nonbinaro

[nonbinaro]

ill never stop being democracy pilled ive got that give me liberty or give me death dog in me even if my fellow americans took theirs out back and shot it

[nonbinaro]

Sound up

[nonbinaro]

I'd like to draw attention to a couple of stories where immigrants were detained by ICE--a mother and her 3 children in New York and a couple who owned a kebab shop in New Jersey--but in both cases, they were released after outrage from their respective communities. The superintendent of the children's school was "leading efforts to ensure the family's release" in the NY case, and Haddon Township residents donated over $300,000 to the NJ couple's GoFundMe for their legal fees.

This is why it matters for communities to support its members and speak out against injustice. This administration will not do everything it wants as long as people keep fighting back.

[nonbinaro]

There was a phrase that I used in my classroom when my students would ask me about doing questionable things, and my response was always, "Technically you can, but should you?"

The reason I used this instead of a simple yes or no answer is because it opened up conversation. Instead of blindly looking for permission, the conversation became more about cause and effect. Usually it navigated the "well you can't tell me what to do I'm going to do it anyway" instinct in kids when I'd say no, because all they were looking for is something to challenge them.

For example: "Can I jump off the slide?"

"Technically you can, but should you?"

If they answer no, I'd ask why. Usually they'd say because it's against the rules or I don't know.

If they say it's against the rules, I'd ask them why they think it's a rule. And if they'd say I don't know, I'd explain that the slide is five feet off of the ground, and jumping that high is a good way to hurt your knees or worse.

And then the most important part: if you did do it, how can you make it safer?

That's when the creativity juices started to flow. I'd get anything from pillows to beds to bouncy shoes to wings to someone catching them (which became a whole different conversation). And I told them since we didn't have those things here, it wasn't safe. And safety is everyone's number one job at school.

It stopped them from doing it behind my back. It got them to engage in critical thinking. And it helped them figure out how to do things without help.

However, there's always been an itching thought in the back of my head. Somewhere out there, did one of my past students drag their mattress out to the slide and jump off of it?

[nonbinaro]

*nonbinary person calls themself lesbian* "only women can be lesbian!"

*nonbinary person calls themself gay* "you're not attracted to the same gender though!"

*nonbinary person calls themself straight* "that doesn't make any sense!"

*nonbinary person calls themself trixic* "made up label!"

*nonbinary person calls themself toric* "unnecessary label!"

*nonbinary person calls themself gynosexual/romantic/etc.* "you're equating women with vaginas!"

*nonbinary person calls themself androsexual/romantic/etc.* "you're reducing men to penises!*

*nonbinary person calls themself skoliosexual/romantic/etc.* "nonbinary doesn't have a look! you can't be attracted to nonbinary people!"

*nonbinary person calls themself bi* "you're reinforcing the gender binary!"

*nonbinary person calls themself pan* "you're othering transgender people!"

*nonbinary person calls themself poly* "you're just trying to be special!"

*nonbinary person calls themself omni* "that's not a real thing!"

*nonbinary person calls themself ace/aro* "you're just a cisgender heterosexual invading the community!"

*nonbinary person calls themself queer* "that's too vague!"

*binary person uses a label to explicitly express attraction to nonbinary people* "you're fetishising nonbinary people!"

the thread that ties them all together isn't that our labels are wrong or don't make sense, it's that you don't want us to exist and hate on us no matter what we do.

[nonbinaro]

Some women are conditioned to be fragile and weak, and to believe that it's a sin to outperform a man. Her feminism would involve allowing women to be strong.

Some women are expected to be strong at times when they can't. Her feminism would involve reassuring her that it's okay to not be strong.

Some neurodivergent people are raised to believe that they're too stupid to ever amount to anything. Their disability activism would involve reassuring them that they're capable.

Some neurodivergent people are raised to believe that they're smart and gifted, and are expected to live up to impossible standards. Their disability activism would involve allowing them to fail, make mistakes, be stupid, etc.

Some children are constantly reminded "you're the child, I'm the adult" in order to deny their autonomy. Their youth rights activism would involve treating them like an adult at times when they feel ready for it.

Some children are treated like adults in order to justify increased expectations or to downplay abuse against them. Their youth rights activism would involve allowing them to be a child.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to oppression. Each individual person's experience is different. Whatever trauma is caused by their oppression, the activism should focus on undoing it.

