#He identifies as adult

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

This isn't what it looks like.

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[phoenixcatch7]

Loz fandom stop being angsty and give the daydreaming kids on big fun adventures with a cool glowing sword some actual whimsy and joy challenge

[golyadkin]

Your comic on Icarus is pretty cool, but I don’t fully understand if you are implying Icarus’s death is the fault of his father Daedalus or not. Daedalus can definitely be considered a bad guy if you want because he made the labyrinth for the Minotaur, but what else could he do for his son given his circumstances? The stories of Greek mythology are full of narratives that can yield a lot of meanings, but I’m having a hard time understanding what else could have been done for Icarus.

Hey thanks, im glad you think its cool. I didnt want to explain it much because i want it to be open for interpretation but i will say this.

When the minotaur says "im sorry your dad did this to you" its not just about the wings and the fall, its about the circumstances as well. Daedalus didnt just make wings out of wax, he also helped Theseus escape, he built the labyrinth they were trapped in and that gave the minotaur no choice but to be a monster for Theseus to kill, he made the cow disguise that begot the minotaur in the first place, he was even the reason they were stuck on Crete to begin with but ill let you look up why. Most of this is framed in the myths as Daedalus being prideful not trapped. Sure Minos and Pasiphae and Ariadne ordered or asked him to do these things but it was still him who did it and he took pride in doing them well. But the key concept here is that Daedalus didnt just build the wings, he also built the circumstances under which Icarus was able to die. His intentions here dont really matter and his love for his son made no difference. Icarus died because of his fathers creations and deeds, and history framed it as Icarus, a child, not doing what he was told (his story specifically is a warning against excess).

That being said, this is not a comic that damns Daedalus in my eyes, it is a comic that sympathizes with Icarus. For me, its about how a son shouldnt suffer punishments on behalf of his fathers deeds in the same way the minotaur didnt deserve to be trapped and killed because his father, the king, first wouldnt slaughter a bull for a god and then could not bring himself to kill the child that resulted from this slight. Minos never even considered raising the minotaur. He loved him but he could not stomach him. These are two sons who were shaped and punished for the misdeeds of their fathers and neither of them deserved it. I dont know if youll connect with the comic but i hope you can understand it a bit better and at the very least understand that Icarus and the minotaur were not isolated tragedies

[winepresswrath]

please ms midorikawa drop the extra anecdote please please please. also yes the contrast is interesting! it's impossible not to feel for Matoba when he's out there making his little overtures even if he is a real dick about yokai and defaults to presenting as self-interested and calculating (different problems). it is so fun and juicy to me that as Natori became more of a friend/ally/person-who-sometimes-needs-protection midorikawa was like ok we need a new shady older man trying to lure natsume onto team terrible exorcist. for the narrative. and he should be somewhere in the neighborhood of the natori to natori's natsume and the darcy to natori's elizabeth. also for the narrative.

[shoechoe]

playing rap/hip-hop for family members who like making fun of your music taste and are that "i hate rap i don't consider it real music" type really spotlights how much they do not know anything about or listen to rap and their "criticisms" for it are a bunch of garbage that they wouldn't say about any other music genre

[sometipsygnostalgic]

I dreamt a kid stole my Switch, so i fucking grabbed him, took it back, and smashed his 3ds into pieces.... i was like "haha im an ADULT so you can't just steal my stuff and get away with it now"... tipsy??? Hello??? Am i scared of children??? How do i explain to the psychotherapist that 80% of my dreams this week have involved me being bullied by children, as a child or as an adult?

[coochiequeens]

There are so many people and causes that need legal help and the ACLU is helping this freak?

By Genevieve Gluck September 18, 2024

The ACLU has successfully fought to have a transgender baby killer be given taxpayer-funded “gender affirming” surgeries. Yesterday, the United States District Court of Indiana ruled that Autumn Cordellioné, born Jonathan C. Richardson, had been subjected to “cruel and unusual punishment” by being denied the various plastic surgeries he had demanded.

Richardson is currently serving a 55-year sentence for the murder of his 11-month-old stepdaughter. As previously reported by Reduxx, Richardson had been left to care for the child while her mother was at work. That night, he was visited by friends who observed he was “acting strangely” and refused to invite them in the house as he normally would.

