YOU GUYS

maybe this is a "hot take," but it's something i genuinely believe is true. aphobes can broadly be sorted into 3 categories: the uninformed, the bigot, and the bully. there is overlap between all 3, and i'm sure there are some people out there who are aphobic in a fun new way that i can't possibly conceive of yet, but i think these categories are fairly accurate and helpful for an aspec to recognize.

the uninformed aphobe is what it sounds like– they either don't know anything about the aspectrum or they've been fed false information about it. this is the only type of aphobe that is ever worth engaging with, and only to politely correct them and point them towards resources that would help them broaden their understanding. i'll be completely honest though: you'd be pretty damn lucky if you managed to actually singlehandedly change their mind. if they're not receptive to your corrections, simply move on. it's not worth the headache. you at least gave them something to think about.

the bigot, in contrast, is absolutely never worth engaging with. the bigoted aphobe is aphobic simply because aspec people are queer and they hate queer people. terfs famously used (and still continue to use) aphobic rhetoric as a sort of gateway drug for transphobia. the people who will argue that aspec folks aren't queer are often the same people who despise us because they associate us with queerness.

the third aphobe is actually the most common on this website, i think, and they're the reason i'm making this post. the aphobic bully may know full well the fundamentals of the aspectrum, but they will simplify and misrepresent it on purpose in an attempt to make aspec people look bad. aspec people have long been "acceptable targets" of bullying on this site for a reason that is fairly obvious to me but one i haven't seen anyone else point out: aspec people are largely neurodivergent. it's really no coincidence that ace discourse and cringe culture peaked at around the same time– they were one in the same, and the treatment aspec and autistic people received were (and still are) damn near identical. portraying aspec people as cringey teenagers who watched too many cartoons and are just too socially awkward for anyone to love them or whatever... it's a sentiment thats existed for years and years now. it took me a while to realize it, but this is why so many "tumblr funnymen" and other assorted popular blogs were/are aphobes too– they've got egos the size of china but they know they can't get away with blatantly picking on autistic people. so they'll hide behind a guise of aspec exclusionism, something that's unfortunately viewed as a real and valid ideology for someone to have. even aside from the thinly veiled ableism, bullies are always coming from a place of insecurity and projecting it onto other people. i've found that a lot of the most vicious aphobes are people who are struggling romantically or sexually. you can see them post about it, you can see even in the most recent discourse so many of these people are deeply stressed and hurt from whatever romantic or sexual struggles they're facing. to them, someone being unconcerned with those sorts of things is almost offensive because it means so much to them. they read it as a challenge to their own allo identity. so, why not take out that frustration on the aspecs?

it goes without saying that the bully isn't worth engaging with, either. they want to rile you up because it makes them feel better about themselves. don't give them that satisfaction.

It's really important that terfs and radfems make men out to be the ONLY representatives and perpetrators of patriarchy because if anyone found out that women could aid the patriarchy too, it'd be so obvious that's exactly what TERFs and radfems are doing.

"girls can only be victims" "women need to be protected" "men should know better than to date a 25 year old girl child" "only biology and sex based oppression is real" "being a submissive tradwife is empowering despite what TRAs want you to think" "women are biologically weaker than men" "feminism isn't about womens rights it's about how men treat women" "how is that woman supposed to know better, a man should have helped!"

These are all things my misogynist grandpa would say.

And let's be real a lot of TERFs/radfems are white. And also het. Just like he is.

Which is very, very important because for a lot of them gender based oppression is the ONLY way they're oppressed.

And the way white women are oppressed is Different. White women have organizations and foundations and speakers and get invited to the WH. Look at Amber Heard. A white cishet victim of patriarchy with a new movie coming out and So Many other women supporting her bravery. Let's look at the Karens who use white womanhood to play victim and successfully get black men murdered over it.

They have the privilege of being able to do that while having no knowledge about the Indigenous Women's Network or the Loveland Foundation. And when were either of them ever invited to speak or propose a new bill?

Their feminism doesn't need to be intersectional because white supremacist men are willing to listen to a cishet white girl. She doesn't need us because our shared oppressors listen to her without us.

But where does her victimhood go if she admits that to us?

Their entire belief system is based on the idea that you can't be feminist unless they experience oppression. Which probably has a lot to do with them believing "men aren't allies cuz they're all our abusers" and "women are just victims"

White women victims are afforded a certain amount of power and authority the rest of us are not.

Wouldn't you want to maintain the little power you have?

That's why they're "gender critical" until you actually criticize their ideas on gender. It's why you MUST hate women if you criticize them.

It's the victimhood they benefit from and their need to maintain it.

Like how are they supposed to justify being transphobic pieces of shit if they admit trans women are NOT men? If they can't be victims of trans people that would have to mean they're just victimizing trans people, wouldn't it? If they, as white women, admitted race factored into feminism a Lot wouldn't that just make them racist for telling black women it wasn't?

Wouldn't that make them oppressors?

Because if they're doing that then they are taking part in systematically oppressing people they have power over. Silencing them.

And that's not possible because women are just so weak and helpless right? They can't be oppressors. It's men. Men built this system. Not them. Women were helpless. Just like right now while a wave of anti-trans legislation is sweeping.

If only men didn't have all the power and women could do something to help. If only trans women and men were oppressed. But they don't count and they just wanna steal spotlight from "sex based oppression" so they're actually oppressing women so women should not help them.

Because by fighting for gender discrimination rights and bodily autonomy just like radfems and TERFs, trans ppl are stealing the spotlight from "real" victims apparently. And we all know increasing white woman victimhood automatically makes you evil with no need for nuance or critical thinking about it.

