Terfs calling gender affirming surgery “self-mutilation” is so funny to me. Like sorry what exactly do they think is going on? I’m taking a knife and cutting off my tits like I’m in a goddamn saw trap? I’m inviting my friends over to have a party where they all grab knives and have a go at me like Ceaser? No lmao. I get my gender affirming surgery from PROFESSIONALS- the local Claire’s in my mall.

"In my interviews with women coworkers, they expressed both curiosity and concern about their colleague's decision about genital surgery. One woman noted, "I've asked him about, as I like to put it, 'What is going on downstairs [with his genitalia]?'" Almost all of the women also brought up their questions about chest surgery. "I can just imagine it and think, why would I want to cut my breasts off? It just strikes me as mutilation." Another woman said, "I was kind of horrified, at first, about the chest surgery.... I think it was a similar feeling that I would have to a friend getting breast implants. You just don't want them cutting themselves up." Women also expressed hesitation about accepting transmen as men. One woman noted, [His gender] feels like a middle-of-the-road thing for me. I mean I have a lot of gay male friends, so I feel like in some way there is a similar characteristic.... At the same time, it feels like friendships I've had with women. So, it just doesn't feel the same as just a typical straight guy that I am friends with." Another woman said, "It is not like I see him as a girl. It is more just that knowing about this transition, it is a kind of an aura I pick up on." Their hesitation related to how to locate transmen in a male/female system.  Heterosexual men presented themselves as placing less emphasis on the reality of transmen's gender—though one man noted that he felt self-conscious at times when interacting with his colleague. "[I worry] if there is anything that I should or shouldn't say. But it is just kind of a small background thing for me." Men also had questions about surgeries, particularly genital surgery. However, while women's concerns were baldly inquisitive, men framed their concerns as relating to an interest in "science" or "biology"—highlighting the social strictures on a heterosexual man expressing interest in the body of another man. One man said, "I think the whole [transition] process is interesting; Just the whole biology of how it happens." Another man added, "I had some specific questions.... It was more like from a scientific approach. Transgender surgeries just fascinate me from a scientific approach." As heterosexual women have a right based on sexual desire to be interested in men's bodies, they expressed less hesitation about direct questions. Heterosexual men, in contrast, adopt a "forgetting" strategy in which they do not publicly address the transition after the initial announcement unless it is in joking interactions. Describing this strategy, one coworker gave his impression of how other men in his workplace approached his colleague's transition: "They would rather forget. The problem is they've got only two categories. They've got 'normal' and they've got 'freak.' In order to avoid having to deal with a freak, they put him in normal." As heterosexual men typically hold the most workplace power, treating transmen like "normal" on an organizational and interactional level creates the increases in authority and respect that some open transmen report.  Further highlighting this point, transmen who report being neutralized, policed, and tokenized were the most likely to work under heterosexual women and gay men. I am not suggesting that heterosexual men have fewer qualms about transmen's gender identity. Rather, I posit that when an open transition is given workplace support, heterosexual men feel more social pressures to "forget"'about the transition—as questioning another man about his body makes them potentially suspect in a way that heterosexual women; lesbian women, and gay men are not."

—  Just One Of The Guys? Transgender Men and the Persistence of Gender Inequality by Kristen Schilt (2010), pages 126-127

I will never fail to be baffled and disgusted by Greg’s relationship with the concept of gender; He’s the most confused man alive.

He says he sees men and women as equal, but also that he believes women are superior, but ALSO he got mad at Strange AEons for “having a man-hating problem” when she criticized him.

It’s especially interesting how he gets mad at HER for hating men when he himself has made a video warning all women (and AFAB people) that MEN ARE OUT TO GET THEM, BE CAREFUL, ALL MEN ARE RAPISTS.

He used to be transphobic, but now he claims he’s learned and now LOVES transpeople. However, he has no concept of what gender dysphoria is, despite being married to a transperson. He describes gender dysphoria as something awesome, saying “If I woke up with female parts, I would be excited to touch myself!” For someone who loves transpeople, that seems very insensitive. 

He even talks about top and bottom surgery using gross TERF-esque terms like “Cutting your boobs off” or “cutting your penis off” comparing it to self mutilation. He shames transpeople who... don’t like their bodies??? As if that’s not a huge part of the trans experience. He gets mad at people like Kalvin Garrah, for saying he hates his body, and even goes as far as to shame Blaire White for getting breast implants and plastic surgery.  You’d THINK the fact that he’s married to someone who hates their chest (so much so, that they apparently have said that they want to cute their top off) he would have a bit more sympathy. 

He fetishizes the trans experience, to the point of arguing that things like “Stargender” are valid, even when his trans spouse disagrees.

I am so curious as to how he ended up with this mindset. God he’s twisted.

BLOGTOBER 10/24/2018: HEREDITARY

I am not ready to talk about HEREDITARY. I tried it when it came out in June, and while I think I hit all the points that were important for mass audiences, I wasn’t really ready then either, to say what I wanted to say. It isn’t because it’s so unusually beautiful, which it is. It isn’t because it’s “the scariest movie ever made”, which it is not, although it intermittently reaches seldom-seen heights of horror. It also isn’t because, contrary to popular belief, it is deeply flawed, with certain understandable markers of being someone’s first feature. It is because it feels so profoundly personal to me, even while I know that this is a not-uncommon reaction to Ari Aster’s breakout debut. It doesn’t make me special that I would take this film about grief, guilt, mental illness, genetic disorder, and irresolvable family friction so personally, but as usual, I have something I need to say about it. My experience with the movie tells me something, not about why we need HEREDITARY, but why we need art.

                                                                         (spoilers abound)

This story, about a woman who recently lost her seriously disturbed mother, and who subsequently loses her also-disturbed daughter to a car wreck caused by her teenage son, has been accused of emotional exploitation by some. HEREDITARY is aggressively harrowing, with interminably protracted suspense, teasingly dense shadows, and a constant unnatural drone that characterizes everything you see, however mundane, as malignantly abnormal. Most audiences may accept this kind of brutality when it is buffered by a fantastical metaphor, as with an EXORCIST or a SHINING. You can scare someone half to death, as long as you reassure them that whatever they’ve seen probably isn’t going to happen to them, even if it reminds them of something that did, or could. If you just make people feel bad, however, they may turn on you. This is Ari Aster’s big mistake, if you want to call it that; I know parents who refuse to watch the movie, due to its infamous scene of violence against a child. It’s easy to see why any reasonable person might want to opt out of this unusually shocking scene, in which young Milly Shapiro is accidentally decapitated while her teenage brother races her to the hospital, after having neglectfully caused her need for a hospital trip in the first place. But, I think it also calls into question the place for and purpose of the artist’s contract with the audience. This concept usually refers to the unspoken promise that a filmmaker makes to his viewers, that whatever happens in the movie, even if it is confrontational, will fall within the bounds of what the viewers basically expect when they buy their tickets. It means something like, when a family-oriented entertainment producer like Disney adapts a Grimm Brothers fairy tale, the audience won’t have to see the huntsman eviscerate an animal to get his ersatz proof that he has killed Snow White, and they won’t have to see Cinderella’s wicked stepsisters mutilate their own feet to try to fit the glass slipper. Part of the problem many people have with HEREDITARY is that Ari Aster’s contract with his audience is a little unclear. It blends psychodrama about irresolvable family issues that can hit way too close to the literal home for any ordinary person, with the unthinkable but entirely doable desecration of the human body, with outrageous supernatural horrors that, while scary as hell, can seem preposterous in light of the more terrestrial torments that have gone before.

