#I don’t want to be The Evil Trans Indoctrinator for just existing

[littlebirdy0301]

Something about being a minority in professional worlds. Acting as if you’re being watched at all times, even in the most accepting of places. Something about striving for perfection as though everything depends on it. Your career, your reputation, everyone’s opinion of those you represent- even though you didn’t have a say in being a face of your community. Something about toeing the line between showing up for those like you, and toning yourself down to an acceptable version of you

[user-needs-new-hyperfixation]

Embarrassing Story/Confession Time

In which I share things that I cringe to remember, and then insert a moderately related moral to make the telling worthwhile.

So, once upon a time, in days of yore, when lemons were a thing and FF.net was THE place to be, I had an account. I have ZERO recollection of the login info and it is a disturbing possibility that the crap I wrote still exists somewhere (please, I beg of you, don’t look for it.)

I recently reblogged this post that reminded me of my teen years and how far I’ve come (not that the journey is over)...so I figured I might as well tell a story from my cringe problematic past for the lolsies (and the shoe-horned in moral). 

ANyhoo, I didn’t know until I was...errrm, 17 or 18?... that bisexuality existed. I knew that there were people who were gay (that was bad evil bad bad) and straight (that was good within a veeery limiting set of restrictions). In the year or two where I was just starting to hear whispers of this rumoured third option and slowly awakening to the (at the time, horrifying) possibility that it might apply to me, BL and shipping and such were part of the process of exploring that. 

(And yes, there’s plenty to be said about the fetishization of mlm relationships and the many other problematic aspects of a lot of BL, but I was essentially so sheltered as to be developmentally stunted, and those were some of my first exposures to queer romance framed in a positive light. And because they centered guys, and I was a girl, it allowed me to somehow explore my own queerness without ever admitting to myself that that was what I was doing.)

So, I was tiptoeing into queer stories, and queer ships in not-specifically-queer stories, and I wanted to write fanfic for one of my ships. But, problem! Gayness was bad evil bad bad! (I swear in retrospect that I was 17 but operating on 12-year-old software in some ways.) 

So how did I get around this? Weeeelll, I wrote one of the two guys getting magically turned into a woman. But here’s the thing...he, or rather she, was delighted by the change. She’d always felt not-quite-right as a man. She was attracted to her partner but did not feel that her attraction was correctly defined as that of one man towards another. She felt more herself, once she was a woman.

So...in attempting to de-queer my story, I accidentally wrote a moderately recognizable trans character (at least coming from the mind of a kid who had only the slightest awareness of trans folks existing). And I just find that hilarious in hindsight. 

Anyway, the moral I’m gonna tack ham-fistedly on here is this: my fellow adults, be kind to ignorant kids online. Whether they’re far right like I was raised to be, or from the new batch of “so far left they’ve circled back to purity culture” kids. And, if it’s safe for your own mental wellbeing, gently interact with them. So much of who I am now can be credited to a handful of patient and kind LGBTQ+ adults who were just chillin’ in spaces adjacent to my identity crisis, listening to me ask questions like, “doesn’t the way male and female bodies fit together prove it’s the only right option?” and just...not taking my head off for it. I’m not making excuses for grown adults acting like asses, but kids, and even young adults, are usually repeating back something that has been hammered into them. And nothing quite takes the wind out of those indoctrination sails like older folks just listening, and answering questions when they’re able, and not raging at them the way they’ve been told that their “enemies” will. 

[b0ytemper]

Went down a rabbithole on Twitter about this webcomic artist’s 20+ year descent into madness. He went like edgy southpark-y centrist chauvinist disillusioned with religion, America, and capitalism to:

> Christian guilt over an unhealthy relationship with porn

> starts dipping his toes into second-wave feminism

> anti-porn radfem

> all men are irredeemable lust-controlled deviants who can never change no matter how hard they want to and the only pure love that exists is attractive androgynous cis lesbians cuddling chastely

> discovers TERFism

> trans people being trans is The Patriarchy in disguise

> the woke queers and their pronouns are suppressing free speech and trying to cancel me 🥺🥺🥺

> QAnon

> the deep state of evil Jewish lizard people that control the world are trying to destroy The West and The Family and good ol salt of the earth Christian patriots and are putting tracking chips in the vaccines and Big Pharma wants to turn everyone into transhumanist mind control gender robots and they’re indoctrinating your children with 5G brainwaves and gay preschool sex education and the only salvation is anti-SJW Jesus

And what’s really tickling me is that it was all very gradual right up until he hit TERF/gender critical ideology and then rapidly devolved into a conspiracy-brained, paranoid alt-right christofacist what seemed like practically overnight. And I feel the need to post about this because it’s just so fucking batshit reading through all that feels like I ate bad meat and hallucinated so hard I fell through into another dimension and I need other people to know what I just witnessed so I can double check to make sure it’s real.

But also, one of his most recent strips that’s getting meme’d on is like some boomer Facebook uncle shit where a little blonde girl is like “mommy my teacher said people can change genders what if I wake up half girl half boy tomorrow?🥺 will I forget who I am?🥺🥺🥺”

And it’s just so indicative of why a good chunk of transphobia is an actual phobia because these people literally do not know who they are outside of the rigid social roles they’ve been described and the idea that these categories they’ve based their whole sense of self on for their whole lives are just arbitrary, constructed cultural ideas that are mutable and fuzzy is like gazing into the fucking void for them.

And I don’t want to be flippant with the “queerphobes are bigoted because they’re secretly queer lol” because while that can definitely happen it’s often an oversimplification of issues that gets used as a free pass for leftists to make homophobic jokes and we shouldn’t project identity onto people we don’t know

HOWEVER

That comic is so full of rotten-egg self loathing I can’t tell if I should laugh or go take a cold shower and somberly contemplate the state of the world. It’s sure something.

[comingoutofthecauldron]

let’s talk about lesbophobia in fandom

i don’t like to use the word “lesbophobia” unironically because of all the gross radfem terfy connotations, so i will clarify right off the bat that i am neither a terf nor an aphobe and that if you are i want you off my blog like, right now. unfortunately, the meaning of lesbophobia has been so warped by alt right lesbians that seeing it in an unironic context makes me, a lesbian, uncomfortable, which speaks volumes in itself. so to clarify, lesbophobia is essentially homophobia with a pinch of sexism thrown into the mix, and it’s running rampant in supposed safe spaces and, more relevantly, fandom. 

