#<- and isn't it interesting how so many trans guys support that statement when it's being said abt cis men

[bisexualmaedhros]

i feel like the afab trans people* who believe in "male/female" socialization are the same people who talk about how eeeeevery afab person has like trauma from being told to "act more ladylike." i'm not saying that never happens, but it annoys me when people paint it as this universal fixture of being an afab child.

i do not remember a single time in my childhood where i felt pressured to be more feminine. like, i did already enjoy "feminine" things, but i also sat however i wanted and played in the mud with the boys, that kind of thing, and all the people around me were totally cool with it.

i know that unfortunately my experience isn't universal, but that's kind of my point- you can't act like an assigned sex dictates everything about how someone was raised. you can't act like it gives every afab person some secret unique knowledge on misogyny. some of the most misogynistic people i can think of are cis women! when i was a kid and thought i was a cis girl, i held misogynistic beliefs even while calling myself a feminist, and obviously that's common.

like, i'm sure all this seems pretty rudimentary and it certainly feels like it as i say it. but my god, the number of transmascs i see online acting like they're incapable of misogyny makes me feel like i'm losing it sometimes. and i don't often post about it because i don't want to sound like i'm white knighting or anything; i don't want to sound like i'm going "haha wow those guys are crazy, good thing i'm one of the good ones ;-)" and i don't know if this post will come off like that but i hope it won't because that truly isn't my intention.

my intention really is just like... idk if i somehow have afab followers who think like this, please god examine it. every time you accuse trans women of "dividing the community" or whatever, you're closing yourself off from learning something indispensable. but more importantly, you are actively choosing to make yourself someone women cannot trust. the most valuable lessons i have learned when it comes to feminism and untangling internalized misogyny have been from trans women. so many people who were afab seem to think we have a uniquely pure understanding of misogyny, that everyone else can never understand it as well as we can. that is not true at all. i know for a fact you have met cis girls who were misogynistic as fuck. remember that.

*note: when i say "afab trans people" here i'm not "reducing you to your agab" as many people claim. your agab is directly relevant to the post. i mean this genuinely: please learn to move through your gut instinct of guilt/defensiveness. it's only human, but it will not serve you well in the path to self improvement. acknowledge that it's there, and then learn to listen and consider the things that trigger it anyway. that's the only way you'll actually improve in any meaningful way.

[youareinlove]

Chappell’s clarifying comments make me think she’s voting third party

this got long so i'm going to throw it under a cut

not that i want to start this discussion (not because of you guys, you all handle this stuff really well, but because things get outside my blog and become bigger than themselves) but i'm going to answer this just because i think it's interesting and worth following up on our previous conversation. i actually think it's fairly clear that she's voting for kamala, if begrudgingly. she just doesn't want to endorse her, which again, she's not obligated to. i've said over and over again that i don't believe any artist should have to speak up about how they're voting unless they want to and feel like it's important to them. it definitely makes me feel personally good when an artist stands up for the rights of people like me and makes it known that they care, but i don't think that means they're obligated to (and to be clear, i've never questioned whether or not chappell is a republican. this isn't about that). so i don't mind her stating that she doesn't want to endorse a candidate. that's her choice, and tbh the media is being particularly gross to her right now so she's allowed to navigate that literally however she wants. i'm a fan, and i'm not trying to be yet another person sending attack dogs after her.

that being said—her clarifying comments didn't change very much for me in terms of how i feel about what she said specifically. i don't think there's anything wrong with her telling people to use their own brains and think about who to vote for on their own. that's a pretty run-of-the-mill, uncontroversial thing to say. and fwiw, i agree with basically everything she said about critical thinking. however, i'm not one of the people she was addressing her clarifying comments to. i read the entire quote (and the entire interview, for that matter), i was aware of how she'd championed trans rights and always knew she wasn't voting for trump, and i wasn't upset with her for choosing not to endorse the democratic candidate. my only issue with anything she'd said was her choice of words when she said that both sides had issues—which is a true statement, by the way! god knows i have many issues with the democratic party and the people at the front of it right now.

but when you don't follow it up with any elaboration about what those issues are, it sounds like you're equating the parties. i read the quote, in full context, and it sounded like she was equating the parties. like i said earlier, my reaction to this was personal and not 100% logical because politics and this election especially are extremely personal to me as someone who is a child of immigrants and experienced trump's america firsthand. but also, maybe there's something to the fact that the "both sides are the same" narrative hurts a pretty specific group(s) of people and it's not anyone else's job to police their reactions to it. anyway, i'm aware now that this isn't how she intended for that to come across and that she does not, in fact, believe that both sides' issues are equatable. but that's absolutely how that sounded at the time. and i don't think she fully realizes that nor do i think she realizes why that's as hurtful as it is to so many, but i also don't think the internet is a nuanced enough place to have that discussion. just going to end this off by saying that i'm still a fan, i still love her music, i still respect her deeply, and i'm going to continue supporting her

[redspiderling]

You'll die on this hill huh? Blog for a racist, antisemite, transphobe, who supports paedophiles. Sorry but I don't think I can follow you anymore.