To try to be more succinct, which is difficult with such a complex film, my own problem with HEREDITARY is that it contains metaphors for real-world elements that are already in the movie. To go back to the example of THE EXORCIST: Regan’s transformation from an innocent child into a vile self-abusing demon serves as a ready metaphor for puberty, mental illness, addiction, and really anything that turns your loved one into someone you no longer recognize. Writer Peter Blatty sets this up beautifully by using banal troubles like drafts in the house or parental antagonism as agents that weaken Regan’s defenses against the forces of darkness, just as they can weaken the average person’s defenses against depression or alcoholism--the things that warp them away from their best, or at least, most socially acceptable self. HEREDITARY gets itself into a sticky spot by giving Toni Collete a family history of emotional and physical violence, schizo-affective disorder, alienation, and neglect that is as convincing as can be, and then throwing a comparatively flimsy (however great-looking) metaphorical tarp over all that in the form of witchcraft and demonic possession. A similar problem occurs in Boots Riley’s otherwise excellent SORRY TO BOTHER YOU, where he stages the action in a world--our world, however surreally dressed up--that turns on an axis of slave labor, and then he concludes his story with an outsized metaphor for slave labor. I wouldn’t really kick anything in either of these movies out of bed, at the end of the day; I’m just saying that it gets a little awkward when you craft this grandiose metaphor for a legitimately terrifying real-world thing, while that thing happens to be standing right there in the room with the metaphor. 

Anyway. It is interesting to note that while the movie seems to have hurt a lot of people’s feelings based on their own contemporary reality, its spiritual DNA has been active for hundreds of years. Witchery has been a handy metaphor for, or even out-and-out "explanation” for, mental illness in women throughout history. (Ok, so it’s been an excuse for LOTS of things that have happened to or around women throughout history, but I only have so much space!) In HEREDITARY, Toni Collette describes her recently deceased mother as being extraordinarily private, having “private rituals” and even “private friends”, which we soon realize were signs of her being a devil worshiper. However, in some ways, mother and daughter are not so different. Where the mother practiced dark arts, Collette is a successful gallery artist. Her hyperreal dioramas seem like metaphorical expressions of her feelings toward her insane and abusive parent, but as we find out along the way, they are entirely realistic descriptions of actual things that have actually happened in her life--including the notorious car crash, but also things like the mother trying to force her breast on her infant granddaughter, which we later learn was part of an effort to implant Milly Shaprio with a demon. Shapiro, who inhabits a Baba Yaga-like treehouse in the yard, is also an artist, crafting twisted-looking dolls out of refuse and carrion, and like her mother, she also has unwitting witchy inclinations, perceiving grim specters and ill omens all around. Notably, no one outside the maternal bloodline perceive these things, and it seems that male members only perceive them when being supernaturally attacked. While Toni Collete and Milly Shapiro both use handcrafted art to process the trauma handed down to them by their maternal ancestor, all three women participate (knowingly or otherwise) in an ancient artistic tradition that, for some, amounts to a legitimate religion--but for many others, especially in the modern world, it is a way of dealing with feelings of impotence and subjugation. A sense of disappointment, worthlessness, and damnation plagues the women at the center of HEREDITARY, whether it involves Toni Collette’s complaint that her family blames her for all of their misfortunes, or her accusing her teenage son Alex Wolff of failing to acknowledge his responsibility for his sister’s death, or his sister ominously remarking that her grandmother’s doting attitude disguised the matriarch’s attempts to control or deform her--”She wanted me to be a boy,” Shapiro mutters, and we’ll find out she specifically wanted the child to be a boy vessel for a boy demon (about which, more later). HEREDITARY depicts a family out of control, who cannot escape the fate that has been devised for them, but who have adopted some interesting, literally artful means of trying to synthesize feelings of power.

HEREDITARY begins to fall apart, not as much because of its indecisive attitude toward fantasy and realism, as because of its last act left turn away from its heretofore cogent discussion of the disenfranchisement of women, and the guilt women live with when they fall short of their clan’s desires for strong sons, good little girls, or perfect mothers who serve their people instead of serving themselves. Make no mistake: Alex Wolff, who delivers an above-and-beyond performance as an average young man who is alienated by his freak sister and unstable mother, is always at the center of the film. The guilt he acquires from being an unwilling murderer is as potent as anything I think I’ve ever seen in a movie. So, it isn’t that this male experience of disappointing your family, and also feeling victimized by their very existence, is absent from the first leg of the story. It’s that when the film finally tries to make sense of itself, by revealing that Toni Collette’s mother intended to offer one of her male progeny as a vessel for a masculine entity that would bring her great wealth...well, it sort of flies in the face of the psychological depths we’ve plumbed up to that point. For one thing, the movie’s title suggests a singular focus on the intergenerational passing-down of trauma and blame, and the collection of damaged women to whom we’re immediately introduced are obvious experts in this matter. It doesn’t quite work when the story vacillates between sympathizing with these doomed females, and then sympathizing with a young man’s fear and loathing of adult women, who he perceives as irrational and castrating. And how is it possible that the profound mystery surrounding the family’s progressive ruin is rooted in something as shallow as money? I tried to develop a theory that it works as the final insult of any familial loss--that death is incredibly expensive to manage, and inheritance can be just burdensome as it is a blessing--but I don’t know, there’s not enough on the table for me to make a meal out of.

Setting aside the idea of sacrificing your son to a money demon, though, one can say that even if HEREDITARY is a little unsteady in its construction, the individual components are solid. And here I don’t just mean compelling, but also, real. This is the reason I people are so bothered by HEREDITARY--that it tells the truth in a much more direct manner than most audiences expect of a supernatural horror film. While that may be an unwelcome experience, it may be more helpful to think of this unpleasantness as a gift that art can give us.  This kind of nasty confrontation with trauma is important for an individual’s personal development, integrity, and self-knowledge. The more demandingly exhibitionistic a movie is, the better chance we have to untangle ourselves from the billowing curtain of metaphor and anthropological generality, and to be purified by the excoriating light of realism--not the artistic genre, but actual contact with reality. 

Here we find my own big reveal, my left turn away from what my previous paragraphs have led you to expect. Let me tell you about my mother. My mother was an enormously popular person. Extremely sharp, funny, fashionable, cultured--all things that help keep one’s private persona in the shadows. A prolific artist, she created hyperreal paintings and drawings from miniatures, like toys and model train props, that represented an exaggerated simulation of reality. Much of her work was about female pageantry, social expectations of women, or the chintzy objects that littered the lives of 1950s and 60s housewives, like kitschy bric-a-brac and tawdry paperbacks. People absolutely loved her for her taste, her humor, her ability to express herself. She did not like me. This was so true that, even without a history of physical abuse, that her peers sometimes say things to me that reveal their awareness of the facts of our relationship, or lack thereof. I hear things like, “Your mother loved you, you know!”, in a tone of voice that suggests that they know this would be late breaking news, without ever having asked me how I feel or what I think. From the earliest age, I seemed to refuse to meet the expectations people have of their children: I hated to be touched, I cried endlessly, I quaked with anxiety and a nameless guilt day and night, I burned with an aimless anger. I could draw, and did so compulsively, but nothing nice or bright. I was acutely aware of sexuality, violence, vanity, and shame. I was no fun whatsoever. Later in life--very recently in life, actually--I discovered that I have two important, inherent qualities: One, that I have a genetic inability to process copper properly, a mineral that is psychoactive and can make you pretty unhinged in large quantities. Two, that I suffer from a form of Autism Spectrum Disorder, a range of mental conditions that have been historically ignored in women, largely because of misogynist prejudices that society holds about essentially-female dysfunctionality. Unfortunately for me, my mother died when I was a teenager, almost two decades before I would find out these things that might have made her more tolerant of me. 

