#Exclude/Divide

[versinalia]

"Exclude/Divide (ILLNURSE Remix)" by UK artist Randolph & Mortimer, off their 2019 remixes for Exclude/Divide

Bandcamp

[writtenonbone]

Hello, I am curious. When you guys were in school did you have an ‘immunisation day’ where everyone get in lines to receive vaccinations?

[uncanny-tranny]

r u chill w non transitioning ppl?

Why wouldn't I be? At one point, every trans person who is transitioning was once someone who wasn't (whether or not that was a choice or their need is a separate discussion).

Hatred of any kind of trans person is not a Righteous or Good Thing - every single trans person has their place, their entitlement to safety, community, and respect of who they are

[kasumingo]

People thinking that therapists will fundamentally change someone as a person and "fix them" expose themselves as never gone to therapy and should educate themselves before giving mental health advice to anyone

[suppenzeit]

Bobo and/or Espresso?

Bobo is best described as svelte, he's thin but muscular. Is built like a ballerino (or a bicyclist), so his legs are noticeably thick and muscular.

Espresso is full bodied, muscular but not ripped. Takes very good care of himself, though he will never give up olive oil.

[stellaralignment]

How close can you get to the edge of a cliff without being afraid of falling?

If you don't know the height of the cliff, it really depends on your personality. Some might be bold, others cautious. This can be shaped by your experiences, those who have fallen and been injured might treat an apparent drop with more respect.

But circumstances are also important to remember. You might prefer to run off the cliff, regardless of the consequences, if you're being chased or attacked. The cliff face actively giving way and falling might push you back, or spur you towards it in an attempt to save a falling friend.

And all this is regardless of the height of the cliff! If you approach and note the way down, your decision might change. If it turns out to not be a cliff at all but a gently sloping hill, you could continue onwards. Or decide the path isnt where you wanted to go after all and simply turn around.

But for some, the cliff is insurmountable. A sheer or spiked face of immeasurable height. A dreadfully difficult or simply time consuming and exhausting ordeal to attempt to traverse. No matter how desperately they wish to arrive at their destination.

All this to say, there's innumerable reasons why one might transition. There's infinite obstacles or justifications for someone to not. At the end of the day, everyone had their own unique path and is simply struggling to arrive at the place/identity where they feel most comfortable.

Some may not have the opportunity to get there.

But each and every single one of us is valid and is entitled to whatever identity is claimed. Whenever the individual claims it. Instantly. Without penalty or judgment if the same decides to claim another simoultaneously or in replacement of the first chosen identity.

The right to self determination is one all should be allowed to enjoy

stop gatekeeping identities and labels

[cemeterym]

i'm begging my uni to stop making every fucking student social activity something where you have to walk around a bunch if you are a slow walker who cannot help it they literally want you dead

[tiredfoxtf]

I don't want to discuss if machine generated pictures are art or not. Machine learning stole so much art from artists around the world, that is the important part.

[falinscloaca]

cat hacker reintroduces mspec lesbian discourse into my life my brain obliterates itself in ocd-fueled recursive self-argumentation

[general-george-washington]

Still so fucking envious that the god damn city of Chicago allows you to have as many poultry as you please (excluding roosters and beyond what's humane) but my suburb only allows 6. What the fuck

[lepidopteragirl]

heyyyy cmon now.... im just a little guy just a little guy.... nothin controversial here man okay....

[transvarmint]

The reason why you can't seperate our transness from our manhood is the exact same reason why transmisogyny is one word.

Its not just transphobia and misogyny. It's transmisogyny. The discrimination transfems face isn't discretely divided into 2 categories. Those experiences overlap in a way where you can't adequately address one without acknowledging the other. That's why it was crucial to come up with vocabulary to describe this intersection. To seperate them is to attempt to erase intersectionality.

In the same way, you can't adequately address the oppression transmascs face without addressing all aspects of our identity.

Manhood and/or masculinity in isolation may not be targeted by a specific axis of oppression; but when they intersect with a marginalized identity, they become a target for gendered violence. Because our manhood does not, and cannot, exist removed from the context of our transness and life experiences. That is the entire purpose of intersectionality.

