#because while i was never a terf i WAS an exclusionist back when i was rlly young an stupid and i spent most of my time like. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

caffeineandsociety · 8 months

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Sexism is genuinely fascinating in how uniquely reversible it is.

Yes, broadly speaking, under a patriarchal system, when all other things are equal, women get the shorter end of the stick. We know this. This shouldn't be controversial or disputable. A white man will be treated by society as Better than a white woman. A man of color will be treated as higher on the hierarchy than a woman of the same race and ethnicity. Between a man and a woman with the same disability, making the same complaints, the man is likely to be taken more seriously - partially because, thanks to "man up" standards, one might assume (correctly or otherwise) that he waited longer to complain, because that often IS the case, but mostly because sexism says that women just love to complain for no reason all the time.

But when all other things are NOT equal?

What if you have an abled woman and a disabled man? Well, then it's a complete toss-up as to which factor "wins" - maybe the misogyny wins, because, psh, come on, women are SUPPOSED to serve men, quit complaining and hop to it, he NEEDS you to completely give up your entire life to bring him things on demand, how ableist can you be to say that maybe he should have a support system that's more than just you if he needs more than one person can reasonably provide, or maybe even actually do the physical therapy his doctor recommended so he can get back to being able to do something for himself once in a while, as his condition SHOULD allow? Other times, the ableism will win out - and when it does, it has its own sexist bent to it. He needs to Man Up and stop whining all the time. He's failing the million dollars test because his lung disease turned rhinovirus or RSV into pneumonia? Oh, waaah, waaah, cry harder about your Man Cold. It often uses feminism as an excuse - no, he's not asking for his actual disability-related needs to be accommodated, he's just being an entitled dude who thinks women exist to bend over backwards for him, because that's ALL men do, right?

This is why we see so much bullshit infighting in queer spaces over Who Has It Worse based on gender, when ultimately, when you stop trying to play the oppression olympics, what we have here is an illustration of how thoroughly arbitrary it is. Gay men are treated as more of a threat, because a huge aspect of homophobia is straight men being afraid gay men will treat them the way they treat women - but lesbians are treated as thieves, yanking away something straight men are entitled to. Why does it matter which is "worse" when it gets both groups killed, with significant frequency? Queer spaces have a problem with treating women as a lesser "support class" to men, and it's worth addressing, but not at the cost of downplaying how queer masculinity and maleness is, in fact, treated as some kind of horrible threat, and that constitutes a major chunk of the grounds on which queer people are oppressed. Never mind when trans people come into the picture - society doesn't know what to do with us! Regardless of what direction we're transitioning in, society just treats us as whichever binary gender is more convenient to demonize us at any given moment! In fact, so do exclusionists within the community! And as it turns out - sometimes, it's more convenient to demonize us as men.

But the real proof of where all of this comes from, the most reliable place for the dynamic to be reversed, is when it can be invoked for racism. Show me a white woman butting heads with a man of color, and - while I must disclaim that this is not a 100% hard and fast rule, I might be surprised, because extrapolating society-wide dynamics to EVERY individual interaction is part of how you end up with terf logic - I will almost certainly expect her to pull something in line with a power structure that oppresses him on gendered lines. This is what Karenism was about, before the internet bastardized it into being just a generic name you call any woman who stands up for herself - a Karen is someone who will, simultaneously, pull a "don't you know who I am!?" and "how dare you, you horrible brute, trying to take advantage of a poor defenseless woman like this!?".

A Karen is the kind of person who will call the cops on a Black or brown man minding his own business and say he threatened her.

Note that yes, she will absolutely do this kind of thing to a Black or brown woman, but the dynamic will often be different. I do not mean to erase that. But for the purpose of this post - discussing specific dynamics that reverse the typical "men are higher on the ladder than women" rule - we're specifically examining what happens when, say, a white woman claims a Black man whistled or "leered" at her. What happens then? Maybe he gets shot by the cops. Maybe he gets lynched - sure, that happens less often than it used to now, but anything is only illegal if you get caught. Maybe his life just gets ruined by a whisper campaign. Maybe nothing happens to him, but her story is used to continue the idea that Black and brown men are "bad hombres" who need to be chased out of this country or at least heavily policed to keep them in line. Regardless, there is a very strongly gendered aspect to this - accusations of sexual violence are believed without a second thought when it's a white woman making them against a Black or brown man, and this has a massive body count. We know that false accusations of sexual assault are very few and far between compared to unreported sexual assaults - but we often fail to acknowledge just how many of those false accusations are made up for racist reasons.

Not only that, but I must also briefly call out that I've seen white girls on this very supposedly progressive website claiming that Asian men are "basically women", when they're not calling out all men of Japan for being violent repressive pedophilic perverts.

That's because ultimately, the patriarchal standards that we have are a tool of white supremacy. That's it. That's all there is to it. What they mean and who they apply to can be twisted around at a moment's notice to uphold some other aspect of the system. The "natural strength" that it superficially insists that men innately have can be twisted to become a threat, if it threatens the rest of the system. The supposed "inherent weakness" of women can be twisted around to become a cudgel - upholding the dominance of the Great Male Head of the Household is, under this system, nearly the only thing that wins out over "protecting white women".

It's all white supremacy all the way down.

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starry-skies-116 · 1 year

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FUCK IT, NEW PINNED POST THIS TIME!!:

Okay, once again, from the top- top of the mornin' to ya! My humblest and sincerest greetings to all mortals, dragons, demons, spirits, celestial beings and all in between and many more!

I’m your local multifandom enthusiast, I go by the name Starr (Katya and Starry are also fine too)! I’m just your regular Lawful Neutral INFJ Pisces South Indian teen!

I’m a bi-oriented aroace and intersex, and I am genderfluid/nonbinary! Presentation changes from time to time but I really want an undercut tbh. Sexuality is aceflux/abrosexual, while I'm aegoromantic- on that note, I'm still kinda sad that sex-ed in schools isn't LGBTQIA+ friendly yet.

I also have very few but very loving and wonderful IRL friends! Usual pronouns change between she/her, they/them/ he/him and it/its, (blame my conservative neighborhood culture kekw); I am a neopronouns user too!

Also please use tone-tags around me, this user's can't tell a joke from a serious statement a lot of times-

Personality: Hopeless idealist, wants deep companionship, feels lonely and ignored from time to time but that’s aight, life do be like that sometimes though. Sappy poet and writer lol-

I do program and write and draw, but half the time whenever I program I just wrestle with the computer lmfao (ESPECIALLY the standard library like tf)-

DNI: Transphobes, Truscum, Transmeds, TERFS, ableists, anti-cluster B/believe in n@rc abuse, racist, aphobes, homophobes, queerphobes, xenophobic, gender-critical, bigots, LGBTQIA+ exclusionists, thinspo/pro ED, bullies, NSFW/K!nk, anti-agere/agedre, Pro-DDLG and all its variants, P3d0ph!l3s, N@z!s, really anything that makes me feel uncomfortable- just come on here and you're welcome as long as you're not being an ass. (and don't make fun of me for having a DNI, it really isn't that hard to spare me the trouble of blocking you and just... not interact).

Actually REALLY high empathy by modern standards, just figured out I have to turn the tap off a lot because the suffering of other people affects me deeply!

I stim alot irl (playing with hair, foot/leg spazzing out restlessly, vocal echolalia/mimicking choirs, rocking back and forth but never adjusting position, chewing gum a tad too aggressively if I have any- if not then grinding teeth way too much, etc.)

I'm diagnosed with depression and ADHD, and have a lot of symptoms of autism and dyscalculia (because of how genuinely chaotic and dysfunctional I can be at times tbh). I also do descend into major depressive episodes from time to time, though I don't know how to recognize if they're just sensory overloads, meltdowns, brain fog episodes or just bad brain days/symptom days in general.

This bitch has PCOS, anxious intrusive thoughts daily tormenting them, and ass-tier gastrointestinal health™, thank you for coming to my tedtalk.

Multiple fandoms and hyperfixations, including but not limited to:

ROTTMNT, FNAF, Poppy Playtime, Fire Emblem, Genshin Impact, Honkai Star Rail, Demon Slayer/KNY, TMNT, Stranger Things, Star Wars, OMORI, Transformers, Pacific Rim, The Owl House, Zelda, and much more!! Sorry if you're here for any one of these specific fandoms, I tend to aggressively post about my current hyperfixation depending on it lmao-

Additional facts: Kind of a glutton when it comes to food, introvert asf on top of being autistic (doesn’t know how to do human social things), has way too many hobbies/things I find interesting to count! Absolutely fuckin HATES dresses and the unnecessary, excessive femininity of periods (especially when they worsen my gastric issues and give me stool problems)! I DO also age-regress and age-dream from time to time!

I like sweets, rice, potatoes, Middle Eastern and Indian Cuisine (ja I'm primarily South Asian and from a Hindu Telugu family tho) trying different cuisines, dogs (have one, he's named Bruno and he’s a little baby I love him sm), butterflies, sleeping, plushies, space, dragons, fantasy, writing, reading good books, hydrangeas and jasmine flowers, drawing/painting, numbers, napping in the sun/underneath the stars, stargazing, etc.

I strongly dislike spiders, too-spicy food, tofu when it’s cooked wrong, cooking (because I’m a fuckin disaster at it), bigoted people, strong smells and bright lights, difficult people, being bored, y’know, the works.

Aesthetics change from time to time but I love wierdcore, dreamcore, 80’s core, nostalgiacore, fantasycore, faecore, dragoncore, cybercore, kidcore, spacecore, liminalcore, etc.

Will update this Pinned Post from time to time as time goes on and my fluid identity changes, but for now, I’ll keep being me and I hope to get along well with everyone here!

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rjalker · 11 months

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Literally just straight up lying about basic facts like all exclusionists.

princessefemmelesbian said on May 8, 2023:

There’s nothing funnier than seeing blogs marked green on shinigami eyes or that explicitly proclaim themselves to be “trans-friendly” or “anti-terf” support mspec lesbians and not even notice the sheer cognitive dissonance in that.

Like in addition to being straight up lesbophobic and biphobic, it’s also transmisogynistic, the term was literally created by TERFs to sideline cis women who dated trans women and to exclude trans women from lesbianism. You don’t get to call yourself “anti-terf” while supporting such a label lolol.