Fortunately, I guess, I think I know why my mother took such an exception to me, and it isn’t all about me. It’s about her mother. My maternal grandmother was also an artist of sorts, but more in terms of artifice. I haven’t decided whether it is fair for me to spill all of the details of a story that belongs to more people than myself, but I will go so far as to say that my maternal great-grandparents meted out trauma and shame in a manner that my grandmother allowed to contribute to her painful estrangement from her sister. For my purposes, what it really did was teach my mother that darkness--any kind of darkness, even darkness that belongs to you and you alone, that you have a right to, that should be yours to process as you see fit--is inappropriate. It is just as inappropriate in adults as it is in children, which she would see very clearly in her mother’s strict orchestration of their household into an unimpeachably pure, Rockwellian model of what an American family should be like. While my mother found her way into the revolutionary world of hippie rebellion and art-making, she never let go of her prohibition against sadness and rage, even in her own child, and I suffered from it until she suddenly, rapidly and gruesomely died of lung cancer when I was barely old enough to drive. Afterward, her mother obsessed over me in a way that was simultaneously scathingly intense and unmistakably impersonal. I looked like my mother, and my grandmother’s identity was rooted entirely in dominating a family, so she couldn’t do without me. I couldn’t let her know anything about myself; my feelings about horror, pornography, death taboos, sexual identity, and media that is out to hurt you, are what make up all that I am, and are the opposite of everything she believes in. With that weight on my back, I had to pretend that we had this archetypal American familial intimacy, even when I didn’t have it with my own mother, even when I hated being touched, even when I hadn’t learned how to receive affection. Early this year, she died at 90 years old from a misdiagnosed colon condition. As my family rushed to her side to say goodbye, we discovered that her shadowy sister had pushed her doctors into lifesaving measures that would have extended her existence into something so horrific that it would have stood up to the ugliest scenes from JACOB’S LADDER, had she not miraculously died before regaining consciousness. As perversely relieving as that was, my ears ring with the sound of her last phone call to me. Intended to be a heartfelt goodbye, it devolved quickly into the woman, completely possessed of her mental faculties, absolutely screaming for her life. It was a sound as chilling as anything from any of the sadistic movies I love so well, and I really heard it, in my real life.

This all would be enough to make me talk the way that I do, but it isn’t all. Recently, my father revealed to me some details of my mother’s struggle with cancer that I had never heard before. Although my mother had been told to go straight home and make her peace upon diagnosis, she and my father plunged full bore into magical thinking. They experimented with hypnosis, acupuncture, reiki, anything that might activate my mother’s internal ability to heal herself. Soon they found themselves in the office of a charismatic self-help guru-type in a neighboring city. Incidentally, this person is now at the center of an increasingly bizarre trial that is slated to begin this January, due to her authoritative involvement with a Scientology-like cult that allegedly maintains a secret inner circle of brand-wielding sex slavers. But anyway, back to my little memoir: It isn’t clear to me what she claimed was the scope of her powers exactly, but I know that she specialized in a form of “healing” that involved hypnosis and carefully selected words, I suppose not unlike a magical incantation. She said to my mother: “I am going to heal you.” The reason she said this so forcefully, was that my mother was the physical double of a previous client of hers; a client who died from the same specific form of lung cancer that plagued my mother; and who lived in the house we had moved into, only months before my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer. That woman died, we moved into her house, and by pure coincidence, my subsequently sick mother found herself in the office of the self-styled healer who had treated the previous owner of our new home for the very same illness. “God has given me a second chance,” the healer said, “and I am going to heal you.” My mother saw her for several months, until one day she arrived to find a third woman in the office. Astoundingly, the healer described the young coed as having supernatural gifts. The two instantly began terrorizing my mother, screaming at her and cursing her. My mother, sobbing hysterically, begged to know, “Why are you yelling at me?” and they replied, “WE’RE NOT YELLING AT YOU, WE’RE YELLING AT THE CANCER!” When he told the story, of course, my father accidentally said “demon”, not “cancer”, but in any case, they were trying to exorcize her. My mother never went back, and, some might remark, she died.

Naturally, I wanted to tell this story to anyone who would listen to me, as soon as I had heard it. It was one of the weirdest things I had ever heard, and it happened to my family. While some people’s jaw dropped in exactly the way mine had originally, I received some unexpected feedback, too. On some occasions, a dear friend would pause at the end of my story, make a calculated “surprise” sound, and then, very gently, explain to me that coincidences exist, self-hypnosis and group hysteria exist, and I shouldn’t take any of it too seriously. I found myself, not just disappointed, but embarrassed. I wasn’t trying to tell people that I believed my family was cursed by god or the devil, or that we had been molested by some evil sorceress. I was simply trying to say that, somehow...isn’t there some kind of spiritual truth to this? Isn’t it worth remarking on, that my life, my history, had congealed into such an incredible metaphor for itself? Isn’t it so much more compelling than any kind of fiction I could ever have written, any artwork I could ever have created in order to process the exact kind of trouble my family has suffered? Isn’t this just amazing, all by itself, without even the benefit of theatrical interpretation? Of course, the conclusion will be that I absolutely have to give this some kind of theatrical interpretation, or else I will go out of my mind. I’m close enough as it is. But, in some ways, I felt like this interpretation has already happened at the hands of Ari Aster, with his horrific fable about how inherited trauma among generations of women gives way to the machinations of a corrupt cult. People who know me well will realize that I’m still leaving out parallels between HEREDITARY and myself, in this already too-long piece of analysis. But I guess what I’m trying to say for now is that I need HEREDITARY, and we each need a HEREDITARY of our own to put our most unspeakable experiences on a pin, under a spotlight, inside a bell jar, to be examined from every angle and exactingly diagnosed, whether we like it or not.

I have trichotillomania and he literally made a video just blatantly making fun of people with the disorder. No punchline, no validation for why he thought we were gross and dumb for what we do, just a 5 minute video making fun of mentally ill people.

Okay, I have two things to say about this. 

First of all: what the fuck, dude? How can his fans POSSIBLY believe that he makes these videos to “help” people? How exactly are you helping someone with trichotillomania by making fun of them?

And secondly, has anybody else noticed that he tends to strongly and almost exclusively criticize habits or mental illnesses that affect the way a woman looks? Trichotillomania (hair-pulling), self-mutilation, being “too fat”, wearing high heels, getting breast implants, tattoos (back in the day before he realized that he was turned on by the idea of manipulating a woman into branding her body for him permanently) - he is obsessed with forcing women to look a certain way according to his arbitrary standards. I’m not sure if this is because he’s shallow as fuck, or if it’s because he gets off on controlling the physical appearance of women.

The furor over the “bathroom bill” in North Carolina has given the trans movement the perfect kindling to continue fostering their campaign of nationwide acceptance. It has also sparked a semi-hysterical “transphobic” backlash of self-righteous traditionalists.

I do not consider myself in either camp. I approach this topic with a wrenching awareness of what it feels like to be disconnected from your body, to hate with every fiber of your being the way you look in the mirror, and to be willing to undergo great feats of self-mutilation to achieve a vision that is always just out of grasp. My perspective on the matter, however, probably would not go over well among most LGBTQ individuals. As a person who has struggled with anorexia nervosa since puberty, the transgender anguish resonates with me. The similarities between the two illnesses are striking. Yet one is an identity, and the other is a disorder. Why?

At the heart of gender dysphoria is a paradoxical desire to be characterized as something one simultaneously declares is ineffable (i.e. gender roles are illusory cultural constructs, but I yearn to concretely embody that illusion). The contradictory desire in transgenderism is similar in hopelessness as the desire in anorexia. The goal is to be thin, and one is never thin enough until one is dead. The goal is to be a sex other than one’s biological makeup, and one cannot alter one’s chromosomes and genetic makeup.

