#AS ALWAYS TERFS KEEP OUT I DONT WANT YOU HERE THIS ISNT FOR YOU

[punk-pandame]

a love letter to butch women

thank you for giving me the confidence i needed to express myself even when i wasn't able to articulate my identity yet/was still in denial. thank you for letting me call you auntie. thank you for teaching me i could wear boys' clothes and drink tea made of flowers- you made it for me after i got too cold playing in the snow with your dog. you wore a denim vest with pins i didn't understand until i was much older. i thought they were magic runes; i thought your new age spiritualism was magic like in howl's moving castle, and i thought for sure fairies lived in your yard. thank you for turning my hat around before you let me out your back patio to run around until my mom and your girl were done. i didn't know what pro-bono meant or what lawsuits were, but they were really important words for my mom and your girl. when i asked, you said you didn't know what they meant either; you said your girl was the smartest person you knew, and that she was helping my mom with boring grown up stuff. let's play dinosaurs! thank you for helping my mom until the rest of the neighborhood pushed you out. thank you for saying goodbye. i'll always remember your hair, flaming red against the sunset, with motor oil smeared on your face. i still have your parting gift on a shelf in my room.

thank you for backing my mother when she had to fight for me to play on a boys' baseball team at the local little league. thank you for giving us both a chance, even though you and your son had everything to lose. thank you for showing up to the games sometimes, even when your kid wasn't playing in it. i'm sorry i don't remember your name- you and your kid moved during a particularly fuzzy part of my childhood. but i remember your box-dyed black hair and your thin wire glasses and your broken teeth, how warm and friendly you looked to me. you reminded me of my aunt. still do. i hope you and your son fared well. i hope we cross paths again someday. they say everyone where we're from is within three degrees of each other at most anyway, and it seems true so far. i wish i could tell you that because of you, i ended up playing baseball until a girls softball league was formed; i played for a total of ten years thanks to that one meeting you went to.

thank you for being patient with me. thank you for not pushing me into realizing things i wasn't ready for much too soon. i can't say your name, but i think you often. thank you for giving me the space i needed to be a stupid angsty teenager about angsty teenage things. thank you for being there when it felt like my entire world was slowly imploding. thank you for being a friend when i needed it.

thank you for backing me in that one racist, sexist, self-loathing mfer's class sophomore year of college. you know the one. we were right and if we weren't all working 2+ jobs to survive i know we could have sued the school over that. thanks for venting with me in the lounge in our precious hour break for the next class. that was the best therapy i got the entirety of our college careers. we've all lost touch now, which is understandable given the State of the World, but i hope you know i think of you often. i hope you're still writing. i loved your poems and lyrics, just like i loved your handmade earrings and creative uses of eyeliner.

thank you for standing near me on the subway, when a man is harassing me over a mask. you're not only wearing a mask, but you have pink like me hair, too. you wear the same glasses as my mom. i wonder if we're from the same place, if you seem familiar for more than a moment of solidarity. you don't say anything, and you don't have to. the man is already withering beneath our kubrick stares. for a moment, you are my mother. i thank you once he leaves. you just shake your head. but when i compliment your docs, you smile and say thank you. we ask each other if we're okay. the unspoken part is as long as you stay until your stop. your stop is one before mine. all i can do is walk you to the door and wave.

thank you for being there for me even though i'm no longer a butch woman, but a butch dude. thank you for letting me return the favor when i see you in public. thank you for marching beside me in the streets and sitting near me at the DMV and complimenting my haircut after i tell you i like your jacket.

ya'll are amazing, i love you butch women <3

[frogwen]

maaaaaan. im reading this silly stupid lesbian romance book from the library as one does and having a hehe haha fun time but. idk. we’re in such interesting times with books and social media and discourse of respectability politics and immediate engagement and conversations.

theres a clear detachment while reading ‘classics’ that were originally serialized and pondering the introductions where a modern author talks about critics of that day and this leads you to the original author’s wiki tab about essayists they spared with and going to THEIR wikis etc etc and now youre down a rabbit hole of 1880s marxist discourse. and back to reading the actual text of the ‘classic’ where a character turns to the audience to say something boring and stupid that sparked the whole conversation and youre like this is all so fucking silly nearly 150 years later when im not living it.