Hello to you too anon,

I don't even know how to unpack this. I'm so tired of having to answer to this fucking nonsensical narrative you guys have built. This is why if Scarlett ever went on social she'd just post a middle finger and then ghost all of you. Beyond that, it really pisses me off that you keep flooding my inbox with this bullshit. I don't come to your blog to tell you what to talk about anon. I see a lot of stupid things posted on here, but I don't go in people's spaces and say "you're stupid", because that's just not productive, and it's not nice.

But lets do this again anon, let's roll one last time, and then goodbye to you, have a nice life. Let's take it by subject:

Racist: Really? I googled racist Scarlett Johansson and literally nothing came up, other than the whitewashing accusations over her Ghost in the Shell casting. First of all, while the race of an android is something that we can go on about for a long time, and the casting of adaptations of Japanese content is another thing we can go on about for a long time (because e.g. a couple of years after GitS came out, nobody accused the actors or producers of Detective Pikachu for whitewashing, even though most of the actors on it were white), lets say I agree with you, that Scarlett shouldn't have been cast in that film. She apologised at the time, and said she wouldn't knowingly take away a role that was meant for a person from another race. After all, the role was meant to go to Margot Robbie initially, and when she dropped out due to scheduling issues, it went to Scarlett. So, the role of Major in Ghost in the Shell actually went from one white woman, to another white woman. Are you gonna go after the casting people for this, or are you gonna keep accusing Scarlett for accepting a role that she thought was meant for a white lead? You don't need to reply, it was a rhetorical question, I know you're not actually interested in figuring out how racism works in showbusiness. Lets keep going, let's say you don't believe her, and that it was entirely her fault, that at the time she took away a role that would otherwise have gone to a person of colour. Well, it's been 7 years since she was cast for that role. She's been in many, many films since then, and not once has she taken a role from a non-white person. I think 7 years is enough time passed to think this person has learned their lesson, and won't make the same mistake again.

Anti-Semite: ..................... Scarlett is Jewish, anon. She has family that died in concentration camps. See, this is how I know that you don't actually care about any of this, you just enjoy bitching on tumblr, so thanks for making my life easier. I guess I'd feel bad if I thought I actually made you uncomfortable.

Transphobe: We cannot actually know that? She hasn't made any anti-trans comments, but she hasn't supported the cause either so, who knows? Accepting the role in Rub and Tug was a mistake, and once she figured that out she admitted it, made an apology, and dropped the project. And don't make me go over the whole "I could be a tree" thing again. I can't deal. She was giving an interview for a pretentious French magazine, and the interviewer was going on and on about the art that is acting (and saying some pretty questionable things while at it), and when he asked her "what do you think is the job of an actor?" she replied that actors are people who emulate other people and can transform themselves to anyone or anything else. That was on a philosophical discussion about the actor's "job". She wasn't making a statement against trans people, in any way. She was a USB stick by the end of Lucy in 2014, she was just pointing out the obvious and then it was taken entirely out of context, and I swear my eyes will one day get stuck rolled at the back of my head, reading yet another tree "joke".

Supports paedophiles: No. What she's said is that she's known Woody Allen personally for 20 years, and that he's told her he didn't abuse his daughter, and that she believes him. That he isn't a paedophile. That is in no way "supporting paedophiles". Do I agree with this? No. I think Woody Allen is a questionable figure, at best, but I can sorta understand her position. I've said this before, I don't know how I would feel if a friend of mine was hated by the general public because he was accused of doing a horrendous crime that had actually never been proven (or disproven), and therefore I can't judge her for deciding to stand by him on this, I don't think I would have been able to do the same, but Scarlett has proven that she'll say what she believes and deal with the consequences. Fair enough.

That's it anon. Thank you for sitting around for one last rant. If Scarlett has been accused for some other shit while I was writing this, maybe for killing Kermit the frog, who knows at this point, please, don't slide in my inbox, I'm done with this and I'm certainly not above blocking. Go on and live your guilt free life, stanning white men who have done waaaay more questionable things than most female celebrities could ever hope to do in a lifetime, and yet get away from scot free for you to drool over without shame.