To remove our manhood / masculinity from that equation is to refuse to view us holistically, and is an attempt to seperate us from our identity - exactly the same way transphobes do.

The term intersectionality was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, a black woman, who was pointing out that her various identities do not exist independently, rather, they inform each other, and create a convergence of social positions.

White feminists did not (and often still don't) acknowledge the ways that other axes of identity and oppression inform misogyny. They excluded women of color from the conversation because they did not want to discuss how racism intersects with misogyny. There was similar silencing of queer and disabled women, as well, for the same reason.

By telling us "it's because you're trans, not because you're men" you're just repeating history. The marginalization of non-hegemonic manhood and masculinity is a very real axis that must be addressed when discussing the oppression of trans men and transmascs - as well as other marginalized men.

If you refuse to hear about this aspect of our experience, our voices will never truly be heard. You are actively contributing to our erasure and to our continued harm.

I am a transgender man. I am a whole person. Treat me as such.

[super-ultra-mega-deluxe]

The actual consideration of what fascism is is rather something of general import. A number of folks here have deferred to Umberto Eco's Ur-Fascism, and while I wouldn't discourage it, it is a text from the perspective of semiotics; that is to say, from the perspective of what signifies fascism, not what it is per se. Hence also why Eco emphasizes that none of the fourteen ways he describes are strictly necessary or sufficient for fascism, just that fascism as it has emerges coalesces around such signifiers. The aesthetics and rhetoric of fascists is rather succinctly summed up in Ur-Fascism, but what fascism is in a more direct, structural sense is a somewhat different consideration.

The governing structure of fascist Italy, as an example, retained many of the facets of the liberal democratic system from which it emerged, with a legislature, a judiciary, and an executive. Mussolini was legally the prime minister- though he adopted the title of Duce, literally "leader"- and was appointed by a legislative council- though a new one created by the fascist party called the Grand Council of Fascism that by and large excluded the previous legislature- and the prime minister could legally be dismissed by the head of state, the king, after a sustained vote of no confidence similar to the UK's formulation. Fascist Italy also redoubled- rather than invented- Italian colonial policy, promoting the settlement of Italians into Libya and other African colonial projects and the genocide of local populations. The domestic economic policy of fascist Italy was also much more explicitly in the interests of private business: in 1939, the whole of Italy was explicitly proposed to be legally divided into 22 corporations which appointed members to parliament; labour organization outside of the appointed corporate structures and striking as a practice were banned. The interests of fascist Italy's ruling bodies was very overtly bourgeois, and their economic policy is often referred to as specifically corporatist.

Nazi Germany was similar in structure, though while the German parliament- called the Reichstag- was maintained, a series of laws were passed which enabled the Chancellor- Hitler, who was appointed such by President Hindenburg- and the cabinet to implement laws without parliamentary or presidential approval. The Hitler cabinet is generally considered to have been the defacto ruling body of Nazi Germany, though members of the Reichstag obviously still convened and drafted laws and ran elections and generally supported Nazi rule and the judiciary remained a distinct body. The Nazis also wanted to redouble their colonial policy in specifically Africa- a theatre in which they were snubbed compared to other European powers- but were by and large unable to secure resources there for continued expansion due to the British opposing them in protecting its own colonial projects. A rather infamous and demonstrative guiding principle of Nazi economic policy, Lebensraum- literally "living space"- sought specifically to appropriate land and other productive capital to give to Germans that they might be made petite bourgeois and small artisans; de-proletarianized and bourgeoisified, at the same time that the people such capital is expropriated from were made slaves to fuel further expansion or killed outright. This was imposed both within and, once the resources of social underclasses at home ran dry, without. The interests too of Germany's ruling bodies was very overtly bourgeois.

What all of this is to say is primarily that fascism as a governmental system is a legal permutation of liberal democracy, rather than a strict departure from it. The overriding interests of fascist states are also commensurately the interests of the bourgeoisie of those nations. It's an entirely logical progression of liberalism, to be frank, and a rather stark example of why liberal states should be opposed. The most violent fascist policy at home is often simply what liberal states have as their explicit foreign policy, for instance. As for whether this or the other politician in a liberal democracy is a fascist, I'd ask first and foremost that it be known that the Nazi policy of expansion was based first on the US policy of expansion; the cart isn't pulling the horse, as it were.