and now youre reading a modern silly sloppy book and a character turns to the camera says something inflammatory and outrageous and you know immediately that the author runs in certain circles, for better or worse, and wants you the reader to know this and either completely blanket agree or get da hell out of here! and i put down the book and immediately open twitter, instagram, the authors own webpage and get a vibe check. its all just so surreal. everything changes and everything stays the same. and published works will always be having a conversation at someone vs with bc its already published and over. but i can see in real time what the author is up to now. so weird!!!!

anyways the thing that sparked this is a 22 year old fictional lesbian from small town indiana usa (written by a bi nb person from michigan usa) who, when another lesbian said, in reference to herself AND IN JEST, she isnt queer, og girl said queer is not a slur and if you think its a slur its bc you fell for terf ideology and you arent in community with trans people. 🤨 im going to keep reading it bc free and fun but thats just sitting so heavy on my mind like ???? what did i, little ol me, do to you lmao. im trans and dont like it lol. sigh. interesting times to be alive though

[bapouro]

transitioning in the uk. it will be alright

this will be a separate post containing medical transition advice for people in the uk.

--

was response to this xxx but i realised it might make it a little too long

i will say the jokes specifically aimed like this i do find particularly performative and sad/depressing. and i do eye roll at "terf island" getting incorporated into, i dont know, meme speak. please always keep in mind when you are getting too overzealous about larping defeating an enemy when the people affected arent benefitting from it at all. its very gay. well whatever.

anyways i need to add this so maybe anyone out there doesnt lose hope, it is absolutely not impossible. i see this kind of stuff said a lot to express how bad it can be in the uk and i worry how many trans people here without much knowledge see it and give up / get suicidal.

these additions are telling the worst of it and giving statistics on the higher side of it for an emphasising effect, and while the examples they give can be very true, it absolutely doesnt have to go like this for you. not meant to be a "someone always has it worse" point but i always keep in mind even for europe the uk's gender clinic system is better than many let alone the rest of the world. ive heard worse and similar stories from friends in places like poland and belgium, i dont know, it helps me at least. although it is true for europe and most of the world the uks nhs waiting times are appallingly high. you hear a lot from the uk situation because it is english speaking.

--

if you want my opinion of how you can get it in a fairly quick manner, im going to be honest, in very unpopulated parts of the uk you might be able to use nhs but mostly, you probably need to go with private right now. but this doesnt have to be the nightmare you might think it might be. private services like gendercare, yourgp and gender gp (etc) are fairly affordable and typically the whole process is over in under two / one and a half years. this isnt also meant to be some shill for the private clinics because i know how they can behave badly and i wish it didnt have to be this way, but its just usually the best option for this situation.

places like https://www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/ helped me a lot. youre going to want to have local people who you can ask specifics to about their experience / what to do. a lot of people here are well through transition and you will likely get a lot of responses to specific questions you may have. its a great place to start and refer back to during the process.

this applies to anyone else in the world trying to medically transition, find local online / offline communities and ask them.

im going to talk about my personal experience with one of the ones mentioned but ill be brief. id say i started the process through email in early 2020. after some months i got an initial session which was the usual quite outdated and invasive kind of, questioning session. but you will be fine, maybe ask the reddit or etc for tips. some time after that i was asked to perform a blood test with the nhs, i got a letter from one of their endocrinologists so the nhs was be obliged to carry it out. after i got the results, after some period of months, i had a session with the endocrinologist. and they worked out a prescription for me. you should be good after this. this whole process took around one and a half years with a prescription being set up in mid 2021.

in total this probably cost me around £600 from session costs and prescriptions. i understand this is still a lot for some and im sorry, i would advise asking for donations online if you can but that can still be hard to achieve i understand.

--

this is also only unfortunately to do with the hrt process as with surgeries, you will also have to go private at an expensive cost or long nhs waiting lists. once again i may direct you to the reddit or other places like it. i dont feel knowledgeable enough about that process to tell people about the best ways to get it.

take care

[soprie]

Here are some ace-exclusionist dog-whistles to watch out for

There are a lot of “positivity” posts circling out there that are worded specifically to be ace and aro exclusionist rhetoric disguised as innocuous solidarity. Here are some things to watch out for if you want to avoid interacting with exclusionist posts. 

Keep in mind, a post having one of these things does not necessarily mean the OP is an exclusionist, but it just means to go back and read the post carefully a second time, and maybe scan the poster’s blog or about page.

