rejecting-the-gender-cult-blog

[rejecting-the-gender-cult-blog]

we need to talk

i want to first say that all of this i say out of love and thirst for truth. i know there’s going to be major issues after what i have to say, and i accept that. please know that i am the same person you’ve liked and respected. i consider myself a seeker of truth and all i want is to raise consciousness. this is going to be difficult to read but i urge you to read the whole thing, think about what i’ve said, and come to your own conclusions. there are a lot of questions i’m asking that have been forbidden but they need to be asked, and when questions are forbidden in a movement something is extremely wrong.

why do we have to talk about male and female?

ignoring sex based oppression is bad for everyone, which means we need to stop ignoring sex. male and female are distinct categories that almost everyone alive fits into.  most intersex people, especially female intersex people, have their genitals surgically altered at birth so they can be put into one of the two sex categories. the world’s enforcement of the two sex system is ruthlessly oppressive, starting at birth.

we have intra community terms for this - dfab/dmab/camab/cafab etc., which have served to confuse the reality of a world where male people are an oppressor class to female people and sex-based has to be adknowledged to have an understanding of life based in reality.

what is female and male socialization?

male and female socialization are both real. it may be painful for trans people to recognize this, but it can’t be ignored. when you are born, your sex is determined and the process of socialization begins.

female socialization is being complimented on your appearance before anything else, called on less in class, constantly having your words devalued, sexual harassment starting from a young age, being taught to present your body as an object for others consumption, to fear rape always, to blame yourself if you are attacked, to monitor your appearance obsessively, to value yourself and your work less… being socialized to be subjugated.

male socialization is getting more attention, getting more praise, having your actions and achievements seen before your body (relative to a girl otherwise in the same class), being taught you should have confidence in your opinions, having many choices for male role models, being taught women who disagree with you are emotional or pmsing, that womens bodies are yours to use and should look the part, etc… being socialized to subjugate.

Keep reading

[rejecting-the-gender-cult-blog]

Declaration of War

by Vee Esselar

. I am a Woman. I will not be re-classified by men who “feel like” women. I will not tolerate being called CIS-woman, biological-woman, genetic-woman, woman-born-woman or female-woman. I will not tolerate being accused of having CIS privilege, obtained illegitimately at the moment of my birth. I will not tolerate being accused of wielding this privilege over men. I will fight back against this misogynistic attack that only seeks to silence me and make me invisible.

. I am a lesbian. I will not be re-classified by men who “feel like” women. I will not call men who “feel like” women, lesbians. I will call them what they are: heterosexual men. I will not put up with being accused of having “mono-sexual privilege” that I wield over men. I will not be shamed and bullied into having sex with men who say they are lesbians and I will call those who try what they are: sexual predators. I will never sign up, line up or shut up about the genocidal assimilation of my lesbian sisters into your transgender cult. I will gather with my sisters wherever and whenever I please and I will not grant you access no matter what woman hating law I am breaking. I will fight back against this misogynistic/homophobic attack that only seeks to silence me and make me invisible.

. I am a woman. I will not stand for the ridiculous premise that I am trans-misogynist. It is my birthright to speak out loud about any idea or practice that harms women. I will continue to speak out loud about male privilege, male entitlement and male pattern violence. I will continue to expose the real hatred that men direct at women, wether those men happen to “feel like a woman” at the time or not. I will fight back against this misogynistic attack that only seeks to silence me and make me invisible.

. I am a woman. I reject all notions that there is such a thing as ‘Gender Dysphoria’, female brain, woman feelings, or any other gender based idea, theory or practice. I reject your gender binary straight jacket. I reject your pornographic version of woman and the sexual slavery you promote. I will fight back against this misogynistic attack that only seeks to silence me and make me invisible

. I am a woman. That word belongs to me. I get to say what that word means. I will not use the word woman or she to include one man. I will not use the word woman or she to describe one man. I will not ally myself with any man who uses woman and she to describe himself no matter how much of a “good guy” he says he is. I will protect the word woman, and in protecting the word woman, I protect my ability to speak about myself, my experience, my future, my past and the entire history of women. You will not rob me of my ability to know my sisters through language. I will fight back against this misogynistic attack that only seeks to silence me and make me invisible.