[hiiragi7]

I've been seeing quite a lot of discourse lately defining transness as "identifying as a gender opposite to/different from what society expects you to be".

This is incredibly vague, and I feel misses that, for many people like me, there is not exactly a clear gender in which society expects us to be, nevermind a clear "opposite" or "different" gender which we can identify with. Many intersex people have experiences in which one person calls us a "failed male" while another calls us a "DSD female". Many of us have been assigned, reassigned, degendered, reassigned again. In this sense, for many intersex people, it would appear that no matter which gender we are we would fall under this definition of trans if we so choose it; society so often does not expect us to conform to a singular gender, rather they expect us not to exist at all. Even for many intersex people who identify as cisgender, their gender and sex are constantly brought into question and suspected of being inauthentic, an imposter of a different gender/sex "pretending" to be cisgender. In this sense, any gender we choose is "opposite" of expectations, even cisgender identities, because we are intersex.

And yet, the discourse I have been seeing lately has been attempting to sort intersex people into easily digestible and simplified boxes based on AGAB ("AFAB intersex" and "AMAB intersex") and trying to claim what kind of intersex person is allowed to call themselves transfem based on their AGAB, as though this event at birth always determines what gendered expectations are set for you and where you can transition to after.

Which of my gender assignments should I refer to as my "assigned gender"? The choice made by the medical professionals at my birth? The choices made by my parents? At which time? By which parent? And why does it matter to people so much that I have an assigned gender to refer to when it's all so messy anyway? Why must I invent convenient acronyms to describe it to you for your judgement? Why is it not enough simply to say I know my own experiences and identity best and that it's none of your business? Why are you trying to decide for me what I should call myself?

All this to say, I wish people would stop making assumptions about and policing other people's identities. I will readily admit I don't always understand an identity, and this is a good thing; it means there is an infinite variety of us and an infinite amount to learn about each other.

I wrote this post with the recent intersex transfem & afab transfem discourse in mind, but it quite honestly applies to a lot of the very exclusionary and rigid attitudes I've seen in our community lately. Once again, why are we using the actions of oppression (for example, the action of nonconsensual gender assignments; AGAB) to define our trans identities, to the point of excluding each other within our own community? How are we helping each other in doing this?

(I do have similar questions regarding the divide in language between "AFAB transfem" and simply "transfem" - Why specifically the label of "AFAB transfem" rather than just "transfem", if the argument is that AGAB does not determine gender? Personally, I would like to move away from AGAB language altogether.)

I've never had a clear gender to transition from; I only hope that in the future the community will support people like me in using whatever language we find best to describe the gender we are transitioning to.

Trans is a word open to anyone who identifies as such. That's the best part of it.

[spacelazarwolf]

Hey there! I’ve really appreciated your posts and perspective over this past month, I’m having a hard time (as so many Jews are) and your voice helps.

I’m hoping you can help me with reliable resources. A friend of mine condemned the Hamas attacks etc (as they should, to my relief) but is under the impression that Israeli govt is doing genocide to the Palestinians. I’ve no idea how to approach that to verify (or not), I don’t even know where to start looking. Do you have any suggestions?

Thank you.

thanks! this is a really tough question, but i'm going to do my best to break it down. also if anyone's thinking of clowning on this post without reading it, inb4 "omg ur denying genocide!!!!!!" bc this post is literally outlining, in detail, all the ways the israeli government is, by definition, committing genocide.

this is really long, just a heads up.

a big frustration i have with a lot of progressive or leftist spaces is the tendency to throw around words like genocide without being able to define the term or properly apply it to the situation in question. this isn't just a semantics issue. if all you're doing is repeating the buzzwords you've heard on social media, your "activism" is going to be less than useless. it is crucial that if you are going to talk about the current genocide in gaza, you must be able to define exactly what a genocide is and how it applies to what's happening in gaza.

i'm paraphrasing from this article by the united nations. the word "genocide" was coined in 1944 by raphael lemkin in his book "axis rule in occupied europe." it was developed partly in response to the shoah, but also to previous instances of what we would now define as genocide. it was recognized as a crime under international law in 1946, and codified as an independent crime in the 1948 convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide.