"Ah yes let me just straight up lie about Queer history and make up shit that never happened, clearly I am the one here who's really protecting trans and Queer people!"

Meanwhile like 99% of mspec lesbians are literally trans. But these people don't know that because that would require actually talking to any of them instead of chugging the TERF koolaid they claim they're fighting back against.

You literally do not get to claim you love and support trans lesbians when you just straight up lie about Queer history and real trans lesbians' lives because you're just so consumed with hate you can't think for yourself for the five seconds it would take to talk to an mspec lesbian.

#mspecmisia #transmisia #exorsexism #historical revisionism #shit exclusionists say #queermisia #free blocklist #lesbimisia #Queer History

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nothorses · 3 years

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Interview With An Ex-Radfem

exradfem is an anonymous Tumblr user who identifies as transmasculine, and previously spent time in radical feminist communities. They have offered their insight into those communities using their own experiences and memories as a firsthand resource.

Background

I was raised in an incredibly fundamentalist religion, and so was predisposed to falling for cult rhetoric. Naturally, I was kicked out for being a lesbian. I was taken in by the queer community, particularly the trans community, and I got back on my feet- somehow. I had a large group of queer friends, and loved it. I fully went in on being the Best Trans Ally Possible, and constantly tried to be a part of activism and discourse.

Unfortunately, I was undersocialized, undereducated, and overenthusiastic. I didn't fully understand queer or gender theory. In my world, when my parents told me my sexuality was a choice and I wasn't born that way, they were absolutely being homophobic. I understood that no one should care if it's a choice or not, but it was still incredibly, vitally important to me that I was born that way.

On top of that, I already had an intense distrust of men bred by a lot of trauma. That distrust bred a lot of gender essentialism that I couldn't pull out of the gender binary. I felt like it was fundamentally true that men were the problem, and that women were inherently more trustworthy. And I really didn't know where nonbinary people fit in.

Then I got sucked down the ace exclusionist pipeline; the way the arguments were framed made sense to my really surface-level, liberal view of politics. This had me primed to exclude people –– to feel like only those that had been oppressed exactly like me were my community.

Then I realized I was attracted to my nonbinary friend. I immediately felt super guilty that I was seeing them as a woman. I started doing some googling (helped along by ace exclusionists on Tumblr) and found the lesfem community, which is basically radfem “lite”: lesbians who are "only same sex attracted". This made sense to me, and it made me feel so much less guilty for being attracted to my friend; it was packaged as "this is just our inherent, biological desire that is completely uncontrollable". It didn't challenge my status quo, it made me feel less guilty about being a lesbian, and it allowed me to have a "biological" reason for rejecting men.

I don't know how much dysphoria was playing into this, and it's something I will probably never know; all of this is just piecing together jumbled memories and trying to connect dots. I know at the time I couldn't connect to this trans narrative of "feeling like a woman". I couldn't understand what trans women were feeling. This briefly made me question whether I was nonbinary, but radfem ideas had already started seeping into my head and I'm sure I was using them to repress that dysphoria. That's all I can remember.

The lesfem community seeded gender critical ideas and larger radfem princples, including gender socialization, gender as completely meaningless, oppression as based on sex, and lesbian separatism. It made so much innate sense to me, and I didn't realize that was because I was conditioned by the far right from the moment of my birth. Of course women were just a biological class obligated to raise children: that is how I always saw myself, and I always wanted to escape it.

I tried to stay in the realms of TIRF (Trans-Inclusive Radical Feminist) and "gender critical" spaces, because I couldn't take the vitriol on so many TERF blogs. It took so long for me to get to the point where I began seeing open and unveiled transphobia, and I had already read so much and bought into so much of it that I thought that I could just ignore those parts.

In that sense, it was absolutely a pipeline for me. I thought I could find a "middle ground", where I could "center women" without being transphobic.

Slowly, I realized that the transphobia was just more and more disgustingly pervasive. Some of the trans men and butch women I looked up to left the groups, and it was mostly just a bunch of nasty people left. So I left.

After two years offline, I started to recognize I was never going to be a healthy person without dealing with my dysphoria, and I made my way back onto Tumblr over the pandemic. I have realized I'm trans, and so much of this makes so much more sense now. I now see how I was basically using gender essentialism to repress my identity and keep myself in the closet, how it was genuinely weaponized by TERFs to keep me there, and how the ace exclusionist movement primed me into accepting lesbian separatism- and, finally, radical feminism.

The Interview

You mentioned the lesfem community, gender criticals, and TIRFs, which I haven't heard about before- would you mind elaborating on what those are, and what kinds of beliefs they hold?

I think the lesfem community is recruitment for lesbians into the TERF community. Everything is very sanitized and "reasonable", and there's an effort not to say anything bad about trans women. The main focus was that lesbian = homosexual female, and you can't be attracted to gender, because you can't know someone's gender before knowing them; only their sex.

It seemed logical at the time, thinking about sex as something impermeable and gender as internal identity. The most talk about trans women I saw initially was just in reference to the cotton ceiling, how sexual orientation is a permanent and unchangeable reality. Otherwise, the focus was homophobia. This appealed to me, as I was really clinging to the "born this way" narrative.

This ended up being a gateway to two split camps - TIRFs and gender crits.

I definitely liked to read TIRF stuff, mostly because I didn't like the idea of radical feminism having to be transphobic. But TIRFs think that misogyny is all down to hatred of femininity, and they use that as a basis to be able to say trans women are "just as" oppressed.

Gender criticals really fought out against this, and pushed the idea that gender is fake, and misogyny is just sex-based oppression based on reproductive issues. They believe that the source of misogyny is the "male need to control the source of reproduction"- which is what finally made me think I had found the "source" of my confusion. That's why I ended up in gender critical circles instead of TIRF circles.

I'm glad, honestly, because the mask-off transphobia is what made me finally see the light. I wouldn't have seen that in TIRF communities.

I believed this in-between idea, that misogyny was "sex-based oppression" and that transphobia was also real and horrible, but only based on transition, and therefore a completely different thing. I felt that this was the "nuanced" position to take.

The lesfem community also used the fact that a lot of lesbians have partners who transition, still stay with their lesbian partners, and see themselves as lesbian- and that a lot of trans men still see themselves as lesbians. That idea is very taboo and talked down in liberal queer spaces, and I had some vague feelings about it that made me angry, too. I really appreciated the frank talk of what I felt were my own taboo experiences.

I think gender critical ideology also really exploited my own dysphoria. There was a lot of talk about how "almost all butches have dysphoria and just don't talk about it", and that made me feel so much less alone and was, genuinely, a big relief to me that I "didn't have to be trans".

Lesfeminism is essentially lesbian separatism dressed up as sex education. Lesfems believe that genitals exist in two separate categories, and that not being attracted to penises is what defines lesbians. This is used to tell cis lesbians, "dont feel bad as a lesbian if you're attracted to trans men", and that they shouldn’t feel "guilty" for not being attracted to trans women. They believe that lesbianism is not defined as being attracted to women, it is defined as not being attracted to men; which is a root idea in lesbian separatism as well.

Lesfems also believe that attraction to anything other than explicit genitals is a fetish: if you're attracted to flat chests, facial hair, low voices, etc., but don't care if that person has a penis or not, you're bisexual with a fetish for masculine attributes. Essentially, they believe the “-sexual” suffix refers to the “sex” that you are assigned at birth, rather than your attraction: “homosexual” refers to two people of the same sex, etc. This was part of their pushback to the ace community, too.

I think they exploited the issues of trans men and actively ignored trans women intentionally, as a way of avoiding the “TERF” label. Pronouns were respected, and they espoused a constant stream of "trans women are women, trans men are men (but biology still exists and dictates sexual orientation)" to maintain face.

They would only be openly transmisogynistic in more private, radfem-only spaces.

For a while, I didn’t think that TERFs were real. I had read and agreed with the ideology of these "reasonable" people who others labeled as TERFs, so I felt like maybe it really was a strawman that didn't exist. I think that really helped suck me in.

It sounds from what you said like radical feminism works as a kind of funnel system, with "lesfem" being one gateway leading in, and "TIRF" and "gender crit" being branches that lesfem specifically funnels into- with TERFs at the end of the funnel. Does that sound accurate?

I think that's a great description actually!

When I was growing up, I had to go to meetings to learn how to "best spread the word of god". It was brainwashing 101: start off by building a relationship, find a common ground. Do not tell them what you really believe. Use confusing language and cute innuendos to "draw them in". Prey on their emotions by having long exhausting sermons, using music and peer pressure to manipulate them into making a commitment to the church, then BAM- hit them with the weird shit.

Obviously I am paraphrasing, but this was framed as a necessary evil to not "freak out" the outsiders.

I started to see that same talk in gender critical circles: I remember seeing something to the effect of, "lesfem and gender crit spaces exist to cleanse you of the gender ideology so you can later understand the 'real' danger of it", which really freaked me out; I realized I was in a cult again.

I definitely think it's intentional. I think they got these ideas from evangelical Christianity, and they actively use it to spread it online and target young lesbians and transmascs. And I think gender critical butch spaces are there to draw in young transmascs who hate everything about femininity and womanhood, and lesfem spaces are there to spread the idea that trans women exist as a threat to lesbianism.

Do you know if they view TIRFs a similar way- as essentially prepping people for TERF indoctrination?

Yes and no.

I've seen lots of in-fighting about TIRFs; most TERFs see them as a detriment, worse than the "TRAs" themselves. I've also definitely seen it posed as "baby's first radfeminism". A lot of TIRFs are trans women, at least from what I've seen on Tumblr, and therefore are not accepted or liked by radfems. To be completely honest, I don't think they're liked by anyone. They just hate men.

TIRFs are almost another breed altogether; I don't know if they have ties to lesfems at all, but I do think they might've spearheaded the online ace exclusionist discourse. I think a lot of them also swallowed radfem ideology without knowing what it was, and parrot it without thinking too hard about how it contradicts with other ideas they have.

The difference is TIRFs exist. They're real people with a bizarre, contradictory ideology. The lesfem community, on the other hand, is a completely manufactured "community" of crypto-terfs designed specifically to indoctrinate people into TERF ideology.

Part of my interest in TIRFs here is that they seem to have a heavy hand in the way transmascs are treated by the trans community, and if you're right that they were a big part of ace exclusionism too they've had a huge impact on queer discourse as a whole for some time. It seems likely that Baeddels came out of that movement too.