....Even though trans ppl are are fighting for the same exact rights that TERFs and radfems are fighting for.

Do you see the ridiculous stretch they have to make?? How superficial it is?

Convenient the justification for a bunch of white cis women to sit around doing nothing again while their keepers call inhumane shots, isn't it?

I'm telling you, what TERFs and radfems Believe in is not feminism and it won't serve any cis people or even them in the long run.

They don't want equality of the sexes or anyone else.

What they want is an excuse to sit around doing nothing and ensuring their own safety AGAIN at the cost of everyone else's.

Because in truth what they want isn't actually that much different. They're the favorite for a reason.

But again....where would that leave these so-called feminists if they admitted that?

And then you have the queer TERFs and radfems which is just wild to me.

Do you have any idea how many radfems are trans lesbians? Or even just trans? Way more than makes any goddamn sense.

Coincidence?

I think the fuck not, mon frère.

TERFs made victimhood their personality by villainizing men and trans women and you couldn't help yourselves when you saw how they used it to position themselves could you.

Radfems even frame it like they're the good bigots because their ideas of women being lesser than men is trans inclusive. Like they're more "valid" as victims so they're Real feminists.

Don't be fooled.

None of that is progress or feminism. That's just Patriarchy's favorite doing what they do best; parroting the same exact rhetoric then looking away while Patriarchy and White Supremacy pass legislatation against the rest of us.

1. What is a woman?

Argument for Using "Cis-Identifying"

And related: A conversation with a "NERF" about radical feminism, gender identity ideology, and what we/I actually believe.

2. Inform yourself on some of the work I've done for trans people before you continue the trend of cowardly hypocrisy.

3. My thread responding to the way much of the tumblr trans community handled my sharing my story of surviving the 2016 Pulse Nightclub shooting (often by stealing my lived trauma and removing my url) is easily one of the most - if not the most - important posts pertaining to trans discourse I've made to date, and Tumblr won't let me pin it. Of course. So here it is. And a bonus: This lovely ask.

4. Hope for Women (this is a very new project, WIP)

About Me:

I am a butch lesbian, married to a badass gnc (but not butch) radfem lesbian goddess whose misandry surpasses even my own; she does have tumblr but rarely uses it - @psychichologramnightmare is hers. I'm 27/Taurus/May baby, though I'll be real, I've never liked astrology and found my birth chart n whatnot always laughably wildly inaccurate to me (sorry astrology girlies). Former competitive rock climber, still in love with hiking and climbing. Wilderness survivalist. Trained & armed woman, advocate for female-only firearm ownership.

My wife and I run our own business, and bought our first home together at 24 & 25 respectively - it's a lovely 4/3 on a quarter acre where we have 5 mango trees and more, plan to start growing our own food and herbs, foster kittens, and provide free housing (and more) regularly for those in need. We do a LOT of IRL feminist action/work/organizing. I post about some of that work pretty often, but I couldn't possibly post about all of it (even if it were safe to do so). I am basically organizing (mostly offline, but some online as well) full-time now.

Survivor of abuse, CSA + captivity, trafficking in my teens where I was forced into porn as a minor, the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando 2016, and more. I am no longer affected by any of these in any negative psychological manner. I own my past, every moment of it, and wouldn't change a thing I've experienced. What I often tell people is, "I'm not glad it happened; I'm glad I was there."

I got my Bachelor's in Neuroscience/Neuropsych, used to work in a top neuro research lab, and have been a coauthor on a peer-reviewed scientific journal publication. I wrote my undergraduate thesis on POTS, ADHD, some of the relevant epigenetics, and norepinephrine dysregulation. I was diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos & POTS in 2015, before pretty much anyone had heard of them (including most doctors). My POTS is very well-managed now, but chronic pain from EDS is more of a struggle.

I practice witchcraft as a form of artistic expression. I don't consider myself spiritual as I've had a lifelong inability to "believe," but I am particularly passionate about lesbian-centered/lesbian-exclusive (esp butch & gnc lesbian) witchcraft. I am open to commissions for spell jars/sachets on a purely donation basis (we recently were victims of identity theft and are still struggling to recover, but I'll do them for free happily). This is essentially artistic expression to me, something to express love and sisterhood - why I'm not actually charging or anything and will even pay shipping and materials myself if you'd like one but don't want to/can't donate. To me, it's very similar to commissioning a painting or something of the sort, and I deeply enjoy the process of making them, esp for other women, the love that goes into doing so. See tags: #witchcraft, #brujeria.

Adoptee with complex history. Adoption-critical but not abolitionist - I plan to adopt with my wife in a couple years. I've talked a fair bit about my experiences, adoption trauma, ethical adoption, and more. Check out my tags such as #ethical adoption, #adopted, #adoptee, and so forth (tagged on this post for easy accessibility).

I spent many years surrounded by majority-trans-identifying friends/acquaintances both irl and online, deeply involved in trans spaces & activism, and even identified for a bit & was on T for a while. I am not "uneducated" or unfamiliar with trans-identifying people, their experiences, or gender identity ideology in general. You, like me back then, very probably have been lied to about radfems ("terfs") and what we believe and fight for. I am happy to talk in good faith (provided you do the same) 1 on 1 with anyone who is curious about what we actually believe and what we stand for, what common radfem takes on gender identity ideology & trans identity actually are and why.