If a man wants to wear makeup, dresses, even get breast implants, who are we to stop him? If he wants to legally change his name to Maureen, great! But language policing, the implication that by misusing a pronoun we are savaging a person’s very core, is untenable. Using “he” instead of “she” may very well hurt someone’s feelings, but that is a level of sensitivity on par with agoraphobia (fear of crowded or enclosed public spaces). The onus is on the person to find ways of coping. The world cannot be responsible for validating a confusing, opaque issue that has been too quickly transferred from “disorder” to “condition,” from irrational to heroic.

An All-Consuming Desire to Alter One’s Self

Advocates insist that gender dysphoria is not a pathology. The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) describes a disorder as “a description of something with which a person might struggle, not a description of the person or the person’s identity.” This is an absurd string of verbiage. A person’s identity is not his or her biological sex. That is part of a person’s identity.

However, many individuals with gender dysphoria feel they must try to change their outward appearance to match this inner ideal. Due to the physiological makeup of the human body, however, this attempt is often a mighty undertaking. One may even go so far as to say it’s a struggle. The intensity of this all-consuming desire to alter one’s self is what I find most similar to my own illness. We cannot rest until the outside matches the inside.

Many individuals with eating disorders assume an identity centered completely on that disorder. According to an article on the Social Issues Research Centre website, pro-anorexia websites espouse starvation as “the right lifestyle choice for them, and will allow them to achieve happiness and perfection.” Imagine if someone with crippling obsessive-compulsive disorder about germs could impose his beliefs. We’d be obligated to all carry gloves and wear face masks.

The same could be said for a chronically depressed exhibitionist. Accommodation and what is essentially encouraging a delusion is bound to “improve” the life of an individual who has felt like an alien in her own body for years. Unfortunately social support will never change the basic biological facts. Clinging to an illusion does not make a person crazy, marginalized, or inferior. It makes him human.

Remember Your Descartes? Feelings Aren’t Reliable

We cannot rely on our “feelings,” as strong as they are. If I relied on my feelings, I’d be dead. Why? Because my feelings tell me that eating food means gaining weight, and gaining weight is intolerable. Transgender children are apparently absolutely sure they were born in the wrong body. It is a belief held so deeply that we throw out all the entrenched knowledge of psychology and mental illness to appease it.

People with anorexia can often trace their discomfort with their own bodies back to early childhood, as well. Both situations are abstract feelings that clearly contradict reality. The certainty that one is a woman despite being born a man sounds awfully similar to the conviction that one’s body is overweight even when body-mass index is at starvation levels. The feeling of hunger—the most primal, ingrained of physiological response—impels the individual to abstain. Can you question the depth of that belief?

No one with any understanding of the matter is denying that a mismatch exists between the person’s brain and her body. The approach to “wellness” however, is hopelessly backward. The brain is the component of this puzzle with the capacity for immense plasticity. Noninvasive reconditioning occurs every day. The body is the factor that is hardest to alter in any meaningful way. So why are sex-reassignment surgeries the gold-standard treatment method in gender dysphoria literature? Why is such a drastic, violent procedure championed so fiercely?

The question is not whether someone’s identity should be validated, but whether the validation should accompany an attempt to fabricate an impossible artifice. If a man feels he is a woman on the inside, this begs the question: What is a woman? The unswervingly nebulous explanations that abound in defense of transgender rights echo the desperate bravado of the pro-ana crowd.

Adults have the right to dress, act, and live however they damn well please. But the swiftness with which the transgender “condition” has been accepted as mentally healthy is unfair to both the public at large and the individuals themselves. There are no 100 percent effective treatments for anorexia nervosa, but that doesn’t mean that’s how my mind is supposed to work and I should embrace it. The same should apply to gender dysphoria.

Moira Fleming is a writer and social worker currently pursuing her MSW at West Chester University.

(Part 2 of 3)

Sadomasochism

“You’ve got other really fun things, like this idea of disempowerment. Here you’ve got the castration — sorry, I mean the beheading of Holofernes — and then on the right, you’ve got the same thing,” Sofia says, alluding to a pornographic image of two males engaging in a sex act as a woman ‘forces’ one of the men into what would be the submissive female role in heterosexual BDSM practices: bound, with a slave collar, being sexually abused. Sofia does not elaborate on why he believes these two images portray “the same thing”. Presumably he is attempting to establish a correlation between a man being violated as a woman and death; that the loss of the masculine role — castration — is metaphorically equivalent to being killed. Framed this way, the common euphemisms of transgender activism can possibly be traced back to BDSM practices and the narrative that has been constructed around fetishes.

For instance, so-called dead naming (referring to a trans-identified person by their birth name) could also be considered as a reference to ego death, or the complete loss of subjective self-identity. This framework could assist in explaining why it is that trans activists insist that words are literal violence, where the act of naming men as men, for example, deconstructs their illusory, projected self. In turn, it is possible that linguistic ‘transphobia’ can elicit a similar thrill as the sort induced by being humiliated, even when the humiliation is not a taunt, but the truth. In this sense, the public is unwittingly being duped into participating in BDSM, either as the dominant — those who criticize gender ideology — or submissive — trans activists themselves. Crucially, material reality, especially women’s reality, is being used as the vehicle for this rouse. When one considers that BDSM practices involved in forced feminization revolve around humiliation as a key point of arousal, this also could implicate an element of sexual pleasure involved for some in being considered to be subjugated or oppressed — that the male claim to a female identity is, in itself, a fetishization of women’s systemic subordination.

The Eroticization of Castration

“Here we’ve got the very traditional sissy porn Lolita dress that my friend Torrey Peters lent me… who wrote an amazing book called The Masker which I recommend for everyone on this chat.”

A brief explanation of Torrey Peters and why this matters: Torrey Peters, a trans-identified male, is a published American author who has found a market for books of written pornography with loosely developed plots. The Masker follows participants in a masking convention, where men don silicone body suits and face masks in order to resemble women and subsequently engage in sexual activity with each other. Peters’ portrays this fetish lifestyle as a pathway towards a decision to permanently alter one’s body through breast implants and hormones. In March 2021, Peters was long-listed for the UK Women’s Prize in fiction for his recent publication, Destransition, Baby, which I have written about here. Peters is increasingly being promoted by US media, and his ex, Harron Walker, also a trans-identified male, is employed by the women’s magazine W and has written for ‘feminist’ outlet Jezebel, having formerly written for the notoriously misogynist platform Vice, as well as Out magazine.

Sofia is also clearly a great admirer of American academic Andrea Long Chu, who has been published in The Journal of Speculative Philosophy (2018) and Differences, a Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies (2019). Chu, a trans-identified male, wrote Females: A Concern, which was published in 2019 by Verso Press, and contains remarkable statements of misogyny as though they were undisputed facts.

Here Sofia quotes an essay, Did Sissy Porn Make Me Trans, wherein Chu argues that womanhood can be defined as a state of powerlessness. Chu presented this essay as a speech at a number of reputable universities in the US, including Columbia University, Vassar College, UCLA, and UC Berkeley.

“Castration anxiety is easily mistaken for the fear that one will be castrated. In fact, it is the fear that one, being castrated, will like it. The threat, in other words, is not that you will lose power (this is basically inevitable, and not much worth worrying about), but that you won’t actually want power, after all. Too often, we imagine powerlessness as the suppression of desire by some external force (maybe someone else’s desire), and we forget that desire, in itself, is often, if not always, an experience of powerlessness. Most desire is nonconsensual, most desires aren’t desired.” — Andrea Long Chu, Did Sissy Porn Make Me Trans?

