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spiderfreedom · 1 year ago

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thank you for this response! i'm not familiar with sara ahmed's work, but I want to respond to what you've brought up here, because I do think it's something that worries a lot of feminists: "isn't policing the boundary of womanhood inherently oppressive?" another major feminist who thinks among these lines is catherine mckinnon. i think the fear of policing and inappropriate exclusion is a valid one to bring up, so i'd like to respond to these quotes from sara ahmed. (apologies - it's going to be a really long reply...)

i think the dismissal of biology is crude and fearful. it's very noticeable that her rebuttal to the question of biology of the sexes is to bring up a book from 1972. moreover, a book that andrea dworkin later had major reservations about: she regretted the sections on bestiality/incest, and changed her mind about transsexualism. she even appears as a positive quote on janice raymond's 'the transsexual empire.' to bring up dworkin's first major work without putting it context with her later opinions is ahistorical!

while i don't think it's fair to expect feminists to be fully knowledgeable about biology, i do think more feminists should study evolutionary biology and the history of sex itself, because once you do, these rebuttals seem weak and unconvincing. it is true that most of our biology textbooks were written by white men. most of our physics textbooks were as well, and yet that knowledge is successfully used to fly planes and control voltages. white men are often wrong, but to say that a white man wrote something is not a counter argument. one should not enter the field with an argument about how biology is somehow wrong with a disavowed argument from a non-scientist in 1972. at the very least, one should be able to argue an alternative other meaning of 'sex', because the current biological definition is useful and pertinent in 99% of cases.

(and this isn't even taking into account that the nature of our sexed bodies forms a vector of oppression that feminism should be responsible for.)

as for socialization, i've written about it here, and she seems to produce no counterargument beyond 'socialization is not always successful (therefore trans women should be included in feminism)'. i've written in the other post about this - gendered socialization failing to produce intended outcomes 100% doesn't mean that socialization isn't real, or that it does not affect people, or that it didn't occur. no acculturation process is 100% reliable. and in the case of trans women who transition late in life, i have a very hard time believing they can spend decades in a male body that is viewed as male by society, and somehow not have absorbed any of the beliefs of male supremacy relating to them and their bodies. this is not a personal barb at trans women, but an observation on how socialization is an insidious force. i'm a gender non conforming person myself who resisted a significant amount of socialization, and i've had to unlearn so much of it.

the final redline shows the crux of the matter - a fear and anxiety that if one group of people can be excluded from feminism (male people who take cross-sex hormones and live among women), one can justify other groups of people being excluded. disabled women? women of color? lesbians? as such, nobody claiming to be a woman should ever be excluded from feminism, because to evaluate and judge claims of womanhood is to essentially harm the feminist project.

i disagree with her points, if only because nobody can be included in everything all of the time. some boundaries do need to be policed. some sub groups need to be made. lesbian women and bisexual women, for instance, have much in common, but lesbians have unique struggles that bisexual women do not, and lesbians wanting to create lesbian-exclusive spaces to organize for their specific needs is not an attack on bisexuals. moreover, the two groups can come together to work on needs they have in common. the ability to be specific is not a threat, it can be an asset.

and i think something similar can happen with people who are on the 'edges' of womanhood. i think becoming too attached to one definition dogmatically does risk excluding people who need help the most. at the same time, we also need to be honest about what we think is happening in order to address intra-group conflict. i think it is perfectly understandable that many trans women believe that they should be included in feminism, because trans women who pass as women face misogyny. (and even trans women who do not pass are often treated with strange misogynistic comments - something i'd like to write about at some point.)

i think feminists should be tactical about who they ally with instead of dogmatic. trans women, as a demographic, are not the enemy of cis women, even if we have conflict about language and female-exclusive spaces. similarly, women with 5ARD condition, as a demographic, are not the enemy of non-intersex non-transgender women, even if there is conflict when it comes to sport. perhaps i am optimistic, but i believe these conflicts between women can be resolved, or at least moved forward, in a way that elevates all women's rights.