I have a history of purely physical sex dysphoria (physical sensation like pain or itching). I got "top surgery" (elective mastectomy) due to this and other reasons: constant painful breast cysts & very large breasts (DDD even when I weighed under 100 lbs). I was not trans-identifying by the time I got this surgery (though I tried to briefly identify as nb/transmasc just bc I felt obligated, but hated it). I have never wanted to be a man socially and genuinely hated the very thought. I came out the womb feminist, got in trouble throughout primary school for fighting boys who tried to pull sexist bullshit, always lowkey believed in female superiority (I mean just look at our biology, lifespans, pain tolerance, the things we've done throughout history despite violent patriarchal oppression...). I spent years preparing myself. I read from & spoke to women who regretted this surgery, challenged myself at every turn, dove deep into my mind and thought processes, tried alternative treatment attempts, worked with a non-affirming therapist, made sure my past traumas were fully healed, and waited until I was in my mid-twenties so my brain was more or less fully matured. I have no regrets about it. I still have some (still purely physical sensation) dysphoria ("phantom male genitals" type of thing) at times, but have come to manage this very well. More on this here.

Formally assessed psychopath & participant in research by leading psychopathy experts (read on before jumping to conclusions). Check out this post and my #psychopathy tag (tagged on this post for easy accessibility) for info, particularly about high-EQ female psychopathy, & to find out everything you think you know about us is wrong 💕 (what you know about male psychopaths is usually right tho 💀)

Note: When it comes to politics, I strive to discuss exclusively that about which I am *uniquely knowledgeable* - by which I mean, essentially, that I (believe I) have something to contribute that is unlikely to be found on every other blog. I do not and will not make posts or reblog posts about topics I do not feel this way about. You are not entitled to know my views on every hot-button issue, and I have no intention of speaking on that which I know little about, or that I don't know enough about (through study or personal experiences) to contribute something you can't get a thousand other places.

Tag Guide (WIP):

#mine -> original posts, including ask responses

#ask -> ask responses only

#anon hate, #anon love -> should be self-explanatory. anon love does include some non-anon love for simplicity.

#catposting, #dogposting, #petposting -> images of cats, dogs, and both, respectively (not always my own)

#Wilder wives -> posts pertaining to me & my wife (last name Wilder)

#mvawg, #mvaw, #male violence -> male violence against women/girls

#ethical adoption -> my takes as an adoptee on the issues within the adoption industry & how adoption can be done ethically

#what we believe -> fairly new tag for posts trying to educate on what radfeminism is actually about/damage control for disinformation & misinformation about it

#trans violence -> violence committed by trans-identifying people, including threats of and graphic violent fantasies (primarily misogynistic ones)

#trans misogyny, #trans lesbophobia, #woke misogyny, #woke homophobia, #woke lesbophobia, etc. -> what it says on the tin

A PSA

Okay I normally don't make posts about TERFs like these because I prefer to reblog them from trans people who know more about this stuff then I do but I just gotta say this, and if I'm being for fucking real I can't believe this even has to be said:

Stop posting screenshots of TERF posts and saying "op was a terf so I'm stealing this post! 🤪"

Seriously, stop it. You're not doing anything good by taking TERF talking points and reposting them to your blog. All you're doing is allowing TERF rhetoric to continue to spread and sanitizing it so that people become desensitized to it and don't recognize actual TERF rhetoric when they see it.

When you screenshot a TERF post and say "op was a TERF" all you are doing is validating TERF points whether you agree with them or not. Because every post a TERF makes, even if it seems benign, is connected to their rotten, transmisogynist ideology. You cannot divorce TERF statements from their true intentions. I think a lot of TMEs on this site really underestimate the fact that TERF is a harmful hate movement. Every statement a TERF makes, even if it seems harmless or actually feminist, is ultimately going to be tarnished by the fact that they are made with the intention of targeting trans women and wanting them dead. If a post is about how men are awful or are "raised" to be a certain way and is made by a TERF, then congratulations, you just found transmisogynistic rhetoric that is actually about trans women and their apparent "male socialization". If a post is about how lesbians should be allowed to not like men and how men are forcing themselves onto lesbians, but a TERF made it, then it's not actually a lesbian-friendly post. It is a transphobic post about how transfem lesbians apparently "prey" on cis lesbians(which they also think straight trans men are, let's make that very clear) by merely existing. Same for any post about the word queer or the beauty industry or periods or anything of the like. Even if they don't explicitly say it, TERFs are inherently lumping trans women in with(cishet) men and trans men in with women/lesbians and THAT is the true meaning of the post. You're not making it any better by reposting it from them.

TERFs know exactly how to make their posts seemingly benign and genuinely positive on the surface so that people get sucked in to thinking that they are truly for the feminist cause and actually have good points to make. But all of it ultimately serves the purpose of continuing transmisogyny, and when you post screenshots of their posts and go "I really wanted to reblog this post but op was a terf so I'm stealing it! 😇" all you are doing is giving terfs a platform and saying that we should listen to them. You're exposing trans women to beliefs and opinions of people who ultimately wish to harm them and do NOT have the same innocent intentions that you believe they have from looking at the post at first glance. You are not helping women. You are not helping feminism. You're internalizing TERF rhetoric, and you're allowing other people to internalize it, too.

It's one thing if you don't realize a post was made by a TERF before you reblog it, and then you delete it afterwards. But if you know someone is a TERF and intentionally repost their vile, sickening rhetoric wrapped up in pink feminist bows and go "I like the message of this post but op is a terf so 🤷🏾‍♀️" then you may as well be reblogging it directly from them, because you're still agreeing with TERFs at the end of the day.

What can you do instead? You can reblog feminist posts from amazing and intellectual trans women who actually are genuine about the cause and actually know what they're saying. They have way better views on feminism and misogyny and lesbophobia and the patriarchy then a radfem who thinks woman=vagina and man=penis ever will, trust me. Uplift their voices instead of stealing from conservative hate groups. It really is that simple.