The idea that women are castrated males is not new, nor is it particularly insightful in regards to the reality of women’s lives. Much has been said and written about this in psychoanalysis and in feminist texts. It should be concerning to anyone, men as well as women, that this idea is resurfacing in gender ideology — especially when we consider that children are quite literally being castrated in the service of this belief, both by means of powerful drugs euphemistically referred to as “puberty blockers,” as well as genital mutilation surgeries. The story of David Reimer is a tragic example of this. In 1966, Reimer, whose circumcision was botched as an infant, was experimented on by psychologist John Money, who decided it would be better to raise Reimer as a girl. Money believed that sex was socially constructed, a belief also promoted by current trans activists. Reimer’s case represents one of the earliest modern examples of what is called ‘sex reassignment surgery’, and John Money forced David to imitate sex acts with his brother Brian, instructing David to play the submissive, or ‘female’ role. Money justified these criminal acts by claiming that “childhood ‘sexual rehearsal play’” was important for a “healthy adult gender identity” (As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl, John Colapinto). The sexual abuses inflicted on the twins by Money caused them such severe distress that both Brian and David committed suicide.

“There’s something that Andrea Long Chu writes a lot about… how we don’t get to choose what we desire, so there can be so much discomfort in engaging with things that we desire, whether that be in porn or otherwise. What you desire is what you are.” This is a pseudo-intellectual expression of the sentiment that “boys will be boys,” or that men are not accountable for their desires or actions. It’s a sentiment often used to rationalize predatory sexual behavior, one that gets trotted out to blame women who survive sexual abuse, and used in courts of law to avoid punishing men for sexual violence.

“I think a lot about coercion. If you look at a lot of sissy porn, a lot of it focuses around worshipping of the cock… it’s seen as the ultimate form of power. How the humiliation works is in talking about the size of a person’s cock, how small it is. The fantasy is about cis women getting to expose and subject men to the trappings of femininity as a form of punishment, humiliation, and dehumanization. I think talking about this within the world of feminism… is really exciting to think about.” The fantasy is about men being dehumanized through femininity. This explicitly demonstrates that femininity — as in, the socially constructed sex stereotypes imposed on women by force, by men — are designed to dehumanize women and girls. This is worth bearing in mind in any discussion of gender identity ideology. Harmful beauty products, purchased in the form of plastic surgery, breast implants, high heels, and excessive makeup are frequently purported to be expressions of selfhood. Additionally, Sofia mentions the humiliation of discussing relative size of a man’s genitalia. This is a recurring theme in forced feminization pornography. Statements are made in favor of ‘forcibly’ transitioning a man into a ‘woman’ due to the assumed inadequacy of his manhood. This can easily be juxtaposed with the previously stated idea that women are merely castrated, or failed, men. It is frightening how a lack of consent is doted upon as an intellectual exercise by all parties involved in the presentation, and by academics who share this view within queer theory, including the aforementioned Andrea Long Chu. The expressed desire for a lack of “agentiality”, a lack of consent, eroticizes aspects of sexual abuse and rape.

“In Andrea Long Chu’s essay, she’s saying that sissy porn can’t be queer because it’s about the heterosexual dynamic. My argument is that I don’t think she’s looking at forced womanhood and is looking at other ways that forced feminization is being depicted that don’t revolve around the cis cock being the infallible phallus, the unquestionable source of power.” Forced feminization pornography often eroticizes impotence through the use of contraptions called “chastity cages,” intended to prevent erections. Hormones are another avenue for inducing impotence; the consumption of estrogen by males can cause erectile dysfunction. However, it often still revolves around male genitalia, including the prostate orgasm. Notice that Sofia uses a qualifier when he says, “the cis cock”. Make no mistake, forced feminization pornography is just another iteration of the eroticization of male power in that it centers the male ego and desires, while reinforcing the reductive male projection of women as sex objects.

RL: “In her [Andrea Long Chu’s] essay on sissy porn — beyond the heterosexual framing — the way she puts it is to be trans is to be fucked, and to be fucked is not good in her scheme. I don’t see that as quite the same narrative in your work, but humiliation and punishment seem to be operating certainly in some way in both texts.” Sofia becomes frustrated, tosses aside the pornography magazine he had been admiringly referencing throughout, and shifts the focus away from critiques of societal themes by making himself the subject. RS: “[By] transitioning, I knew I was entering a more marginalized, more disempowered role in the world. There is also a desire inherent to that.” Sofia was given a platform by one of the most prestigious universities in the world to show pornography of himself and to espouse ideas that mock half the population — women — by associating women’s existence with acts of degradation and dehumanization for his own sexual arousal. RS: “Gender is coercive… but there is a lot of control that I’m exercising.” RL: “I do love in the structures of these photos how much it is about control, especially… the ones with genital torture.”

RS: “This is when I was getting more into the castration stuff, the desire around disempowerment… I’m thinking about divine ecstasy, the ecstasy that one can experience while in a lot of pain.” Sofia plays a video of himself taking on two roles (which he compares to a painting by Frida Kahlo, The Two Fridas, which depicts her agony following her divorce, in a stunning example of appropriation of female suffering), wherein he is being sexually tormented by his ‘other’ female-coded self. He is naked and bound, with a rope around his genitals, in a chair which has had its legs sawed down, forcing him to hold himself up on his toes to avoid castration. He presented this scene publicly, thereby being allowed to display sexual exhibitionism, which is a crime, and to be applauded for doing so. Once again, RL Goldberg returns to the topic of religion. This subject is used as a crutch throughout the presentation to lend validity and authority to what is explicitly the promotion of a BDSM lifestyle as a form of ‘gender identity’, but also speaks to the religious nature of gender ideology. Being unable to rely on science — indeed, being actively hostile towards science — gender ideology relies on the idea of a gendered soul, an innate identity, and reifies the power dynamics deliberately constructed within sex role stereotypes to dehumanize women.

(Continued in Part 3)

survey 41

How are you today? Not bad. Today is so over—it’s 2:30am right now. I went out for a change, tried a new coffee shop, my boyfriend had enough time to talk to me, and I transferred most of my русский notes from my tiny notebook to a bigger one. I felt productive.

What are three instruments you’d like to learn how to play? I already play guitar, but I’d love to learn cello, piano, and drums.

Do you think pineapple belongs on pizza? Nope. I don’t even like pineapple on its own, but I love the juice?

Which one of your parents do you think is smarter? My dad is academically smart; my mum is street savvy.

Which season’s colours do you look the best in? I love the autumn palette, but I don’t know which season’s colours I look best in and I don’t care.

Have you ever had a professional make-over? Yes, for prom.

What’s your favourite way to style your hair? I barely style my hair because I simply don’t have the skill. I like to just keep it down or throw it up in a bun or a pony tail.

What irritates you about your daily life? People around me. Sometimes life itself.

Could you come up with 100 random facts about yourself on the spot? Lol I wish I was that self-aware.

What are five things that would make you happier? Overall good health, to be where I want to be, with the person I want to be with, have more money, and have some fucking direction for once.

Do you ever curl your hair? I have a curling iron, but have only used it twice. I don’t have the patience tbh.

Have you ever straightened your hair for a dance? Bold of you to assume I dance. No.

Have you ever worn cat-eye glasses? Sunglasses, yes.

Who have you been missing lately? My boyfriend. I haven’t seen him in nearly 7 months now.

If you were a fantasy character, would you be a warrior, a mage or a rogue? Definitely more of a mage even though I’d like to be rogue lol.

Who is the most wonderful, amazing person in your life right now? My boyfriend is literally the only one who makes me want to even live.

What’s something repulsive in a member of your own gender? Pulling each other down. Women can be so envious and would go after one another just so they can be “better” ugh, I hate that shit.