Despite claiming the little girl was sleeping, Richardson had loud music playing in the home, and his guests noted that he appeared to have a fresh, bleeding tattoo of the child’s name carved into his arm. Shortly after his friends left, Richardson went to a neighbor’s home and asked them to call 911, claiming the child was unresponsive. The baby would later die at the hospital, with the cause of death determined to be asphyxiation by manual strangulation.

Richardson was booked awaiting a court hearing, and would later tell a prison official “all I know is I killed the little fucking bitch.” The following year, he was found guilty and sentenced to 55 years in prison.

In 2020, while incarcerated at the The Correctional Industrial Facility (CIF) in Madison, Richardson began identifying as transgender and taking estradiol, a synthetic estrogen, and anti-androgen spironolactone. Two years later, Richardson lodged a sexual harassment complaint claiming that he had been raped by his cellmate in 2005, and that he stabbed the inmate in retaliation.

Despite the brutal nature of his crime, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in Indiana took up his case and launched a human rights lawsuit against the Indiana Department of Corrections (IDOC).

In the suit, which was filed in August of 2023, ACLU lawyers refer to Richardson as an “adult transgender female prisoner confined in a male institution,” and complains that “the total ban on gender-affirming surgery violates [his] right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment.”

The suit was intended to challenge a recently-adopted policy stipulating that the IDOC cannot provide transgender surgeries to inmates. House Bill 1569, which took effect in July of 2023, bans the spending of state or federal dollars on sexual reassignment surgery for inmates. The bill, the ACLU argues, “mandates deliberate indifference to a serious medical need and therefore violates the Eighth Amendment.”

Among a list of demands prepared by Richardson and presented as evidence in court was a document titled “Surgeries to Reach My Ideal Self.” The first item on the list, the court heard, was a “vagina,” followed by: breast implants, a brow lift, a brow reduction, a tummy tuck, gluteal implants (BBL), a uterus transplant, hair removal, and wigs.

However, during court proceedings Richardson stated that he had amended his demands to two surgeries, an orchiectomy and a penile inversion.

In addition to identifying as transgender, Richardson identifies as “Muslim,” and is currently engaged in a separate lawsuit against his prison’s chaplain for being denied a hijab.

During his deposition, Richardson told the legal counsel for the IDOC, Alex Carlisle, that in 2018, he had been informed about gender identity by another male inmate at CIF who went by the name of “Pearl.” According to Richardson, Pearl had brought in pamphlets from California state prisons that explained the concept of “gender identity” and introduced to him, for the first time, the idea of taking feminizing hormones.

“I always knew I was a girl, didn’t know that term applied. Because until I talked to Pearl I didn’t even really know transgender was the name for it. I was hearing at the time that it was transsexualism and that didn’t seem to fit me because it was apparently people that like to wear girl clothes to have sex,” Richardson said in his deposition.

However, Richardson also stated that while briefly married to the mother of the infant he murdered, he had been working in an “adult bookstore” that sold pornographic videos. While employed as a janitor, Richardson would have sex with various male customers while pretending to be a “girl.”

Richardson further testified that he had taken the feminine name “Autumn” after his high school girlfriend, and said that he used to steal his sister’s clothing and his mother’s makeup as a youth. “When I put on the clothes, I could for a second realize the girl inside,” he said.

“I felt I was only a woman when a man used me,” Richardson remarked. “It was the only acceptable time to be a woman so it brought me a certain amount of satisfaction that I was pleasuring a man like a woman would and I got to express who I was.”

But the mother of the baby girl Richardson strangled to death opposed his legal bid to obtain surgery. Linda Thomas submitted a brief statement expressing her concern that his identity may be concealed from her when he is released from prison.

“On the day he murdered my child, I personally observed Plaintiff with a fresh bleeding tattoo of my child’s name on his arm while I was at the hospital that evening,” Thomas said. “I live in fear for myself and my children of the day [Richardson] is released from prison, which largely increases at the thought that [his] identity may be concealed upon release.”

ACLU attorneys under the leadership of Kenneth Falk attempted to have Thomas’ testimony dismissed as court evidence on the basis that “Ms. Cordellioné objected to the relevance of this declaration.”

During court proceedings, Kate Meltzer, a legal representative for the Office of the Attorney General, emphasized an issue of “timeliness” related to Richardson’s attempts to secure an early release.

On January 4th, Richardson had lodged a pro se request seeking a reduction of his sentence. According to Meltzer, Richardson’s request claimed that the “circumstances that resulted in the crime are no longer present,” as the motivation for the murder of the young girl was “tied to [his] transgender identity and [his] gender dysphoria.”