but there also needs to be space for open discussion about the ways in which we hurt each other, to acknowledge that there is conflict instead of hiding it. in mainstream feminism, the discussion about harm is mostly 'ways cis women hurt trans women.' to even begin to bring up the question of 'ways trans women hurt cis women' is fraught territory - you are accused of transphobia, transmisogyny, "invoking the myth of the predatory trans woman", invalidating the trans woman, calling all trans women men, and so on. and this fraught territory has expanded over time, such that to refer to women as being people who are female - a definition that is handy and operative 99% of the time - is treated as an aggression. simultaneously, the term 'female' itself is bleached out of existence, as it causes distress for both trans women and trans men.

there is more than one form of policing. the mainstream feminism worries about policing womanhood. we should also talk about policing the ways we discuss the harmful experiences we have. there is currently a lot of policing of what can be discussed, on what language non-transgender female people are to use to discuss themselves, and on what experiences they are allowed to bring up. this leads to shame, silencing, detachment, alienation. it means the language used to discuss a whole set of common feminine experiences - feeling confused and even disgusted at one's changing body during puberty, or wishing to be male to escape unwanted sexualization, or mistrusting men for their treatment of women - is policed and rerouted: are you sure you aren't trans? have you considered that you may be non-binary? did you forget the issue is formless patriarchy and not individual men? one slowly silences oneself, questions one's frames, loses one's own self-trust. the analyses and experiences lost due to this policing and self-policing are surely worth grieving.

i think the best solution to this problem is a theory that recognizes that different aspects of womanhood are relevant at different times. it makes sense to include trans women sex workers in your analysis of the ways in which the sex industry harms women, because the way trans women are treated as a sort of 'perfect feminine sex object' is relevant. it does not make sense to include trans women in your analysis of the ways in which abortion access affects women's lives, because trans women are categorically unable to get pregnant, and are in fact capable of impregnating cis women - surely a conflict point to be discussed and resolved.

i think chasing universal definitions of womanhood will leave us confused - and that goes for the definition that 'a woman is anyone who identifies as one.' for some reason, people don't consider that a universal or essentialist definition, but it is, in that it considers the essence of womanhood to be self-identification in some way. the truth is - sometimes identity is relevant! sometimes how you are viewed by society is relevant! and sometimes having a female body is relevant! feminism needs to be flexible to tackle the issues facing us, or we're going to continue wasting our time arguing for our personal flavor of policing.

thank you for your response, it gave a lot of food for thought. i think radical feminists should look beyond surface level arguments and try to understand why the argument that 'womanhood should not be policed at the borders' is resonating with so many women. i don't think it's as simple as peer pressure from trans rights organizations. i think this fear is something that does affect women, and addressing it is important to moving forward. otherwise, the movement will continue alienating women who believe that one day, feminism will stop caring about them.

not gonna effortpost about this today because I gotta get work done but real short

I notice this argument being used all the time: "you can't make a definition of 'woman' that does not exclude some people that we call women. therefore, the only good definition for 'women' that includes all people we call woman is 'people who identify as woman.'"

and the thing is, philosophically, "you can't make a definition of {thing} that does not exclude some examples we also call {thing}" is something that applies to almost every category! it's literally a whole philosophical problem of "what is the definition of a chair?" didn't we have a whole meme about how nobody can even agree on what a sandwich is?

it's not something unique to women, tables, horses, sandwiches, salads, or anything else. it is a problem of language itself.

you can apply the exact same argument to other categories: "how do you define 'blackness' without excluding some people we call 'black'?" if you're american, maybe you will use the one-drop rule, in which case halsey is black and anyone who had a single black ancestor four generations ago. but is that actually how we use the word black? does that capture something meaningful about being black in america? how about being black in the world?

let's go further: "how do you define 'transgender' without excluding some people we call 'transgender'?" within the transgender community, there is no real agreement on what it means to be transgender! beyond a vague sense of "identifying as the gender society assigned to you", but even that can be challenged. if a cis (female) woman takes testosterone, starts hanging around trans women, calling herself a trans woman, is confused for a trans woman by the people that she talks to, experiences oppression on the basis of being perceived as a trans woman... can she be considered a trans woman, despite being female?