Do your pets sleep next to you at night? My cat used to sleep next to me, but then now he sheds way too much and it goes absolutely everywhere so he sleeps on his mat instead.

How often do you use online dictionaries? Every time I encounter a word that I don’t know the meaning of. Every single time. I cannot just read past something that I don’t know the meaning of—it’ll drive me nuts.

What about between Pepsi and Coke or Sprite and 7Up? I find Pepsi awful. It’s like watered down Coke. I actually highly dislike Coke (or sodas in general) but I’d still rather drink it than Pepsi. Sprite is like Coke in its intensity and 7Up is its Pepsi equivalent.

Do you care what kind of toilet paper you use? Yes. I always get the Andrex quilted ones with more plies. I hate the flimsy ones because I just end up using more in the end and it’s not really environmentally helpful.

What colour of roses do you find the prettiest? White.

Do you think religious leaders just like to manipulate people? Radical ones, and also misinformed ones that can really hurt people. Reminds me of an FGM documentary that I watched where someone challenged the Imam to find where in the Quran does it say that vaginas need to be mutilated. He couldn’t find it!!!! Makes me so mad that people would do such a barbaric thing and pass it on as “part of their religion” when it isn’t and was just passed around as word-of-mouth, not religious fact, and they just took it like that without questioning it. Like, first of all, if your religion is condoning literal mutilation and not giving you your basic rights as a human (women’s vaginas are sensitive and you shouldn’t be cutting off the clitoris and stitching up the hole!!! this is life threatening AND we’re allowed to feel pleasure too!!!), you need to start questioning it.

Look to your left and name the first three things you see. Luggage, perfume, printer.

What is your favourite thing to drink? Cold water, coffee, masala chai, and freshly squeezed juices. 

Name three places in the world you would like to visit? Japan, Greece, Spain.

What was the last movie you saw at the cinemas? It was that Dog movie. I forgot the title. It was my little brother’s birthday so he chose the film to watch even though I really wanted to see Alita lol.

In a house fire, what three things would you save? Idk I’ll definitely just grab my 2 cats and then whatever else I can get that’s got value to me.

What scent is the deodorant you use? Unscented. I use a natural crystal spray.

Do you use body wash, shower gel, or soap? Soap first on its own, and then body wash with a loofah.

Have you ever been so lonely you cried? What made you stop crying? Yeah, the first two months of me being back home. I was finally with family, but I felt lonelier than ever. I got so used to being on my own and then only living with my boyfriend. It was peaceful and I loved the life we had together, then all of a sudden I’m back to the way it’s always been and I just felt lonely despite actually having more people around me. I guess I got used to it so I stopped crying over it after like 2 months of intermittent crying lol.

What would you say is one of the best songs you’ve ever heard? The Rain Song by Led Zeppelin. I want it played at my funeral.

Would you ever consider getting breast implants? Nope. Fake titties just don’t look good to me. They don’t look like they feel good either.

When was the last time you kissed someone? Are you dating that person? 23rd August 2018, the date of my flight, ughhhhh. Yes, still.

What is the most expensive thing in your bedroom?  This Prada bag in front of me.

What does the lead singer of the band you’re listening to, look like? I literally don’t know. It’s just one of those songs I listen to but that’s it, nothing else by the same musician so idk.

At what age did your parents start trusting you alone with the opp. sex? I don’t know because they have always trusted me. People often describe me as trustworthy to begin with. Late this year I’m moving in with my boyfriend for post grad and they’re cool with that. 

Are you sexually active? How long have you been that way? Not really because I haven’t even seen my boyfriend for nearly 7 months. How long uhh just since early last year.

What was the most romantic moment of your life? Err probably when Z and I went on a day trip to York because strolling down the beautiful streets, I kind of got hit by the fact that wow I’m dating someone? haha. I’m going on dates? Weird. I never fall in love ever but now here I am.

What’s something that most people don’t know about you? Errrr that I’m not actually half British? For some reason I kind of just assume my friends know that my English dad is not my biological dad but then I get shocked that they get shocked to find that out like hello are you not seeing me I mean idk I don’t rly look half white to me?

What does your last text say? "Alright” to my little brother.

Do you think you’re pretty? Yes, on good days and when my skin cooperates with me. But when I think I look ugly, I look really ugly.

What is your current relationship status? In a relationship.

Bluntness, do you like it? Not so much the bluntness, but the honesty. If you can say the same thing in a better way without compromising truth, then do so.

What is the first thing you notice about someone, physically? Whatever physical attribute they have that sticks out. (i.e. they’re really tall, then I’ll notice that. Their eyes are light and bright, I’ll notice that.)

Do you believe in love? I’m in my first ever relationship and I guess I’m still hopeful so sure.

Thoughts on Justin Bieber? Never liked / cared about him.

How many times per week do you shower? I wash my body every day, but my hair every other day cause it’s dyed.

What is your favourite colour pen to write with? Black and also navy blue.

Would you rather do a craft project or a science experiment? Defo science.

What is your favourite thing about yourself? Intellect.

What’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you? I hate to make every answer about my boyfriend but ugh it’s him. I got all the way to the age of 19 without any real romantic experience until I met him and uh now I understand the hype? haha.

What was the name of the first dorm you lived in? The Glassworks.

Do you part your hair on the left side, right side, or in the middle? It parts on its own a little to the left.

TELL ME I AM NOT BEACH BODY READY

TELL ME I AM NOT BEACH BODY READY!! Dear Protein world, I am writing to you, misogynistic pieces of filth, as I am triggered to the core. Whilst I was riding the tube home yesterday, as I do every workday, My eye fell on an advertisement and what I saw shocked me, I can tell you that much. A skinny photo shopped model was half naked, staring at me. Next to her was the slogan “ARE YOU BEACH BODY READY?” I cannot believe that we are still subjected to body shaming in the progressive year of 2015. According to you,  is a lady not beautiful unless she looks like some sort of bronzed goddess? OOOO, but wait, there’s an easy solution to this right? If I were to buy your product, that “ideal” body would be in reach. You are just manipulating women into thinking that they are not beautiful. Well, let me tell you something Protein world, each body is ready. We should not be subjected to your standards, especially when you are just trying to lower our self-esteem. You are directly targeting individuals, aiming to make them feel physically inferior to the unrealistic body image of the bronzed model, in order to sell your product. I know that no matter how many supplements I take, how much I work out, how much I try to be ‘healthier, fitter, and stronger’, I will never have this model’s breasts and waist-hip ratio. Unless I get implants and have a few ribs taken out, I will never be ‘beach body ready’ according to the standards of this ad. So unless your goal is that people start mutilating their bodies, you might want to change your advert, now don’t you.

  And you know what Protein world, perhaps not everyone's priority is having a 'beach body' (by the way, what is that?), and making somebody feel guilty for not prioritising it by questioning their personal choices is a step too far.

Ever thought about that?

Well it seems like you didn’t because your spokesperson said this "It is a shame that in 2015 there are still a minority who aren't focusing on celebrating those who aspire to be healthier, fitter and stronger.”

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

It’s actually a shame that in 2015, there are still people trying to suggest there is one ideal body for women, and that it comes in the shape of a white, able-bodied woman with big boobs, a small waist, toned abs, and a thigh gap.

And also, should we just celebrate anorexic models because that would fit your worldview.

Please, I bet that the men that made this ad are not all muscular Adonises spending most of their time working on their body. Or do men not have to beach body ready?

Double standards much?

And also, where is the diversity in skin colour. Because your ad only includes one white woman. Are you implying only Caucasian women are beautiful. Hellooo , we are living in 2015 you racist bigots, every skin colour should be accepted. Afro-Americans, Latinos and Asians are also beautiful. Nobody should be ashamed of their colour, but white supremacists like you keep oppressing people of colour, and it is revolting.