Not to uh, drag you into The Discourse, and you don't even have to answer this ask publicly at all, but you recently reblogged a post that criticized "men being lesbians". I understand that the post is directly speaking about making room for afab men over amab women (and even my description is a bit of an oversimplification for a few reasons), and this is a real problem, but I'd also like to encourage you to consider that the overlap between trans masculine people and (c)afab lesbians is a historical one, that there are many trans mascs who found community with lesbians when they weren't wanted anywhere else, that he/him lesbians exist and are real, that stone butches of many stripes (including trans butches!) are still driven out of their own communities, etc. "There is no place for men in lesbianism" is an inherently ahistorical claim, because there are trans mascs who held both identities at once, and struggled with feeling a sense of belonging *anywhere*. A good book to read is Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg. You don't have to agree with me, you don't have to respond, I just wanted to provide you with another perspective. Have a good day! 💚

If you think you're offering me "another perspective" you're making a lot of assumptions about what my perspective is at all. We are on the same page and the post I reblogged does not negate that. See this is the issue, anytime a lesbian is like "I don't like men" people are like BUT DID YOU CONSIDER THE TRANSMASCS AND THE HE/HIM LESBIANS AND THE- yes!!! They are all in the lesbian community! Bold of you to automatically assume we didn't consider them just because we're complaining about men! This is exactly what that post was about: any time anyone brings this topic up, they get instantly seen as terfs or get anti-terf talking points told to them as if they didn't know. No one is saying trans mascs can't be a part of the lesbian community, many nonbinary trans mascs are lesbians. I myself am literally a non binary lesbian.

I need you to think about the fact that I reblogged one (1) post, didn't even comment on it, and you're in my inbox like "have you heard of stone butch blues?" "Did you know about trans mascs?" "did you know he/him lesbians exist?" as if I'm uneducated.

Every point you brought up is something I already believed. But I need you to consider how many lesbians literally all the time from all directions get "you're a woman you need to like men" and "I'm a man and I can change you" shoved down our throats. In a patriarchal society, being a woman who doesn't like men is rebellion. So you can see why some lesbians might be a little irked that we can't complain about that shit without people assuming we're either 1) uneducated or 2) instantly responding with "saying lesbians can't like men is a terf dog whistle" - As if we don't consider trans women to be women. As if we don't include trans masculine people, nonbinary people, and he/him lesbians in our community. As if we dared to complain about men so we must be uneducated. As if we don't like men so we must be a terf. Do you see the issue.

Two years ago, a group of antis drove out a really talented and kind writer from the Phantom of the Opera fandom. They pulled an out-of-context quote from her fic that made reference to the trans-Atlantic slave trade as part of a character's history and claimed that this was proof the writer was an anti-black racist. And they chose to go after this person because they were actually angry a different writer who is an open TERF. They couldn't shame the TERF into going anywhere, so they turned on the whole fandom and made an example out of someone who they knew wouldn't fight back. And she didn't. She deleted all of her fics and disappeared.

Two years later and our fandom is stuck with the TERF, who is also now openly racist, occasionally making awful comments on posts about the Black actresses who play Christine in the stage productions. Just yesterday she made a comment that started off "The problem with black Christines..." There isn't anywhere you could go with that sentence that wouldn't be some kind of racial essentialist trash.

What did those antis achieve? If you had listened to them in 2021, you would have thought they at least really believed they were righteous. And yet they are completely silent as the two or three true racists in the fandom continue to spout trash. They had their flash of anger and then got bored. They didn't do anything to make Black fans safer.

I learned a few things from this:

You can't shame the shameless. The racist TERF isn't going anywhere because she does not feel any shame in being what she is.

Never delete your fics because antis found them. Not when you haven't done anything wrong. Because you know who isn't going to delete their fics? The actual racists and TERFs.

--

https://at.tumblr.com/handweavers/705681979526594560/tjmzqbr52y2g

I just saw this post and... is this really how many people think? That the transandrophobia movement is associated with terf recruitment?? I'm genuinely asking because i try to stay out of drama and the logic is near incomprehensible to me

damn can this person tell the TERFs in my inbox & notes that they're supposed to love me and never harass me or want me dead??

There's so much wrong with that post, and honestly the claim that TERFs never hate trans men/mascs is, itself, dangerously false.

Like. If that's the case, what the fuck is this then?

The common argument here is that TERFs must believe trans women are the ones doing the "seducing", but that's patently not true, either: ROGD ("Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria) is the idea that trans men "infect" "young girls" with our icky tranny disease, manipulating them into believing they must be trans as well. Abigail Shrier outright states this in Irreversible Damage, and namedrops multiple big-name transmasc YouTubers and public figures as the people responsible for "tricking" "young girls" into believing they're trans.

TERFs don't just want to manipulate us into detransitioning- which is already, by the way, a form of incredible violence- they want us to stop existing. When manipulation fails, they turn to violence: corrective rape is not uncommon, and neither is physical violence. Those of us who can't be "saved" must die, lest we infect anyone else.

Transfems are exactly as capable of being TERFs. Transfems who join that movement are being abused and subject to violence and manipulation; it isn't a good deal for them. It's also not a good deal for transmascs. But yes, both groups are capable of calling themselves TERFs, and finding nominal "acceptance" in the form of TERFs weaponizing them against other trans people- all while pressuring them to detransition.