Text from screenshot reads:

i rly dont like the mindset that all lgbt people want is to be “accepted” and that all out community is about it “inclusion”. no. we want access to trans health care. we want anti discrimination laws for housing and employment. we want marriage equality. we want to stop trans kids from being forced to go by their dead name at school. we want to abolish the gay/trans panic defense. we want to stop corrective rape. we want black trans women to stop being murdered. being “accepted” by cishets isnt the goal, and neither is being an all-inclusive club. i want to be able to live my life freely as an lgbt person. our community was created out of the need to survive. that has nothing to do with being “valid”. 

1) Constant use of LGBT, but the Q is never added. LGBT on its own can be used as shorthand if the person is cramped for space like on twitter, but if the person consistently never adds the Q, it is reason to suspect they are not forgetting it and are deliberately leaving it out.

2) Use of “cishets” when referring to anyone who is not literally “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender”. Exclusionists will refer to anyone who does not fall under those four labels (sometimes they will include pan and nonbinary people if they are feeling generous) as cishet regardless of how that other person self-identifies.

3) “all-inclusive club” “the LGBT community is not a club” “LGBT is not open to anyone” or other framing that there are specific requirements and metrics that one must measure up to in order to be accepted. (by whom? Who is the bouncer? How do we know if we measure up?)

4) “Our community was created out of the need to survive” This is an argument borrowed straight from TERFs, so any exclusionist who claims to hate TERFs is really only paying lip-service to trans-inclusivity. The Queer community was created to uplift and support queer people. Full stop. Yes, survival is part of it, but there is so much more. We celebrate “pride” not just our survival. exclusionists talk about wanting more than just acceptance, but then turn around and harass those who try to celebrate being queer. Exclusionists frame their entire identity around being miserable and it is toxic.

Text from screenshot reads:

2018 is the year we stop derailing various lgbt posts to make them “inclusive”

No more non wlw on wlw posts

No more non mlm on mlm posts

No more non lesbians on lesbian posts

No more “girls are better/just date a girl” on mlm posts

No more cis on trans/nb posts

No more hets on lgbp posts

No more non lgbtpn on lgbtpn posts

This year, we let lesbian, gay, bi, trans, pan, and nonbinary folks have their own things for their own group and respect everyone’s individuality.

5) “inclusive” is weirdly always in quotations marks, as if it is an imaginary or sarcastic idea. Exclusionists write posts that beg the question, you keep mentioning “keep our community safe” and “not a club that just anyone can join” but who, specifically, are they referring to? Why not just outright say pedophiles or white supremacists? It isn’t controversial to not want racists in the queer community.

Because they are not referring to pedophiles or white supremacists. They are referring to aces and aros, the people they want to harass and kick out.

6) The acronym “LGBTPN”. This is not the standard acronym. The standard acronym is LGBTQ or LGBTQ+ or LGBTQIA2S. This acronym deliberately removes the A and Q while seeming to be inclusive. This is an exclusionist signal and if you see this used on a post, block the poster.

There are so many more low-key signals that exclusionists send out that are ripped straight from the TERF playbook. be careful that you are not swallowing TERF ideas and regurgitating them.

Ace and aro people are part of the community. We always have been and always will be. Do not let bullies try to force you out of your own home.

[caputvulpinum]

i just wanted to ask something abt the recent post. I know ppl go back n forth on who can use terms etc but, that post completely ignores that the word queer is still very much a slur in small towns and backwoods areas like where I grew up. I'm a trans person and I'm legitimately uncomfortable with that word being used for me specifically and I don't care if it's TERF shit that brought it back as an insult, I don't want it applied to me. Does that make me evil?