And it seems like I am not the only one that thinks your ad is horribly sexist and misogynistic.

Apparently, 56.000 people think this as well, as they all signed the petition to remove you campaign on change.org.

So who is wrong here? You, or 56.000 strong females.

I will give you some advice sweety, take a look at Dove. They’ve accepted that all bodies rs are beautiful, and look at all the good publicity that they are getting. Maybe you should do the same? Or maybe not, and then your company will go to the shitter, which frankly I would love.

I and all of my feminist friends ( you know, those 56,000 people that signed the petition) are going to boycott all of your products if you don’t give in to our demands.

One: You will ban this advertisement.

Two: You will publicly apologize for your sexist ad

Three: You will change your advertisement to something woman friendly.

Four: We want to see a skin diverse ad, with one person from every continent

Five: Show some real women #realwomenhavecurves

So, what is it going to be. Are you going to hold onto your 1950s misogynistic woman hating ideals, or are you going to grow up and join us in the civilised world?

I really don't  think it is going to be a difficult choice, is it.

Have a nice day sweety,

a beautiful beach body ready lady.

P.S

Oh and btw, don’t you dare say that we are threatening you to change the advertisement as you caused this situation your damn self.

������V

Disgrace and Validity

People--Soldiers--in the military disgust me anymore, and I’m not sure if it’s because I decided to get out, or if it was because I’ve lived in the civilian side of life for so long. 

I’ve seen so many comments saying how happy they are that the military is currently denying entry to trans people. It’s like “Hey, 2000′s called and they want their DADT comments back!” kinda deal. I was hearing this shit when I was in, even after DADT was lifted.

(Note: most of this is paraphrase, not literal text.) Someone will one day read this and tell me to get over it, or some other bullshit. I got over DADT when that was lifted, so I’ll probably get over this when this kind of shit stops, you know? is that fair? I’ll stop caring when it no longer exists. Until then, I’m probably not going to get over people getting treated like less than. It’s not as bad as the Slavs or Armenians, but still, it’s not cool in our society of today, is my main gripe. We just did this shit with gay people, and now we’re doing it to another group because????

                                                            Main shit I’ve seen/read/heard... So far. 

Some Soldiers say, “Good, the military has no time for feelings or this PC crap.”

Yeah, that was the argument they used when it came to Shell Shock, aka, PTSD.

Other soldiers have mentioned, “It’s a mental illness! The tax payers shouldn’t pay for their operations!”

Okay, first off, the military ISN’T going to pay for an operation. It doesn’t even pay for the ones authorized, and even when it does, you’re still given the majority of the bills. The military authorizes someone of the Trans life by having them evaluated, and the the process of treatment comes once it’s clarified that the person is indeed transgendered. After that, they have to evaluate whether or not the person will go through the transition period, with the option of operation SOLELY BASED ON THE POCKET OF THE PERSON GETTING THE OPERATION, not the military of the tax payers. It would be paid the say way as someone who developed mental issues overseas.

And let’s be clear: Not ALL trans people even have an operation. They get treatment yes, but not all of them change their gender via surgery. There are literally people who don’t know the first thing about this subject who only believe that being Trans means changing your genitalia, and that’s it. And they think they’ll look ugly for some reason? I’ve never understood that. Why would they purposely try to look like a dude if they’re trying to be a chick? That makes no sense to me.

Oh, you’re freaked out cause you found out this chick was a dude at one time? 

Okay? 

There are women who found out Ted Bundy was a murderer--the hard way. I think you’ll be okay, you whiny bitches. Go to Thailand, or Singapore and play the game “Who didn’t have a sex change?” Good luck to ya!  Fucking tools.

Also, if the excuse is mental illness, then almost everyone in the military should be thrown out.  If mental illness a problem, we have to fix that, don’t we? So, then I guess that tax payers shouldn’t pay for the soldiers to get treatment for their PTSD. It IS a mental illness, just like DG, right (God, anyone who refers to DG as a “mental illness” needs to stop watching Youtube. Fucking ridiculous and immature. You’re NOT A FUCKING DOCTOR, ffs)?

Then there are those that say, “They shouldn’t be allowed entry because it’s a ‘Pre-existing’ condition.”

So is breaking your arm at 8 and deciding to join 10 years later. So is pregnancy, apparently (Still don’t get that), but no! We shouldn’t allow people who allow others and themselves to “mutilate” their bodies join, that’s why amputees and bitches with fake tits are banned from the mili--

Oh, wait, they’re not.

Oh yes, and then there’s this quip: “The military doesn’t need people who can’t deal with everyday stress to get people killed overseas. They’d be nothing but a distraction!  These pansies probably can’t even handle gun fire!”

Yes, because the Transgendered are totally pansies compared to the big, strong, badass soldiers who are throwing a fit because someone wants to change their genitalia like bitches who get liposuction or lip implants, or breast implants.... Yes, the people who are transgendered are in no way prepared for stress, as the rest of the world berates them for being different and not adhering to the natural order preconceived in the minds of idiots who think they know everything.

It’s not like people who are Transgendered are sitting there judging others performance based on what’s between their legs instead of the merit of their work, like those soldiers i am referencing do. No, they’re not that weak.  I can’t help but think sometimes if I had stay in, would I be saying the same shit as these people or would I know better than to think that? Would this idea that genitalia and changing it, per say, really matter, considering women have been in combat for decades but we only got the authorization to join into it with our peers in mid-2000′s. You know, because they were worried about women, what was between our legs, rape, distracting the males, not being able to handle the gun fire--You know, the same shit they’re saying about Trans people.

How ironic...

It’s amazing how soldiers will sit there are talk about PC culture, “feelings”, and mental illness, treating all three subjects as what’s going to ruin the military, yet PC culture, “feelings” and mental illness were all attained because none of that existed in the military previously. 

I have the most indignant feeling that the soldiers who, whether active or out, suck the military’s dick seem to have forgotten that the military WILL abandon you in the end. If  you’re no longer useful, what use are you now? Do you not remember that there are vets that are homeless, that have no real method of food or drink, no shelters will take them, no job will give them a chance, largely ignored by everyone until someone mentions that Starbucks is hiring Muslims and all of a sudden, “THERE ARE HOMELESS VETS THAT NEED A JOB!” Those words come from people who ignored that Starbucks did the same with Veterans prior to this publicity stunt, but fuck it! Let’s use the Veterans as a method of emotional manipulation and control to make people feel bad for forgetting them for so long. Let’s get on Facebook and share this story, rather than find something to link you to that person.

Some of these soldiers I mention vaguely are the same type of people who believe that they are entitled to benefits because they served. Served? Sir and madam, this is duty. You signed a contract. Sure, you are entitled to those benefits, but don’t confuse what you earn with what you work for. Signing a contract means you have to work at the task/assignment for an amount of time to get and keep those benefits well after the work is done. Working at a regular civilian job is where you earn the benefits for as long as you have worked/will work there. A soldier can easily forget that difference.

These are the same ones who will say they don’t want to pay for others of less fortune’s health care. “Work for it,” they say, yet they do. Every month, every paycheck, no matter where the money comes from. Everything gets taxed, and the taxes get used somewhere. If only they would think of things from the perspective of the people they swore to defend. 

This is the reason we’re taught that Civilians are ranked at the highest.

Although, I have to also say, that the soldiers who are worried that a Trans person can’t handle a fire arm; Neither could you. All of us had to be (re)trained with our firearms because a military weapon fires differently than a civilian one. You know, “line up your sights”? Most civilians don’t need an extensive class on how to Zero their weapons, nor do they take a nail to readjust the sights DWN3, LFT6 just to move two squares down on the target. Nobody who joins the military can properly handle the rifles and weapons we use on the regular (Unless they’re a fanatic, but those tend to be quite rare. We had one, and I”m not sure if there’s another like him.)