The reason it happens more often with transmascs is because the way TERFs target us is different, which is itself a manifestation of the difference between transmisogyny and transandrophobia. Transfems are not generally actively sought out the way transmascs who can be "saved" are, but they can, and have, fallen into TERFism regardless.

Anyway. The reason they claim our movement is "associated with ex-TERFs" is because I made a post, like, two years ago talking about how, when I was 16, I found out I was following a TERF on Facebook, immediately blocked her, and self-reflected out of guilt and fear for years afterward.

She hadn't spoken about trans women before; it was only when I brought them up to her that I found out that the "men" she was talking about included trans women.

I brought this up in my post to talk about how TERF ideas often fly under the radar, and to encourage people to reflect on "man bad" ideas; because radical feminism itself is inherently tied to TERFism, and leads into TERF ideology, even if you never think of it as being About Trans Women.

TERFs often recruit through exclusionary and reactionary movements that seem unrelated to trans people, or to trans women specifically. We've seen it with the "ace discourse" most notably, but it's happened before, and it continues to happen now. The pervasive myth that TERFs only hate trans women, and that TERFism is only when feminists hate trans women, is directly beneficial to TERF recruitment.

Recognizing TERF ideology outside of "trans women bad" helps us cut off TERF recruitment before it can actually start. And people like this- who demand we ignore TERF ideas unless they explicitly name trans women- are directly aiding TERF recruitment.

Hi Varona, i may be dumb, but why atheism is a terf? can't figure it out

hey :)

so I've used the term "atheist" as in "a person who does not believe in or is agnostic towards the existence of any higher power or immaterial essence". That would include agnosticism towards things like a soul, karma, an afterlife, etc. I know that this is a broad definition, because some sources define atheism as the absence of a belief in god(s).

So is the gender identity belief compatible with atheism?

A transgender person is, according to the Oxford dictionary, "a person whose gender identity does not correspond with the sex registered for them at birth". So that would mean that some males think that they are women, and some females believe that they are men, right?

No, it goes further - the second assertion is that by expressing one's gender identity, or by only identifying as that particular identity, the person becomes that what they're identifying as. Many even go as far as to say that a person does not just become a different gender by identifying as such, but they also retrospectively change the reality of their gender category. So for example, if I say today that I identify as a woman, I am a woman - but if I tomorrow assert that I am a man, I will always have been a man, even if I was a woman yesterday. If you point out the inconsistency and draw parallels to the fact that we have always been at war with Eastasia, you are an evil TERF bigot nazi and deserve to be punched in the face.

A person can by virtue of their identity also lay claim on certain priviliges or services that are reserved for one sex. So there has to be a damn good reason for the assertion that by mere identification, you change your gender category, right? Because it isn't true for any other category. If you identify as Asian, you are not therefore Asian, and if you identify as working-class, you are not therefore working-class. So what makes gender identity different? Why are you a woman because you identify as such? What benefit does this definition provide?

I've searched the internet up and down, right and left for an answer. I have found none. What I have found instead are tons and tons of people accusing those who ask questions of bigotry, being a dick, being a TERF or a nazi. When they are asked to define womanhood themselves, they say that it is some nebulous concept, that there exists some kind of "gendered soul" or "gendered energy", that you possess or don't possess.

So yes, believing that by mere identification or assertion you become that thing is magical thinking. Believing that you will become a woman just by identifying as one, with no material referent, is no different than believing that you are the chosen people or that you will get rid of cancer by praying. It is, in the end, a spiritual or religious belief and therefore not atheist. If you think that you can change reality by mere assertion, then you are no more atheist or rational than a person who beliefs that the spirits of the earth try to talk to you.

And for the record! I personally do believe in some whacky shit like crystals or the energy of the moon. I am not an atheist. There are spiritual beliefs that I personally follow. The difference between me and a gender ideologue is that I don't want to make it a law that people can only cut their hair when the moon is waning or some bullshit like that. People can believe in whatever they want. But if they want to pass laws and socially ostracise people for not following their personal religion, that's where I draw the line.

These people are no better than conservatives who want to ban abortion because in their personal belief, life begins at conception.

"Male lesbians and lesboys do no harm" if I'm in a space designated for lesbians and other sapphics to meet and a MAN hits on me I'm going to feel so, so, so, so, so unsafe and violated. I don't care how you dress it up as you "feeling queer" or whatever. You are not out allies, you are not our community, you're predatory men using progressive language to mask your predatory intentions and pressure lesbians into accepting you in, otherwise they're "evil terfs and exclusionists".

It's a certain kind of insidious misogyny. Pressuring your way into a minority group or they'll be considered a bad woman a bad lesbian. Pressuring them at the threat of a hate campaign when lesbians and women in particular have ALWAYS been at a higher level of scrutiny, given less chances to "mess up". Threatening them with hate so that they shut up about the discomfort. So they shut up and accept men.

They weaponize it. They're using the belief that "lesbians are inherently terfs", something that is widely believed but simply untrue at the presence of trans women lesbians and nonbinary lesbians, to their advantage. "I'll dress up my words pretty, say 'no, it's not homophobic for a man to call himself a lesbian, it's actually regressive to deny me anything', and when we don't sit down and accept it, they call upon a bias and a hate campaign.

The vile attitude that comes from calling lesbians exclusionary and bad for not being attracted to men is the same that comes from the men against the me too movements, the kind where men get upset when a woman refuses sex for whatever reason, the same kind where a woman turns down a man at the bar.

It denies an autonomy, a right for a sexual group to exist outside of an oppressive force. Lesbians have long found a freedom when they realize they don't have to live that life with a man, that they don't have to think about marrying one or kissing one or living that life (And of course the incredible love of women is a factor, I can go on about that for ages, but another time).