i respect that you would prefer queer not to be used as a personal identifier and label but your experiences aren't universal and every name we have for ourselves has always at some point been used as a slur because as an oppressed minority all the names for us will be based in hatred

the fact remains that i refuse to grant my oppressors the satisfaction and power of a name that is my right to reclaim and use as i please, a term that has been used for decades now by us and our kin, and i refuse to politely hand it back to them without a fuss because i was called mean things in grade school and thus think it can't exist in a nuanced state

no one is saying that queer isnt often used as a slur you are preaching to the choir in this but my problem comes when people act like because they have a bad history with it it ONLY has a bad history and it should ONLY be considered a slur and used by our oppressors, never as a source of strength and rebellion

if you grant them this they will keep taking each and every name you make for yourself until slowly but surely you are eaten alive and forgotten and ignored. thats why we exist angrily instead of politely. queer is a complicated term for me too anon but the day i let the ones who screamed it into my ears while beating me bloody have the satisfaction of ripping it out of my hands is the day i let them kill a part of me i'm proud of and i am nothing if not stubborn and i'll outlast them if it kills me

do what you want i really dont care but if you try and call my identity a slur and refuse to respect my own experiences and traumas and life and choice to reclaim it as a term for my community to my face we will have problems

and i'll appreciate next time you dont blatantly try and guilt-trip and tone police me by acting like if i use the identity queer and point out its history both as a slur and as a reclaimed identity that obviously that makes me think of you as evil. we're all well-adjusted individuals here we can acknowledge life is more complex than black-and-white

[magical-agatha]

god my fuckin temperament is too weak to handle thinking about inguinal hernias anymore today. this: http://transhealth.ucsf.edu/trans?page=guidelines-testicular-pain is still the only link i can find that has any confirmation of it as a danger to trans women who tuck. but it doesn't go into detail about how the actual hernia is occurring and what the relationship is with tucking. but at least it confirms a correlation so i know that it is in fact a danger and not just wild speculation or something based solely on one person’s experience, which may or may not reflect the rest of the community. from what i can guess its probably like? pushing the testicles into the inguinal cavity is distending it and weakening the muscles, which is allowing the intestines to slip through into the cavity. i wonder if theres like, something in this to do with like, physical exertion, bc it could also be that tucking is creating a weakness that is getting exacerbated by a moment of physical exertion? or maybe by moving in a way that like, affects the muscles in there? idk. there really isnt a lot of info about this and im not a doctor so the best i can do is speculation. but i dont think the idea that tucking is distending the inguinal cavity which is weakening the associated abdominal muscles is too extreme of a jump. this is one of those times where i really really wish there was more medical information and research about trans bodies, bc most of what there is is sporadic and incomplete and the rest is sourceless uhh, whats the word, when its just based off a persons experience being recounted without any like, reliable research or info. starts with A. im very tired lol. point is i wish there was more info out there cuz there really isnt a lot and im scared ppl are going to get hurt bc of that. this is also like, opening my eyes a lot about how uncertain the information i have in general about like, my body and the bodies of other trans women. bc im finding inconsistent info about things i thought were facts, like for example tucking has always been held up to be perfectly safe, but ive never been able to do it without it hurting, and apparently like?? the whole ‘hrt will turn you infertile’ thing might be inconsistent too? apparently it happens to some but not others. and the thing about like, ‘you WILL lose the function of your dick’ (with the implied ‘but thats a good thing’ that has always pissed me off) and my dick still works, it works differently and i cum and orgasm differently than i did before hrt but it still very much works, it just seems to follow different rules? and i still cum and i can still get hard, both of those things were supposed to stop happening but they didnt. it just like.. went through a process of being reprogrammed so it behaves differently now. cuz there was a period where i couldnt orgasm and i couldnt cum, but then i could again, and now my orgasms are totally different than they were when i was pre hrt. instead of it being like, sudden and intense and overwhelming, it builds up slowly to a peak, then gradually declines from there and leaves you feeling warm throughout and very very soft. and my hen leaks precum constantly when im aroused, and then when i cum it shoots a little bit out then like, leaks goo for the next half hour, not a little bit either. its a mess.

there was something else i wanted to say here but i forgot it. all in all im just. mad that the only ppl who care about the health of trans ppl are some doctors and trans ppl themselves. and that information about our bodies is inconsistent even between professionals. i cant be sure that my doctor actually knows how my body works and whats best for me. it makes it so much harder to trust doctors and feel safe when i see them. what a nightmare. i want to help ppl. i want to find and compile info about our bodies to keep us all safe but i can barely look after myself and i cant commit to doing that. i have to focus on myself. so all i can rly do is like, give advice and try to warn ppl of potential dangers and do what research i can. which is what we’re all doing. the danger is when personal biases conflict with caring for the safety of other ppl, which is the root of all the problems with trans medical stuff i think. whether its doctors enforcing their biases on trans ppl thru medical advice/medicine, or trans ppl themselves giving advice that is warped by their personal beliefs. it leads to misinformation and inconsistency and thats dangerous. that means people getting hurt. so i have to be careful when i give advice to be aware of my own personal biases. such as like, i hate tucking, but i cant tell ppl to just not tuck bc its not my body, i dont know if theres a way to tuck safely or not, so instead i have to tell ppl to be careful and to be aware of potential risks, and to listen to their body bc pain and discomfort are important indicators of harm being done. but im scared that will be lost in the tide of ‘tuck or you arent a real trans woman, you need tucking to pass, it cant hurt you’ that has been spread among us for a really long time.