To be worried someone can handle a weapon, when we’re all trained the exact same way, isn’t about worrying about if someone CAN handle a weapon, and I only say this because they used to say the same thing about us black folk. (To be fair, I’m not all over negro, but just enough for me to get away with saying nigga and I can cook.) The idea that someone’s training would fail them because they’re transgendered means that you want them to fail at it. It has nothing to do with how they’re trained, it’s who they are that pisses these soldiers off. 

If anything, these soldiers who produced and continue to spread this idea that it’s okay to tell someone they’re not worthy of dying with honor because, what? They take hormone pills and don’t have erections anymore? Because they decided that how they identify themselves is a vital part of their existence in this world, and they have to suffer the consequences by people who lack the self-awareness to even question it, or step in another person’s shoes? Because, despite all of the bullshit comments, the rude remarks of friends and family, the chances of discrimination and sucide is increased slightly by the mocking of ignorant people that surround them, they continue to be who they want to be? Because they decided that YOUR opinion of them is irrelevant and you can’t stand it?

Thank god, the soldiers who have never had anyone treat them like trash to the same extent as a transperson or a black person or even a woman (All whom they are experts on, they will tell you exactly why you are wrong and that you’re using make up information, when in reality they’ve never been to college or never grasped the concept and language of Academic theory.) on a regular basis to tell everyone how grateful they are (Feeling) that the military has decided to not allow anymore Transpeople entry into service (PC) and the chances of them getting genuine help is denied (Mental illness) because it would cause “supposedly” the tax payers to pay for it (Feeling).

Friendly reminder: Be more wary of your authority than your Battle. And stop using civilians as an excuse to justify your position. They said this shit back in 2000, They need to get the fuck over it. But then again, history repeats itself quite often, and everyone is playing the roles all over again. 

I wonder what will happen this iteration.

What Society Thinks Makes a Woman

I’ve read articles about women, women oriented Facebook pages and Twitter accounts, various women’s blogs and sites around the Internet, and other so-called women’s media outlets lately that people have asked me to read for an objective opinion about stuff I can never figure out and I do not even want to know. Why they ask me is something I cannot figure out because my answers are not going to be what they want to hear, I’ve never been into girlie crap or so-called women’s behavioral and beauty guides that teach you that you will always be ugly and unlovable but they can teach you how to fix it enough to make society tolerate your ugliness and unlovability. If you don’t have some kind of body issues or self-esteem issues these sites are where you will catch a boatload of them like a nasty contagious disease. These sites are where you will learn all things about what is wrong with your female biological sexed body and female psychology and how you can curve and cut into your body and mind and mold them to what society wants to see. These sites are also where you will learn to behave and think like a proper “lady”.  It’s like some kind of cult indoctrination into a self-hating Stepford wives’ hell Twilight Zone.

So What Makes a Woman According to the Society?  

Women are given so many stereotypes and rules to live by from birth to death that you wonder what the real biological female is and when girls and women ever get any sleep trying to keep up with all of them. Cultural and societal ideals, religious doctrine, and the media (television, movies, news, and magazines) all mingled into a sexist and misogynistic soup of female control, female obedience, female self-hate, and female self-mutilation. Every day there is a new beauty product, a new expensive fashion fad to follow, a plastic surgery to have, a law regulating female reproductive organs and sexuality, a female manual of behavior, a mutilation ritual to carve…all to make girls and women follow the same path to female individuality destruction. Because individuality is seen as a dangerous thing if girls and women do it because it’s empowering and might allow for sex stereotypes and gender roles to change. Instead these sex stereotype and gender roles are enforced by societies, cultures, patriarchal religions, and the media.

Female Body Destruction

In some parts of the world girls and young women have their genitalia mutilated without their permission for their culture’s ideology of how to control female purity and sexuality. In another part of the world a woman may have her genitalia surgically altered to make her boyfriend or husband and society’s beauty standards happy because her vulva is not pretty enough by porn standards. In the western world if a woman has small breasts they must get large implants that might cause them health issues in the future because anything smaller than a “C” cup is considered a birth defect, not attractive and not feminine. Having your breasts removed is about the same price as implants. This gives you a hint that the medical community gives you two choices between making yourself a normal female or removing them. Oh, doctor which one should we choose? But if a woman has large breasts they are seen as normal and feminine and are both an asset and a curse. Large breast may get a woman through many doors that men control but she will also be labelled and sexualized into just being a pair of breasts, nothing else. Women that want to reduce the size of their breasts because of back pain or just comfort are told they should be happy having normal breast because having small breast is abnormal and is not female. Even after all these plastic surgeries and mutilations there will always be a defect there. It’s called “your female biological body cannot ever be just fine with society without alterations like a dress”.

In Western society a woman can never be too skinny; unless she is naturally skinny then she is considered too skinny, unfeminine and not curving enough and listed as boyish, ugly, and a potential anorexic but if she gains weight then it’s time for a starvation diet. If a woman is overweight, she is considered too curving and not sexy.  The weight loss industry targets the female biological sex from birth, no one wants a fat little baby girl, some mothers even put baby girls on restrictive feedings because they fear they might get chubby. This weight obsession goes until death, a skinny corpse is the main goal, because this should be the main goal when a woman is old and gray, not enjoying remembering a happy life, just more dieting babe, sorry don’t want to be a fat corpse. But girls are discouraged from exercising as children because parents do not want their little girls looking and acting like boys or getting too many muscles which might affect their ability to find husbands in the future. Exercise is good for girls as it is for boys and helps develop healthy bones, muscles, and a life-time of healthy weight balance. But the weight loss industry would go out of business, cannot have that.

The female biological sex must hate everything about their bodies from head to toe and constantly worry about fitting whatever beauty standards her culture or society tells her is the standard for a woman or girl. If a woman has curly hair, she must get it straightened, if its straight, she needs to get it curled.  If a woman is not spending hundreds of dollars for hair care and exposing herself to all the chemicals that are used, she is not properly groomed. She must also cover her face to conceal any flaw or blemish with expensive makeup to look the proper “lady” and god forbid she gets a wrinkle. If she cannot cover all these flaws, blemishes, and wrinkles with makeup, than she must get to a plastic surgeon and have them cut them out. She must also shave all her body hair and look like a prepubescent child.  This quest for perfection is a never ending road to nowhere because each level of beauty that is climbed only leads to just another level beauty to climb.

My Mind and Body My Decision

I personally gave up on all of this crazy crap and the physical and psychological wars on the female biological sex when I was four years old and no I am not kidding, I was just that young, when I start seeing though all this bullshit. I did not think being born into a biological female body was a Barbie caricature of someone looking like a pink and ruffled nightmare that was made to be pretty, submissive, and quiet. That could only play tea party, house, and dress up, and could only dream of being a proper painted lady, being happy to be told how to look and behave. None of which I wanted to play or be. I was a stubborn brat, a rebel that refused to act like a breakable painted doll. I was an outsider that got bullied and harassed but I did not care and I still do not. I didn’t wear dresses, I roughhoused with the boys, I was not quiet, and I had my own opinions, hate me or love me, I do not give a fuck. Because trying to fit the acceptable female bodied person is destructive to your psychological and physical health, I do not know how other girls and women do it without having a mental breakdown and some do with body dysmorphia, eating disorders, and other psychological stresses, risking their very physical and psychological health for society’s pleasure. Sometimes you have to step off the crazy train and save yourself. I advise all girls and women try it. Also it will save you a boatload of cash, my last haircut cost me $14.00.