ultimately "how do you define things" is a philosophy of language question more than anything else. perfect definitions that encapsulate sets neatly do not exist, because the terms we use are socially contingent. when people came up with the word 'table', they didn't also create a logically rigorous definition for it. they just said 'well, this thing here is a table.' and then people argue about the edge cases. because also, nobody actually agrees on the members of sets of every single word!! just like how we all have different ideas of what is and isn't a sandwich!

that's the other thing, people already disagree about what words refer to. someone who has the 5ARD intersex condition has testes but may be raised and socialized as girl because their parents think their genitals kinda look like a vulva. is this person a 'girl/woman'? people are not sure... which makes sense... because it is an edge case. is a stool a chair? is a hotdog a sandwich? is an open sandwich a sandwich? the further you get from the 'prototype', the more people are going to be disagree.

so the entire question 'what is a woman' is just an exercise in confusing philosophy of language framed as saying something very meaningful about the social category of woman. it is not! it is a problem of language that we cannot define 'woman' or 'chair' or 'salad' or 'horse' or 'gamer' in a rigorous way. it is nothing inherent to women, chairs, salads, horses, or gamers.

(but what about science?) good question, what about science? science tries to operate differently from the way laypeople talk about things. scientists take common words, like 'energy', and give them different, more rigorous definitions in order to try to figure something out about the world. for laypeople, 'energy' is something vague and diffuse. for physicists, 'energy' is the force that causes things to move, and its behavior is described by certain mathematical models.

similarly, laypeople may take 'woman' to mean 'a person with breasts and vulva/vagina', but a biologist may have a more rigorous definition of 'female': 'producing large gametes.' this is useful because it helps us see commonalities between creatures that may look really different, like flowers, bedbugs, asparaguses, cats, and humans - all very different creatures where sex looks different, but still have a distinction between 'producing large gametes' and 'producing small gametes' - there's no intermediate gamete. biologists have a different word for what people/animals look like, and that is 'phenotype.' when a parent looks at a child with 5ARD condition, they see the child has no visible penis and thus 'looks 'looks female.' a biologist would say that the child's sex is male (because they have the reproductive equipment to produce sperm, and none of the reproductive equipment to produce ova) but that their phenotype is ambiguous. sex is a binary variable, but human development is a long process where are a lot can happen, and so sexual phenotypes are not variable.

so already we're pretty far from the lay definition, because laypeople don't have the same idea of what sex is as scientists do, and don't distinguish between someone's sex and their appearance - for them, the sex is the appearance. who is right? it depends on what you want to do. scientists want to discover meaningful things about nature, and their definitions are far more useful than the layperson's for that purpose. which definitions are useful is also socially determined - we may feel sympathy for the child with 5ARD, told they were a girl their whole life, but who learns that they have testes. should we continue to treat this child as a girl/woman, or should we encourage them to view themselves as a boy/man? that is a social, cultural, legal argument, not a scientific one. the biological truth is the same regardless of the social, cultural, legal arguments, but there may be a compelling case to act differently. that's on us as humans to decide!

so yeah I'm just tired of hearing the same damn arguments over and over again. "what is a woman? is someone with CAIS a woman? is someone with 5ARD? what if we take a young non-intersex male and give them female hormones?" like this will never take us to where we want to go because it's a philosophy of language question disguised as a scientific one. the real question is, what are we talking about and which definitions will help us in that? if you believe that female people are exploited on the basis of their female bodily functions, then obviously you want to bring attention to that by using the word 'female'! if you want to focus on feminine socialization, then it may be useful to bring up cases of people who may not technically be female but were still raised as them, like Erika/Erik Schinegger, a male (possibly with 5ARD) who was raised as a girl and believed he was a girl for most of his youth.

trying to make a single catchy response to a question of what is 'x' is never going to satisfy everyone, because it cannot, because language is imperfect and real life is messy. scientists try to cut nature at the joints, but their cuts may not look like laypeople's! (and don't get me started on scientists disagreeing on what is a joint and what is not, metaphorically.)

