alittlesupernova

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I don't have the right words for this rn but history or rather the mythologicalization of history is one of the pillars the ideology of the right is built on. When history is seen as something glorious you can view your ideology as a continuation of this glorious past. Any attempt to portray this history as something else than perfect is then also an attack on the political ideology itself.

Speaking from my knowledge of political theory, not of history

What I struggle with, as a public historian and a US American leftist, is how right wing US Americans can say they love history and call themselves “history buffs,” but get so righteously indignant when it is suggested that we can learn from history, and that it is normal and healthy to discuss the flaws and dark sides of various historical figures.

It’s like a wall which I, speaking as a public historian, wish I knew how to dismantle. Like when someone’s all REMEMBER THE ALAMO, I think the natural response is something along the lines of “certainly, but it’s important remember that one of the things the revolutionaries were fighting for was the freedom to continue their enslavement of other human beings.”

For me, that’s not a political statement. It’s a commitment to view historical events and figures for what they were in all their good and their bad and their complexity. But you say that to someone with right wing US American politics, and it’s like you spat on their mother and pooped on the flag.

I do make political posts here as an angry, frustrated progressive citizen of the USA who is also a historian. But right now, I’m posting as a historian, who happens to be a left wing US American. I don’t want to talk shit, I want to figure out how to fix it.

But then, knowing what I do of MAGA Americans, I don’t think there is a fixing it? Unambiguously valorizing the American past in order to maintain the illusion that this country was at some point Great is kind of their whole Thing.

Idk. Just some stray thoughts.

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'evening routine' but it's being on my phone for 3 hours

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opens box that reads "i wanna draw again". inside lies a note. the note says, "mental illness and difficult circumstances have taken years of interest, accessibility, and skill away from me. i want to forgive myself for that. i want to heal my relationship to my hobbies. i want to feel connected to something that once made me feel good, but the cyclic discouragement is difficult to overcome." i turn over the note. on the back it reads "wannta drawe sexy bodies awooga"

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Man, midnight snack used to mean something. Now it's just an early dinner for me

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You can spam boop me!

reblog if you let people spam boop you

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Your gender is now the first randomized wikipedia article you get. No rerolls.

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holding yourself accountable and tearing yourself down are two different things

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officially decided that anyone who tries to divide the lgbt community is a fed. i dont care if you're not actually a fed, if you're causing infighting in a minority community then you're a fed who just isnt getting paid to be one. either apply for a job at the CIA or shut the fuck up

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the trick for enjoying a new video game is avoiding the internet’s opinion on it 

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TRANSUNITY

Transunity is a political theory that was actively talked about on Tumblr a couple of years ago, but has since fallen out of the public spotlight. And this is unfortunate, because it could have really improved a lot of the discourse around gender.

There exists a blog under that name ( @transunity ), but it has been inactive for a year. I am not affiliated with that blog anyhow, I never had any personal contacts with its mods, but I want to get their general ideas to circulate again, so I'm trying to bring this back up in a semi organized fashion. My take on transunity is just my take, if you're one of the original coiners, and you disagree, I encourage you to talk about it, because we still have much more in common with each other than different.

GENERAL VIEWS

I believe that one of the fundamental ideas more trans people need to understand is that we're all more or less in the same place in the eyes of the society (when other factors, such as ethnicity or disability, are considered). To be trans is to fail the gender role system, from the point of view of cis people we can no longer be proper men or women. All kinds of trans people regardless of identity are affected by misogyny and misandry (not a type of marginalization by itself, but turns into a vector of oppression when overlapping with a different marginalization), which forms the foundation of transmisogyny, transandrophobia, and exorsexism*. These types of bigotry are not exclusive and unique to specific gender identities either and may be applied to any trans person for as long as it's convenient to the oppressor.

Trans people do not have gendered power over each other, and intra community bigotry is better conceptualized as a form of lateral aggression.

Gender assignment and sex are never strictly binary (especially with inclusion of intersex people, who belong in gender conversations even if they don't identify as trans) and need to be understood as much more fluid and not strictly correlating with one's actual position in life.

WHAT WE NEED TO REDUCE

The following things should be discussed more critically:

- "Powerjacketing" - implying someone has gendered privilege as a means of delegitimizing their words, while in reality they do not have this privilege;

- Malgendering - forcing trans people to choose between being gendered correctly and speaking up about their mistreatment (e.g. questioning trans women's womanhood on the basis of them aggressively defending themselves or trans men's manhood on the basis of them asking for help) or implying there's something wrong with them in a way that reinforces gender stereotypes;

- Assuming that some trans people are exempt from some forms of oppression on the basis of gender assignment/sex (e.g. by calling all trans people who were assigned female "tme"** or claiming trans people who were assigned male are inherently incapable of understanding fear of sexual assault);

- Assuming that oppression of trans people is rooted in gender assignment/sex (such as, calling reproductive oppression "sex based oppression"***);

- Gatekeeping certain identities, such as "transmasc", "transbian", "femboy" as exclusive to any gender assignment/sex;

- Creating a duality out of "transsexual" and "cissexual", where not medically transitioning trans people are assumed to have some kind of a gendered privilege, or to not be trans in any meaningful material way. Various transmed ideas about dysphoria and transition go there too;

- Accusing trans people who take inspiration from each other of appropriation (trans headcanons, kinks, drag culture, etc).