To claim men can be lesbians is tying up those patriarchal boots and stomping on that. "No, those evil women cannot exclude me, they can't live outside of me, and they're evil because they think they can."

"That woman cannot live outside of me, otherwise she's just some slutty bitch for worse men"

"Women cannot make spaces unavailable to men."

"Women cannot be unavailable to men."

Different hues, but the color wheel is still a circle, huh?

You said it all so well. I couldn’t have said it better.

i quite honestly believe that nobody is immune to making up bullshit

i don't even believe im immune to making up bullshit, or you, either

and when we make up bullshit, we can sometimes trick ourselves into thinking it's true

i want to use a particular comeback i heard a terf say as a sort of case study here to explain what exactly it is that leads people to making up bullshit

the bullshit im talking about here is "Only gunk comes out of trans women's breasts", said in retaliation to someone asserting that trans women's breasts can produce milk

this bullshit may sound reasonable to someone who has reason to believe in it. but it starts falling apart if you think about it past the surface level, or if you're a biologist. it just doesn't make any sense. firstly, what even is this 'gunk'? that's not a very scientific term. where does it come from? what's the difference in biology that causes this 'gunk'?

of course, there are no answers to any of these questions, because clearly whoever said this did not understand what they were talking about.

but why would someone lie like that? well, you could say it's just because it's a lie that can be used to argue for their side, and you wouldn't exactly be wrong in saying that, but i think it runs deeper than that. in fact, i theorize this person genuinely believed what she was saying, despite having just made it up. so how does that work exactly?

well i believe there's two major factors that went into convincing this person the thing she just made up was true, actually. the first is her existing worldview and beliefs, many such beliefs being socially conditioned from youth. it's bioessentialism, and the general belief that men and women are almost like different species, in mind and body. it's an understandable belief, honestly. i remember back before i cracked and i was just beginning to research about trans people. the fact that trans women grow breasts and don't just have them inserted with surgery was a fact that blew me away. i honestly didn't even believe it at first. it felt too out there to be true. but it's true. male and female bodies just aren't as different as society conditions you to think they are. another fact i found kind of amazing is just how little differences there are between males and females before puberty. the differences are literally so minor. i thought there would've been more. but like, it makes sense, we're all made from human wombs. men aren't from mars and women aren't from... uh... uranus? i honestly forget the phrase.

this social conditioning very likely played a big part in how this person came to believe in their own lie. because the lie simply fits with their existing worldview, ideas that have likely been put into their head since a very young age. and when they learnt that trans women can objectively grow their own breasts, their mind must've jumped to "There is no way they're the same as a cis women's".

and there's another reason. im not gonna talk about this one as much, it's quite a simple reason. it's because she likely wanted to believe it. along with bioessentialism a thing a lot of terfs seem to carry with them is a sort of specialness to women, if that's a word. it's probably not. the belief isn't exclusive to terfs either. it's a kind of opposite to the commonly held beliefs that men are the special ones. now, i want to clarify here, this is not me saying that women can't be special, but i've noticed a lot of terfs seem to romanticize certain very normal traits commonly seen in women, like child birth, or being connected to the moon (which is actually false btw, women have no connection to the moon, id love to explain to you in depth how this falsehood spawned and grew in popularity, but this post is already long enough). honestly, im not entirely against these kinds of beliefs, though they are a little strange to me. and they likely played a role in how this particular terf convinced herself her lie was truth. because she wanted to. because she likely sees breastfeeding as one of these special unique female traits that men could never do, and since she sees trans women as men, and then learns that trans women can actually breastfeed, too. her mind probably rejected the idea outright.

now of course this is still just a theory, im no mind reader. but putting the pieces together, i find it likely that a mix of a socially conditioned worldview where her lie makes sense, and reason to want to believe her lie, were both major factors in her making up bullshit, and then believing in her own bullshit. she spread misinformation to herself, how fun.

now, i want to come back to the beginning of this post. i may have just spent an unnecessarily long time dissecting why someone might possibly have believed in their own lie, but the point of this post im trying to make is that this can be you, too.

sure, maybe you're not a terf. maybe. but i really do believe that anybody is capable of making up bullshit under the right circumstances. even me. maybe what im saying right now is bullshit, after all, im still only speculating here.

sure, the worldview and beliefs that may have tricked this particular person aren't great. but any set of beliefs could do the same, even if they're 'correct' beliefs.

things exist in this world that could make your beliefs look wrong, no matter what they are. the world doesn't twist itself to anyone's worldview. and sometimes, when we're put under certain circumstances, our worldview, our beliefs, and whatever reasons we have to want to believe something, they can lead you to making up bullshit and tricking your mind into thinking it's true.

so please, think about where you got the facts you state from.

and you know, this post was just supposed to be about making up bullshit, but ive realized this relates to more than just making up facts, it relates to believing in facts. how some things can go unchecked due to our biases, how we can look needlessly for anything that affirms our beliefs. and nobody's immune to this. nobody. we're all susceptible to our own biases. and that's why we need to look out for them. admit that you're biased, admit that you're emotional, and maybe then you can work through your biases to an extent.

ultimately, i could've just started this post off like that. "We're all BIASED and we must ADMIT to ourselves we are BIASED to work through them! thANKS FOR READINGGGG!!!!!! :-DDDDD" the post could've been that simple, but i extended it out to an absurd amount of words. eh, whatever. i enjoyed dissecting that particular case of bullshit. hopefully someone gets something out of this unnecessarily long post.