The court also heard testimony from Stephen B. Levine, a psychiatrist who specializes in sexual dysfunction and transsexualism, who founded the Case Western Reserve Gender Identity Clinic in Cleveland during the 1970’s. Levine was Chair of the fifth edition of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health’s (WPATH) Standards of Care in 1998. He also served on the American Psychiatric Association DSM-IV Subcommittee on Gender Identity Disorders.

In March of this year, while the case was ongoing, Levine emailed the Attorney General’s counsel Alexander Carlisle pleading with him to empathize with Richardson. According to Dr. Levine, Richardson’s condition “is a product of the need to find coherence, consistency, and stability”. The “countless traumas” experienced by Richardson, the gender clinician said, “began with her birth (actually with her pregnancy)”, indicating his belief that a transgender identity develops in utero.

As noted in court documents, in recent years Dr. Levine derived between 40% to 50% of his income from serving as an expert witness in litigation regarding the treatment of patients with “gender dysphoria”.

The ruling issued by Judge Richard Young on September 17 has far-reaching implications and sets a precedent for further surgeries and hormones to be doled out at taxpayers’ expense. The verdict declares that the statute added to Indiana’s legal code in 2023 barring the DOC from facilitating “medically necessary gender-affirming” surgeries for inmates qualifies as “sex discrimination.”

In a statement on Richardson’s legal win, ACLU of Indiana Legal Director Kenneth Falk said: “Today marks a significant victory for transgender individuals in Indiana’s prisons. Denying evidence-based medical care to incarcerated people simply because they are transgender is unconstitutional. We are pleased that the Court agreed.”

The ACLU has pursued multiple lawsuits in several states against the US prison authorities on behalf of men convicted of horrific crimes. As revealed by Reduxx, a 2019 ACLU lawsuit against the New Jersey Department of Corrections which required the state to allow violent male inmates to self-identify into the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women was lodged on behalf of a self-admitted diaper fetishist and convicted terrorist.

Last year, the ACLU of Florida criticized officials for not providing “gender-affirming care” to a convicted rapist and murderer prior to his execution. Duane Owen had been handed a death sentence after brutally murdering a 38-year-old mother and a 14-year-old girl in 1984. Owen claimed that he sexually assaulted women as part of a ritual to harvest their hormones, and that he was a transsexual who carried out the sexual violence to “turn himself into a female.”

[gildedmuse]

So, I just know all of Tumblr was wondering, "hey, you remember that really weird ZoLaw fan with the annoyingly overly stylized post? I wonder if she's seen this and if she has any theories or thoughts, an observation or two?"

Well, allow me to set your wandering mind at ease, fictional Tumblr fan. The answer is: No. No, I really don't.

I have like three hundred.

[I also spent time just trying to track down as many translations as possible. Is Tera A Criminal's Daughter or The Daughter Of Thieving Bandits! These are CLEARLY separate things and can ENTIRELY change how her utter nonpresence in Zoro's life shaped him! Though I can take comfort in knowing that, regardless of what kind of crimes her father was committing they were more important than anything his daughter ever did in her entire life.]

And, hey, as might as well jump right into that whole mess.

1. Wait, Zoro's mom is dead? Thank goodness, I was worried Oda forgot one!

(AKA: Stop. Murdering. Moms.)

I'll go first, I don't mind saying when I was wrong. True, in the past I may have suggested that the vast majority of female characters in One Piece come off as ever so slightly, "leaning into sexist tropes with unadulterated joy; it's the misogynistic tropes equivalent of a child running naked through a grocery store. It's right there, everyone sees it, yet people shut up and continue shopping in part because, well, these days you just expect most people to cover that junk! What would you even say? And if you DO speak up and call out the inappropriate, be prepared for blank stares and tantrums; but THEY don't mind! THEY don't think it's wrong! You're just being mean!"

More or less a direct quote.

However, I see now that I rushed to judgement and the reality of the situation is far more nuanced. With that in mind, I was just wondering if someone could help answer some of the questions I have.

Like: Why does Oda believe that it's illegal for (maternal) female characters to survive other character's backstories?