/i’d also like to clarify that i’m not only speaking on lesbophobia, but also the general disgust and disdain for all wlw in fandom, and am using it as a sort of umbrella term/

lesbophobia and disdain for wlw has been around forever, but whilst gay positivity, mlm and mlm ships have been steadily increasing in popularity within fandom over time, wlw and wlw ships have remained perpetual underdogs. why? because lesbophobia has become a fandom within itself. both in and outside of fandom, we see instances of casual lesbophobia every single day—from aggression towards wlw to something as simple and prevalent as the complete and utter lack of sapphic ships and characters in media. hatred of lesbians and wlw is practically a trend, and it’s seeping in through the cracks of fandoms who are already facing issues with minorities and marginalized groups (i.e. racism, ableism). if you honestly think that lesbophobia isn’t prevalent as hell in fandom right now, you’re either not a wlw, you’re not all that involved in fandom, or you’re dumb as shit. 

just look at ships. in almost every single fandom, the ratio of mlm ships to sapphic ships is ridiculously unbalanced. people are quick to ship male characters who so much as smile at each other (and i don’t condemn that) but would never do the same for two women—even on the rare occasion that the ship is actually canon. i once wrote a wlw fanfic for a [predominantly straight] fandom, and received messages like this gem:

on the flip side of that, if there is a sapphic ship in canon or fanon, it is often fetishized and sexualised to a disturbing degree. there will be double the amount of nsfw art and fics, and ninety percent of it will be derogatory and fetishized as hell. having been actively involved in several fandoms over the past few years (and currently a content creator in one), i’ve seen instances of all this hundreds of times. people go crazy for mlm ships, but the second you say you ship/prefer a wlw ship, there’s always someone at the ready with, “i think all ships are great!” or “it’s not a contest” or “i prefer [insert m/m or m/f ship] actually” or “they’re my brotp!/why can’t you just let them be friends?”. not only do lesbians and wlw not get to have any rep in media, any rep that they try to create for themselves in fandom just gets attacked or ruined. this is so detrimental not only to all wlw, but especially to younger wlw who will end up being indoctrinated into this belief that their sexuality is something dirty, something that can never be tender and sweet but rather something that deserves to be preyed upon. 

building on that, let’s talk about engagement. i run an instagram account (where i have a significantly bigger following) as well as this blog for my fandom, where i post the content i create (mainly text posts). when i first started creating content, i made a lot for a relatively unpopular wlw ship, in which both girls are canonically romantically involved with a dude—though one of them is canonically pan. their canonical m/f ships are both very popular, and i noticed that my engagement was dropping every time i posted them, so i eventually just stopped. it wasn’t even a conscious decision; i merely resigned myself to the fact that the fandom didn’t want to see sapphic ships, and some people would even go as far as to condemn them. for reference, my instagram posts get an average of about 500 likes per post (popular ones usually exceeding 1k), but when i post this ship, my engagement drops to about 250 likes. similarly, my tumblr text posts have an average of about 140 notes per post (popular ones usually reaching up to 750), but my wlw content rarely surpasses 100. this just feeds the cycle of wlw never getting rep: if, like me, content creators become disincentivised by the lack of engagement with their sapphic content, they’re more likely to stop making/posting it, leading to further lack of rep—and when new content creators try to rectify that, they face the same problems. 

and then, of course, there’s the treatment of actual wlw in fandom. my best example of this is when my friend and i made an anti account on instagram (the first instagram anti account in that fandom), our bio saying something like “salty and bitter lesbians being salty and bitter”, and received an onslaught of lesbophobic insults and threats from angry stans within hours. (tw: r*pe) one commenter even went as far as to tell us that they wanted us to get r*ped. as well as this, i’ve seen so many instances of people using slurs against lesbians in arguments/in anons, often for no apparent reason other than they feel that they have the right. when i first mentioned i was a lesbian on instagram, my account only had about 200 followers, and within a day i lost 20. i also lose followers whenever i post f/f ships, not quite to that extent but enough for it to be noticeable, on top of the aforementioned engagement dips. in the face of all this adversity, i think a lot of wlw turn to mlm ships because they’re the closest thing we have to actual rep, but when we do we get accused of fetishizing them by the same people who fetishize us. there’s an endless list of double standards that non-wlw have been upholding for years, and i can firmly say that i’m really fucking sick of it. because of our sexuality, we will never be allowed to enjoy something without someone labelling it or us as dirty or otherwise problematic, when to them, the only problematic thing about us is that we aren’t pleasing men. 

as i mentioned before, the lack of rep for wlw in media is appallingly consistent, and part of that stems from tokenism. in a lot of modern mainstream media, you’ll have one, maybe two lgbt characters, and nine times out of ten those characters are white cis male gays. of course, there are exceptions to this, but generally, that’s it. script writers and authors (especially cishets) seem to have this mentality of, “oh, well, we gave them one, that’s sure to be enough!”, which means that on the off chance you do get your gay rep, the likelihood of also receiving wlw or any other kind of rep becomes practically non-existant. this belief that all marginalized groups are the same and that one represents all is what leads to misrepresentation on top of lack of rep, which is what makes tokenism so dangerous. if you treat your only gay character badly, you are essentially treating every single gay person badly in that universe. so not only is lesbophobia and disdain for wlw harmful to sapphic women via their exclusion in media, it’s also harming those minorities who do get rep. when people try to defend lesbophobic source material, that’s when fandom starts to get toxic. the need for critical thinking has never been more apparent and it has also never been less appeased—and wlw are getting hit hard by it, as always.

finally, a pretty big driving factor of lesbophobia is, ironically, lesbians. my lesbian friends and i often joke that though everyone seems to hate us, no one hates lesbians more than lesbians do. though i’d say it’s most prevalent on tumblr, i see traces of it all over the internet. the growth of alt right lesbian movements is not only reinforcing hatred for lesbians, but also reinforcing hatred for bi and pan women. here you have these terrible lesbians using their platforms to express their disgust for bi/pan women, for aces and aros, for trans women/nb lesbians, and people see them and say, “gosh, lesbians are just awful.” and just like that, all of us are evil. occasionally, lesbian blogs that i follow get put on terf blocklists for no other reason than the fact that they have “lesbian” in their bio. and the lesbians that actually deserve to be on those blocklists? they’re too busy spewing misinformation about trans women and bi women to care, boosted up by their alt right friends in an ever-expanding movement. i’ve found that this heavily influences fandom on tumblr, lesbians often getting branded as “biphobic” when they hc a female character as a lesbian rather than bi or pan. this criticism of both lesbians and wlw by lesbians and non-wlw alike only ever allows lesbophobia to grow, both in and out of fandom. that said, lesbians aren’t to blame for their own discrimination; rather, many of us have been conditioned into subconsciously endorsing it after spending our entire lives hearing heterosexual platitudes about lesbians and sapphic relationships. homophobic cishets are and always have been the nexus of this oppression—the only difference is that now they can hide behind alt right lesbians.

one thing has been made apparent to me throughout my time in fandom, and that thing is that no one likes to see men “underrepresented”. people hate sapphic ships and lesbians so much because there is no room for men, and men Do Not Like That. so, like the worms that they are, they slither their way in, be it through fetishization or condemnation of wlw characters and ships, and they ruin whatever good things we have going for us. the thing about worms, though, is that they’re easy enough to crush if you’re wearing the right shoes.

so to all my bi/pan gals and lesbian pals: put on your doc martens, because we’ve got ourselves some lesbophobes to stomp on. 