[nonbinaro]

Currently doing an Insomniac's Gambit. For those of you who don't know, this is when you mess up your sleep schedule badly enough that you attempt to fix it by skipping an entire night of sleep then going to bed at a reasonable hour the next day. Crucially, it does not work

[nonbinaro]

The Columbia University Taskforce on Antisemitism 2nd Report is out. And it's a doozy. https://president.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/content/Announcements/Report-2-Task-Force-on-Antisemitism.pdf

Before I get into the nitty gritty of it let me pretty much summarize and paraphrase the Taskforce's position: "Holy shit the antisemitism on campus is so much worse than we thought, and it's repeatedly done by people saying they're 'just anti-Zionists'".

Let's start with the Taskforce's working definition of antisemitism.

Fig. 1. Columbia Taskforce on Antisemitism definition of antisemitism

This is a pretty good definition as it includes such things as Holocaust Denial, perceived ties to Israel, double standards, and all the usual things. It pretty much encompasses everything we have witnessed and experienced since Oct 7th. However, the Taskforce then follows it up with this bit.

Fig. 2. Columbia Taskforce on Antisemitism says their definition should not be used outside of training and education.

By saying that their working definition of antisemitism should not be used outside of training and education purposes the Taskforce is pretty much admitting upfront that the antisemitism they are reporting on falls well within their definition and breaks Columbia University code of conduct to the point where the perpetrators would and should receive various punishments ranging from suspensions to expulsions to revocations.

This is an example of the double standards that Jews experience. If this was a taskforce working to find evidence and address any other form of bigotry and racism then there would be recommendations made using the working definition. The irony is that they talk about double standards right in their definition. Now, of course the whole argument comes down to First Amendment Rights. But speech that induces and instigates violence against individuals and/or ethnic/racial groups is not protected. Considering that the Taskforce found calls to violence against Jews then this is not covered. Furthermore, while supporting terrorism is covered by the First Amendment, material support includes distributing terrorist approved and produced materials, of which many students and groups like CUAD are on record doing (even on their own social media) is not.

The report then does what we always, always, always see when it comes to anything with antisemitism. It recommends training on antisemitism AND islamophobia. Now, I am for this personally. A lot of others might be like "Why link the two?! It's always like this!" but I think training on both serves a purpose.

Explicit training and education on what is antisemitism and what is islamophobia. Such things as criticism of the Israeli government's actions, Hamas's actions and rhetoric, the Nakba and the Farhud, the Arab League, and so on being the things that come to mind as examples of not antisemitism or islamophobia. Then getting into the things like stereotypes and conspiracies and how criticism can easily fall into these, how people often seed in "innocuous" conspiracies that are actually the gateway to more serious hateful ones and how to recognize that ploy.

By having courses and training on what is and what isn't either of the two you start to address that leftover guilt since the 9/11 era that has prevented any and all criticism of Islam, Islamic groups, and Islamic regimes for fear of being labeled "Islamophobic". We have seen since Oct 7th the projection of "Jews are weaponizing antisemitism to prevent criticism of Israel" from groups that defend the use of Hadiths that call for the death of Jews under the guise of "you're being Islamophobic" as a means to prevent criticism.

Now, will such education and training actually address these issues? Of course not. They'll likely be opposed and never implemented.

Let's move on, shall we? The report then gets into it's introduction and tells us that they heard from nearly 500 students ranging from undergrads to post-docs about their antisemitic experiences. These testimonies come from Zionists, anti-Zionists, non-Zionists, and those the Taskforce couldn't exactly label. Furthermore, those that did not attend the listening sessions did what we've seen all antisemite do since 10/7; they denied the experience of these students and the Taskforce acknowledges this.

That's huge.

Acknowledging that the greater Columbia University community is denying the antisemitic experiences of these students whom are across the political spectrum and academic experience is signaling to the antisemites that the victims will not be drowned out by the mob with pitchforks.

They then follow it up with this.

Fig. 3. Acknowledgement that the antisemitism students are experiencing does lead to physical violence and has historical precedent.

The Taskforce is admitting and acknowledging that Columbia University has failed in fulfilling part of its mandate in protecting students and addressing acts of bigotry, hate, and violence towards students and students of a particular group. By also acknowledging that antisemitic rhetoric has a historical precedent of leading to physical violence they are also admitting that they know how bad it is and it needs to be addressed.