More importantly, why hasn't someone just reached out to explain the misconception!? It can't be that difficult. If nothing else, just have a lawyer or judge or other expert in censorship on hand. Or is the one of those cases where back in highschool his friends made something up and then kept pretending it was real to see if he'd believe you and not only did he fall for it, it took over 20 years before he learned that, what, no that's not illegal. That would be crazy if it were an actual law. Cause you know, after the first 10 years I think yeah you have to just lean into it. Pretend it's a creative decision on your part and definitely not because you were terrified of being sentenced to a slow and humiliating public death.

Just to be clear that's definitely what's up, right? I mean, I'm struggling to think of another reason....able excuse why a story that I really enjoy keeps playing the same old sexist tropes cards again and again to the point of absurdity. It would just help if I had a valid excus- explanation. I almost mistyped the word explanation.

....

....

So I imagine it went like.

"That's the third mangaka they've had to Publically Execute this week!"

"They've started taking this law way more serious lately."

"This one really deserved it though! I heard his main character has a mother in her late forties!"

"That does seem old to have your first child."

"No, he's the middle of three and 22 years old. The story even has flashbacks of defining moments in his childhood and never once did she try to sacrifice herself for him, get murdered by his enemies, or die in meaningless unrelated accidents."

"Damn, that's cold to be there for all the protagonist core moments and not die and help him develop and grow a character? They must have a very antagonistic relationship. Is she actually the villain."

"Not that we know, and when they asked about this being a possible plot twist since - obviously if she's evil no laws are being broken."

"Well, of course, that's the whole reason Statue 2-dash-57 exists; if creators can show they have consistently been building up to a surprise twist then the female character in question can continue to live so long as she continues to be unrepentant and unlikable until the resolution of her arch by the protagonist."

"That's the thing! Under oath not only did man present no evidence to support her identity as a secret villain, he went on the record stating he wanted to depict their relationship as one of a normal modern 20 year old and his mother."

"That can't be true! What publishing company would even print that!?"

"It gets worse. I told you he was a middle child? Well, according to those who've read the actual manga, his younger sister was really sick as a child."

"Oh, well, at least-"

"It was just a fish allergy. She's perfectly fine."

"Sometimes I feel this law is unnecessarily harsh but.... Then you hear stories like that, and you realize that some people really are monsters."

[petty-prince]

I dont draw William in his code lyoko era as much anymore, I either draw him in his Evo era or in my adult design of him.

No matter what I stand by William being Pretty>Handsome.

[clemsharmony]

you know you know when you get attached to a side character that doesn't exist? that you made up for your fanfiction or something but isn't even nearly fleshed out enough to consider an oc?

[girafferoyalty]

Hey, do you know the feeling when you have no knowledge on romance but once in a blue moon you meet someone you kinda like and being around them literally feels like a lobotomy??

[scaip]

Unpopular opinion:

As much as I love Kaveh, his comments at he Traveller's teapot were mean, even if he never had that intention. You don't criticize someone's house like that, you don't know what that person has been through. Keeping a place is expensive and energy-draining and I just love the irony.

The architect without a house criticizing someone else's place.

Kaveh's personal life is so sad that he desperately clings to his artistic and academic persona. And by doing so, he unwillingly reaches the elitist behaviour that Academia people are unpopular for. Remember when Al Haitham called Kaveh out for his lack of social skills? (Though in Kaveh's favour, it seems Al Haitham never brought someone home before 😂) Or his impulsivity when it comes to money? (He even sold his childhood house to build that palace... But to be honest, I think that in a hidden, unconscious place, that was partially related to his family issues).

Kaveh lacks common sense. And that is sometime that happens a lot with people at the Academia: some let self-perceived intellects, achievements and roles get into their heads. Genshin's narrative compensates this by giving him genuinely good intentions: Kaveh's attempts to help others are earnest. But it doesn't erase the fact that, on a personal level, he can be quite insufferable. He offers a nice contrast to Al Haitham: I adored Kaveh at first, but upon reading more about his interactions and lore... Well, he can be condescendecing and elitist, too. Al Haitham, despite his egoism, is right in calling Kaveh out. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and, if Genshin had another sort of setting, Kaveh would show these White Saviour™ shades:

Comes from a place of privilege (even if he struggles in the future)

Definitely looks the part (let's face it: at first we all were charmed by his looks)

Wants to help others, but it doesn't necessarily becomes beneficial in the long run

Can be condescendencing a low-key elitist, even if that's not his intention

Refuses to look at his issues and hides them by making good actions (doesn't this remind you of anything?)