[gorvunculus]

So I generally don’t read the Magic story, but there was a lot about ONE that had me feeling off, which I initially chocked up to the disappointing designs for the Phyrexians in this set, but this post captures things I really didn’t consider outside of a general sense of unease. There seems to be a major departure from Phyrexia as it existed during Yawgmoth, and New Phyrexia that changes I think the dynamic of Phyrexia entirely.

Now, I have a real soft spot for Phyrexia, I started really playing magic during the Scars block, and have loved horror for ages. This is what made the original Phyrexia so interesting; the Phyrexians were the mechanical forces of an ethno-purist eugenicist turned god, and were designed very clearly to be mouthpieces to that (flawed in narrative execution) ideology. I have issues with Yawgmoth being portrayed as Correct But Evil, which falls into the Cruelty is Genius trope, but the idea of the Coalition fighting for the right of all races to exist in the face of a clear representation of fascism was easy money for a plot. It’s hard to fuck up fighting Nazis, and I again was not around for that era of Magic, but by and large that was the general vibe I got. (The Phyrexians being defeated by “Eugenics but better” vis a vis Urza’s super solider race substantially undermines this, but the larger themes are still present).

Enter New Phyrexia. This introduces the concept of Phyrexians that can exist outside the grip of Yawgmoth’s ideology and control. Rather than constructing the Phyrexians from the ground up with intent to make mechanical plague-fascists, we have Organic Home-Grown Phyrexians. It’s not clear if any of the Praetors were compleated from a base form or just emerged fully formed as the icon of their archetypes, but most (but not all) of the Phyrexians on Mirrodin were at one point Mirrans, and it is very clear that they retain individuality, otherwise colored factions would not form. I was unreasonably hyped for the concept of Phyrexians that were independent agents, indoctrinated by a psychoactive (Glistening Oil), which made them more suggestible to Phyrexia’s teachings. Even with the reversal of compleation in MOM, it’s clear that there are people under the Phyrexians, and they can be freed from oil/indoctrination/subjugation, but as shown in the red faction initially, they can also embrace what changed them while rejecting what those in power say to do with this change.

In mtg roleplaying games I did when I was younger, I always wanted to play an outcast from New Phyrexia, broken from their indoctrination and coming to terms with their new body they did not have a choice in (I would not come out as trans until several years later, which, along with the idea of changing ones body out of choice, would change my perspective on a “good” Phyrexian more). It seemed like the obvious choice to allow for the redemption of Phyrexia without wholesale condemning the Phyrexians to being an Evil Race. It seemed like a narrative win-win; Phyrexia gets to stick around and everyone who likes their designs (me) gets to keep enjoying them, and you get a more nuanced idea of what it means to be a Phyrexian, someone free but in the shadow of a *faction* (because while there is a ton of bio-modification in compleation, I feel like Phyrexia should have been a faction and not a fucking race) that endorsed eugenics and ethno-purity. What we got were these dry ass people in costume type universal bad guy Phyrexians with the nuance and juice sucked right out of them.

Now I love the portrayal of (christian) religion as an antagonistic force, something we get in spades with Norn and the Orthodoxy. This translates well to the idea of adopting Yawgmoth's fucked up beliefs as a religion wholcloth, something that would be in-line with the christonationalist movements today, *especially* if there were dissent in the ranks of those who found their devotion questioned. Treating the Phyrexians as something more than "hee hoo body modding is bad but not in the cyberpunk way in the biology way whoops not you queer people we luv you buy our pride cards" seemed like the obvious choice, and I am sad to see wotc continuing to drop the ball like this. Sorry that was a lot of words to mostly say "I agree", but I had thoughts on the Old vs New Phyrexians.

New Phyrexia disturbed me - and not how it should have

This is going to be a VERY opinion-heavy post. Before I say anything, I want to make it abundantly clear that I am not condemning the entirety of the New Phyrexia arc, nor am I saying that the people who wrote these stories meant for them to be taken this way. This is just a post getting into why the New Phyrexia arc rubbed me the wrong way again and again, and why it's... kind of ruined my love for Magic, if I'm completely honest.

Also, yes, I understand that New Phyrexia was meant to horrify and unsettle people - but I feel like it unsettled me in ways that they kind of weren't going for. I expect horror to unsettle me and show me some fucked up shit, for lack of a better terminology - but I also was expecting, in the fantasy/scifi horror shit, I'd get some stuff that didn't feel like it hit so close to home.

More under the cut.

First of all, it has always felt as if Magic can never quite decide if Phyrexians are people or monsters. This is worsened in New Phyrexia, where time and time again, we are given reason to think that New Phyrexians are people that are simply heavily indoctrinated from birth. Yes, the glistening oil works in strange ways, and they have somewhat of shared knowledge amongst their entire network, but by and large, you see time and time again, that Phyrexians have individuality. This seems intentional - you are shown from the start that Elesh Norn is an egomaniac, a fool, and that her plans of grandeur are insane. But her insanity shapes this world.

In that way, everyone in this world are... mostly actually victims of her insanity. Ixhel and Urabrask on New Capenna stand out as examples of times where Phyrexians show that they are not the heartless monsters they are made out to be. In Urabrask's first cards, he claims that he wishes the Mirrans to be left alone.

Yet, in ONE, we see time and time again that red Phyrexians and Mirrans are fighting still, Urabrask doesn't seem to be paying that much attention to the Phyrexians, and... frankly, I don't know what the Halo subplot was supposed to be about (forgive me, if this was addressed in passing, I only skimmed the latter half of MOM to see what big things happened, because i was so upset with it at that point I didn't really WANT to read it anymore). Yes, I have read the creators saying time and time again that just because Urabrask doesn't say outright he wants the multiverse compleated, it doesn't mean it's not what he wants, deep down. However... this still harks back onto one idea.

Sapient creatures being born evil.

This is a trope that I LOATHE in fantasy/scifi to my core. I understand that Phyrexians, for all intents and purposes, are created in a monstrous fashion. They are not created in a similar way to people. However, in the end, they still ACT LIKE PEOPLE. They have individuality, free will (yes, even if it is limited by the strict theocratic control of Norn, they still have it - how did Ixhel create, otherwise? How did Sheoldred rebel? Why did Nahiri snap at Nissa to show the skyclaves? Why did Tamiyo freeze upon seeing children?), and whether you like it or not, this makes them people. They are extremely different people, and yes, their existence does present conflict - but they. are. still. people.