. I am a woman. It is my birthright to speak about my body, my experience, my life using my own words. My vagina is not a front hole any more that your penis is a front tail. I will continue to talk about my period, watch the Vagina Monologues, hear Germaine Greer and all my beloved feminists speak, and call other women my sisters wether you “feel” excluded or not. I will gather with my sisters wherever and whenever I please and I will not grant you access no matter what woman hating law I am breaking. I am not afraid of you. Calling me names will not stop me. Threatening me will not stop me. I will fight back against this misogynistic attack that only seeks to silence me and make me invisible.

I am a woman

and I will defend myself !

[rejecting-the-gender-cult-blog]

A woman who doesn’t want to be treated like a woman doesn’t need testosterone, she needs feminism.

ftmttraitor (via lishra)

[rejecting-the-gender-cult-blog]

name the problem

Men are using gender theory to avoid accusations of misogyny when abusing/insulting women online. Having 'they/them' on your Tumblr/Twitter is the ultimate get out of jail free card. You can be outed as a literal paedophile, yet the comments will just be 'erm yeah sweety this person may be a paedophile but they also use they/them pronouns? And you said him? You're literal trash lol bye.' Men whose one sop (sic) to feminine appearance is wearing eyeliner or nail varnish are now accusing women of 'trying to kill them'. Yeah, a white suburban teen who borrows his sister's makeup is truly at a risk of violence (from radical feminists, of course, not men) on a par with that of a trans sex worker in Brazil. How silly of me not to realise this. Women who are all 'Kill all men! Misandry!!!', yet will defend the most manly looking, misogyny/racism/homophobia-spouting man if he claims to be a woman. 99% of feminist spaces have been taken over by trans debate. Violence has been redefined as 'was a bit mean to me on the internet once' (and of course, rape threats/death threats to radical feminists aren't violent at all.) 'Terfs have caused the deaths of over 50,000 trans women' - what? I've seen intelligent grown women reblog this unquestioningly - how on earth can they think that's true?

source

[rejecting-the-gender-cult-blog]

gnc women every Sunday :)

Fanny Bullock was an American geographer, cartographer, explorer, travel writer, and mountaineer, notably in the Himalayas. She was one of the first female professional mountaineers; she not only explored but also wrote about her adventures. She set several women’s altitude records, published eight travel books with her husband, and championed women’s rights and women’s suffrage. Born to a wealthy family, Workman was educated in the finest schools available to women and traveled in Europe. Her marriage to William Hunter Workman cemented these advantages, and, after being introduced to climbing in New Hampshire, Fanny Workman traveled the world with him. The Workmans began their travels with bicycle tours of Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain, Algeria and India. They cycled thousands of miles, sleeping wherever they could find shelter. They wrote books about each trip and Fanny frequently commented on the state of the lives of women that she saw. At the end of their cycling trip through India, the couple escaped to the Himalaya for the summer months, where they were introduced to climbing. They returned to this then-unexplored region eight times over the next 14 years. Despite not having modern climbing equipment, the Workmans explored several glaciers and reached the summit of several mountains, eventually reaching 23,000 feet (7,000 m), a women’s altitude record at the time. They organized multiyear expeditions but struggled to remain on good terms with the local labor force. Coming from a position of American privilege and wealth, they failed to understand the position of the native workers and had difficulty finding and negotiating for reliable porters. She was recognized as one of the foremost climbers of her day. She demonstrated that a woman could climb in high altitudes just as well as a man and helped break down the gender barrier in mountaineering.#butchhistory

[rejecting-the-gender-cult-blog]

peak trans: brain sex, boundary violation

I only was non-critical of transgender when I didn't know anything about it. Originally, I thought it was some poor intersex individuals who had gone through surgery as kids and now wanted to change to the sex they were the most comfortable as. As soon as I encountered actual trans people online, I got very critical. It was through feminist sites, and they would link to sites for trans people, and those sites were full of sexist stereotypes. Boys are like this, girls like this. It was so blatantly sexist and I didn’t understand why it wasn’t discussed. Also read some blogs by ”trans women”. They were blatantly men with fetishes. No one else seemed to notice. The obsession with underage anime girls, pin ups, taking photos of themselves in revealing clothing saying that transitioning made them hornier, etc. I would look at those photos and think, ”man”. No way a man turns into a woman like me just because he wears some ”sexy” clothing. I never bought it but everyone else seemed to. It was incredibly weird.