They then recommend that the university change its policies because of the utter failure to address these incidents. Further elaborating that some of the incidents actually violate state and federal law and that the university is culpable in such cases and the university itself is, once again, adhering to double standards for its Jewish and Israeli students.

The report then goes into the incidents students experienced starting with section 1B. Student Experiences in Day-to-Day Encounters. I will not go over that here in detail, but it contains multiple testimonies and excerpts from testimonies about the antisemitism the Jewish students experienced since 10/7. What is important to note is that the Taskforce acknowledges the "slippage" of anti-Zionism into antisemitism in the majority of these incidents, that the perpetrators don't think they're doing so, but to everyone else it is very clearly happening.

Fig. 4. Taskforce stating that anti-Zionist activities have fallen into classic antisemitic tropes and canards on Columbia's campus(es).

Furthermore, the Taskforce acknowledges that Jewish and Israeli students purposefully had their words misinterpreted to villainize them. Any attempt at facilitating discussion or understanding was dismissed with heavy prejudice.

The Taskforce also talks about how social media has played a role in the harassment of Jewish and Israeli students.

Fig. 5. Student testimony and screenshotting of antisemitism online from Columbia students and orgs.

Moving on to section C. Student Experiences in Clubs, we find one of the most heinous incidents.

Fig. 6. Founder of an LGBTQIA+ group defends their antisemitism then acknowledges it and brags that they got away with it.

This incident highlights one of the issues we have seen since 10/7 where people place Jews as "white oppressors" to validate their antisemitism. They engage in open antisemitic conspiracy and defend it through the use of progressive language that makes it difficult, if not impossible, to address their bigotry. Why? Because a person like this will fall back to being a minority themselves to say that they can't be a bigot. This type of defense is hypocritical and is solely used to silence any attempt to address their hate, to which this student fully acknowledges as she bragged that she got away with it.

This is why Columbia University apologizing to Khymani James after expelling them for their comments about "Zionists don't deserve to live" and that we were "lucky" they weren't out there killing them right now is so abhorrent. Across the internet we saw accusations of white supremacy and silencing BIPOC and queer voices because of Khymani's sexual identity and ethnicity. Is this not the kind of weaponization that antisemites accuse Jews of? This is projection and the testimony above and the Khymani incident highlight this type of behavior. You don't get to be a hateful bigot simply because you're a minority, but the double standard for Jews is a consistent issue.

As the report continues we then find out that the CUAD is not just one group, but actually a coalition that has multiple student clubs and organizations underneath it. CUAD demands that its member clubs and orgs adhere to its mission and rhetoric. According to the report, any student in a club or org that didn't express outright (((anti-Israel))) sentiment was silenced and eventually ousted and/or removed. In almost all incidents, any group signing on or joining the CUAD coalition did not abide by their own rules and excluded any and all Jewish and Israeli students from the process. If they spoke up they were told their opinions did not matter and were removed.

This coalition is further expanded upon in section E (I'm skipping D as it is about curriculum issues and is much shorter). Testimony points out that CUAD is a coalition made of over a hundred student organizations and that they are also bringing in outsiders to the campus. So the claims of "outside agitators" are moot because it was CUAD who brought them there in the first place. The intent was also never to be a peaceful protest or encampment as multiple testimonies talk about the violent language and actions within the encampments and across the campus(es). Specifically the language being used during "vigils" was not about peace or in memorium, but celebrating death and highlighting violence. The issues that the Taskforce learned are, I think, best encapsulated by this paragraph from page 36 in section G.

Fig. 7. Paragraph highlighting how Columbia is now seen as an antisemitic university.

I can attest to Columbia now being seen as the antisemitic university. Its reputation is entirely tarnished by the administrations refusal to act on the very real and violent antisemitism that has been present on its campus since the days after 10/7. I know professors who have turned down jobs, grad students that have withdrawn applications, and donors that have stopped giving.

This report by Columbia University's own personnel provides evidence that contradicts the narrative we have been told by members of the CUAD encampment(s) as well as people across social media; that the antisemitism is fake and made up to prevent criticism of Israel. The Taskforce admits that they were astonished by how bad it actually was and that the university refused to do anything. This should be telling to anyone who has witnessed these claims by people trying to dismiss concerns regarding antisemitism in the pro-Palestine movement. We've seen this across social media and this site where antisemites accuse Jews of being Nazis while they themselves spew antisemitic rhetoric straight out of the Protocols and the Third Reich.