Yes, there’s a lot of overlap. The more digging I did, the more I found that it's a smaller circle running the show than it seems. TIRFs really do a lot of legwork in peddling the ideology to outer queer community, who tend to see it as generic feminism.

TERFs joke a lot about how non-radfems will repost or reblog from TERFs, adding "op is a TERF”. They're very gleeful when people accept their ideology with the mask on. They think it means these people are close to fully learning the "truth", and they see it as further evidence they have the truth the world is hiding. I think it's important to speak out against radical feminism in general, because they’re right; their ideology does seep out into the queer community.

Do you think there's any "good" radical feminism?

No. It sees women as the ultimate victim, rather than seeing gender as a tool to oppress different people differently. Radical feminism will always see men as the problem, and it is always going to do harm to men of color, gay men, trans men, disabled men, etc.

Women aren't a coherent class, and radfems are very panicked about that fact; they think it's going to be the end of us all. But what's wrong with that? That's like freaking out that white isn't a coherent group. It reveals more about you.

It's kind of the root of all exclusionism, the more I think about it, isn't it? Just freaking out that some group isn't going to be exclusive anymore.

Radical feminists believe that women are inherently better than men.

For TIRFs, it's gender essentialism. For TERFs, its bio essentialism. Both systems are fundamentally broken, and will always hurt the groups most at risk. Centering women and misogyny above all else erases the root causes of bigotry and oppression, and it erases the intersections of race and class. The idea that women are always fundamentally less threatening is very white and privileged.

It also ignores how cis women benefit from gender norms just as cis men do, and how cis men suffer from gender roles as well. It’s a system of control where gender non-conformity is a punishable offense.

#transgender #transphobia #trans #transmisogyny #radical feminism #radfem #feminism #transandrophobia #terfs #tirfs #gender critical #nothorses #cult mention #long post

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eulangelo · 3 years

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callout for @genderfluidlucifer

google docs

tw for transmisogyny + TERFs + emotional manipulation

Transmisogyny

Lucifer is a huge transmisogynist who will complain 24/7 about how TERFs hurt the ace community, but the moment @randomclustermissile , a trans girl (who is not an exclusionist at all) tries to point out transmisogyny in inclusionist circles (in the most vague and general way possible, without pointing fingers nor calling anyone names) Lucifer will immediatly jump to block her and so they did with me (another inclusionist) and i have to suppose to everyone else who agreed with that post, even arriving to vagueing about us in private group chats to suggest that we were “sympathizing with exclusionists”. all because we dared point out transmisogyny in inclusionist circles. lucifer is TME but apparently they think they’re the authority on TERFs and their talking points but actual trans women are not, according to them, since this is the stuff that they would go and spew to other people. (screenshots from @enbyoctoling)

here’s more examples of Lucifer (again, a transmasc person) going deep in detail about how according to them, TERFs/SWERFs hate aro/ace people and are an active threat to us

1. link

[Image ID: Three screenshots of a post by Genderfluidlucifer. The first screenshot is of a paragraph that reads, "Hey. So I can actually answer this. Anon your commentary about how you thought terfs would approve of sex repulsed aces is sort of it. Except...not. Basically terfs hate ace people for not wanting sex in the approved by terfs way. Terfs are actually extremely interested in [forcing] amatonormativity onto everyone. Because for as sex negative as terfs are...they don't want to actually acknowledge or change the fact that amatonormativity is at the root cause of rape culture and misogyny."

The second screenshot is a zoomed in section of the post that reads, "So yeah no I have NO idea where exclus allies are getting this idea from that terfs would even remotely care about the sexual rights of ace people. Terfs generally hate any sexualities in the LGBTQ+ acronym that aren't LGB because they can't force a gender binary onto those sexualities. At least, not as easily. That's why it's actually a massive sign of someone who doesn't call themselves a terf being a crypto terf if they use the term LGB in a positive manner. Along with the term SGA, as it is deliberately exclusive of nonbinary and not inherently SGA centric queer-aligned sexualities. /END ID]

link to the full post, these are just excerpts but the whole thing is just a very long rant about how TERFs hate ace people and so on (i think it’s worth noticing that although the actual post is kinda long, trans women are never once brought op in a conversation about TERFs issues and the only time transmisogyny is mentioned is not relevant to the conversation)

2. link

[Image ID: A screenshot of a reblog by genderfluidlucifer. The original poster is nothorses. It reads, "Because apparently I have to say it: Testosterone is not a 'violent' hormone. It doesn't make you 'more aggressive' or a worse person, it doesn't make you 'dangerous,' or 'toxic.' Transmascs do not need to be 'warned of the dangers of T.' We do not need to spend our transitions terrified that we're going to become a danger to those around us - that HRT is going to turn us into a monster.

Everyone experiences mood swings during hormonal shifts (pregnancy, menstruation, menopause, estrogen HRT, etc.) and while you might have grumpy moments or feel anger/frustration that you need to learn to handle differently, that doesn't make you a bad person.

Testosterone can change the way you access/process emotions somewhat, but if you're already thoughtful about how you handle your feelings and treat others, you're going to be fine. It's normal to lash out on occasion, by accident, then apologize and work to do better. It doesn't make you a bad person. Everyone on HRT is prone to this, and everyone experiencing hormonal changes is prone to this.

Getting HRT should be positive and affirming; you should not have to spend your entire transition terrified of becoming a monster."

The post then has a reblog by captainlordauditor that reads, "The big danger of T is that needle ouchy." /END ID]

here’s them reblogging from known transmisogynist user @nothorses (once again, the irony that a post about how testosterone is seen as the "aggressive hormone" does not mention transfem at all which are literally the main victims of this rethoric in the first place)

3. link (1), link (2)

[Image ID: Two screenshots of posts by genderfluidlucifer. The first screenshot reads, "Queer exclus: We're not repackaging terf rhetoric! Saying that is transmisogynistic! Also queer exclus: Remove the plus from LGBT!" and has tags that say, "I will pay these people to grow some god damn self awareness. Imagine being this dense. Queer discourse." The post has 15 notes.

The second screenshot reads, "Honestly it is so stupid and frustrating to see ace exclus continue to deny that the ace discourse was started by terfs. Proof was given countless times. And a big name terf like galesofnovember even admitted to starting it. Those of you who demand proof but ignore all of this never wanted proof to begin with." and is tagged with, "ace discourse. The post has 38 notes. /END ID]

heres another two post of theirs conflating TERFs with ace exclusionism

4. link

[Image ID: A screenshot of a reblogged post by furbearingbrick. The original poster is boxlizard, Lucifer's old account. The original post reads, "By the way for people still in denial about it, here's galesofnovember, a terf, admitting that she intended to start the ace exclus movement. She's taking credit for it. Normally if the victims of this behavior weren't ace/aro or other queer identities y'all be ready to rightfully lynch her. But since it's us, y'all just still wanna stamp your feet and go, 'Nuh uh!' instead of acknowledging facts." The part that says, "admitting that she intended to start the ace exclus movement" is a link to a galesofnovember post.

There is then a reblogged addition from furbearing brick that reads, "archived versions of the receipts" and has two links to the webarchive. The tags read, "Bringing this back since it's apparently still relevant. Terfism mention. Aphobia mention. Queerphobia mention. Blocklist." and has 1,455 notes. /END ID]

this is their post that ive already talked about but basically they found a 52 notes post made by a TERF in 2012 and this one person said "i dont know why i dont get to be the princess of the anti-ace-brigade" and apparently they are convinced that this means TERFs started the ace exclusionism movement and that this is one of their goals. which is insane when TERFs in real life only care about making life miserable for transfem people first and foremost.

5.link

[Image ID: A screenshot of a reblog by genderfluidlucifer. The original poster is yu-gay-fudo. It reads, “Just in case you happen to be unaware, some of the “radfem lite” they post to warm you up to their rhetoric, just off the top of my head:

- Ace/aro exclusionism

- Bi exclusionism or claims that bi people are “less queer” bc of “straight passive privilege”

- Saying you have to be dysphoric to identify as transInvalidating nonbinary people

- Calling queer a slur regardless of context, saying people can’t identify as queer, and saying that it can’t be reclaimed

- “Mogai hell”, “kweer”, or otherwise mocking less common labels and claiming they are “just cishets who want to feel special”

- Excluding sex workers from feminist discussions or claiming that sex work is inherently evil

- Basically anyone who thinks they can determine what other people identify as”. The tags read, "queerphobia tw. twerfs tw. no id." and has 70,727 notes. It was reblogged on March 22nd, 2021 /END ID]

another example of conflating radfems to things that, while wrong, have little to nothing to do with them because being a radfem, again, is something very specific that has all to do with transfem oppression.

Emotional manipulation

Lucifer has done nothing but block, break boundaries, spread lies and vague about people, some of which were even mutuals with them knowing they would see the posts. when confronted about it Lucifer's only answer was "just say you hate me and block me" but they actually ended up blocking everyone first, making it impossible for anyone to set some boundaries with them or even just to calmly confront them about anything.

[proof: Io(popncourse) and Lucifer had a disagreement in a shared discord server, which prompted Lucifer to vague Io in a vent post. Io confronted them, as being vagued is one of buns triggers, to which Lucifer initially agreed to delete the vent post, but then proceeded to victimize themself and immediatly blocked Io. later on, Jude(malewifedeckard) was confronted by Lucifer, then after Jude told them “I’m worried that you’ll vague me just like you did with Io” they proceeded to block Jude and vagued about him too. when Io made a post (which was not a callout, it was just bun setting buns boundaries) explaining what Lucifer did, Lucifer immediatly jumped to victimize themself, acting like they were being called out and straight-up lying, even going so far as to say that no one tried to hear them out, which is a blatant lie if you consider the aforementioned Io and Jude’s attempts at doing so, with Lucifer immediatly blocking and cutting ties with the both of them. ]

(screenshots taken by @popncourse and @malewifedeckard)

as seen in the proof above Lucifer’s behaviour is not ok because they don’t accept any kind of confrontation and immediatly jump to blocking, and after blocking, they'd immediatly go and vague about the people who confronted them pacificly, spreading more lies and painting themself as the victim and even arriving to say “no one hears me out at all” which is simply not something you can say when you block people who are trying to hear you out in the first place.

this is by no means an invitation to go and harass them, send them hate or anything like that. i absolutely don’t want anything even remotely hateful or negative to be sent their way after this post.

this post was only made because:

1. as an ace person who fully supports the inclusion of aspec identities in the lgbt+ community i don’t want to support an enviroment that costantly downplays transmisogynistic oppression in order to be taken seriously. there are hundreds of ways to make aspec activism without acting like we(as in TME aspecs)are the victims of a system that seeks for the annihilation of transfemenine people in real life everyday. i especially don’t want to support TME individuals who act transfem-friendly but then block any transfem who tries to speak on transmisogyny without a second thought.