Puts a lot of attention to his reputation (not only he hides his money struggles, I'm sure most people don't know much about his personal life)

And, interestingly, for a guy who is said to be popular and renowned, he... doesn't have many friends? Outside of Tighnari and Al haitham, who are the ones to mostly help him around (Cyno knows, but only helped because of the game card), we don't see Kaveh having close connections with other people. For a guy that's promoted as a popular genius, he sure is quite lonely. And I wouldn't be surprised if that was because of his insufferable ways: boisterous, holier than thou, good intentions but condescendencing, and extremely emotional. Dealing with someone like that is draining.

[field-of-sungflowers]

...a year anniversary of the time Marthuhhhh lectured me for being outside in the snow waiting for a show--

[instantarmageddon]

.

[ilibelle]

Imagine that your uniform is made up of several layers of different types of fabric and bulletproof shields. In addition to the extra fabric, you wear a mask and helmet that cover your entire face. Your costume makes it impossible to identify whether you are a woman or a man, and to top it off, you never speak. This leads people who aren't part of your squad to believe that you're just a short man who never speaks.

You work for the squad led by Colonel König. Recently, there were some situations that resulted in Kortac temporarily joining Task Force 141, two squads united to capture a terrorist.

You are not and have never been a sociable person. You don't talk to people you don't know and you always let someone else do the talking for you. As much as you are an adult woman, mature enough to make decisions on your own, you are shy. Very shy.

It's not unusual for other people to ask your teammates about you, always wondering why you don't speak up. They ask about the many layers of fabric that make up your outfit, whether you don't suffocate from the excess cloth and pockets.

And these people always refer to you in the masculine.

Always.

Soap is a bit of a curiosity when it comes to mysterious people who don't interact much with others in the room and who just stand in a quiet corner, far away from any living thing in the room. No wonder he made Ghost his best friend.

So believe me when I say that he's intrigued by you. The mysterious, masked guy in the dark corner of the room, who so far hasn't interacted with anyone since he arrived. You've caught his attention, but he won't talk to you because something inside him tells him not to come up to you out of the blue.

Something inside him tells him to take it easy this time, because that something inside him thinks that the outside of that guy should be molded slowly to reveal the inside. Does that make sense?

The first person Soap will ask about you is König, because them strangely hit it off, much to the unhappiness of Ghost, who didn't like König. Perhaps it's because he's taller and has stolen the role of being the tallest in the room from Ghost.

And also because he saw König talking to you about something, but you didn't use your voice and just nodded. Which led him to think that maybe you were mute.

Soap approached König with a smile, bringing up some other subject before starting to ask questions about you. He doesn't want to sound weird.

"Hm... You know, I keep asking myself..." Soap begins, waiting for a signal to continue.

"What is it?" König asks, crossing his arms and smiling beneath his mask.

"That guy in the corner... Why doesn't he join the others?"

"Oh." König straightens his posture and looks at you, standing in the corner of the room and staring at an interesting spot on the floor. "She's a bit shy, don't worry."

The gears turned slowly in Soap's head after this information.

"IT'S A WOMAN?!!??!!!!?"

It wasn't Soap's intention to draw the attention of everyone in the room, Including you, to him and König. But it just happened.

Hello:)) it's my first time posting something written by me and my English is terrible, but I tried my best with a translator 😞

[hyperlexichypatia]

As I keep shouting into the void, pathologizers love shifting discussion about material conditions into discussion about emotional states.

I rant approximately once a week about how the brain maturity myth transmuted “Young adults are too poor to move out of their parents’ homes or have children of their own” into “Young adults are too emotionally and neurologically immature to move out of their parents’ homes or have children of their own.”

I’ve also talked about the misuse of “enabling” and “trauma” and “dopamine” .

And this is a pattern – people coin terms and concepts to describe material problems, and pathologization culture shifts them to be about problems in the brain or psyche of the person experiencing them. Now we’re talking about neurochemicals, frontal lobes, and self-esteem instead of talking about wages, wealth distribution, and civil rights. Now we can say that poor, oppressed, and exploited people are suffering from a neurological/emotional defect that makes them not know what’s best for themselves, so they don’t need or deserve rights or money.

Here are some terms that have been so horribly misused by mental health culture that we’ve almost entirely forgotten that they were originally materialist critiques.