Antisemites will always try and paint Jews as the actual perpetrators of hate, violence, and villainy while they themselves commit those very same acts (that is not to say that no Jew has every committed a crime or any such act themselves, but the projection that we have seen by antisemites is massive). This Taskforce report has multiple testimonies of Jewish students just trying to exist and go about their lives to only be harassed and assaulted for the crime of living while Jewish.

I am going to end this post here as the next section after the testimonies and incidents of antisemitism goes into recommendations for the university and actions to be taken. That is a separate post that will be couched in this one later on.

[nonbinaro]

*nonbinary person calls themself lesbian* "only women can be lesbian!"

*nonbinary person calls themself gay* "you're not attracted to the same gender though!"

*nonbinary person calls themself straight* "that doesn't make any sense!"

*nonbinary person calls themself trixic* "made up label!"

*nonbinary person calls themself toric* "unnecessary label!"

*nonbinary person calls themself gynosexual/romantic/etc.* "you're equating women with vaginas!"

*nonbinary person calls themself androsexual/romantic/etc.* "you're reducing men to penises!*

*nonbinary person calls themself skoliosexual/romantic/etc.* "nonbinary doesn't have a look! you can't be attracted to nonbinary people!"

*nonbinary person calls themself bi* "you're reinforcing the gender binary!"

*nonbinary person calls themself pan* "you're othering transgender people!"

*nonbinary person calls themself poly* "you're just trying to be special!"

*nonbinary person calls themself omni* "that's not a real thing!"

*nonbinary person calls themself ace/aro* "you're just a cisgender heterosexual invading the community!"

*nonbinary person calls themself queer* "that's too vague!"

*binary person uses a label to explicitly express attraction to nonbinary people* "you're fetishising nonbinary people!"

the thread that ties them all together isn't that our labels are wrong or don't make sense, it's that you don't want us to exist and hate on us no matter what we do.

[nonbinaro]

the action this person took is bad because it's directly harmful and exploits and leverages their social capital "also they're cringe" not what I said "adults who like cartoons are always shitty" no they aren't "their artistic tastes reflect their bad morals" I don't believe that is the case "typical tenderqueer" I honestly just think you're being homophobic "mid 30s polyamorous neurospicy kinky asexual picrew icon fanfic writer" do you even care about the bad thing they did or are you just using this as an excuse to make fun of people you don't like

[nonbinaro]

[nonbinaro]

Lil garden ✨✨🍀🌱🍀✨✨✨

[nonbinaro]

It's easier to accept that you're aromantic once you understand that what you want isn't romance per se and it's really the companionship that appeals to you. I never actually liked the thought of being in a relationship but I liked the thought of being important to someone

[nonbinaro]

a lot of people read arguments about life being overall better for the average person now than they were for kings in the middle ages as complacent, and I don't think that's true. it's proof that change is possible.

things are bad now, but even with the problems of what people broadly describe as "capitalism," there is no other time in human history when such a broad base of people have had access to education, security, and freedom of choice. we have accomplished things as a species that couldn't even have been in the science fiction of the fourth century, if it had existed. starvation is a political problem and not a practical one! it's a moral failing that we do not feed the world, when we could. that is a dream of every century up to the last one. when peasants in medieval Bohemia were eating grass and tree bark to get through the winter, their lords were often not doing much better, because the food production and preservation systems were simply not there.

all of this is because people have worked and striven and fought, both literally and metaphorically, to reach a better world. when you say that serfs had it better than we do, you're discounting their agency - and your own. change is possible. it really is. it becomes less possible if you stop acknowledging the changes that have slowly, over millennia, shaped the current moment. it's easy to feel like nothing we do matters, because it always feels that way. when you're in the middle of a journey of ten thousand miles, each step feels like it's accomplishing nothing, but you wouldn't say you'd come no distance just because you hadn't arrived yet, would you?

to change the world you have to acknowledge its realities. one of those is that, for far too many people, conditions are bad. another is that they were worse, have gotten better, and can and must continue to get better.

[nonbinaro]

ok but like. there are two different types of privilege. there's type a "everybody should have this, but some people don't" and type b "nobody should have this, but some people do"

there's having parents who can pay for your application to any college, and then there's having parents who can bribe your way into any college. there's owning your own home, and then there's owning 50 houses and getting rich off hoarding a vital resource. there's not fearing for your life whenever cops are around, and then there's being the cop and being allowed to murder anyone at any time.

idk i just feel like that's an important distinction to make.