2. Lucifer’s behaviour has hurt two friends of mine and i don’t want to associate with someone who actively breaks people’s boundaries without taking accountability when messing up.

3. i cannot associate with someone who spreads lies about me accusing me of sympathizing with exclusionists all while having me blocked so that i can’t see it nor defend me. they complain about people not hearing them out but they’re the very first person who does not try to hear people out, and instead jumps to spread baseless rumors. this is not someone i can nor want to associate with.

(image descriptions provided by @malewifedeckard)

#genderfluidlucifer #transmisogyny tw #terfs tw #ask to tag #txt #long post #ok to rb

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thedreadvampy · 3 years

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So like there's still that ask expanding on the Exclusionist Leads To TERFery argument sitting in my inbox and I will respond to it when I can formulate an answer that's less than 2000 words long.

but I wanted to spin out a specific thing which is that anon repeated the ol' "queer is a slur is TERF Rhetoric that TERFs Started" and that is something I have a very DIFFERENT lot of feelings about

the idea that queer is a slur wasn't started by TERFs. It was started by.......people using queer as a slur........a thing that they still very much do.....

Look, I like the word queer. I self-describe as queer and I use the word queer interchangeably with LGBTQ. I have friends who only want to be called queer bc it sums up the fluidity or nonspecificity of their identity. I think queer is a useful and valuable terminology for us to have in our wheelhouse and personally I prefer it to LGBT because it makes a lot more space for the muddiness and complexity of sexual and gender identities.

but it's a slur.

or at least, it originates as a slur. it gets its power from being a reclaimed slur. when people say "we're here we're queer get over it" they're throwing the word back in the faces of those who use it against them and saying "you don't get to own this part of me, I'm taking back ownership".

and like. that's a reclamation and I believe powerfully in the strength and beauty of reclaiming that word

but it's also not unreasonable that people who have been hurt by it (which. in the wider world it still is often a slur) might not want to reclaim it or deal with it.

like. I love the word queer and while I wouldn't refer directly to someone who hates it as queer, I do passionately believe in its value and use as a general term. but. it's reductive and honestly offensively unkind the way many people act as if having a complex or negative relationship to a word often flung as a weapon, with a long history of violence as well as reclamation, is evidence of gullibility or malice.

there are a lot of reasons people don't like the word queer and some of them I find odious - the vitriol some people sling around at "kweers" in their hatred of the term queer is honestly just. depressing. and there are people who hate it because it runs counter to their desire to carve the community up into neatly divided Ls, Gs, Bs and Ts and also forget the Ts. but there are also people who think queer is a slur because it's been used as a slur against them. or who don't believe in reclamation. or who are uncomfortable with a word reclaimed as a defiant political statement being coopted by corporate interests.

like there's a lot of reasons people have to dislike the word queer and consider it a slur. and to boil them all down to "oh it's TERF Rhetoric" is not just reductive it's largely untrue and it's aggressively uninterested in other people's experiences and needs. and to say "queer was never a slur until TERFs started spreading this rhetoric" is a) factually untrue and b) ignores a century or so of very diverse opinions about the use of the word.

also. relatedly. other people have said this better than me but this watering down of what TERFism is and this framing where everything bad is TERF Rhetoric honestly just feeds into TERF's ability to fly under the radar like. a lot of TERFs consider themselves queer, because TERFs are not a monolith, they're a disparate group limited by a core philosophy that is specifically and only defined by a hatred and distrust of trans womanhood.

and a lot of people who aren't TERFs hate the word queer, or, like me, like the word but think whether or not it's a slur is very situation-dependent.

and this tendency to say something false about TERFs to bolster an unrelated point (TERFs created the concept that queer is a slur) if anything helps weaken people's resilience to TERFism because ultimately the strongest recruitment tactic TERFs use isn't a slippery slope of exclusionism, it's trauma. like any reactionary movement, they hook onto people's trauma and fears and they tell them 'you're right, you're heard, you're suffering and the world's against you and it's their fault.' and if someone comes into an LGBTQ space and says 'I am exhausted by having the word queer spat at me I never want to hear it again' and a bunch of people turn around and say 'uhhhh claiming that queer is a slur is actually terf rhetoric so we're not interested in you spouting TERF Propaganda' like. Is this helping the community? is this resisting TERFs? or is it just muddying the lines of what TERFs are and why we don't want them here and reducing them to an abstract The Bad People?

#brace for impact #also like do not mistake that last bit for terf apologia #terfism gets its hooks in via Trauma but that's an explanation not an excuse #most of us cam experience trauma and not get so navelgazey that we think we're the only ones to ever suffer #and most of us don't take it out on unrelated nearby women #but it's a true thing nonetheless that for most reactionary movements they find pain points and offer validation #anyway this is pretty confused i just had some Thoughts #transmisogyny tw

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homeofhousechickens · 3 years

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Noticed an influx of terfs harassing fellow agriculture blogs. And i want to talk about something pretty heavy, if you are one of those “terf” people or maybe you have found yourself following those types of blogs while also following mine please give my words a read. I know some people look up to me but to be honest I am not the most eloquent person but maybe i can convince you to look more critically at your world view.

Tw: Transphobia, abuse, trauma, Aphobia, Terf rhetoric

I will be honest and say that I also once attacked people who were different from me to, i used to be what i think is called an asexual exclusionist due to some of my own trauma and because of that i took it out on the asexual community as an angry autistic teenager. I was frustrated at my hypersexuality which was a symptom of my sexual abuse being treated like a normal sexuality so i projected those feelings of hurt back out into the world when their was better coping methods. I was frustrated at the well off asexual kids in GSA that couldnt understand why their fellow member was having a panic attack due to being kicked out of the house for being a lesbian, when i could have been just as frustrated at the other LGBT kids that had decent parents, i was just targeting them because they were different from me and it felt safe to.

Obviously as an adult I educated myself and no longer hold those ideas. I read stuff from outside of my own point of view and stuff that directly challenged me over the years, I know not everyone has the privilege to be able to do that but i did and the reason is is that i was tired of hurting and i was tired of hurting other people, I never harassed anyone but it did influence how i treated people when i was younger and i am sorry for it.

I know alot of terf rhetoric centers around the concept of women (specifically white women usually) being victims of the “other sex” or being them being the “better sex”. (i know because aphobic rhetoric is very similar) Due to this they genuinely believe that other women want to come into their spaces and “steal” this ideal away from them. Thats why they get so furious about the idea of functional uterine transplants. To them, their uterus or vulva is what defines them as “better” or the reason they suffer trauma but when the science is moving so where typical reproduction may not be the only pathway to child bearing they become enraged because they are no longer “special” to themselves. Their is no longer a reason for their trauma and pain.

This fundamentally is the basis of the hate they put out into the world. This is also why they attack cis women who do not conform to typical femininity. This boiling down of their worth to chromosomes or anatomy is literally just a rehashed version of the own misogyny they were likely fed as a child and it makes me sad. They say the same stuff my shitty relatives did about women but now terfs are the ones saying it about whoever they decide is the “other” sometimes that other is transgender women sometimes its intersex women and sometimes its women who just dont conform to their ideals. When you picture yourself happy, is it when your standing with your heels dug in on top of the people you deem “other”? Or is when your helping out your fellow human? When you tear down another person does it really build you up? When you see others tear someone down because of their appearance do you not care how it may affect the people you care about and the people who care about you? How many terfs have i seen brag about “hate saving” transwomens photos so they can make fun of them later? How does that sound when you say that out loud? Imagine going to the person you care about the most someone you deeply respect and saying “in my free time i save/take pictures of people i dont know and then i make fun of them and show them to a bunch of strangers so we can make fun of them together” like really say that out loud.

I would be ashamed. I want to make people happy not hurt them. I want connection and i think thats a base need for most humans. I want to connect with people who are kind to me and kind to others, if someone told me they were doing that i would feel ashamed for even talking to that person. Sexual abuse and trauma are no joke and there isnt an argument to say that women suffer gendered violence that cis white men simply never really will ever understand. But true of the matter is our trans brothers and sisters are treated just like woman are and worse. I feel like so many of us end up holding hate for a group of people due to bad experiences with individuals so our dumb brains start shoving people into boxes of “bad” and “good”. But a trans person can fear rape, abuse, trauma just as much as you do and they suffer from very high levels of it and thats a fact. They are not your enemy, hateful individualistic thinking is! and its that very same way of thinking that is killing the planet. I want to iterate that every single person you have interacted with on this website is a living breathing person. They have their own emotions, their own thoughts, their own dreams, and their own world view. When you say something mean or harass them you are actively hurting another person. Me typing this out right now, i am a person with my own flaws and aspirations. I think sometimes people forget that people are people not just faceless emotional less words on a screen. Trans women are women and this blog will always support that. If that makes you upset think about why, on your own at first, no social media to help you.

Maybe see a therapist who is well versed in gender and the lgbt. Therapists arent just their for when your depressed or anxious they are here to talk to. There is people you can read about or talk to, the worst thing that can happen is that you could change like i did. There is nothing shameful about changing and admitting mistakes. Sorry if i said some things wrong i just wanted to get it off my chest

#vent #transphobia #aphobia #cw terfs #anti terf

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cipheramnesia · 4 years

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I was gonna send an ask about rad fems and terfs yesterday but didnt. Very self conscious. I was wildly uninformed about transphobia in the broadest sense of the word. so I read as much material as I could stomach from both sides yesterday. I’m queer af but I might as well have been living under a rock for the last 5 years when it came to this terf and rad fem divide, I’d never heard the term truscum or transmed.. I’d heard of “political lesbians” tho reading through old queer literature.

my trans friends and I don’t really talk about the queer community as a whole or the politics in it. Just our friends, games, our lives and whatnot.. :/ I feel so wildly ignorant. I didn’t use social media like at all until last year. Like I finally made an insta.. for my bunny tho. And I use imgur and tumblr for memes and reading material. I just got back into tumblr a few months ago.. I deactivated my old blog in 2014 around when this rad fem thing resurfaced.