SYMBOL

The following image is the official transunity symbol developed by the original transunity bloggers. Sorry about the glitch effect, I wasn't able to find one without it.

* Transmisogyny, transandrophobia, and exorsexism are not exclusive to specific identities, although they do primarily target traits associated with these identities. They can be conceptualized as bigotry and oppression towards people who are recognized as incorrectly entering respectively womanhood, manhood, and a status beyond gender binary (for the latter no normative form exists****). However, it's not wrong to use them to mean "oppression of trans women" and so forth, for as long as you're not claiming it's exclusive.

** Labels like "tma" and "tme" still may be used, but solely in a self assigned manner. I believe that an individual trans person is capable of evaluating whether they're affected by transmisogyny and in what way, and they should be trusted on this. However, no gender assignment and no current gender identity makes anyone inherently tme.

*** "Sex based oppression" instead of "reproductive oppression" reinforces the idea that people who share a specific body part (e.g. an uterus in context of conversations about abortion) are inherently of the same sex. This type of essentialism is desperately needed by terfs in this discussion, as they're trying to sell the ideas of "sex based oppression" and "sex based privilege" to people they want to recruit in their ideology. Invoking the idea of "sex" as something trans men and some nonbinary people are oppressed through is not the correct way to respond to people who say we don't experience any gendered violence besides "just transphobia", it has shitty implications and helps shitty people.

**** Lack of existence of normative nonbinary gender does not mean that these genders are not recognized by the society as a deviant, marginalized identity, and that binary people cannot be pushed into this zone.

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Watching Star Wars was a mistake. For years I’ve derived so much pleasure from seeing discourse on my timeline that’s like “it’s actually a pretty good writing choice that Glimbo Knutts manipulated the imbledimbians in the force to make Darth Freeble his personal jedi froogler. It gives the original trilogy more depth” and not knowing what the fuck anybody is talking about. But now I do and it’s ruined. I understand what you freak ass dorks are saying and it isn’t fun anymore. Glimbo Knutts making Darth Freeble his jedi froogler DOES give the original trilogy more depth. This sucks man

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Yesterday my little brother told me something very sweet and touching, that when he was a kid and had nightmares about monsters chasing him or whatever he would be able to end the nightmare by finding me in the dream and I would protect him by fighting off the zombies, or carrying him away. This is adorable, and makes me feel like the greatest older sibling in the world, but the hilarious thing is that when I was a kid I had nightmares of needing to save him from zombies and such. so many dreams where he was in trouble and I needed to save him. Like my nightmares began where his ended. Low key I think he mastered the ability to psychically transfer his nightmare to me as a child and I'm kind of annoyed with him.

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it rly is weird how theres this culture in progressive spaces where like you can be as mean, as CRUEL even, as you want as long as youre not being explicitly bigoted towards any marginalized group of people and still be seen as a really good person with good morals who nobody is allowed to have beef with bc theyve never done anything racist or homophobic

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The second you start talking about some mysterious "they" that are controlling society in some fashion, you are engaging in dangerous conspiratorial thinking even if you're being woke about it. "They" did not institute the 40 hour work week specifically so you would be too tired to revolt. "They" did not invent the sleek minimalist aesthetic in order to crush the spirit of art in the common people. "They" are not pushing mediocre media into the mainstream in order to poison people's critical thinking skills.

Your best case scenario after that is you talk to someone who actually knows what the fuck they're talking about and you get embarrassed because you can't answer basic questions about your own ideology because you never learned anything past "the ruling class/capitalists/politicians are making things bad and if we got rid of them the bad things would all go away!"

Your worst case scenario is obviously the woo-to-fascist pipeline and you end up believing Jews are poisoning American food supplies with GMOs in order to turn us all into beta cucks, so like . . . maybe just stop blaming "them" before you fall down that route.

Obligatory round of disclaimers: Yes, sometimes people do bad things. Be specific about exactly who is doing what instead of ascribing it to some vague group of shadowy elites. Yes, sometimes things in society are bad. Learn to identify the root causes of complex social issues instead of assuming that they're actually extremely simple to fix and we're just not doing it because of some vague group of shadowy elites. Yes, minimalism isn't for everyone. Learn that some people don't share your tastes and get the fuck over it for the love of god.

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how it feels to be online these days

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the most disturbing trend in online leftism is outright hostility towards any kind of community building tools and forgiveness whatsoever.