I understand how it may feel offensive to real people to call the (rightful) fear and concern towards Phyrexians to be racism, as I feel like that waters down the term. However... again, knowing that Phyrexians are largely a cult that has been severely indoctrinated by Elesh Norn... it becomes difficult not to feel bad for them, and as if they have all been written off simply because they have a terrible leader. It comes across, to me, as another case of fantasy racism; similar to orcs being portrayed as idiot, warmongering beasts in some settings, or goblins being portrayed as stupid people little better respected than animals (and full of antisemitic stereotypes), just with less baggage attached.

It comes across as them having wanted to create a sapient race of people that was okay to bash and throw under the bus, so to speak. And yes, they gave plenty of reasons for why these people needed to go... but ultimately, it still feels like people went out of their way to create a civilization of people and show us justification for exterminating them.

I'm not trying to water down the term racism, but like... maybe I don't know the right words, but you understand why that might be uncomfortable, right?

Furthermore, at the start, I thought the transformative nature of Phyrexians was cool. Hot, even, as plenty others here on Tumblr think. Yes, I always sort of knew it was meant to be horrifying, too... but I also thought that the creators also were making them semi-alluring on purpose. (Look at Elesh Norn in promotional art. Look at her in the ONE trailer!! Look at the email they sent out for Arena on Valentine's Day, for god's sake!) But as time goes on... I start to get this uncomfortable feeling that this borderline sensual, sexual tension the Phyrexians produce is supposed to be PART of the horror.

And that's where things start getting uncomfortable for me. I am a transgender man. I don't know if I like sexualized, different people that transform themselves... being treated as horrible monsters that can't be coexisted with. I know plenty of trans people felt otherwise about Phyrexians; I understand this likely wasn't even the intention. BUT it still felt that way to me, for someone living in a country where trans people are getting more and more hunted on the daily.

Suddenly, it wasn't so fun anymore, to look at Elesh Norn and see her as heehoo sexy dommy mommy everyone joked at her being. It felt, to me at least, like she was a caricature of what I was. Of what people like me are. Monstrous. Out to destroy the world. Egomaniacs who want to force others down our same "lifestyle."

This is not helped by how Strixhaven, despite being an obvious play on Hogwarts & Harry Potter, came back into importance in MOM. They made a new Planeswalker from that plane, even! I loathe Strixhaven, and I was not at all pleased to learn that they have made it more important. The stories from the original Strixhaven set make me uncomfortable, too; Lukka arrives at a tavern and is asking for food, as he is not doing so well, and people comment on how he dresses strange, and when he (not rudely!) tells them they wouldn't know where he's from even if he told them, they react by SHOOTING FIREBALLS AT HIM.

These people saw a stranger. And decided the appropriate reaction was to shoot fireballs. (More on Lukka later, as I'm not done with him yet) but you understand how that might have also been deeply uncomfortable, right? Like yes, it did seem very intentional, to show how unkind the general populace of Arcavios can be... but there never seemed to be any point to that?? So it just came across as people hating a guy for dressing unconventionally for ""flavor"" to the very-obviously-based-on-TERF-school set. Which. WHY?

I also was not blind to how most of the compleated Planeswalkers were the nonhuman ones. Barring Lukka and Jace, every compleated Planeswalker was nonhuman, which I think... was done purposefully, because nonhumans are viewed as inherently more "monstrous" to our primal little monkey brains. (I don't think it was coincidence; there are PLENTY of human planeswalkers, to the point the majority could have easily not been human.) But this makes me uncomfortable too, because it feels like it, again, not only implies that Phyrexians are not people and are monsters (even though they had been given traits again and again that very firmly confirmed them as people), but that these nonhuman planeswalkers are inherently more monstrous, too.

Ajani - leonin. Tamiyo - moonfolk. Tibalt - (half) devil. Nissa - elf. Vraska - gorgon. Nahiri - kor.

And of the human Planeswalkers compleated, they chose Lukka and Jace. Jace, who has had a steep history of being viewed as less than human and little more than a tool (even sometimes by himself, as much as he hates it), and Lukka, who was also viewed as less than human by the society he came from, and was essentially labeled a sick dog to be shot on sight by his home city. (But more on him and why I particularly hate what was done with him later.)

And like... I'm not saying that corruption arcs or that transformation horror can't be done in a tasteful way!! It just started to feel like, as time went on, that this stuff was... malicious. I already was uncomfortable with how Phyrexians were seemingly being set up to be offed or taken out the picture completely (for there being no feasible way for them to coexist in the multiverse), so maybe I was looking for flaws, even where most wouldn't see them. But, I mean.. it just... Idk man. That part, too, gets under my skin.

And Lukka. LUKKA. I loathe what has been done to his character like none other. It is frequent fan interpretation that Lukka is stupid, Lukka deserves everything that has happened to him, and that it's a good thing he is gone. However, having read everything he has ever appeared in, I am so infuriated that even the creators THEMSELVES seemed to have bought into this idea.

For those that don't know, Lukka first appeared in Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths - Sundered Bond, a digital novella. He was born and raised in Drannith, a heavily militarized city, one of three so-called "sanctuaries" that have actually managed to stay around on Ikoria. Ikoria is a world of kaiju-esque mutated, crazy monster animals, and he was raised in propaganda by Drannith's military, the Coppercoats. He is 40+ years old when we meet him; he has served the Coppercoats for half of that, and then another 2 years or so as Captain of a Specials force team. You see, through him, that he's actually a very caring leader and a rather simple guy: he is betrothed to Jirina Kudro, the daughter of General Kudro, leader of the Coppercoats, and his concerns seem to only be getting his team back home in one piece and getting quality time with his wife. He's not perfect, he's rough around the edges, would probably be an asshole to hang out with in real life, but it FITS for the world he comes from.

And then, he accidentally bonds with a winged cat that slaughters 3/4 of his team in front of him, within minutes of each other. General Kudro has kept the bonding magic Lukka experienced a secret from Drannith populace. He believes it makes Lukka "sick." (Need I explain why a leader referring to a group of people as inherently 'sick' is bad??) Even Jirina, for as much as she apparently loves her father, so emphatically believes her father will kill Lukka for this that she helps him escape! the city!!!

To recap, Lukka has his entire world upended from beneath his feet in the course of like, a day. He becomes the public enemy of the city he has defended with his life for years. In his eyes, it is us (the humans of Ikoria) versus them (the monsters of the plane). This is how he has been raised and trained; he did not choose the bonding and is (rightfully!) upset and horrified at it (ONE was incorrect when it said he "always knew he was different;" lukka made no such acknowledgments in Sundered Bond, that was an invention of ONE). He later then meets Vivien, who tells him how her home plane was DESTROYED (um??? Vivien? Why would you tell a man whose life is going to shit about that??) which makes Lukka vow to himself that he will not lose his home.