i feel like this is like, tied to another big problem which is the like, necessity and obsession with passing. which are two very different things. necessity is like, passing to be safe, which i feel like has room to accept that tucking might not be totally safe and comes with certain risks, because it isnt about affirming self worth or identity, only about staying safe. then obsession, which might not be the best word but it will do for now, by that i mean ppl who feel they Have to pass at all costs, bc they think that if they dont they arent a real woman or something like that. they tie passing to self worth and identity, if they dont pass they are worthless or incomplete or like, inferior to cis women, and they will do anything to pass, with little to no regard for personal safety. they will do risky things like skipping meals or tucking unsafely bc they want to pass at any cost. but they spread their perspective on this through advice to other trans women, telling them they need to tuck and they need to wear makeup and they need to do voice training and get implants and srs and all manner of things or they are a trender. a faker. they put insecurities into other trans women and bully each other to propagate their personal biases and force other trans women to conform. most trans women pre hrt are extremely vulnerable and lost, which is when these obsessive trans women give them bad advice and twist them to their world view. that happened to me. i got sucked into that when i was trying to figure out my identity and needed validation. luckily i got out of that and i know better now. its really fucked. ive talked about like, versions of this idea before. that there are two kinds of trans ppl, those who love being trans and those who hate is and want to be cis. and i think as im getting a bit older and learning more and getting further thru my transition im starting to put together a bigger picture of the interplay between all of this stuff. like, the interactions between cis society and its expectations of trans ppl, how trans ppl deal with those expectations and how they deal with living and moving in a cis society thats hostile to trans ppl. this is all one big mess. and thats not even touching on the interactions between terfs, transmeds, and the various levels of trans communities both online and irl. its an absolute nightmare. and then as well there’s like, further interactions with like, nb and gender diverse ppl, gay vs straight trans ppl, intersex ppl, exclusionists, and the mess that the current lgbt+ community online is. i could write a book about this. im living in a nightmare. a massive roiling chaotic community thats fighting itself and the world around it and trying to survive and destroy the parts of itself that it thinks arent ‘valid’. which sounds like a metaphor for my experiences as a trans woman. god and theres more i keep forgetting. im so scatterbrained tonight. i havent had enough sleep to be trying to talk about something so complex as this. and im destroying my hands by typing this much. time to stop. i can sort all this out later. what a mess.

[humans-are-seriously-weird]

Tell us about the parrots and the zipline? That sounds like the worst thing to happen ever.

Oh boy ok brace yourself cause this entire debacle was just a mess. Imma tell the story of this entire day cause it was just absolute bs 

So I’m in Mexico with my family, yknow, having a nice vacation. My dad doesn’t do heat, so it was just my grandparents, my mom, and me. Keep in mind, I was like, 16 at the time, so this was a few years ago now. 

So, i fully admit, I’m a bit of an adrenaline junkie. Always have been, always will be. So when they said we could go to a massive park that was 90% underground, and the rest was like 300ft in the air, i jumped at the opprotunity.

so we get there and I immediatly beeline for the ziplines. Now, you can’t just do one of these suckers. Once you do one, there’s no going back until you’ve conquered all 12 (or something like that, there was a lot.) It took the better part of two exhausting hours to get through them all. 

So before the parrot issue there was some other bs first. We brought my best friend with me that year, but because we were both too light, we had to go tandum for a lot of the lines, or else we wouldn’t make it across. We’d just get stuck in the middle of the line dangling like a pinata, and no body wants that.

so the first bs comes along. I’m singing the batman theme song to keep my friend calm, because she is not a fan of heights. Like, we are screaming NANANANANANANA BATMAAAAAN at the top of our lungs. And we look ahead and see this massive gap in the trees. Now, we’d gone over a couple cinotes already where we could see the people doing the under ground activities. We figued, hey, let’s laugh at the people doing the river swim that’ll make us feel better. SO we get up on it and my friend starts freak tf out. It wasn’t a cinote.

it was a snake pit.