First time I met a transgender man IRL, it was a man looking exactly like an ordinary guy who had been let into a safe women's space without anyone getting to have an opinion on it. This safe space is now "inclusive" (to males), so not a safe space for women anymore. That place had long been under threats and such from (ordinary) men who didn't like that there was a healing place just for female people away from them - looks like men finally found a way to invade/shut down women's spaces. It was a very painful thing to have experienced IRL when I really needed such a place back then. Many did, and still do.

source

[rejecting-the-gender-cult-blog]

I am intersex and I used to think I could get along with the trans community and slowly it came to me how toxic and self absorbed the trans community. It's sad how bad it is they constantly prey on getting young followers telling them any gender variance means they must be trans, but don't worry even though your trans you don't need to be proactive about it. No just whine like the rest of us and pick your own custom title, because your a special snowflake and if anyone disagrees they hate you. Only we love you for you. God it's disgusting. I'm sorry if that came off bad, I don't hate trans people I hate that specific ideology they could be such a good force for gender equality but no they squander it.

and a reply:

Same here. I don't think there's any purposeful mal intent in the movement. They've just all become so deluded that they think it helps everyone. They all follow each other around and around and around forever, convincing each other and themselves that nobody cares and making everyone feel more hopeless and angry. From the outside, it's sad.

source

[rejecting-the-gender-cult-blog]

1. I came to university last year with no understanding of feminism and with barely any concept of trans issues at all. I joined my uni femsoc to learn more and became passionately interested in women's rights. Some of what I heard there made sense to me, but a lot did not - the support for porn and prostitution especially. Not just support for the women in these industries, which i agree with definitely, but actually saying men who pay for sex shouldn't be 'stigmatised'... anyway, (cont.)

anyway, my PTM was atttending a discussion about gender and being told that everyone ‘identifies’ as something, that I had to 'feel like’ a woman or I wasn’t one. I putup my hand, all confused, and said well… I know I am a woman because I was raised in this role and everyone has always treated me as a woman, but I dont have any real identity or special feeling about it. I just am one. And the transgirl in the group (who is a nice person, just very bogged down in gender stuff)was earnestly telling me that if I haven’t felt 'girly’ or 'feminine’ my whole life maybe that meant I wasnt a woman. And they all joined in saying I was probably agender. It was really sad on reflection, a room full of girls so brainwashed with this stuff that they were saying I might not be a woman because I don’t wear makeup etc. Then when I said back (so confused by now) but I am female, I know I’m a woman because I’m female… whoa… you could have heard a pin drop. They were so so shocked and uncomfortable and proceeded to tell me how 'problematic’ my association of a female body with womanhood was. Although they said DFAB not female. That was my PTM, I walked out of that meeting reeling from how crazy it was and haven’t looked back since.

[rejecting-the-gender-cult-blog]

baby radfems keep me going. protect baby radfems in your life. we were once them, they will be us, let’s carry a tradition of sisterhood to pass on.

[rejecting-the-gender-cult-blog]

peak trans: men make better women

I used to be a fan of YouTuber Gigi Gorgeous. At the time, his name was Gregory Gorgeous and he did tutorials on makeup and I thought it was wonderful that he ignored harmful gender roles and knew that guys liking makeup was ok, and wearing it didn't mean he was a woman.

Then he came out as transgender in this video in which he says

I think that my choice to be a woman, makes me more woman than a lot of women out there.

I didn't know exactly why that bothered me, so I kept quiet about it for a while, but eventually I learned about how treating woman as an identity is harmful to actual women, because it's actually a biological reality. I would also argue it's misogynistic because their idea of 'woman' is often dresses and makeup, and because of how often M2Ts claim they 'feel female', as if they know what it's like to be female better than actual women.

I got more into radical feminism over time (I was a fun fem when I watched the video, sex-positive, 'trans women are women' etc), and I learned about how gender is a hierarchy, not a spectrum, and how treating it like a spectrum ignores the fact that women get the shit end of the stick compared to men, so that's when I decided that speaking my mind was more important than not being called names by angry, delusional men. Other people in this thread have said similar things, and I have also noticed that men calling women TERFS/saying they deserve to die/joking about killing them are forms of men trying to intimidate women into silence. I've already dealt with that kind of behaviour from males almost my whole life, and I'm not going to let it work anymore (provided I can safely speak out).

source

[rejecting-the-gender-cult-blog]

gnc women every Sunday :)