Codependency What it originally referred to: A non-addicted person being overly “helpful” to an addicted partner or relative, often out of financial desperation. For example: Making sure your alcoholic husband gets to work in the morning (even though he’s an adult who should be responsible for himself) because if he loses his job, you’ll lose your home. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/08/opinion/codependency-addiction-recovery.html What it’s been distorted into: Being “clingy,” being “too emotionally needy,” wanting things like affection and quality time from a partner. A way of pathologizing people, especially young women, for wanting things like love and commitment in a romantic relationship.

Compulsory Heterosexuality What it originally referred to: In the 1980 in essay "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence," https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/493756 Adrienne Rich described compulsory heterosexuality as a set of social conditions that coerce women into heterosexual relationships and prioritize those relationships over relationships between women (both romantic and platonic). She also defines “lesbian” much more broadly than current discourse does, encompassing a wide variety of romantic and platonic relationships between women. While she does suggest that women who identify as heterosexual might be doing so out of unquestioned social norms, this is not the primary point she’s making. What it’s been distorted into: The patronizing, biphobic idea that lesbians somehow falsely believe themselves to be attracted to men. Part of the overall “Women don’t really know what they want or what’s good for them” theme of contemporary discourse.

Emotional Labor What it originally referred to: The implicit or explicit requirement that workers (especially women workers, especially workers in female-dominated “pink collar” jobs, especially tipped workers) perform emotional intimacy with customers, coworkers, and bosses above and beyond the actual job being done. Having to smile, be “friendly,” flirt, give the impression of genuine caring, politely accept harassment, etc. https://weld.la.psu.edu/what-is-emotional-labor/ What it’s been distorted into: Everything under the sun. Everything from housework (which we already had a term for), to tolerating the existence of disabled people, to just caring about friends the way friends do. The original intent of the concept was “It’s unreasonable to expect your waitress to care about your problems, because she’s not really your friend,” not “It’s unreasonable to expect your actual friends to care about your problems unless you pay them, because that’s emotional labor,” and certainly not “Disabled people shouldn’t be allowed to be visibly disabled in public, because witnessing a disabled person is emotional labor.” Anything that causes a person emotional distress, even if that emotional distress is rooted in the distress-haver’s bigotry (Many nominally progressive people who would rightfully reject the bigoted logic of “Seeing gay or interracial couples upsets me, which is emotional labor, so they shouldn’t be allowed to exist in public” fully accept the bigoted logic of “Seeing disabled or poor people upsets me, which is emotional labor, so they shouldn’t be allowed to exist in public”).

Battered Wife Syndrome What it originally referred to: The all-encompassing trauma and fear of escalating violence experienced by people suffering ongoing domestic abuse, sometimes resulting in the abuse victim using necessary violence in self-defense. Because domestic abuse often escalates, often to murder, this fear is entirely rational and justified. This is the reasonable, justified belief that someone who beats you, stalks you, and threatens to kill you may actually kill you.

What it’s been distorted into: Like so many of these other items, the idea that women (in this case, women who are victims of domestic violence) don’t know what’s best for themselves. I debated including this one, because “syndrome” was a wrongful framing from the beginning – a justified and rational fear of escalating violence in a situation in which escalating violence is occurring is not a “syndrome.” But the original meaning at least partially acknowledged the material conditions of escalating violence.

I’m not saying the original meanings of these terms are ones I necessarily agree with – as a cognitive liberty absolutist, I’m unsurprisingly not that enamored of either second-wave feminism or 1970s addiction discourse. And as much as I dislike what “emotional labor” has become, I accept that “Women are unfairly expected to care about other people’s feelings more than men are” is a true statement.

What I am saying is that all of these terms originally, at least partly, took material conditions into account in their usage. Subsequent usage has entirely stripped the materialist critique and fully replaced it with emotional pathologization, specifically of women. Acknowledgement that women have their choices constrained by poverty, violence, and oppression has been replaced with the idea that women don’t know what’s best for themselves and need to be coercively “helped” for their own good. Acknowledgement that working-class women experience a gender-and-class-specific form of economic exploitation has been rebranded as yet another variation of “Disabled people are burdensome for wanting to exist.”

Over and over, materialist critiques are reframed as emotional or cognitive defects of marginalized people. The next time you hear a superficially sympathetic (but actually pathologizing) argument for “Marginalized people make bad choices because…” consider stopping and asking: “Wait, who are we to assume that this person’s choices are ‘bad’? And if they are, is there something about their material conditions that constrains their options or makes the ‘bad’ choice the best available option?”