I found a bunch of terf carrds somewhere with pages and pages of twitter and tumblr screenshots. Calling lesbians transphobic for not wanting to deal with p*nis. Thats how I found you. you were the only person who answered a young lesbian about transphobia in a kind way, that’s why I followed you.

Anyways I’m sorry this is so long.. I’m not even sure what I’m really asking. It was just shocking to see how much has happened in the queer community.

Thanks for being one of the people trying to bring young people back into a trans inclusive space instead of like these more militant black and white trans and trans allies. I really saw someone call young lesbians transphobes for having rape trauma around p*nises. There was even one anon who threatened a 15 year old with very graphic rape via girl dick :/ That doesn’t seem right.

Okay so I was gonna answer this when I got it, but then my power went out and I don't like to get into complicated stuff on mobile because of the difficulty typing stuff.

Anyway, I'm glad that post stood out. I'm not always able to be kind all the time and a lot of the times radfems (radical feminists, basically a broader term for terfs, swerfs, aphobes, biphobes, etc) tend not to engage in ways particularly conducive to real conversation.

I'm gonna go off on some tangents about radfems and honestly if you're happier not being deep into gender politics or whatever, no harm in skipping. As long as you're kind and respectful to you queer friends of all stripes. you're good. And it sounds like you are, and that makes me happy to hear. Not everything needs to be discourse-y but also I kinda am so here we go!

There's some interesting stuff in the ask you're referencing. It's one of my favorite bits of writing because it's pretty unrelentingly positive and while I don't have much ability on the emotional labor scale to engage with full on radfems and terfs, I hope maybe someone sort of teetering on the edge sees it and maybe pulls back from going into a full on hate group. It's really great they have it screenshotted. I couldn't ask for a better way for it to find its target audience.

What I think is most interesting personally was that primarily I was discussing how a question could be or seem innocent, and put someone on the track to being groomed into an exclusionist hate group. It's fascinating to dissect the responses, which tend to try and distract from the core point (don't let this hate group recruit you) in a way that suggests that central point very much hits home with radfems. There was a bit where they found the post and en masse tried to shout me off Tumblr which wasn't super fun, but I'm here and they're blocked.

Anywho, the tricky bits I wanted to dwell on here are terfs and screenshots. Let me preface this even further by saying: not all trans people are angels. Trans people are people - some of us are assholes, some trans people are even genuinely horrible and nasty. So when I talk about those screenshots, I'm not suggesting all trans people are good and pure, but a specific issue about the screenshots you were mentioning.

This plays back into some of that earlier post and it comes up sporadically, but radfems and especially terfs habitually capture information out of context so they can use it to push an authoritarian and oppressive agenda. What's most common is to engage in campaigns of long term harassment in hopes of provoking an anger response either from one particular target, or harass someone with a larger social media presence to provoke anger responses from their followers. They collect the enraged responses and post them as if some trans person (or queer person, or asexual person, or etc) has just without provocation said terrible things and behaved in a dangerous or threatening way. That doesn't necessarily make all that stuff good, but it's a bit like the kid who hits back after getting shoved a dozen times by a bully being the one who gets punished.

Also, radfems have got notoriously terrible senses of humor, and pulling dumb comments out of context is another way they make it look like they've been terribly harassed. Point being, take terf screenshots with a big dose of salt.

This is why I tend not to engage with radfem narratives when they talk about a trans cult or whatever. They're operating on a false premise with the goal of making someone validate it by debate. You'll probably find a great deal of them with supposedly legitimate articles or studies suggesting some sort of inherent criminality for trans people, lack of medical safety, hurting or endangering cis women, etc. What you'll find, if you feel like it, is all of those stories inevitably trace back to either a blatantly made up story on some variety of white nationalist website, deliberately misinterpreted data often supporting the opposite point, or a story taken completely out of context specifically to make a trans (or etc) person look cruel, dangerous, etc.

By way of example, there's an absolutely wonderful interview with Judith Butler which has an interviewer trying to lead them into a terf narrative, only to have Mx Butler flay the premise of the questions. If you go through the notes, you'll find radfems levying some horrible accusations and eventually far enough down someone posts context and shock of all shock it was radfems taking something out of context to make it look like Judith Butler supported awful things while the opposite was true.

Now obviously I have a vested interest in this, as a trans woman, and I'm sure it's arguable I'm doing the same thing. But think of it like Fox News versus something like, I dunno, MSNBC. You know MSNBC has a slant, and you have to question what they say and how they present it. That's good and right. But you also know Fox News is about 90% blatant falsehood and while you could spend your days unpacking every wrong thing they say, if you never listen to Fox News again, you'll be fine. Your life will probably be better. If you never listen to a radfem again for the rest of your life, you're not missing any real information, and your life will be better.

#cw rape #cw rad #cw terfs #cw transphobia #long post #gender discourse

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maximumsunshine · 3 years

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Welcome to Me

New intro post? New intro post!

Some of you are new here, and I'm about to hit a follower milestone. I’ve had an intro post pinned but a lot has changed in the past (roughly) 6 months.

My name is Max and I've been on this site a hot minute. I'm that time, I've watched my identity become more and more defined.

I've been in a long term relationship some 18 years now, at this point. Together we have 4 kids. Three I birthed (17, 12, and 9) and one I rightfully stole from an abusive household early in 2020 (Iris, 21). While I'm distancing myself from Harry Potter, letting you know I'm a highly feral Hufflepuff (honey badger) will explain a lot. I keep collecting abused kids. But these 4 are the only kids I have that live with me.

I'm a nonbinary ace lesbian in an polyamorous marriage with a trans woman. The ace bit is tricky, because it's less that I don't experience sexual attraction and more that I'm severely germ phobic and therefore have an aversion to body fluids and am sex repulsed. It took me a long time to arrive at these labels and I have much to thank tumblr for in coming to realize them and grow comfortable in them. But I've settled into them now and they are home.

As of December 2020, my wife currently lives in Seattle (I’m in Ohio) for many complicated reasons. Some good some not so good. We’re going to work on self improvement and growth as individuals over the next few years then we’ll see if we can manage to live together again in a few years. We are still very much married and still very much in love. But sometimes relationships are complicated. The kids live with me. We visit as much as we can. We work hard to co-parent the kids even at a distance.

I have many hobbies including reading and writing things. I hope to take up my teenage hobby of sewing again in 2021. I want to make fun things like sleep pants and skirts for me and my kids.

I am currently employed as an at home care giver for senior citizens. I’m assigned 1-2 long term clients at a time and do whatever is needed of me to allow them to continue to live at home as long as possible. It’s challenging but rewarding work. I value my place in society highly.

A long term goal is to get training as an EMS. I won’t be allowed to use it on the job (I’d be a liability) but I’m hoping to help volunteer in my local queer community. Once covid is over I hope to return to the gym and work on gaining the strength needed to lift a patient as needed. I enjoy working out. Even cardio day. I also look forward to the EMT class. My original goal was summer 2021, but I think it’ll need to get pushed back to summer 2022. This makes me sad, but I don’t want to deal with being a student while covid is a thing.

Speaking of, I have done my time in the classroom. I was an adult student and it took me almost 7 years, but I earned my BS in Applied Psychology in summer of 2019. The degree itself looks at how psychology applies in a business setting, but self study has taught me a lot about the mental health world. Some of this is necessitated by me and my family being long time patients of various things.

I'm not going to lay out all my traumas and medical/mental conditions, but they are there. I drop them into conversation when they apply, but I no longer offer up my triggers to bullies.

I will, however, own up to being neurodivergent and in some 37 years I’ve learned a few tricks on how to defeat my brain in battle. So if you need a community elder, I’m here for you.

TERFs, exclusionists, racists and Nazis aren't safe here. The rest of you I'll defend with my life.

Edit well after original posting:

I’m apparently writing fic now and posting it on AO3 under the username madhattermax. It’s been awhile since I’ve written anything new, now that I’m back to work after early covid unemployment, but there are some lovely Good Omens fics up if you enjoy that fandom. My Ineffable Husbands are strictly ace and will never do more than kiss. If you want smut, I ain’t got it. If you want confessions, I’m your enby.

If you like what I do here and want to kick a tip my way, there is never an obligation but it's always appreciated. I'm working now but I don't make a ton. So we're set on bills, rent, and food. But I do enjoy the occasional coffee. Plus my gym membership is like cheap but still only barely in reach. So securing that so I can get buff and steal your women is always appreciated.

My ko-fi is here.

You can paypal me here.

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pinkchaosart · 3 years

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On transphobia towards our Sisters (not just our cis-ters)

(TW: talk of transphobia, misogyny, gender and sex-based violence)

So I went and took a look at the post by @persistentlyfem that’s causing a major fuss, and I thought I’d address it as a lesbian femme myself. I see a lot of the common talking points that get thrown around and I’m seeing some truly toxic replies being thrown in her direction. Eight years ago I might have agreed with the replies, but I think it’s more useful to engage those talking points and maybe we can meet with some kind of understanding.

Now I want to get a few things out of the way first. Persistentlyfem says, if not in the main post then elsewhere on her blog, that she doesn’t identify as a radfem (radical feminist), so I won’t assume that she is one. I will however address the points she raises as being part of the trans-exclusionist radical feminist ideology, as that’s where the ideas seem to have come from.

One of the biggest misunderstanding between radical feminists and liberal feminists is the concept of gender vs. sex and their importance when speaking of identities. TERF ideology is rooted in second-wave feminism of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, which was a necessary step in the feminist school of thought and is the reason we have a lot of our modern rights. Most people who are trans-exclusionary would describe themselves as gender-critical, but in my opinion, I believe that being exclusionary towards trans women is rooted in the resistance to third-wave feminist ideas of individualism and diversity. But we’ll hold that thought for now.

The ideal of radical feminism is to liberate women by tearing down the concept of gender, abolishing it all together. The ideal of liberal feminism is to create equality by creating safe and inclusive spaces for everyone, regardless of gender, via social and legal reform. Basically the main difference between the two schools of thought is one seeks to destroy gender as a construct and the other seeks to expand it to be more inclusive. It’s important to note that being a radical feminist does not automatically mean that you must be trans-exclusionary.