Three decades ago, 24 year old architecture student, Elspeth Beard, set out to ride her bike around the world– a trek that would take 3 years and over 48K miles. Beard’s bike was a used 1974 BMW R 60/6 flat-twin, already with 30K miles, that she bought from a friend of a friend. Her around-the-world bike trek began in New York– “It cost $340 to send the bike and $197 for my own air fare,” she recalls. From NYC she rode up through Canada, then headed south through Mexico and Los Angeles– racking up 5K miles. From LA Beard shipped the bike to Sydney. In Australia, she had her first big accident on a dirt road near Townsville, in Queensland. The bike somersaulted and she suffered a bad concussion which put her in the hospital for two weeks. In Singapore Beard’s luck ran out again, when all her valuables were stolen– including her passport with all the visas for the countries she’d yet to visit, and the registration and shipping documents for her bike. It would cost her six week’s time to replace all the lost documents. Beard then rode up the Thai-Malaysian peninsular to Bangkok and beyond to Chiang Mai and the Golden Triangle. With the overland route to India (via Burma) out of bounds she headed back south to load the bike onto a boat from Penang to Madras. On the way she had her second and final big crash when a dog ran under her wheels from behind a truck, on the dangerous main road south. The bike hit a tree and Elspeth was once again battered and bruised but miraculously unbroken. Elspeth also repaired the R 60’s damaged engine herself– “I took the cylinder off, straightened the bent studs as best I could and packed the cylinder base with gaskets and goo to get enough compression back.” Upon returning home, Beard immediately went to work stripping and completely rebuilding the BMW’s engine herself. Today, Elspeth Beard is still an active and enthusiastic BMW rider– with her own award-winning architectural practice. #butchhistory

[rejecting-the-gender-cult-blog]

Dear Young Women of Tumblr,

Never feel you must identify out of being female.

Never feel you must identify as non-binary, agender, gender-neutral, genderqueer, or any other option outside your natural sex. Even if:

You don’t “feel like a girl.”

You have little or no interest in sex or relationships with boys or girls.

You dislike makeup, feminine clothing, and “being girly.”

You are uncomfortable with your body.

You are uncomfortable with how others view your body.

You enjoy doing “boy” things and feeling powerful and in control. 

All of these things are perfectly normal for a women to feel, and due to our highly gendered society can sometimes seem unbearable. I know. I have been there. But creative, intelligent, strong, kind, and fiercely unique and independent women have always existed - and you can, too, just as you are.

Harriet Tubman, Marie Curie, Frida Kahlo, Agatha Christie, Sally Ride, Rachel Maddow, Georgia O’Keefe, Abby Wambach, Amelia Earhart, Malala Yousafzai and so many others are here for you - however you want to express yourself, whoever you want to be. 

It isn’t always easy, but it’s worth it. So worth it. Hang in there. <3

[rejecting-the-gender-cult-blog]

peak trans: male socialization

(I want to preface this by stating that my "peak trans moment" will probably sound very petty, but it is what it is.) 

When I first signed up for okcupid, like the good libfem I was I was very open to the idea of potentially dating a trans woman, and would look at their profiles and interact with trans women like I would with any other woman whose profile I came across. I noticed that these trans women, however, were very obviously inexperienced in the realm of what sorts of poses/pictures/outfits/make-up were "flattering" for a person, and because of this for some inexplicable reason I felt resentment toward them. Although it was unfortunate, I had internalized at a very young age that my primary purpose and value as a human being was to look attractive or be perceived as attractive to men - and as such, I had painstakingly spent a large portion of my life caring about and trying to control my appearance, learning "rules" like "women shouldn't have wrinkly foreheads in photos", or "you should try to pose so that your stomach looks as thin as possible" or "you shouldn't take a picture with your face at that angle, because it makes your face look fat." I hated these rules, but they were a part of me - a part of most, if not all, women I knew. All of the women I knew at the time, like me, had this sort of internal dialogue constantly running in the background of their minds while in public... "have my bangs fallen out of place? do my thighs look large flattened out like this? do my arms look too fat? is my zit showing through? should I eat this, or should I avoid it because it'll make me gain weight?"

And yeah, the fact that these trans women clearly never had to learn these rules - never had to live them for years and years and years on end, never had to spend large portions of their life focusing on or hating themselves because of how well they conformed to what "women are suppose to look like" - it kind of annoyed me.