Later in the story, Lukka learns of a presence in a particular crystal called the Ozolith, and he goes to it. There, for reasons that would take too long to explain, a three-way battle ensues, and an unknown Planeswalker reaches out to Lukka through the Ozolith. The Planeswalker shows Lukka one of the bonders he has met along the way getting killed by a skysail's bolt meant to kill monsters and it is only then that Lukka accepts the power of the Ozolith.

Anyway, saying all this to say... Lukka is a villain, yes. But contrary to popular belief, he is NOT stupid. He is just as smart as anyone would be in the situation he was put into, coming from the world he comes from. He wanted, again and again and again, nothing more than to just go home. He even tried to spin his bonding into a way that Drannith could defend itself, by telling Kudro they should use monsters instead of peoples' lives (but Kudro wasn't hearing it; and the kicker? Drannith would go on to use bonders & monsters to protect the city anyway, after Lukka had been run off the world).

Lukka had a SHIT deck of cards handed to him in Ikoria, and he - REASONABLY - lashed out. It was just that when he lashed out, he had the power of a Planeswalker manipulating him, whispering in his ear, and the power to actually make people listen. He believed his choices were come home and die like a good soldier, or force them to let him come home. Maybe other people fault him for that, but I don't fault him for choosing to live, even if doing so caused much violence and bloodshed.

But yes, he was still a villain, and in Strixhaven, he was relegated to villain again, when people once again presume him to be an Oriq - which he doesn't even know what that is - and finally, he simply decides that if everyone keeps calling him one, he might as well be one. This comes after nearly starving to death and having his new bond, Mila, save his life. Had someone from Strixhaven maybe, I don't know, taken pity on this very clearly struggling guy.... I don't know! I feel like his role in Strixhaven really never would have happened. THE GUY LITERALLY JUST WANTED FOOD AND WATER. I cannot emphasize that enough

Anyway, saying this all to say, Lukka's arc felt like it was headed toward a redemption of some kind. He had been given a raw deal, reacted very humanly but very poorly, and now, the only way he had to go was up.

Instead, we got Vivien shooting him dead. Calling him "lukka-thing." We got Vivien saying nothing as she faces down the man she called a friend and seemingly felt bad for by the end of Sundered Bond and killing him.

As someone from a country that is VERY obviously careening toward more VERY conservative bullshit... THAT PLOT DID NOT SIT WELL WITH ME. It felt VERY MUCH like I was being told "if you are born into shit circumstances or bad things are done to you, and you don't sit there and take it, you will be punished for not simply taking it. And that punishment may very well be death."

I especially did not care for how Jirina seemed to be veering into her father's mindset in the story in MOM. And yes, she was called out for this, but the story also seemed to be trying to lean into this "survival, no matter the cost" vibe, which seemed like it was subtly justifying what she did, since it DID technically work in the end. Vivien's emo ass "but survival is the only law out here now" or w/e it was she said to herself as she killed Lukka definitely didn't help that feeling, either.

It upset me very much to see a character born into a shitty society, given raw deal after raw deal, and then be told that he deserved to die instead of get help. Or worse, that dying WAS getting help. It was "putting him out of his misery." He was "irreversibly changed," and "didn't know better anymore," he "couldn't be helped." That, combined with how compleation started to feel like a very negative allegory for transgender people after a point to me (see near the beginning of this), made Lukka's death feel like rapidfire punch after rapidfire punch to the gut.

AND NOT IN THE WAY THAT IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN! I would have loved to see Vivien upset that she can't get to apologize. I would have loved to see Vivien agonizing over the decision to kill him. I would have loved her maybe showing some more REMORSE over having to do it, even if she did feel it was the only way forward. We have seen that New Phyrexians, especially compleated Planeswalkers, are still themselves, even while compleated, so the fact Lukka had nothing to say to her either felt hollow, too. He thought she was his friend and she turned on him; why didn't he have anything to say about that?

Urabrask being pulled apart at the limbs, then, felt like the final message to me: New Phyrexians are not people, they are monsters, end of discussion. They are not making it out of this. Stop asking/talking about it.

Suffice to say, by the time I got to the story of Elspeth becoming an archangel, everything felt hollow and gross for me. I've seen the promo art of Aftermath showing Nahiri and Nissa at least recovered; I get the feeling most of them, bar Tamiyo, Tibalt, and Lukka, probably have recovered or will recover.

But, frankly, I don't think I'm very invested anymore. New Phyrexia felt like it crossed a lot of lines, and not in the way that I would have appreciated horror to do so. It hit on a lot of sensitive subjects that made it rather difficult to enjoy as mere entertainment. Maybe I am just oversensitive, due to the day and age I am living in, due to the fact I am deeply unhappy with the fact I am forced to live closeted irl and feel hypervigilant of all slights, but it felt very gross to me.

Lukka's death in particular just... sealed the deal for me. I know he wasn't a big deal. Maybe he was always intended to just be a villain that gets killed off. But it's not even necessarily about him, in particular, it was about what his death represented. It was about how he was a product of propaganda and hatred, and how he was never given a chance to be better. it's about how I was told that death was the only way forward for him.

Maybe when I was 12 I would have liked that, but I'm over my obsession with the 'death is the only salvation.' SO MUCH MEDIA uses this trope, and frankly, I'm fucking sick of it.

I want to see people, even some of the most depraved fucking people you can imagine, getting better. I want to see that people can change and recognize the error in their ways. I'm tired of being told to look and see "us vs. them."

I'm not saying that you can't have conflict. But I am saying that if you're going to have conflict of this scale, I would prefer it to be solved in ways that don't essentially boil down to "kill/put away the Them."

Because that fucking blows.

If you've made it this far, I am grateful, but again, please keep in mind that this is the ramblings of a deeply mentally unwell ADHD-addled 22 year old (who is not on and cannot get Adderall right now). Emotional dysregulation IS a big problem I deal with, and the world I live in right now fucking sucks. If you're reading this going "oh my godd, let people enjoy things, you crybaby" then please just... move on? Because I'm not trying to tell people not to enjoy it, quite the contrary I WISH these things didn't bother me so much because I JUST got into Magic, and I would love to keep enjoying it! And Im happy for you if you have tolerance/could enjoy it through these things!

I'm just... sad. I'm very, very disappointed in this story. It was pretty, it was flashy, people clearly put in effort, but it felt like a low blow, all things considered, and worse, it touches literally all aspects of canon and cannot be safely disregarded. Much like War of the Spark, it affects almost everything, and will for a while yet.