So I’d like to talk about some specific talking points. I took a little stroll down Persistentlyfem’s blog to see what her experience has been and so that I can understand where she’s coming from. Normally I wouldn’t engage in this kind of conversation because I’m disabled so I have very little energy to spare, but as a fellow butch-attracted femme, I thought it might be useful to respond to her thoughts. I won’t respond to all the points in her recent post, but I will try to talk about the core ideas.

I see that she’s concerned with misogyny in LGBTQ2S+ spaces. I agree it’s widespread, often in ways that are covert. I see it in how butches treat femmes, how gay men talk about women, and how we speak to fellow gay women who disagree with our opinions. And, If I understand correctly, it’s that internalized misogyny that she believes is responsible for trans women believing they should be included in women-only spaces. I argue that it’s quite the opposite, and that it’s actually misogyny that keeps trans-women from being fully accepted.

What I mean is that I find the argument for “female-only spaces” (assigned female at birth, cisgendered women) quite reductive. It implies that there is only one way to be a woman and it reduces us to our genitalia. I don’t think anyone would say they’re a woman because they have a vagina and mean it fully (maybe you would, I don’t really know you). They would also say that their experiences shape them as a woman as well. And I agree, what makes a woman involves quite a lot of factors, and no two women’s experiences are the same. Persistentlyfem has argued that trans women are raised and socialized as male, but I disagree. Setting aside that trans women aren’t a monolith and have completely different socializations between individuals, I would agree that most trans women are treated as male growing up, but for the most part, it doesn’t quite….fit them. More accurately I would say our culture attempts to socialize them as men.

When I think back to my own experience growing up, I, like a lot of girls, had a “not like other girls” period. Internalized misogyny, great right? Because the socialization of “girl” didn’t quite right, the definition being narrow and rigid. Based on stereotypes. So I found my femininity later in my teens. I argue that this is something that most women go through in some way or another. We find our socialization as women uncomfortable and constraining. Not quite right.

As I said, you can’t speak of trans women as a monolith, but from the stories and dialogue I’ve been involved in, countless stories sound exactly like that. Being socialized into a Gender Box that doesn’t suit you is like watching a video in a language you don’t speak. Internalized misogyny is a universal experience between girls growing up, cis and trans, and it is internalized misogyny that keeps trans women from accepting who they truly are. In fact, for them to run away from woman as their identity would inherently be internalized misogyny.

The idea that trans ideology is based in “regressive stereotypes about ‘boys and girls’” isn’t wholly incorrect. I think we all agree that gender is a social construct. But that doesn’t make my identity as a women more valid than someone who transitioned later in life. It doesn’t follow that a trans’ person’s gender is less real than a cis person’s gender. And while we live in our culture and our current society, gender is something that we interact with on a daily basis, which makes it real in a very real sense. We could argue whether it should be that way, but the situation is currently that gender is an important construct in our culture. Not to mention, the thought that all trans people fall in a strict “man” or “woman” binary is incorrect as there are plenty of people that embody other gender identities. Indeed, there are many wonderful trans people that we could argue are the radfem ideal of aegender and/or non binary.

Now the idea that “lesbians and straight men like vaginas. Gays and straight women like penises” is a bit of a stretch. Again, I think a statement like this is pretty oversimplified, but I don’t think that you’re inherently wrong. Generally speaking, sure. Although, again, I’ve met plenty of straight women dating trans men, and there are plenty of straight men that date trans women. But the inherent flaw in this argument isn’t that you’re wrong, but that it implies that attraction equals validity. Am I a woman because a man is attracted to my vagina? No. Am I less of a woman if men aren’t attracted to me? Again, no. My gender isn’t contingent on other’s attraction to me, and that is the same for trans individuals. I think this kind of argument comes from the pressure that is sometimes felt within our community, that if you’re not open to dating trans people then you’re inherently transphobic. I am not going to get into that argument, as this is a whole other can of worms. But what I am going to say is that nobody is going to force you to date a trans person. You don’t have to date someone if you don’t want to. You don’t have to tell everyone why you don’t want to date them, you can just politely decline.

I’m going to be blatantly honest: I am predominantly attract to butch women and afab non binary masculine people. I have never dated someone who was amab, and generally speaking I don’t find myself attracted to them. But that doesn’t mean I think that trans women aren’t women just because I generally don’t find myself attracted to them.

On top of this I’m going to agree with you: sex based oppression does exist. So does gender-based oppression. I know I have experienced bullying in my own time based on my own gender, my ability, my weight, all that good stuff. Maybe some of it was based around embarrassing period episodes (which I would file under sex-based bullying). But misogyny is not just sex-based, it is also inherently gendered. And if we know anything about trans women, it’s that they are overly targeted with violence based on their gender. Especially if they’re BIPOC. And it’s because their gender is feminine that they’re perceived as being targets; is that not the epitome of misogyny? To hate a person because they’re not perceived as the patriarchal male ideal?

Something else I would like to talk about is the concept that trans women are inherently misogynistic. I would argue that every woman, regardless of what they were assigned at birth, carries internalized misogyny. Cis women, however, have years to grapple with it before becoming women. Trans women tend to not have as much time to unlearn internalized misogyny before they become women. That doesn’t invalidate them as women, it just means that we should be more supportive of them, not less. All of this trans-exclusionary rhetoric only serves to increase their self-hatred and I argue that that kind of talk is a contributing factor to the poor mental health we see in the trans community. Instead of supporting some of the people with the greatest insight into the patriarchy, trans-exclusionists push women away and inflict them with even more gendered violence and gender-based discrimination.

The other thing I want to address is the idea that trans women transitioning is rooted in homophobia. Which seems to make sense if you think of trans women being only attracted to men. The idea that a man decides to be a woman because he can’t deal with being gay doesn’t make a lot of sense, though. Homophobia tends to be rooted in misogyny too, a fear of being less of a man. So it doesn’t follow that the solution would be to “become a woman” much like the solution to put out a fire isn’t to light more things on fire. Piggybacking off of this point, a lot of trans exclusionists will accuse trans women of being predators. In fact, often, they’ll hold these two ideas at the same time. But the reality is that, if a man wants to prey on women, he doesn’t need to become a woman. The sign on the bathroom door isn’t actually a deterrent if a man wants to follow a woman in. And again, it’s a counter-intuitive idea, that a man who wants to prey on women would go through all the legal hurdles, all the social stigma, even some medical treatments just to gain access to women’s only spaces. Besides the fact that this type of behaviour is a myth created by conservative right-wing christian groups to stir up fear, it doesn’t happen and assault is still illegal regardless of what your gender marker is.

I am not going to address anything about surgery or hormones. Those points are only ever brought up as enforcing points, they’re not the main issues. Most of the rhetoric is based in fear-mongering conservative right-wing christian groups drum up and it is, again, a whole other topic that requires nuance that most people don’t acknowledge.

The main point I see Persistantlyfem talk about, and something we can agree on, is the misogyny in LGBTQ2S+ spaces. We all like to think that, somehow through our journeys of discovering our true selves, we shed the misogyny along the way, that our spaces are truly accepting of all genders and presentations. That’s not the case. Misogyny is still a problem in every letter of our community and it will be for a long time. We see it when butches treat femmes as “high maintenance” or like property, we see it in how gay men talk about female bodies. We see it the self-hatred trans people of all gender identities feel towards themselves. We see it when lesbians reject bisexual women.

Throwing around “terf” helps nobody. Calling each other stupid and pretentious is not useful. I know this is a painful topic to many on both sides, but the infighting in the queer community is toxic and needs to come down from a boil if we’re going to make any progress. Most people that sling insults are younger and therefor are more hot-headed. I used to be too, and still can be sometimes but like I said, limited energy means that you tend to focus it more consciously and I hope that this time I’ve spent here can help.

@Persistantlyfem, I see that you were hurt, and I respect and honour your experiences. I suspect that some of those that hurt you were trans women. I understand, I’ve had trans partners hurt me as well. But those experiences don’t allow us to revoke someone else’s right to their own interpretation of themselves. And I’m sorry about all of the toxicity you’ve experienced in these last few weeks, you don’t deserve it. I hope that we can have a conversation in a respectable way, worthy of two adult gays who’ve been through a lot.

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rotationalsymmetry · 3 years

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Reading through a argument around “is queer a self defined thing or is it something where you have to check off at least one specific named identity and tell people what that is thing?” And there’s a 17 year old who expressed concerns about the idea of queer being a self identifier thing getting his ass handed to him. Which, I have to say, my initial reaction (safely saved to drafts) also involved a lot of swear words, and not colorful background swearwords either.

Fuck off. My initial reaction was to tell him to fuck off. And that, never mind about hypothetical straight fakers, I didn’t want him at my queer events.

But...I can understand, being young, probably being new to the community, possibly not having any offline community at all, how someone might find themselves arguing that position.

I mean, we got a lot of gatekeeping of various types on this site and in online queer spaces in general. It’s a thing someone could pick up without really questioning it, just because other queer people are saying it. And, you’re new, you’re unsure of yourself, you want to fit in. I can see it.

So, the kind gentle explanation, for anyone who needs less fuck off and more patiently explaining. (If I get replies/asks about this I’ll attempt to continue with the patient version.)

The acronym isn’t fixed. It’s fluid, and the categories within it are fluid.

For example: Marsha P Johnson in her life didn’t call herself a transgender woman. She called herself a transvestite and a gay man, even though she used she/her pronouns. Now, we look back on that and think “well, the language changed over time, someone who lived the way she did would almost certainly call herself a trans woman now, and the modern queers who identify with her most tend to be trans women.” Categories are fluid, in that now we’re inclined to see “trans woman, cross dresser, gay man” as entirely separate categories that aren’t especially related to each other (and het crossdressers might not be seen as queer at all) but they used to have much more overlap.

As another example, “non-binary” wasn’t really a thing when I hit adulthood. There were people who would now call themselves nonbinary, but they used different terms, like genderqueer. Stone Butch Blues talks about “he-she’s”, a term that straddled “butch lesbian” and the modern “transmasculine”, and which definitely isn’t in common use any more.