[nonbinaro]

Say, can we talk about how trans men and transmascs are often… just plain not trusted?

No matter what we say, what we do, how we say it, what’s done to us, any of that, it’s somehow painted as malicious on our part. Just as a few examples…

For a time there was not really any well known transmasc theory floating around, and this was seen by some as an indication that trans men and transmascs just wanted trans women and transfems to do all the work for them. No one thought maybe we were just being actively erased or that they simply hadn’t been looking for it. There was a jump to the conclusion that we were simply lazy and entitled.

There are cis lesbians who would not date or have sex with trans women but would date or have sex with trans men. I have seen on multiple occasions, even in comic form, a narrative that the trans man is an active participant in this, that he is willingly misgendering himself to get into transphobic lesbians’ pants. When I talk to trans men and transmascs about this, I don’t hear that narrative at all. What I do hear is stories of transphobic cisbians sexually harassing trans men who don’t want to date them, or outright TERFs pretending to be accepting in the hopes of forcing a trans man to detransition during the relationship, or transmascs having a complicated relationship with their gender and sexuality in such a way where not only is dating a lesbian not a form of misgendering for them but they actively consider themselves a lesbian for one reason or another.

I once made a post about how it’s weird to go around announcing you’d never date a trans person when nobody asked and all that happened was a trans person existed in your presence. I was very clearly trying to convey that announcing you don’t find trans people dateable or fuckable unprompted purely because a trans person exists near you is weird and transphobic and completely unnecessary. A cis woman responded by angrily telling me I shouldn’t be trying to trick women into thinking I’m a real man, as if the reason why I transitioned was to dupe cis straight women into having sex with me.

There’s a book titled Female Masculinity that was published in 1998 by Jack Halberstam. I don’t think Jack himself uses the term transmasc to describe his gender, but his book touches on not only Butch lesbianism but basically anyone who was assigned female at birth and is masculine, which means a lot of transmascs and trans men are exactly who he’s talking about. I recently got word that someone has attempted to debunk his book because they don’t think he can be trusted to speak honestly about his own experiences and community.

Multiple notable trans men on YouTube have been listed as vectors of a social contagion by the book Irreversible Damage. Here’s Ty Turner talking about it.

Speaking of the social contagion idea, the more I look at it, the more it becomes apparent that one of the things it relies on is the idea that trans men simply existing near your cis daughters will turn them trans. For many a conservative, this would mean trans men in public are dangerous and cannot be trusted. When we say transitioning improved our lives and that we’re happy this way, they don’t believe that. They look for secret signs that we’re actually miserable, as this one transphobe did to Elliot Page, which was reacted to by Jammidodger.

The words that come out of our mouths are always less believable than what somebody else imagines us to be like. We cannot be trusted, so when we speak, somebody else has to step in and correct what they see as falsehoods. We’re secretly miserable and in need of help we won’t admit to when we’re not too far gone in our transitions and secretly predatory and a danger to women and girls when we have. From the right, we’re misguided women who need help until we’re spreaders of a dangerous disease that will cause the girls you love and care about to poison and mutilate themselves. From the left, we’re misogynistic gender traitors who have no real problems and are even more dangerous than cis men due to our ability to fall back on our agab when needed and therefore we need to be kept in check more than any cis man does. Both sides consider us sneaky and suspicious and deceitful. Neither is willing to think we are just existing and living our lives in a world that actively wants us gone, and when we dare to complicate things by suggesting that our lived experiences don’t align with the theory that’s been put forth and we’d like to contribute, not a single word of it can be trusted.

(This does, by the way, mean that if you’re not a trans man or transmasc and you choose to listen to us and trust us enough to believe us about our own lives, you’re helping us by pushing against a very prevalent narrative about us and I just want you to know that we see this and we appreciate it so much).

[nonbinaro]

A new initiative recently launched by Palestinian peace activists called the "Realign for Palestine" project. Please consider supporting them. The leader of this initiative, Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, has been doing amazing work in this space.

Professor Dajani is one of the members, and he's a personal hero of mine. He took the first ever group of Palestinian students to Auschwitz and then someone tried to assassinate him.