#(though like. the word has straddled senses for multiple langs and thousands of years at this point‚ just saying)

[aeide-thea]

the thing is like. there was a particular context that sparked this but i honestly suspect it applies to most axes of marginalization—

like, sure, i think it's fair to be like 'pls recognize that if you pass as part of a hegemonic group, you aren't generally encountering the kind of e.g. physically violent bigotry that ppl who visibly defy the hegemonic standard often get subjected to.' certainly i think the sort of body policing i've personally experienced is more on the order of what, say, cis gnc dykes face than what ppl face who have visibly undergone some degree of medical transition. but like. it's all different points on the same bigoted continuum? like, ppl with so-called invisible* marginalizations are often not actively running into, say, physical violence precisely because they're preemptively enacting self-censoring violence on themselves, and are often in spaces where they're subjected to hateful rhetoric about characteristics the speakers don't realize they share. so it's violence against the psyche instead of violence that's physical, absolutely, but—i don't know. i fundamentally have never understood the—seemingly very common!—urge to compare apples to oranges and decide that one sort of fruit is categorically worse, instead of considering each on its own (de)merits in its own context.

like—i just get frustrated with how badly ppl always seem to want to take their pain out on also-marginalized ppl they see as More Conforming, instead of looking deeper to the actual overarching systemic prejudice which keeps all of us down, and which takes on whatever form is best suited to repress whatever resistance it's encountering. like i'm seeing it these days with theyfab discourse and i saw it last year with disability discourse and i saw it ten years ago with bi discourse and i wouldn't be surprised to hear it's also how intracommunity discussions of, say, colorism often go, and i just feel like. look. the internal emotional violence is the complement to the external physical violence, and the two pieces work together to enforce the same hegemony. no one subjected to either component is having a good time.

⸻ * though like. how 'invisible' are some of these things really. like. normies have remarkable spidey senses and they will ostracize you over 'hidden' qualities they instinctively subconsciously pick up on!