And that’s just in recent American history! If you look at how queerness is conceptualized across time and across cultures, it varies so much. Some cultures have more than two genders that are universally recognized within that culture. Some times/cultures see homosexuality as being dependent on whether you’re topping or bottoming or about gender roles: a guy who bottoms or takes on feminine gender roles is gay, while one who tops is just a normal straight guy. Sometimes a culture has fairly set gender roles, but people who are biologically male or female taking on the opposite role and having a same-sex partner is completely normal and unremarkable.

The alternative to “a queer person is someone who says they are queer” is to have a fixed definition. You are queer if you check at least one: gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, (asexual, intersex, two spirit, whatever else we want to explicitly include on the list.) But that would require “queer” to have a fixed definition and for all the sub-types of queer to be fixed.

What about when people don’t know for sure: a woman who knows she’s lesbian or bisexual but not which, a person who might be trans but isn’t quite sure, someone who might be asexual but again isn’t quite sure, but perhaps is quite sure they don’t feel comfortable when straight people talk about sex and romance. (And then there’s what happens when you’ve always thought of yourself as gay, but your partner is transitioning so what does that make you?) Hanging out in queer spaces with people who are queer makes sense for all of those people, even ones who might eventually decide they’re not actually queer after all.

And I’ve been writing paragraphs and paragraphs, but I think I missed the main point, which is: the alternative to “queer is self-defined” is “someone else gets to tell you whether you’re queer or not.” Which gives strangers permission to ask all sorts of invasive questions. (Especially if the given reason for defining queer is to keep people who aren’t queer out of queer spaces! That can only happen if you actually ask people coming into a space what they are!) There’s no way to define queer other than “someone who says they’re queer” or “someone who thinks they fit in with other queer people” that doesn’t open the door to those sorts of challenges.

And, in turn, to gatekeeping out people who might not be “queer enough” (ie, close enough to exclusively gay or lesbian) — in practice, trying to define queer leads to defining queer in a way that excludes aces or some trans people or all trans people or bi/pan people with opposite sex partners, or all of the above.

(Not entirely happy with how I’m using the term “sex” here, because I get “biological sex” can be a complex and very loaded concept for many trans people. If someone sees something they’re uncomfortable with and can suggest a better alt phrasing let me know.)

So, people tend to react to “queer shouldn’t be self-defined” in exactly the same way they’d respond to ace exclusionism or terf talk. Because...in practice, insisting queer has to have a fixed definition (or telling people to not use the word) tends to be round one of a game that ends with exactly those things. Even if you personally didn’t mean it that way, the rest of us don’t know that. We react to it like anti-racist activists respond to “All Lives Matter” — maybe it could be innocuous confusion, but it comes from a place of malice often enough that people do tend to assume malice.

Because the idea of fakers who are really straight infiltrating the community...that’s a terf idea and an exclusionist idea, and it doesn’t really fit with any robust and self-consistent understanding of queerness other than those ideologies.

#commenting on without reblogging #lgbtq+#queer #queer gatekeeping #long post #you’re not really queer you’re actually just a straight person pretending to be queer #gets weaponized against actual queer people so often #it’s a bit like how if someone’s sitting in the disabled seating area on the bus #or using an accessible bathroom stall #you should just assume they have an invisible disability #becuade an abled person ‘getting away’ with that #is much less of a big deal than an invisibly disabled person #getting harassed yet again becuade they don’t look disabled #discourse

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soprie · 4 years

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Here are some ace-exclusionist dog-whistles to watch out for

There are a lot of “positivity” posts circling out there that are worded specifically to be ace and aro exclusionist rhetoric disguised as innocuous solidarity. Here are some things to watch out for if you want to avoid interacting with exclusionist posts.

Keep in mind, a post having one of these things does not necessarily mean the OP is an exclusionist, but it just means to go back and read the post carefully a second time, and maybe scan the poster’s blog or about page.

Text from screenshot reads:

i rly dont like the mindset that all lgbt people want is to be “accepted” and that all out community is about it “inclusion”. no. we want access to trans health care. we want anti discrimination laws for housing and employment. we want marriage equality. we want to stop trans kids from being forced to go by their dead name at school. we want to abolish the gay/trans panic defense. we want to stop corrective rape. we want black trans women to stop being murdered. being “accepted” by cishets isnt the goal, and neither is being an all-inclusive club. i want to be able to live my life freely as an lgbt person. our community was created out of the need to survive. that has nothing to do with being “valid”.

1) Constant use of LGBT, but the Q is never added. LGBT on its own can be used as shorthand if the person is cramped for space like on twitter, but if the person consistently never adds the Q, it is reason to suspect they are not forgetting it and are deliberately leaving it out.

2) Use of “cishets” when referring to anyone who is not literally “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender”. Exclusionists will refer to anyone who does not fall under those four labels (sometimes they will include pan and nonbinary people if they are feeling generous) as cishet regardless of how that other person self-identifies.

3) “all-inclusive club” “the LGBT community is not a club” “LGBT is not open to anyone” or other framing that there are specific requirements and metrics that one must measure up to in order to be accepted. (by whom? Who is the bouncer? How do we know if we measure up?)

4) “Our community was created out of the need to survive” This is an argument borrowed straight from TERFs, so any exclusionist who claims to hate TERFs is really only paying lip-service to trans-inclusivity. The Queer community was created to uplift and support queer people. Full stop. Yes, survival is part of it, but there is so much more. We celebrate “pride” not just our survival. exclusionists talk about wanting more than just acceptance, but then turn around and harass those who try to celebrate being queer. Exclusionists frame their entire identity around being miserable and it is toxic.

Text from screenshot reads:

2018 is the year we stop derailing various lgbt posts to make them “inclusive”

No more non wlw on wlw posts

No more non mlm on mlm posts

No more non lesbians on lesbian posts

No more “girls are better/just date a girl” on mlm posts

No more cis on trans/nb posts

No more hets on lgbp posts

No more non lgbtpn on lgbtpn posts

This year, we let lesbian, gay, bi, trans, pan, and nonbinary folks have their own things for their own group and respect everyone’s individuality.

5) “inclusive” is weirdly always in quotations marks, as if it is an imaginary or sarcastic idea. Exclusionists write posts that beg the question, you keep mentioning “keep our community safe” and “not a club that just anyone can join” but who, specifically, are they referring to? Why not just outright say pedophiles or white supremacists? It isn’t controversial to not want racists in the queer community.

Because they are not referring to pedophiles or white supremacists. They are referring to aces and aros, the people they want to harass and kick out.

6) The acronym “LGBTPN”. This is not the standard acronym. The standard acronym is LGBTQ or LGBTQ+ or LGBTQIA2S. This acronym deliberately removes the A and Q while seeming to be inclusive. This is an exclusionist signal and if you see this used on a post, block the poster.

There are so many more low-key signals that exclusionists send out that are ripped straight from the TERF playbook. be careful that you are not swallowing TERF ideas and regurgitating them.

Ace and aro people are part of the community. We always have been and always will be. Do not let bullies try to force you out of your own home.

#ace acceptance #ace positivity #ace inclusion #ace inclusive #LGBTQ

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thechangeling · 4 years

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Your heartbeat is disguised as mine.

This is a platonic oneshot between my OC Janessa Williams and Kit Herondale. Full disclosure, I am a nonbinary person writing about a binary Trans woman. I pulled all of the information for constructing Nessie's background and character profile from other peoples stories both fictional and real. If I have spread misinformation of any kind or written anything that members of the community find offensive, please let me know! I will fix it immediately. Also I'm a useless Demisexual so sometimes I blur the lines between romantic and platonic too much, but hopefully this reads as platonic. Enjoy!

Janessa Williams was in trouble.

It wasn't like this was an uncommon occurrence. Nessie had spent the majority of her life weaving in and out of dangerous situations, but in her defense it usually wasn't her fault.

Kids picking on her when she was younger because she was wearing "girls clothes." Angry people yelling obscenities at her while she was walking home and men threatening to beat her up in the middle of crowded places when she was still transitioning and looked more "obvious" according to some people. Whatever the fuck that meant. And Nessie knew it probably would have been even worse if she hadn't been white.

She relished in the fact that now she was a vampire she was essentially invincible. Like many other people, becoming a downworlder was a source of safety. Which is why it was so painful to hear shadowhunters talk about how "tragic" the creation of vampires and werewolves was.

There were girls whispering behind her back in high school. Just trying to go to the bathroom without there being some sort of public debate amongst her teachers and principal was also a factor.

Jenessa was certainly no stranger to conflict or adversity. But this? This was something else entirely.

Before she had died. Nessie had actually made a decent connection with other members of her community. Even making casual acquaintances was comforting. The queer community overall could be a bit of a shit show at times. With exclusionists, TERFs and biphobes rampaging about. But getting the chance to talk to other trans people was incredible. Especially Bi trans people like herself. But despite that she still felt as though something was missing.

Janessa still felt distant and isolated despite the fact that she now had everything she wanted. It was like a dark black cloud had plagued her for all of her teenage years. Depression. It wasn't just due to being in the closet or not being able to be her true self. It was just there. Corrupting her brain and dragging her down into despair.

It was that same despair that had lead to her death. And when she was reborn as a member of the undead, at first she hadn't exactly been grateful. But in time she had found her footing. Music, therapy, a new community of downworlders who were diverse, powerful and brilliant. She moved from LA to basically all over with her band. All of these things helped Janessa re shape herself and her new life into something better. Something stronger.

But yet she still felt a little isolated at times. A little incomplete. Like she was waiting for something.

Fuck that sounded so pathetic. But it was true. Or at least it was true until a wayward mess of a shadowhunter had wandered into the bar Nessie and her band played regular gigs at, looking for information on a particular downworlder.

Janessa was not pleased. She knew she needed to get this asshole far away from her and her people.

Kit certainly had other ideas. It would not be the last time they disagreed on something.

But she had noticed something that day. Something in his eyes. That same lost look of despair she recognized in herself. This of course hadn't stopped her from calling him an angelic, inbred, self righteous asshole and he had thrown his head back and laughed.

Despite Nessie's better judgement, she had decided to trust him that day. He had complemented her t shirt which said "In my defense, I was provoked" and her leather jacket which had the trans symbol on the back with the Bisexual flag as the background.