This is more of a PSA announcement if anything. A warning of people you should DNI. Like at all! Because this situation is getting so fucking ridiculous the longer I learn about this shit.

There was this Youtuber that I followed: Lily Orchard. I used to follow her for years. I started following her...between the fourth and fifth season of My Little Pony Gen 4. So since I was in high school. I followed her for at least a decade. I looked up to her and her work for years and thought she was a good role model.

I was wrong.

I've heard rumors about some of the accusations and chose to ignore it when I was younger, thinking it was slander. But it wasn't true. I had actually found out about all the shit she's done just a few months ago from @asunnycoffee and it is absolutely horrid. I mean there's:

Racism Sexism Homophobia Transphobia Brownfacing Lying Support of slavery through her written fanfics Grooming of her fans (BTW she's thirty) Stalking Harassment Hard Implications of Incest in her work Manipulations Gaslighting Emotional abuse Mental Abuse Complete and utter narcissism of this bitch. And so much more that I'm certain one of it could violate some international law.

She's like a fake liberal Catilyn Jenner. But as far as I know, Jenner didn't fucking molest her sister. Because that's exactly what Lily Orchard did to @pleasetiemyshoe AKA Courtney Orchard.

I can't believe I actually looked up to her I feel so fucking sick

Now because I am new to this and really just an outsider perspective learning about this, I'm going to botch any and all explanations of this in detail. Luckily there is a masterpost of all the shit that Lily Orchard has done in detail. https://www.tumblr.com/lily-orchard-gossip-blog/692978295298572288/a-quick-summary-of-lily-orchard?source=share

And there are a bunch of trigger warnings to this and it will be in the tags if you cannot handle it. That is fine to avoid.

But instead of Lily, ya know, owning up to her mistakes and possibly explaining her side of the story, she's done nothing but double down and accuse everyone that come out to expose her for her shit behavior as 'stalkers', 'TERFs', 'Racists' (even though she's fucking brownfacing. Which by the way, fuck her. I already deal with blackfacing enough as it is and she wants to appropriate a culture for views. GOD WHY DID I LOOK UP TO HER WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?!) She will slander anyone that doesn't agree with her and do everything in her power to destroy them. And she will use her fanbase to do so. If the fans so much as harass, slander, misgender, and tell people to off themselves that have critiqued Lily in the past, she does nothing. She lets this shit happen. And usually when a creator or a person of power doesn't say anything to stop their fans from doing heinous actions, it's basically giving permission to the people to fucking do it. A perfect example of this is how Trump weaponized his own people to attack the US Capitol.

And it's not just Orchard. It's also her wife Mikaila Orchard, and a former ex now friend, Ginger. Both have followed Orchard's behavior, refused to call her out on anything and have also actively used their platforms to harass people that Orchard deems as an enemy.

And I wish I was fucking joking about any and all of this fucking nonsense, and if I'm wrong I would take it all back! But there are so many people who've come out against her and explained how much of a shit person she is including:

@as8bakwthesage (BTW check out their art it is lovely. And Sage I'm on a transformers forum if you want to join. We have fun.)

@britts-galaxy-brain

@asunnycoffee (A sweet delight. Who's 18, BTW! So Orchard is not above harassing fucking teenagers! And she's not above grooming them either!)

@opinated-user

@pleasetiemyshoe (Her sister. She also posts pictures about cats. But the stuff she talk about with her sister gets really fucking intense. Proceed with caution.)

@glyphosatesolarize

@thetimelordbatgirl

@lily-orchard-gossip-blog

Lizzy Orchard (Which in summary, was Orchard former girlfriend. Orchard claimed Lizzy abused her when really it was the other way around. Lizzy was harassed and bullied off of tumblr and Orchard took her last name which is weird because why the hell would you take the last name of your abuser.

Blake (Lily threatened violence on Blake's fiancee)

Josh Scorcher (An MLP fan. He and Lily used to be friends and there was a fallout)

Patch (IDK if Patch is on tumblr or not)

Poppy and Zena

And that's from what I can remember! That's over ten people that is ringing out warning signs to avoid Orchard at all costs. If it was one person, I'd be skeptical. But 10?! 10! That should be enough to avoid her at all costs! Another perfect example of this situation is when 30 women came out against Cosby and said he SA'd them. Again, when it is multiple people telling different stories that come to the same conclusion, then it's not something that you can deny.

Orchard is a terrible, human being, and you need to avoid her at all costs, and Mikaila and Ginger. These are the names of the channels you should avoid (because sometimes she'll use other people to spy on accounts that critique her and make alt accounts herself to spy on others and make herself look better:

lily-orchard mikaila-orchard lily-orchard-fanart sucky-boi (an alt account) lexyr-kryo (not an alt of Orchard, but the user misgendered Sage and I don't take kindly to that) ginger-snap-talkin-nonsense (Gringer has been known to harass Sunny, who is 18) So block those accounts and follow the others that I mentioned above. Please boost this post as much as you can to help other people avoid them. Although there will be some heavy stuff in some of those accounts, so please proceed with caution. also there's evidence that she wrote an incest story called Stockholm

Yeah, I'm not gonna deny that old ship wars did involve threats, telling other people to kill themselves, etc. But now they do all that and also make it a moral issue

There are many theories that attempt to explain why there's been a sudden shift in mentality on the internet, but for now, the easiest one IMO is that nowadays content is thrown in your face thanks to social media and algoritm.

When I was little, I had to look up ship material. I had to look up porn. I had to stumble upon specific pages like Kink Memes. The worst that could happen was that I browsed the gallery of an artist I liked, and found that they shipped Sonegg :P <- true story

Point is, "don't like don't read" (or see) was the motto for a reason, because it was possible.