and at its worst, when chasing an ironclad definition, you get bizarre answers that seem detached from reality, like saying 'people with CAIS condition are genotypically male and have underdeveloped testes, so we should treat them as males'. they may be reproductive males, but they have a female phenotype, and are raised as girls, and are literally unreceptive to testosterone - to treat them as 'men' on the basis of developmental or reproductive sex certainly seems to be missing something very important from the picture! see below: a person with Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS):

does it really make sense to say this person is a man due to her having testes, which technically makes her reproductively male? is that capturing reality? or are you trying to force reality to fit into your definition because you're afraid that if you cannot create a perfect definition of 'woman', that we will never be able to talk about biology and female oppression?

tl;dr: questions like 'what is a woman' are designed to be time-wasters because they are not actually answerable because language sucks. argue for your operative definition, your context, and move on. and don't be afraid to change definitions based on the context... sometimes reproductive sex is relevant, sometimes phenotype is more important, sometimes socialization is more relevant. this is not weakness, it's recognizing that reality is not so rigid and sometimes you must use a different model to get the understanding you want.

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rantingcrocodile · 3 years ago

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It feels wrong to interact with vocal bisexuals on radfem tumblr. I myself am bisexual but I’m also autistic and struggle to understand intellectual conversations and take things personal. I have trouble finding a voice for myself and fear hurting others with my selfish need to feel validated. When I openly made an alt to reblog content I followed the first people I saw, who eventually turned out to be racist or homophobic straight women with the evidence provided in long formats by other popular bloggers. I unfollowed them and followed the new blogs who called them out. I’ve always been uncomfortable hearing the term bihet because it felt similar to being called mixed in a derogatory way. Yet despite this I still ignored it and saw it similar to how you’d make fun of white straight people in libfem circles and saw my personal discomfort as a sign of bigotry. I ended up finding your blog and felt validated by a lot of it but someone I followed said you posted misinformation and lied, so I deleted my reblogs and went on my way. Someone I casually followed more so for humor called out a women for calling bisexuals demons and dick oppressed and I thought “of course this is wrong, look how violently she’s talking about a sexuality she personally dislikes, even if she’s valid in disliking them”. I assumed all the larger blogs I followed would agree with it and say it was hostile towards bisexuals but, they all said she was in the right to openly talk about her abuse and she, in private, is a wonderful women who doesn’t hate bisexuals. I’m still struggling with how I feel about all that and I’ll never agree with or say lesbians hurt bisexuals, but there’s a chance they could spread misinformation about them by accident. I’m trying to feel more comfortable interacting with other bisexuals but it’s still going to loom over me that I’m being bigoted and homophobic by agreeing with some of your points and interacting with you. I don’t want to harm people and I don’t want to be harmed, but I think it’s all my personal fault for not understanding a lot and being so quick to get hurt over name calling

This is long, so for my own benefit (and hopefully yours too!) I'm going to break it down and answer it a bit at a time so I don't accidentally gloss over anything. You've taken the time to write this all out to me, so you deserve my time in answering it fully.

It feels wrong to interact with vocal bisexuals on radfem tumblr.

Honestly, it probably feels wrong because of how hated bisexuals are on radblr, unless those bisexuals agree with hating other bisexuals, or say nothing when there's biphobia.

I myself am bisexual but I’m also autistic and struggle to understand intellectual conversations and take things personal.

It’s pretty normal to take things personally, don’t worry about that. It takes a ton of practice and life experience to stop taking things personally and plenty of others who are much older than you’ll be take things personally, too.

If there’s anything that I say that I don’t word well enough, please let me know! That would be my fault for not being clear enough, not your fault for not understanding. <3

I have trouble finding a voice for myself and fear hurting others with my selfish need to feel validated.

You would only hurt others if your need to be validated ended up invalidating them.

For example: “trans women” that say they’re lesbians want to be validated, but that invalidates actual lesbians. That’s something that’s selfish and hurts others. You wanting to be validated based on your bisexuality or anything else that’s personal to you won’t hurt others.

It’s incredibly hard to find and use your voice, particularly online, when far too many people often rush to attack others. That’s also not a “you” problem, that’s a common problem, too. Especially being women, when we’re taught from a young age that our voices don’t matter.

When I openly made an alt to reblog content I followed the first people I saw, who eventually turned out to be racist or homophobic straight women with the evidence provided in long formats by other popular bloggers. I unfollowed them and followed the new blogs who called them out.