[lecliss]

Awakening was actually a step in the WRONG direction, as the game before it, Radiant Dawn had Heather and Kyza, as well as Ike not having a female love interest or an explicit love interest at all. I have no idea why, but Awakening was the only FE game to be so strongly homophobic/transphobic.

God bro, wow. Yeah I was one of those people that started with Awakening so my knowledge of previous games is limited to research and things mentioned in Heroes and Warriors. Ike and Soren definitely had something going on tho as far as I've seen and I've heard a lot of talk about Ike being gay coded. Had to look up Heather and Kyza tho. I love one (1) trans catgirl now.

What I find interesting tho is that Heather's wiki page said a line of hers about wanting to meet pretty girls was removed. Meanwhile we've also got any offensiveness about Excellus removed as well, as far as I can remember. They(cop out pronoun cuz I'm not sure which one to use due to version difference) still look Like That but as far as text goes, from what I remember, nothing gender related like what you quoted is said about them. So I wonder if it's less about removing offensiveness and more about any and all rep, whether good or bad, being removed cuz "we can't even insinuate Those People exist" until it was unavoidable in Fates. (Of course there is stuff like general queer ship tease in some supports but it doesn't feel like anything beyond normal anime ship tease meant to pander to fans. Like, no one in Awakening really seems genuinely positively queer coded. Even Tharja is only bi on the basis that Robin can be male or female and can only marry m!Robin or the other guys.)

Also maybe the step backwards could be from a different writing team? I don't feel like doing the research on that tho. Or just whoever handled those segments with Excellus being an asshole. I take it it's not one person writing every aspect of the script by themself. Multiple people on the job and all that. Of course everything goes through checks doesn't it, so multiple people had to be like "yeah this is fine".

As for Walhart, aren't the Grimleal a cult? Of course that doesn't justify murder. But also didn't they want Grima to destroy the world? Which is like, a bigger amount of murder? Granted I don't remember the details on that. Bad topic anyway. Bad topic. Murder bad. Bideo gaems. But even ignorning the Grimleal, Walhart wanted to conquer the world as a means to stop them and like, conquering the world sounds pretty bad and I don't really care for Walhart in the first place so regardless of his intentions I sure don't have sympathy for him. That was not the way to go about that basically.

And I have heard that Fire Emblem has a track record for weird situations with the female villains! Like isn't it that there's always a man pulling the strings from behind and all the bad shit was never anything they did of their own free will? That's exactly what happened with Aversa in that... Val... tor? Valius...? Dad. I don't remember his name fkfncicn But Dad kidnapped her as a child and like either indoctrinated or brainwashed her, I can't remember, so it basically absolved her of all blame. And apparently that's been a trend in the series so it's like. I dunno bro, maybe let women be evil and make fucked up decisions on their own without being controlled into doing it? I dunno if that's specifically what you're referring to tho. I don't remember anything about that one chick with Walhart, Phaeros(?), frankly.

But yeah, all in all that's strange. Like one game that pretty clearly has a lesbian and transwoman and potentially gay protag, to whatever the fuck's going on in Awakening, then back to Niles and Rhajat(and Soliel) in Fates, and now all the nice stuff in Three Houses. Like uhhhh, what's with that bump in the road in there y'all? I really think it might have been different writers??? I dunno how consistent the writing team has been for the series tho. It's just speculation I guess.

[silver-tangent]

I am really tired of Conservatives being hypocrites strutting around acting like their side has done no wrong.

[lesbian-ed]

Is it wrong to feel sad over my friend calling herself a nb lesbian? We share a lot of values, but on the gender & sexuality topics we disagree. To me biological sex is the what sexual attraction is based on. I couldn't date anyone who was born male, no matter how they identified/appeared. My friend on the other hand believes she could. She considers herself nb because (quote) sometimes she feels like a straight man. To me that just sounds lesbophobic. I'm scared to say anything to her. I'm sad.

Hey there...

This isn’t wrong. You’re feeling sad because someone you love and respect has been showing clear disrespect towards you and towards lesbians in general. It makes a lot of sense, actually. 

It’s also very sad seeing someone you care about starting renouncing their whole person because “she feels like a straight man”. It’s pretty clear that comes out of the old stereotype that all homosexual people must have opposite sex brains, since they are attracted to their own sex. It’s an archaic, homophobic belief that has been around for quite some time, the genderists have just rebranded it under “trans activism”.

We strongly agree with you, that sexuality is about biological sex, not “gender identity” (whatever that may mean for any particular individual, these days you never know).

If she says she could be attracted to both males and females alike, it sounds to me like she could be bisexual, and not a lesbian at all. However, in the genderist/trans activist/qu**r community, there has been an indoctrination of the mantra “transwomen are women”, aka “men are the sex they choose to be”. This is obviously untrue, but if everyone around your friend has been saying that and that people who disagree are undoubtedly “transphobic bigots”, so it makes sense she would repeat the lies herself, and believe the lies herself.

I don’t think everyone who repeats this bullshit actually would act on what they speak, but of course it upsets you to hear it, considering you are an acutal lesbian yourself, and physically could never be attracted to a male.

These lies are incredibly lesbophobic in particular, considering the trans movement has been targeting lesbians in particular as “evil TERFs”, as if we are the ones who affect them, simply by existing as female homosexuals.

Your sexuality does not exist to validate men’s gender delusions.

You should not change yourself to fit what men want you to think, no woman should, but especially not lesbian women, who have nothing to do with men.

I understand your sorrow, and perhaps you even feel a little grief over this friendship, which is obviously rapidly deteriorating under the weight of these gender doctrines. 

I’m sorry, I have also recently lost an old friend of mine to this gender bullshit, and it was sad and frustrating hearing her talk about herself as “both a man and a woman”, probably something she started believing out of homophobia, and the belief that only men can be attracted to women, and only women can be attracted to men, so of course she must be some sort of “man/woman” being, since she is bisexual. 

It’s sad to see people we love and care about allowing homophobia or internalized homophobia seep into their very beings, to such an extent they actually start to believe that their whole self is defined by their sexuality, and not the other way around. 

I hope you’ll find new friends, who can truly respect your sexuality, who can truly respect you. I could never find a way to get through to my friend, and I don’t believe you will either. These gender delusions are a cult-like belief, and anyone who questions it is immediately seen as “The Enemy” or “TERFs”.

Unfortunately I don’t think there is any hope, seeing as you already tried to explain why you believe sexuality is based on biological sex, and not on their presentation of gender.  

I hope you’ll be okay with time, and I’m so sorry for your loss of a dear friend to such a homophobic ideology.

Take care!

/Mod A

[arcenciel-par-une-larme]

Reasons to be a leftist in the 21st Century

[translated and slightly modified from an article I read. DISCLAIMER I do not own anything except my own additions, where noted.]

