically inappropriate content to public forums — lists of vulnerabilities, real names, sexual jokes, a comprehensive breakdown of identities. it's somehow become normal for people to link a carrd or pin a post listing diagnoses/self diagnoses, trauma, endless terms of identification, dni lists longer than the constitution, etc. it's accepted behaviour, even encouraged by most adults online, and to be frank, it's perturbing how much of a lack of internet safety awareness and digital footprint is taught to under 18s now.

this has been a pretty drastic change sociopolitically in internet spaces, quickly developing in less than 10 years. and it's not the kids' fault — not by any means. they're taught that listing intimate and personal details about themselves on unprotected public domain is somehow a rite of passage within queer spaces, that they need to prove something about their sickness, that they need to have sickness if they don't already to be treated with attention and respect (which is something all children want and all children deserve. just not this sort of attention).

as queer adults, we're doing nothing. we're taking no responsibility to protect the trans kids we claim to with pastel gifs and trending hashtags. there's no differentiation between adult spaces and young people's spaces, no clear divide between content that's appropriate and content that isn't. it's accepted and encouraged that children use websites with minimal safety settings and guidelines that have no foolproof age verification process, and nobody seems to blink an eye.

i remember being 14/15 on social media very clearly. it's still recent history. but comparing the privacy walls, age verification blocks and legitimate pop ups requiring proof of ID before continuing onto inappropriate content to what there is (or rather, what there isn't) nowadays, is frankly scary.

one of the most troubling things for me is how these conversations are often reduced to discourse between adults and children which is wildly and unwholesomely counterproductive. have we all forgotten concepts of power imbalance that we practise with the children in our real day to day lives? because when i see topics like this online, it's never anything more than people beefing about "minors DNI" or "18+ DNI" or "you're a groomer for following me without realising i'm 16" or "where are your mommy and daddy".

frankly, we should all be ashamed of ourselves. we should be ashamed of ourselves for generationally starting the trend of hypervigilantly self pathologising, spreading genuine misinformation in pursuit of appearing morally puritanical, encouraging the conclusions that 13 year olds are drawing about having personality disorders, and exacerbating inattentive personality traits and proceeding to tell children who are victims to the algorithmic machine that they must have ADHD.

we need to do better. we need to show up for questioning and queer teens online. we need to open a dialogue about online spaces and age specific forums/websites that honour the humanity and boundaries of adult and minor on equal levelling.

because we're making the younger half of our generation sick with our own sickness. the difference is, we're old enough to know and do better — they're not.

#monad.txt

41 notes · View notes