I’m really sorry that that was your first experience! The thing is, unless people are being constantly racist or homophobic, it’s very easy to miss posts from them that are racist or homophobic, or bigoted in any other way. Real life happens, too, and you can’t be expected to know everything that everyone you follow thinks or has written.

It’s a great thing that you saw how harmful they were and unfollowed them, and that’s the only thing that counts here.

I’ve always been uncomfortable hearing the term bihet because it felt similar to being called mixed in a derogatory way. Yet despite this I still ignored it and saw it similar to how you’d make fun of white straight people in libfem circles and saw my personal discomfort as a sign of bigotry.

“Bihet” makes absolutely no sense and is deliberately used in a derogatory way. Biphobes try to gaslight bisexuals with internalised biphobia by pretending that it’s somehow about “bisexuals in opposite-sex relationships” even though we all know how much radblr (rightfully!) hates the term “bi lesbian” and would (rightfully!) never accept a bisexual being called a “bihomo.”

But what you’re describing there is more gaslighting. How can it be a sign of bigotry to feel hurt or uncomfortable by a word being used like a slur? That isn’t being bigoted to anyone else. That’s saying that you don’t want people to use that term. Others not using that term doesn’t harm them and isn’t bigoted to them. It’s all biphobes twisting themselves in knots to try and silence bisexuals and pretend that biphobia isn’t a big deal.

They have nothing in common with the mockery of straight, white people as a group. They have more in common with the people that pretend attacking “white women” isn’t misogyny.

I ended up finding your blog and felt validated by a lot of it but someone I followed said you posted misinformation and lied, so I deleted my reblogs and went on my way.

I can guess who said that. At no point have I ever posted misinformation and I have never lied.

Ironically, the people lying about that only prove that biphobia exists, because they’re deliberately smearing me and lying about me for no other reason other than I call out biphobia. They don’t want to admit that biphobia is real and a problem because if they do admit that, they would have to admit being biphobic and would have to apologise for that and improve as people. They’re so arrogant and enjoy being biphobic that they can’t do that. It only shows how awful they are as individuals.

Someone I casually followed more so for humor called out a women for calling bisexuals demons and dick oppressed and I thought “of course this is wrong, look how violently she’s talking about a sexuality she personally dislikes, even if she’s valid in disliking them”.

Exactly.

I would say this though: when is anyone valid in disliking an entire oppressed group? That’s bigotry, automatically.

Lesbians and gay men don’t oppress each other based on being lesbians and gay men, but gay men can be hateful and bigoted towards lesbians, and lesbians can be hateful and bigoted towards gay men. If a lesbian said she “hates all gay men” because of a few who behaved badly, that would be homophobic and wrong. It would be wrong the other way around, too. There’s no “oppressed” and “oppressor” when it comes to their sexualities. It would be fair for lesbians to say they didn’t trust gay men because they’re men, but nothing else.

I assumed all the larger blogs I followed would agree with it and say it was hostile towards bisexuals but, they all said she was in the right to openly talk about her abuse and she, in private, is a wonderful women who doesn’t hate bisexuals.

That’s because radblr is deeply biphobic and will always take the biphobe’s side over any bisexual. The few big bisexual bloggers don’t talk about biphobia, as far as I’ve seen, and there’s constant sucking up to biphobes. It’s infuriating to me personally, considering this is supposed to be a space that encourages critical thinking, but really, like every other online space, it’s about a cult of personality and users trying to say whatever they can to gain as many followers as possible, and I find that to be both cowardly and pathetic.

I’m still struggling with how I feel about all that and I’ll never agree with or say lesbians hurt bisexuals, but there’s a chance they could spread misinformation about them by accident.

Lesbians as a group do not harm bisexuals as a group. Bisexuals as a group do not harm lesbians as a group. We’re both individual groups who are oppressed by straight people, that’s all.

There are individual lesbians who are biphobic, and then a whole bunch more biphobes that suck up to those lesbians because a lot of radblr has this childish belief that “lesbian = better feminist” and “lesbian = more important than everyone else” when it just isn’t true.

What I want more than anything is for there to be an end to biphobia being accepted and actual solidarity between lesbians and bisexuals.