Because you can consider yourself morally superior to everybody else without ever having to practically prove what your superiority consists in. It suffices that you pose it as an axiom.

Because you have the freedom to maintain that true politics is limited in philosophical quotations and the recitation of noble desires with which pretty much everybody (especially Peter Pan) agrees.

Because you can criticise everything without offering a counter-proposal. The answer to everything is “love” [own note: cf. “open-mindedness”, “tolerance”]

Because you are a priori right in every discourse, since you are not obliged to construct and submit arguments. In case your opponent demands them, you can easily leave them dumbfounded by asserting that s/he has never studied history (which, by the way, is ALWAYS on your side) [own note: Alternatively, come up with some convoluted reason to declare them sexist, racist or homophobic. That ought to shut them up].

Because you have the most beneficial relation to capitalism possible. You take advantage of it in the way, time and degree that you desire (e.g. by consuming its goods, offering your services to it, being rewarded by it) but theoretically you are its permanent detractor. Thus, you manage to benefit from its positive aspects, while at the same time you renounce its “monstrous evils” -  given that, formally, you disagree with it and, as is well known, all that matters in your world is ideology, i.e. what you believe and say you are.

Because you are able to be philosophically opposed to the concept of power or authority and consider anyone who wields it (in any form and intensity - from the local school principal up to the PM himself) inhumane, but also approve of it with immense joy when it is exerted by you or anyone of your persuasion.

Because you can defy every procedural framework and democratic tool when they are imposed and used by non-leftist folks (because, in your judgment, “they are not pro-human” (now ain’t that deep)) but also demand their strict observance when those whom you like call upon them.

Because you deserve to and, to be exact, enjoy the exclusive privilege to label every application of a law which you don’t particularly like as fascistic and totalitarian, as well as designate the state involving the legal status quo which you dislike as fascistic. In the meantime, you have the right to state your satisfaction in the implementation of the exact same laws and democratic institutions - as long as the government is of leftist leanings.

Because you enjoy the exclusive privilege to produce authentic judgment on violence, as well as constantly invent new sub-categories of it, regardless of the dictionary definitions or plain sense because, clearly, you know better. In the same framework, you hold the absolute right to detest violence and put under the umbrella of its vague definition anything that displeases you, but also call for its use against your enemies, because then it is not “violence”, it’s “justice”. [own note: usually expressed in terms such as “the oppressed have every right to lash out against their oppressors”]

Because your arsenal of arguments consists primarily of absolutes which are not subject to scrutiny under reason and/or science, because, as everybody is aware, sciences and degrees are bought/sold/corrupted things who estrange man from true knowledge [own note: to this you may add, ad libitum, that “evidence and logic are obsolete constructs of the cis white heteropatriarchy”]. Thus, you have the ability to support everything but also deny everything, without bearing any sort of burden of proof for your allegations.

[my own addition] Because, depending on your metaphysical beliefs in the context of your leftism, you can also have a special relationship to science as well. When your opponent happens to be a theist, you can very simply refuse to debate with “retards like him/her” by playing the “Science has proven that God does not exist lol who could ever take you and your arguments seriously” magic card, with no examples or citations needed even for that, but when peer-reviewed articles prove that the gender pay gap can be traced back to causes unrelated to institutionalised sexism, then “the results are obviously rigged” and “traditional logic and reason are patriarchal constructs”. Or, more concisely: theists bear a burden of proof for the existence of God, but your claim that there are 145 genders must be taken as gospel.

Because you can shun the education system, school, college, university, classes, studies and separate disciplines, but at the same time assert an active role in the structuring of the curriculum and administration of colleges and universities.

Because your former life means jack s**t once you decide to join the “enlightened” left. From the moment on that you embrace leftist dogma and modify your speech accordingly, you are a true missionary and whatever you say gains extra importance and a poetic gravitas. Your whole record is wiped clean and you are a saint in everybody’s eyes. [own note: if you want some evidence off the top of my head, take a look at the organisers of the vagina demonstrations women’s marches. Hint: if you find an ex-torturer and a Sharia apologist among them, don’t say I didn’t warn you.]

[own addition] Because, once you are a leftist saint, or at least seek protection under the wings of the Almighty Church of Leftism, you get a free pass on things ten times as controversial as what you criticise others for. By way of example, you can compare opposition to no-measures immigration to genocide, but when you say “kill all men” it’s ‘just a joke’. Likewise, when you deem your child trans in its third year of age, you are a ‘hero’ of ‘progress’, but a couple raising their kids in a Christian worldview and way of living are “indoctrinating them” and it counts as child abuse.

Because while, formally, you are strongly opposed to discrimination and labelling, you are entitled to lump all your intellectual opponents together into one enormous category, apply to that category the label that suits you and cast stones at them at will.

Because you have the freedom to speak on behalf of “the people”, without any authorisation by anybody.

Because you have the most convenient relationship with logic. Whenever you want or are forced to collide with it, you aren’t irrational as anybody else would be, you’re just a romantic revolutionary who wants to make the world a better place.

Because you can continually reinforce your position (which is either way dominant) by invoking the struggles of others, with whom you are not connected in any way beyond your imagination.

Because your left-ness is something akin to an honorary title, which shall accompany you throughout your entire life and shall buy you positions, distinctions and glory, without your actually being obliged to do anything for that or possess any ability or talent.

Because you have the mind-bogglingly surreal advantage of stigmatising as apolitical [own note: or, just as easily, fascist, medieval or nazi] anyone whose political convictions fall to the right of yours.

[own addition] Because, if you are a leftist but also consider yourself Christian, things could not be better for you! Not only can you conveniently label any conservative a racist/misogynist/homophobic/islamophobic bigot, but when it comes to Christian conservatives in particular you can also confidently shout that they are not true Christians and gleefully proclaim how God will burn their asses in Hell eternally and you will be laughing. (Yes, fellow leftist ‘Christian’, the “love your enemies and pray for them” commandment only applies to others; you are a cute, special little snowflake and you don’t need to burden yourself with anything resembling courtesy or ethics or bearing your own cross and all that jazz...)

Because it is ex officio self-explanatory and universally accepted that you belong to the group of the greatest Fighters for Social Justice and, at the same time, the most oppressed among all citizens, just because you participate in rallies and believe that the state owes you extra stuff and special treatment.

Because you can always decry propaganda while simultaneously declare yourself unaffected tby it - and in this you see no contradiction.

Because you have the most peculiar and schizoid relationship with the state. It is obliged to pay you, recompense for you, educate you, take care of you, employ you, spoil you, not tire you, foster you and do likewise for your children and the only thing you have to do is point out how bad and incompetent it is.