So, fool-heartedly, I posted this grievance in a personal post on tumblr and as can be expected - I started getting a lovely series of violent threats. At this point, I had already spoken with and planned to meet up with a trans woman for a date, and several things this person said/did just further reinforced my confusion about trans women in general... the biggest red flag being that this person kept pressuring me into conversations about (and later, just pressuring me into having) sex in the exact same way that straight men had with me in the past... the more I got to know this person, the more it felt like there was nothing "woman" about them (to me, and I was just comparing this person to all of the women I knew at the time and all of the men I had had experiences with at the time). This person tried to present themselves as more emotional/more quick to cry than most men I knew, and they were not averse to wearing "women's clothing"/eyeliner but other than that... personality-wise, I could not distinguish them from the men I knew.

In my confusion, I searched and searched for anyone else who felt that something was a bit off with the transgender movement/ideology... at first, to be honest, mostly for emotional support/validation, because by even questioning/resenting trans women for not being socialized as "cis" women, I had become the target of a lot of hatred... but yeah. Eventually I found this place. Glad to know I'm not alone.

and two comments: 

What you're referencing is not petty - it's called body monitoring and women are socialized to do it continually (literally every 30 seconds on average). An interesting 12 minute TED talk from Dr. Caroline Heldman that touches on it: "The Sexy Lie"It's just another one of the countless aspects of female socialization that males can't even imagine.

It's a serious drain on our brain power to be constantly worrying about how we look. But oh well, we 'cis' women are just so privileged and comfortable with ourselves and our femininity! 

source

[rejecting-the-gender-cult-blog]

Acknowledging biological sex isn’t reducing someone to their genitals.

[rejecting-the-gender-cult-blog]

I honestly think that embracing gender and becoming a part of the gender cult is the most reactionary thing one can do. To go and support old and oppresive sex roles, because that’s what gender is, is a terrible backwards thing to do. It is the epitome of returning to the status quo.

[rejecting-the-gender-cult-blog]

i just reached 'peak trans' & i've had enough. tried to be 'good ally' but kept getting attacked. i can't even talk about menstrual pain without mtfs screaming "cissexist" at me. (some like Gemma S, actually claim to menstruate!) any ideas why transwomen are so nasty to ciswomen who **try to please them**? the more u try, the worse they act. they just get nastier! any ideas on the psychology of this and reasons for it? confused why they do it. glad there is term for how i feel: i'm done.

Hi anon, sorry this got lost for a few days.

I think there are three general forms of mtf hostility towards women. The first is just that a lot of trans women, especially early on in transition, are literally men who hate women, but they wear skirts or lipstick. So, misogyny. The second is narcissistic male rage, where trans women become irrationally jealous of females (for having the “body they want”) and the jealousy turns to hatred and anger.

The third aspect is horizontal hostility. For trans women who pass to the extent that society at large believes they’re “actually trans” (as opposed to “a weird guy who dresses weird”), but don’t pass as female or aren’t assimilated, they face a lot of hostility day to day from both men and women. But since they’re afraid of physical violence from men, they take it out on their low-caste neighbors, women.

But the specific thing you’re talking about, which is that the trans activists who hate women are most hateful to the women who try to please them the most, again gets back directly to misogyny. When a man really hates women, whose lives does he make the most miserable? His wife/girlfriend, mother, sisters, cousins, and then female friends and coworkers, in that order. It’s easier to abuse the person closest to you, since they’re the most likely to stay with you and be available to abuse again. So, it’s really just a classic male abuser mentality.

This is exactly what firewomon was talking about in her How very dare women have #sharedgirlhood post, in regards to Helen Lewis and Caroline Criado-Perez getting attacked by the mtmra’s Sophia Banks and Roz Kaveney. They were targeted precisely because they’ve been trans-supportive in the past.

[rejecting-the-gender-cult-blog]

I believe that whatever a woman does is womanly. If she wears a suit and tie and sports a mustache – she is womanly. If she wields a blowtorch, she is womanly. If she drives a 16 wheeler, she is womanly. If she runs a government, she is womanly. She may not be “feminine” according to the socially constructed, restrictive gender rules of our contemporary dominant culture, but she’s womanly. To call a woman who identifies as a woman transmasculine or boi or masculine of center is to deny scope and breadth and depth to the category of woman. These words serve to claim as “masculine” the behaviors, occupations, attitudes, fashions and grooming styles that are not only liberating to women, but that women can enjoy, do enjoy, and should be able to enjoy as women.

Liza Cowan

http://www.dapperq.com/2012/09/interview-with-liza-cowan-of-dyke-a-quarterly/

(via sisterresister)