I follow some amazing lesbians and have spoken to great lesbians, and we support each other. It’s definitely not an “us vs them” situation, it’s a “horrible people vs nice people” situation.

I’m trying to feel more comfortable interacting with other bisexuals but it’s still going to loom over me that I’m being bigoted and homophobic by agreeing with some of your points and interacting with you.

The most important thing for you, always, is to feel as safe as possible personally. If you want to interact with me in secret and learn things, then I completely support that. If you want to DM me to talk, then that stays private now and forever.

The fact is, though, that there is nothing at all that’s bigoted or homophobic about me saying, “Hey, bisexuals are oppressed for being bisexual” and “We should treat biphobia as seriously as homophobia.” There is nothing homophobic in that and there is nothing bigoted in that. Those are pathetic lies by biphobes that are desperate to silence me.

The problem with that specific group, quite frankly, is that they underestimated my intelligence. They tried to silence me by calling me homophobic and racist, and as soon as I slapped those arguments down, they all suddenly stopped interacting with me, because they have no actual arguments. They focus their attacks on bisexuals that are less certain. It’s what bigots in general always end up trying to do, and it shows their cowardice and desperation to keep being “allowed” to be bigoted.

I don’t want to harm people and I don’t want to be harmed, but I think it’s all my personal fault for not understanding a lot and being so quick to get hurt over name calling

None of that is your fault.

First of all, the most intelligent people can make the most complicated subject easy to understand to any random person on the street. If you’re not sure about what someone else is saying, then that’s their problem, and they need to explain it in a different way so it actually makes more sense. If they can’t explain it in a different way, then that proves that they don’t actually understand what they’re talking about in the first place.

Secondly, of course name-calling is hurtful. It’s always hurtful. You’re a human being and you’re allowed to feel hurt or upset over name-calling.

If you want my honest opinion - and I think you do, because otherwise, you would never have sent me a message in the first place - I think you should unfollow all the biphobes and block them. I think that you deserve to have a space online where you’re not being gaslighted into feeling “bad” about something that’s perfectly understandable.

If you’re interested in radical feminism, why should you have to deal with so-called “feminists” that obsess over hating a specific group of women? That’s not only a sign of their biphobia, but also that they’re misogynistic. They have to be, obsessing over hating bisexual women like we’re the “acceptable” group of women to hate.

Why should you have to put up with people that make you feel guilty for being hurt?

I personally don’t think you should. I think you should have a safe space with people who respect you, where you can practice using your voice without fear, where you’re allowed to feel hurt, where your sexuality is respected.

If you can’t do that, I completely understand. Like I said, you have to put yourself and your personal safety first. In the meantime, think about what I’ve said. If I haven’t been clear enough, let me know and I’ll reword it. If you ever want to talk, please just send me a message and we can talk. I’ll be right there as soon as I’m online, and I’ll always be here for you to talk, and it’ll always be entirely private. No one will ever know that we’ve talked unless you say that we’ve talked.

But if you don’t take anything else away from this long response: please stop blaming yourself. It’s not your fault at all, I promise.

#crocodilian answers #<3

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lunarssong · 3 years ago

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okay okay so let's start with. tumblr user fag[redacted] sees somebody dare say queer and goes "[slur] community"... like queer hasn't been pretty thoroughly reclaimed for literal decades, versus the f-slur being like. yes, plenty of people reclaim it, but holy shit in what world can you be putting it in your url and still acting like queer is some kind of bad gross dirty evil word.

hmmmm. okay so first of all i want to make fun of "youre literally not bisexual then" because. i'm not????? i'm ace you fool. nowhere did i say i'm bisexual... and also wow. just... wow. "bi is the only mspec label needed!!!1!! but if your mspec attraction doesn't include both binary genders, then get fucked"