A massive round, man made snake pit will with hundreds of writhing snakes. They were climbing the walls, even the trees that were like 3ft from our toes. So we’re freaking out like “I don’t wanna be indiana jones i’m too young!!” But we pass it with no problem. We keep going another few second or so, and we see another break in the trees. We’re bracing like cause we assume it was another snake pit. It wasn’t.

It was a crocodile pit.

cue freak out number two.

but we pass it and all is well. Then we come onto the landing strip. We were just starting out so this one was pretty low to the ground. And then i see a weird shape on the grass landing pad.

There was a crocodile on the lawn

we freaked OUT like you wouldn’t believe.

so we’re soaring at this thing and there’s no stopping. We’re waving at the guys who are supposed to catch us with a net like “yo guys u got a coc problem.” and they don’t seem bothered in the slightest. We pass over this thing and it doesn’t move, but i’m 99% sure i tried to kick it. Now we’re free we’re safe and we should be slowing down…why aren’t we slowing down.

we slam into the safety net full force and bounce back a couple feet. When we manage to unhook ourselves we find the two duded pissing themselves laughing.

it was a fake crocodile. i tried to kick a concrete lawn ornament.

onto the parrots.

for this next one my friend was freaking out, as we were over 300ft up. I wanted to go asap so i went attached to my mom instead. At this point, i am alrady 5′8″, and my mom is like 5′5″. so you have this massive beanpole of a child strapped to her tiny mother. So we take off and our combined weight has us absolutely flying down the line. It’s all idealyic and serene, and i’m enjoying my crocodile free cruise. I look down and through a break in the trees i spot the amphibian vehicles going in and out of the cave systems. All good. Right beside them is a pack of leopards sunning themselves on a rock, which is also directly below us. and im thinking “wow, this would a crappy time to fall” immediatly i hear

thunkthunkthunkthunkthunk

my legs hurt all of a sudden. I glance down and see blood dripping down my leg. Mom is screaming/laughing.

we hit a flock of parents mid flight

and they were pissed.

So im screaming and swatting at them, they’re screeching like little feathered demons and pecking t us, some were dangling off my shoe laces, shriekingly like hellions. I still have scars from those suckers. They eventually fly off starnig us down like “dont ever come to our terf again” 

we finished the ziplines without incident after that.

but my day isnt over yet.

we have a wonderful lunch, i get my legs cleaned up, and we make the trek to the amphibian vehicles i saw earlier. We hop in and we’re going through the motions. Up and down, into caves and out. Super cool. Loved it.Then we come to where i saw the leopards.

all the cars in front of us pass without incident.

the second we roll up the leopards perk up and start running after us

cue freakout number 4654783

now, my grandpa is driving and i’m sitting there, with nothing but a mesh door between me and a pack of leopards

“grandpa go faster, we gotta goooo” and he just looks at me all calm like

“i know why they’re here.”

“THE HELL DO YOU MEAN YOU KNOW WHY THEY’RE HERE GO FASTER”

He just calmly, oh so casually, pulls out a hot dog from lunch.I just kinda stare at him like GRANDPA

Obviously i do the smart thing

i grab that stupid hot dog at chuck at the nearest leopard

i hit it in the face

they all fall on each other trying to get a taste of that mustardy goodness and we take that moment to make our escape

and that was my” wth is going on in mexico extravaganza”

and that day didn’t even include the sting ray incident

[maghrebim]

On your post about reblogging to punch Terfs and Nazis you talk about how you rarely see people stand up for the groups that they affect. What are some ways to better do this? What are things people can do that would be more helpful?