[own additions henceforth] ...until a left-wing government is elected and then you insist that we must give more and more and MORE power to the state or else the entire country is doomed. When, after all that, you have a right-wing government again, only then and not a moment earlier you have to remember that it is bad to trust the state with excessive control and call for curbing its power.

Perhaps most importantly: Because you can spend years on end being allergic to any sign of dissent, labelling whomever disagrees with your ideology hateful or bigoted or whatever modern synonym is available and shutting down all debate, but when people get disillusioned by your collective attitude and turn en masse to other platforms and ideologies, you are under no obligation to assess your actions and words so far and consider the possibility that you might have been wrong; nope, it MUST be their fault and this only proves that they ARE hateful, bigoted, misogynistic, racist, homophobic, climate-change-denying Bible-thumpers after all and that YOU HAVE BEEN RIGHT ALL ALONG!

[automatismoateo]

Religion. Is. Fucked. Up. via /r/atheism

Submitted April 11, 2020 at 08:11PM by trickyman226 (Via reddit https://ift.tt/2V04oCK) Religion. Is. Fucked. Up.

I came out as an atheist to my best friend recently, and we’ve had a couple discussions. Our most recent one was an hour long, and was plagued with all the cliches you could think of a Christian saying, followed by me absolutely destroying her arguments from multiple angles.

At one point, I was discussing how barbaric the concept of hell is. “God is evil because he created us to worship him, and if we don’t do exactly how he pleases, we get tortured in hell forever. Eternal torture for finite sins is immoral, how can you justify that? Do you really believe that I deserve to be tortured forever? Like for eternity I will have my flesh seared from my bones, just for not finding Christianity that convincing?” And I was not entirely surprised when I got a “Yes, because you don’t believe.” From her. In ANY other context, saying that you should be tortured forever to someone would be taking it way too far. But to say something like that to your BEST FRIEND shows how deeply indoctrinated people are, and how harmful it is. If you’re in a belief where you believe your best friend deserves to be tortured forever, it may be extremely fucked up. After the call ended, she texted me.

*”Is all of this stemming from the fact that you’re so hurt by your mom, dad, and God?

Because the timeline lines up perfectly. You said you’ve been an atheist for about 8 months which is about 3-4 months after you told your mom. Before you told your mom, you were all about fighting the homosexuality and “I’m not gay I’m not gay I’m not gay” BUT right after you told your mom and (she flipped out) you said screw it all and started to embrace it”*

This enraged me slightly, to say the least. But I gave a nuanced response.

*”To say that me being gay didn’t have anything to do with my conversion would be a lie, but it would be a MASSIVELY dishonest portrayal to say that’s why I left. It was only starting to hit me at that time that I could not be in love and be Christian, so I knew I would have to be celibate (I tried the whole ‘you can be gay and Christian’ thing). I had massive questions about Christianity that had plagued me for years, but I always pushed them to the side, believing there were answers. I wanted to know god was real before going celibate forever (I literally almost killed myself over that realization, I wrote the suicide note and everything). I delved deep into the deep theological questions, and tried to put aside all biases. After MONTHS of research, I finally uncovered deeply rooted problems that I had with religion that ran WAY deeper than the whole gay shit. The very concept of a god was crumbling before me as I panicked. I tried to save my faith, but all I saw were more and more questions and problems as the religious community continued to hate me and hare people like me as well as backing people and policies that actively hurt people. I was exposed to the ugly parts of religion. I couldn’t hide behind Sunday school “Jesus loves everyone” shit because I understood what the Bible says justified every hateful action against me and more. The Bible is full of awful shit and if I understood what I do now, even if I wasn’t gay, and wasn’t hurt by people, I would still leave. It’s absolutely sickening a system that makes your own best friend say that you deserve ETERNAL TORTURE just for not believing in a specific god who’s evidence of existence is no better than another’s. The only “evidence” for a god is a book written by humans years after the events that happened that contradicts itself CONSTANTLY and says the reason god exists is “because the Bible says so.” A triomni god is contradictory, and science and the Bible do not mix, no matter how much Bay Area lies about it. Also, to insinuate that I shouldn’t leave a system that literally calls me a pedophile (including my mother) is frankly absurd. If a system is abusing you, it’s bad. Just because “it’s a religion” doesn’t make my abuse at its hands any worse. But the hurt is not why I left. I was willing to stay and give up love, which is the thing I want most in the world, just for a religion. All I wanted was shred of evidence. I found none. I left because it’s irrational. Yes, I have anger at religion, because I’m still being abused by it today. I don’t even know if I’ll have access to my family when I come out. I don’t know if I will be able to see my nieces and nephews anymore. Believe me if I could hold on to religion at all, I would have grasped tightly. I almost killed myself when I realized I might be seen as dead by my family. It was painful experience that I never asked for. All I wanted was proof god existed. That’s it. There was none. I am SO much healthier now. My depression is way down, I haven’t had suicidal thoughts in months (I had suicidal thoughts for like 2 years straight but that stopped after I left religion, huh🧐. I wonder why leaving something that says you’ll suffer just for existing is harmful). For the first time, I feel happy about myself. I’m not apologizing anymore, and I feel FREE. If religion makes you happy, and you don’t want to even think about changing your mind, fine. That’s your choice. You can stay ignorant and not look into things. But know that if your kid turns out to be gay, or be trans, please please don’t do to them what was done to me.

If you really feel good about your religion, that it will hold up scrutiny and criticism. Go find the arguments against god and refute them. If God is real and you know that for a fact, then it shouldn’t sway you right?”*

She said “damn” then took a few good minutes to respond.

”I just want to say this. I’ll be here for you no matter what, I think you know that. This is going to have to be one of the things that we’re going to agree to disagree on. I don’t know how to help you other than just to be an example and let God’s light shine through me and hopefully it’ll reach you but maybe you don’t want it to, that’s your choice..”

To that I just told her that I loved her (she’s just a friend. Want to make that clear. I’m gay af). Then I made a joke about dragging her to hell with me.

”I’m going to convince you because Satan payed me off for my soul and now I have to drag as many people down with me 😈”

We laughed about it then she said something weird.

”I’m dead serious about that tho. If you try to start convincing me to follow in your footsteps and sway over to your ways, you’re going to lose me. I don’t want that to happen but I have to protect myself.”

So from now on, religion is a no go topic between us. It’s hard for me to know how to feel about that. I’m okay never discussing it again, but I don’t know if she thinks of me as the same anymore. Idk it was something about being told I deserve eternal torture by my best friend who had been there for me fo years that really hurts. The was the first friend I ever came out to. She’s the reason I’m not dead. If I never told anyone, or told the wrong person, I would have committed suicide. Now, it just all feels weird.

I really fucking hate religion.