Now? Now I see on Twitter how finely attuned the algoritm is to pushing on you the worst material. It's not uncommon that it recommends me posts of people QTing posts about how rapeable Tails and Cream are, and putting their own disgusted comments on them. Which, okay but maybe don't show me that, I'm not interested, I don't follow anyone here. You're making me see content I didn't ask for, and engage with people I want nothing with.

So, first of all, it has become harder to filter content you don't like. Then there is the whittling down of privacy (dash did a thing lol). Again, as a kid, I was more or less allowed to do what I wanted on the internet, including finding "problematic" content (helped also by the language barrier: I learned English very quickly, and my parents did not :P). I can't imagine how it would have been if my parents monitored every place I visited. Of course I'd feel ashamed if I had to restrain myself like that, knowing that my parents would deem me "abnormal" (more than it already happened).

But that's not even the biggest issue. There has been enough talk about how back then, fandom was niche, it was for the freaks, nerds were bullied, girls would be mocked to hell and back for shipping (they still are, as long as you put "straight" and/or "white" lol, but back then you didn't even need to pretend 🙃). Now, again thanks to social media, fandom has become normalized. Much more people are on the internet, and much more people engage in fandom content. And they find the weird shit. And they become the bullies themselves.

The Sonic fandom 20 years ago was a target of mockery for attracting autistic furries, you know, the typical jokes that we all wanted to fuck Big. The Sonic fandom didn't care, and between one discourse about Sonic's eyes and the other, they had fun shipping all the things and being cringe in their corner. Now it has become less socially acceptable to mock autistic furries :P but "normal" people have infiltrated the fandom, and they are demanding normalcy, which results in absurd things like wishing death on Shadria shippers because eww human and anthro or THEY'RE SIBLINGS YOUR HONOR

... now, if you ask me why people (sadly not just teens) nowadays have convinced themselves that fiction is reality, I don't fully know. I do believe in the theory that radical feminism has managed to seep into the fandom and leave some of its core tenets engrained into everyone, even the people who say "punch terfs" or that radfems would despise, such as "engaging in sexual content makes you a deviant", "kinks fetishize my trauma and you're retraumatizing yourself if you indulge in them", and the idea that half of the population is pure and can do no wrong while the other is inherently corrupted and not human...

can't believe the terfs found me already 😔 send positivity please

i was looking for other autistic people's perspective on terfs when I found an autistic terf who actually agreed with the ableist notion that autistic people are being manipulated by the trans community and that's quite intriguing because there is a lot of internalised ablesim in the autistic community

the coddling and infantilizing of autistic community (nevermind the trans autistic community) is so disgusting, and I can't believe that terfs can't tell how ableist they're being when they spout nonsense about trans autistics being "naive and confused"

Okay this is a take that has been seriously annoying me in fandom, the take being that top and bottom are "hetronormative". Especially in the m/m part of fandom.

In the simplest terms possible, a man fucking a man is not hetronormative. And no, top and bottom as labels aren't hetronormative. These labels were created by us for us and have a rich history within the queer community.

In every single culture queer people have found a way to signal to other queer people that they're a) down to fuck and b) their sexual preferences. Off the top of my head we've got the handkerchief code as the most prominent example. Another is in gay bar lingo gay men wore an anklet on their right to signal that they were bottoms and a bracelet on their left to signal that they're a top.

If you, personally, don't prefer to use these labels, that's fine. But don't undermine and dismiss the labels we as a community made to express our sexual preferences. Once again, a man fucking a man isn't hetronormative.

What is hetronormative is imposing straightness onto aspects of gay sex. It's enforcing a straight lens onto our sexuality, which results in recreating the emasculation of bottoms and the "so, who wears the pants?".

And beyond that, this is dangerous because it's straight up radfem rehetoric, you know the "radical feminism" in the TERF acronym. Because if we're saying that "top and bottom are hetronormative" and thus people abiding by it or labelling themselves as such are hetronormative, then a gay man fucking his trans boyfriend with a vagina is definitely hetronormative. This loops back into transphobia, and very easily too.

This also applies to the "dom and sub are hetronormative". A man ordering his tied up boyfriend down on his knees and fucking him isn't hetronormative. There's nothing less hetronormative than kinky gay sex.

Terms that emerged in communities practicing "non-normative" sexuality cannot be hetronormative.

And again this is such dangerous rehetoric because it's radfem rehetoric. Radfem rehetoric isn't just transphobia or being "gender critical", it's being sex negative and "kink critical" through the lens of a bioessentialist ideology. And all of these are harmful. In the context of what was said above...

If you consider top and bottom to be hetronormative and therefore "insulting" to the gay community because.... bottom = woman and top = man, congratulations you're being hetronormative via imposing straightness onto gay sex and as if that wasn't enough you're also being misogynistic by regurgitating radfem rehetoric which says that sex for women is always degrading (hence gay bottom = woman / emasculating & degrading) because of the patriarchy. Which ultimately infantalises women and takes away their autonomy by implying that they can't consent or participate in sex as anything but a passive party being "subjugated." Because... patriarchy... as if radfem rehetoric doesn't enforce the patriarchy by doing so.

And the same goes with kink, "dom and sub" being "hetronormative" is resultant of radfem rehetoric which is extremely anti - BDSM, believing it to be abuse and recreating "sex-based oppression" to which women can never truly consent. Hence hetronormative as in recreating the patriarchy.

This is harmful ideology because it's ultimately transphobic, homophobic, misogynistic and sets back queer and womens's sexual liberation.