So she had helped Kit with his mission that day, which turned out to be pretty harmless, which then led to hanging out at the park after dark and eating fast food on the balcony of Ciernworth. He asked her questions about her life and her unlife. He asked the questions that she usually got about hormones and discovering her gender identity, and less common questions about becoming a vampire. She in turn asked him questions about his past and his coming out. Her fate was sealed that day. Janessa just didnt want to admit it.

And now, several weeks later that shadowhunter she had chosen to trust was currently sobbing into her arms.

"Kit it's gonna be ok alright? Just take some deep breaths" Janessa cooed. She was running one of her hands through his blond curls, and another along his back attempting to soothe him.

Kit gasped for air against his sobs as he pressed his forehead closer to her neck. "I mean-. Nessie I just-" he gasped, unable to properly get the words out.

Janessa shook her head. "Shhh no it's ok" she reassured him. "Take your time."

It broke her heart to see Kit like this but all she could do was focus on helping him. Not once did it occur to Nessie that she currently had a live human being pressed up against her, viens full of rushing blood.

She rubbed his shoulders. Kit sighed and began to speak in a more calm tone. "It's just that when I gave Magnus the necklace to give to- you know to him, it brought all of those old feelings rushing back you know?"

Janessa sighed. Him was Tiberius Blackthorn. The boy that Kit was hopelessly in love with. The boy that had broken his heart.

Janessa was most certainly not a fan. Anyone who made her friend cry was instantly on her shit list. Nessie was more then a little protective of Kit but she couldn't help it. He was always getting himself into trouble. Like the other day, dealing with the Devon Vampire Clan which Nessie was kind of a part of now that she was living in Devon temporarily. Kit was picking her up from a meeting so they could get Midnight snacks and play video games at her place.

The Devon Clan was really not happy to see a Shadowhunter. They antagonized her over trusting one of the nephilum. They called her a traitor to her own people. Janessa personally thought they were being a little overly dramatic. It led to a fight that most definitely put the accords in jeopardy.

Janessa also discovered that day that she and Kit fought beautifully together. Almost like Parabatai.

Whoah. Where the fuck did that come from.

Janessa heard a light snore from below her. Kit had fallen asleep in her lap. She snorted fondly. The emotional labour of crying must have tired him out. She didn't really blame him for that. As Nessie stared down at him, this shadowhunter who had become so significant to her, she wondered if this was going to end badly for her.

She could hear the words of hundreds of downworlders echoing in her head, including her own. Shadowhunters can't be trusted. Shadowhunters are selfish. Shadowhunters hate downworlders. They don't believe we're worthy of life so why should we be nice to them? Fuck them all.

And all of that was what she firmly believed.

Kit snored again.

Well for the most part.

It wasn't like she was in love with him. That much she knew. The thought of kissing Kit or dating him or anything like that made her quesy. But the idea of holding him while he cried, or laughing at his jokes, or even staying here watching his chest rise and fall and relishing in the fact that yes, he is alive, that sounded perfect.

Janessa scooped her arms under Kit's body and pulled him up off of the floor. "Come on Kit-Kat" she muttered. "Let's get you to bed."

Kit moaned in protest but didn't try to fight her as she pulled him over to her bed. Nessie could only hope that Kit had told his parents where he would be. Kit smiled sleepily at her and opened his eyes.

"You're my best friend you know?" He murmered.

Janessa swallowed down a sob. "Really?" She asked, trying to keep her voice steady. "I've never had a best friend before."

Kit closed his eyes. He was probably nodding off again. "Me neither" he whispered. He probably didnt want to count Ty considering all of the romantic angst.

And in that moment Janessa made a choice. She made the decision to lay down next to him and relax. She made the decision to forgive him for things that were out of his control.

She leaned over and pressed a soft kiss to his temple. "You're my best friend too ok?" She said softly.

And when she saw the slightest of smiles appear on his face, Janessa made another decision as well.

She let herself love him.

Your heartbeat is disguised as mine.

My lullaby.

The song I used for this fic is Always be together by Little Mix.

#tda #the dark artifices #kit herondale #twp #the wicked powers #tsc #my oc #kaitlin'swriting

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freedom-of-fanfic · 6 years

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radfem lite(tm) and tumblr discourse

identifying radfem dog whistles: that is, radfem ideology when it’s not obviously and blatantly transphobic or anti-sex worker

nobody likes TERFs or SWERFs - or so we like to think, even if we don’t entirely know it means to be a terf or swerf. but the truth is that radical feminism - the overarching worldview that contains within it both TERF and SWERF ideology - is fairly widespread and even popular here on tumblr. it’s just that most of the time it’s not identified as being radfem/terf/swerf rhetoric unless the transphobia (or anti-sex-worker sentiment) is blatant and open.

this is the first of a series of posts intended to help fellow people on tumblr identify and understand what I call ‘radfem lite’ - radfem rhetoric that is not obviously transphobic or anti-sex-work, but naturally points one towards becoming a radical feminist (that is, abandoning intersectional feminism, eroding belief in free will (particularly in regards to consent), embracing binarist thinking & gender essentialism, and denying or belittling all forms of societal oppression that are not directly related to misogyny.)

radfem lite rhetoric is frequently a ‘dog whistle’ as well - a phrase or word that has more than one meaning depending on who hears or reads it. non-radfems hear one thing; radfems and their targets hear another. those who become radfems or radfem targets eventually become familiar with the true meaning of the dog whistle word or phrase, but the majority of those who spread it have no idea what they’re really ‘saying’.

some of the things I’ll post about will have overlap with other types of exclusionist thinking, or will have been adopted by those who aren’t radfems so widely that it might seem absurd that it has radfem roots. I’ll try to be clear about why I am attributing a concept to radical feminism when I introduce it.

some things will also have some grain of ‘truth’ to it - the reason why the radfem lite concept seems reasonable to non-radfems. I’ll try to identify that grain of truth, and dismantle or demystify why the reasoning built around it is faulty.

Why am I doing this?

the first and most obvious reason is the number of ‘OP was a terf so I stole this post’ headers i’ve seen that are followed by a post loaded with radfem lite rhetoric. many, many people on tumblr know that terfs (and swerfs) are bad, but don’t know why or can’t identify terf rhetoric if it isn’t labeled ‘terf rhetoric’.

but also: because radical feminist thinking - particularly the anti-porn branch, which bends into SWERF thinking - is highly appealing to fannish tumblr, and forms the basis for a lot of fandom anti-shipper thinking and arguments. I hope that seeing the radfem roots of these arguments will help those leaning into fandom anti-shipper thinking avoid falling victim to radical feminist outreach.

post 1 / some basics

What is radical feminism?

Radical feminism - which encompasses, among others, subgroups such as trans-(women) exclusionary radical feminists (TERFs/TWERFs), and sex-worker exclusionary radical feminists (SWERFs) - is an ideology that holds that the most important and severe axis on which oppression occurs is patriarchal social structure and its inevitable product, misogyny.

By discounting all other forms of oppression and marginalization as being of lesser or no importance, radical feminists (aka ‘radfems’) naturally conclude that those they perceive as men are unable to experience meaningful societal oppression and those they perceive as women are unable to experience meaningful societal privilege. As such:

it is impossible for a (perceived) woman to have a mutually beneficial friendship, business partnership, romance, or sexual relationship with a (perceived) man.

Further, their perception of how oppression works is frequently concerned only with the binary sex organs one is born with (or ‘closest to’/that which was surgically created for intersex people).

The belief that a (radfem-perceived) woman cannot have a good or beneficial interaction - especially sexual interaction - with a (radfem-perceived) man, which (like misogyny) belittles and degrades the ability of women to make decisions for themselves, encourages activists to focus on modifying and correcting the behavior of perceived women rather than focusing on modifying and correcting societal inequalities caused by gender/perception of gender. This misplaced focus disproportionately harms sex workers* and/or any (perceived) woman having sex or in a line of business that radfems consider ‘degrading’ to women**.

The reduction of gender identity and experiences to sex organs alone leads to inclusion and/or exclusion of people from ‘womenhood’ based on whether radfems perceive a person as ‘born male’ or ‘born female’. This causes disproportionate harm to trans people (trans women particularly), leading not only to misgendering, but accusations of sexual assault/attempted sexual assault, (mostly directed at trans women), exclusion from gendered spaces to which they belong, and erasure.** It also harms anyone who does not identify with a binary gender by reducing their experiences to their agab, and anyone who does identify on the gender binary but does not ‘look’ sufficiently like the gender they identify with (which may include those who identify with their agab.)

(*this is because radfems believe that only people they see as women are sex workers and their only clients are people they see as men.)

(**all this potentially leading to even more severe consequences, such as being assaulted, attempting/committing suicide, or being murdered, among others. the consequences of radical feminist ideology are severe.)

Why is all radfem ideology so dangerous?

if you’re wondering ‘what’s the problem with radical feminism when a radfem isn’t a TERF or SWERF’, this is why radfem ideology as a whole is damaging and harmful to embrace:

because its ideology is, at heart, transphobic, and leads to trans people being harmed or killed or otherwise put at severe risk.

because its ideology is, at heart, anti-sex work, and leads to sex workers being harmed or killed or otherwise put at severe risk.

because its ideology is, at heart, based on the existence of a gender binary created by sexual dimorphism, and leads to erasure and harm of anyone who does not identify on the gender binary

because its ideology is non-intersectional and therefore belittles or ignores many axes of oppression and marginalization that can have as much as/greater effect on any given person’s quality of life

because it flattens societal structures to a single dimension (sexism), encouraging black and white thinking: namely, all (perceived) women are inherently good and all (perceived) men are inherently bad

this harms (perceived) women by putting them on a pedestal, expecting them to be ‘better’ than other genders in every way, only to be knocked off if they don’t appease radfem standards of female behavior

it erases the harm that women with axes of privilege over other women can do to those other women

it erases the harm that women with equal privilege can cause to one another (abuse in a relationship between two lesbian women), and the harm that women can do to those who are not women (predatory women who prey on men/children are erased, for example)

dismisses the victimhood of victims/survivors of oppression or harm who are not seen as women

because its aggregate societal effect is to reinforce patriarchal social structure, misogynistic dismissal of (perceived) women, and magnify sexism, primarily by putting pressure on (perceived) women to perform womanhood to radfem standards while ignoring (perceived) men as being beyond hope of reform.

because all of this hurts everyone, regardless of their gender, and disproportionately harms those marginalized by additional axes of oppression (such as race, sexual orientation, etc).