ok so i really like this ask and im sorry that it took me a bit to answer it but i wanted to do it somewhat right even though im like......an 18 y/o dumbass with a blog please keep that in mind

different groups have different needs, of course, and geographically what one can actively DO can vary a ton, but in online activism and generally in leftist/sj spaces there’s a lot that could use improvement. getting rid of microaggressions is a big one, and its something probably everyone is guilty of. analyzing your own conceptions about marginalized groups that you dont belong to and your language when talking about these groups and how you treat members of a group. battening down on cissexist and transphobic language and ideas is a good start, wrt the trans community at least. this isnt new at all but basically dont unnecessarily gender language to exclude trans folk, dont gender body parts, be cool about peoples pronouns, do your own research, TALK TO PEOPLE (!! this is an important one! members of a marginalized group tend 2 be the best experts after all), be careful of & learn to recognize insidious radfem rhetoric like ppl talking about “male socialization” re: trans women (an incorrect and fucked up concept) or “biological sex” or those kinds of things, and, if youre financially able, support people with their transition! that shit is expensive! there are tons of donation posts there for people who need hrt or surgery, and even just reblogging helps a little bit. boost voices coming from the community, be critical of the media you consume and if youre cis use your privilege to protect and help trans people in the ways youre able to. GET INVOLVED IN YOUR LOCAL ELECTIONS! do a bit of research about the politics and elections in your area, and use your vote to shut down horrible politicians who want to use their power to punch down on marginalized groups by passing laws and bills that discriminate against them, overtly or not. theres probably a lot more than this and its pretty basic, but its something at least!

also i think some of the above could be said for groups affected and targeted by nazis and white supremacy too, although antisemitism in particular can be incredibly covert and IS really widespread in leftist spaces, which someone else could probably talk more about than me since im dumb as fuck. but yknow, shut down alt-right assholes who spout that garbage (using reductive terms like “the jews”, “blacks”, “transgenders”, etc. is a BIG red flag), make an effort to educate yourself on the history behind nazism (and understand that antisemitism didnt begin or end with nazis), shut down holocaust denial AND attempted “justification” of the holocaust (but also: if youre not jewish or rromani then dont overstep your bounds wrt this topic in particular because whatever you have to say about it is probably gonna be extremely lacking), be careful of stereotypes and hate speech (”jews are greedy, barbaric, [any comparison to an animal], colonizers, white supremacists, controls the government” etc.) AS WELL AS goyim making criticisms of jewish people and/or zionism. be wary of (goyishe) people who generalize or use being anti-zionist as a shield against accusations of antisemitism, and who calls anyone who calls them out on their antisemitism a zionist. take jewish people seriously on our accusations of antisemitism (suggesting jewish folks are overly paranoid is, you guessed it, antisemitic), BOOST OUR VOICES (a lot of posts we make about things regarding us & antisemitism usually just circulate among other jewish people). for the love of g-d, do not ask a jewish person on their stance on palestine and israel if its unsolicited and not something they tend to talk about. learn more about our culture! knowledge is fun and learning whats appropriation and whats appreciation is pretty important i think. be wary of nazi imagery!!! its not always as obvious as actual literal swastikas, neo-nazis are known for using imagery and, like, certain phrases to be more lowkey about their nazism. learn to recognize these.

this is super long already so im gonna (try to) wrap it up and also put another disclaimer here that i can be really fucking stupid so if i messed up please tell me and also realize that i could probably be more constructive or specific about this and that i probably left out a shitton of things people can do. you can always improve in your activism!! theres always stuff to learn or unlearn, theres always something to do, theres always gonna be times when you fuck up but letting people educate you so you can better = very good start!

like, going into the point of my original post (here, for reference), SAYING you want to shut down terfs/nazis/any other hateful group is all well and good, spreading that and making sure they have no platform and dont feel comfortable expressing their disgusting views is great! but saying is one thing, actually doing it is another. like idk hopefully i managed to shed some light on how to do that and how to support marginalized people (specifically trans people and jewish people in this case i guess) at least a little bit. like....people can say they hate terfs and nazis all they want but unless they ACTUALLY do something to demonstrate that then its worthless. performative activism is completely useless and selfish and allowing yourself to become lackluster and not even try to do anything about the problems you claim to oppose or even think about why it needs opposition (beyond “its bad to oppress people”) has no place within activist spaces imo

its a constant struggle probably, and theres always gonna be things you could theoretically Do More of, or ways to be More Helpful, but yknow. begin with the little things and try to grow and extend compassion where you can. ask questions too, if you want to learn how to help specific people. oppression is often systemic and hard to untangle and hard to fight, and like.....not to be sappy but theres a saying from the talmud that goes “you are not obligated to complete the work, but nor are you free to abandon it” and idk. i think thats good to think about. doing just a little bit is better than doing nothing.

anyway im done