the definition of genocide

(from article II of the convention on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide):

in the present convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

a. killing members of the group; b. causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c. deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d. imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e. forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

the 10 stages of genocide

a model created by gregory stanton, the founding president of genocide watch

classification - people are divided into "them and us"

symbolization - when combined with hatred, symbols may be forced upon unwilling members of pariah groups.

discrimination - law or cultural power excludes groups from full civil rights: segregation or apartheid laws, denial of voting rights.

dehumanization - one group denies the humanity of the other group. memmbers of it are equated with animals, vermin, insects, or diseases.

organization - genocide is always organized... special army units or militias are often trained and armed...

polarization - extremists drive the groups apart... leaders are arrested and murdered... laws erode fundamental civil rights and liberties.

preparation - mass killing is planned. victims are identified and sepaarated because of their ethnic or religious identity.

persecution - expropriation, forced displacement, ghettos.

extermination - it is 'extermination' to the killers because they do not believe their victims to be fully human.

denial - the perpatrators... deny that they committed any crimes.

application to the crisis in gaza

to start with the first definition from the united nations:

a. killing members of the group - YES

the death toll in gaza has risen above 8,000 according to the associated press. as far as i know, as of writing this post, there has been no ceasefire so the death toll will continue to rise.

b. causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group - YES

over 20,000 people in gaza have been injured, and gazans - particularly children - suffer incredibly high rates of ptsd.

c. deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part - YES

the israeli blockade of gaza has had devastating consequences for gazans. they are running out of food, water, fuel, and medicine, and this is costing additional lives.

d. imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group - unclear but leaning toward YES

whether or not it is the explicit goal, the current bombardment of gaza has put the lives of 50,000+ pregnant women in gaza at risk, along with their babies. babies who need incubators are also in danger as generators begin to run out of fuel.

e. forcibly transferring children of the group to another group - as far as i am aware, NO

according to the us embassy in israel, the palestinian authority ministry of social development is the only authorized entity regarding adoption of palestinian children. this doesn't mean it isn't happening, it just means i was not able to find any credible sources.

the 10 stages of genocide

classification - YES there is a long history in israel of othering palestinians, both socially/culturally and legally. former israeli minister of interior and minister of justice ayelet shaked shared a racist quote from netanyahu's former chief of staff explicitly framing palestinians as "the enemy."

symbolization - not yet there are no overt symbols palestinians, even within israel, are required to wear to outwardly identify themselves, but there are identifying features on their ids. in fact, the opposite has been happening, with far right members of the israeli government attempting to pass legislation making it illegal to publicly display palestinian flags.

discrimination - YES there is, again, a long history of discrimination against palestinians within and by the state of israel. it is difficult for palestinians from the west bank or gaza to gain status in israel, israeli work permits are used as a form of control, and often forcibly separate palestinian families.

dehumanization - YES former israeli deputy minister of defense eli ben dahan said of palestinians, "to me they are like animals, they aren't human."

organization - YES israel is currently carrying out an organized and brutal attack on gaza.

polarization - YES from extremist groups like hamas, to the corruption in the likud party in israel, there are very clear signs of extreme polarization. israel's siege against gaza has caused polarization across the entire globe.

preparation - YES gazans in particular are unable to leave gaza without a permit, and now with the blockade from both israel and egypt they are essentially trapped.

persecution - YES gaza in particular could absolutely be likened to a ghetto. as stated above, (in "usual" circumstances) they are unable to leave without a permit, and since hamas took control it is nearly impossible to get an israeli work permit.

extermination - GETTING THERE if the siege continues and gazans are unable to get out of gaza, there will be catastrophic casualties.

denial - YES i often hear that "israel has a right to defend itself" but i cannot possibly find a way to frame the current siege as "self defense."

so in conclusion, israel is - by multiple definitions - committing genocide against gazans. and it's very important to be able to identify specifics, especially if you are planning on having discussions about it. and i've said it in the past, but if you are not directly affected by what's happening - palestinians in particular, but israeli citizens and jews and muslims in the diaspora are also getting hit hard - it is IMPERATIVE that you are able to talk about this with a level head. escalating tensions and pushing away potential allies is only going to make things worse. find common ground, form connections, and then have a productive discussion.