HMMM. fun fact! there are so many people out there who, if i were attracted to them, it would be actively misgendering for me, a guy, to classify that attraction as gay. just because someone isn't the polar opposite binary gender doesn't mean they're close enough to the same gender for my attraction to them to be gay. that's not how it works

i truly don't even know what to say to this one because it's just. so objectively batshit

hey bestie you dropped your kpop icon

(to people not on twitter, for some reason 99% of the time when an exclusionist saying shit like this, especially with these specific speaking patterns, they have a kpop idol for their icon, and are almost always white, 13-16 years old, usually a cis or tme nonbinary lesbian but occasionally transmasc)

in all seriousness though. first of all, i sent exactly ONE ask and then completely stopped, this is all just continuing fully unprovoked. clarification added because honestly the second one of these posts really seems like they're implying i called them "violently transphobic", but in reality i [checks notes] gave a genuine warning about how the people they're surrounding themselves with are the exact opposite of safe for them, and offered to explain why.

though, yeah, they're absolutely being all kinds of fucking vile at this point. if i had been awake before the block, i certainly would have called this fuck transphobic to their face, because that's literally what they're being!

y. yeah. okay buddy.. pan people are literally not hurting you by existing, though you sure are hurting them by pulling all this bullshit lmao. i thought we left this discourse in 2016???

also "picrew icon" as an insult has awful vibes, thanks. the two most likely groups to use picrew icons are trans people and plurals, because fun fact, not everyone can just take a fucking selfie and get a photo of what the real them looks like! guess who's trans and dysphoric about their face and also part of a system so our body's face doesn't look exactly like theirs? yeah, you fucking guessed it, me!

tbh i can't think of literally any other possible meaning to "picrew icon" as an insult besides transphobia and pluralphobia??

"why do you think we need to differentiate between level of preference so bad". apparently, in this person's mind, "bi just means 2+ genders, different bi people can be attracted to different genders. for example, i'm bi, and women aren't one of the genders i'm attracted to" is talking about preference. what the actual fuck. i honestly don't know what else to say besides just repeating "what the actual fuck"! fully not being attracted to a specific gender =/= a preference for people who aren't that specific gender.

if someone tells you they're a guy and not attracted to women, and you feel the need to start calling that a fucking preference. HOW do you not see the problem with telling them that actually they are attracted to women, just rarely, a la "you just haven't met the right woman yet"

and of course as the cherry on top of the shitshow sundae. they reblog this after all of that mess! yes i know it's about shinigami eyes, and i honestly don't know anything about the op, but. following all of that shit with "learn to be aware of how transmisogyny affects this shit" as they ACTIVELY say no fuck you i refuse to even try critical thinking.. man. just. wow

i'm kinda hesitant to post the scs bc they're like my age and i don't want to callout-post them, but ohhhh my god i had. such an interaction the other day. like, peak exclus hypocrisy to the point it almost circled back around to hilarious

cw for queerphobia, biphobia, panphobia, transphobia, transmisogyny and also just misogyny in general, ableism, enbyphobia, etc

highlights include:

they took issue with me saying queer and were going "q slur" but. their url literally has the f slur. hello??

"i'm not being transphobic" as they spout dogwhistles, and also just

i got told i'm gay and not bi because i'm not attracted to women.... less than one post away from an ask mentioning a point i brought up using gender labels as an example where their response has an implied claim they support nonbinary people. how do you manage to acknowledge nonbinary people in one breath and then define them out of existence in the next

and then as a follow up somebody came in their inbox and called me biphobic because of some shit about feeling the need to label preferences. buddy i don't think completely not being attracted to a gender is a "preference" but okay. (also has the vibe of "your orientation isn't actually that, you just have internalized phobia")

also "well i'm autistic too so this gives me the right to insult my perception of your tone (i apologized in advance bc i get told a lot i sound hostile when i'm not) [shits on tone indicators like they're not sometimes helpful to even neurotypicals]", "bi isn't an umbrella term" (when it very literally is, both in reality and by any incorrect definition that acknowledges even just one nonbinary gender)

and of course. "hey so this ideology you bought into is literally part of the radfem/terf indoctrination/recruitment shit, like. a shit ton of them have seriously publicly admitted that it was a step for them" "you sound like a fucking cunt (actual quote), i'm not being transphobic and how dare you just toss around those words. anyway all nonbinary people are inherently included in gay men's attraction, you're wrong about your own orientation, fuck you you're blocked. moving on! time to rb a post about how it's very important to educate yourself on transmisogynistic dogwhistles—"

i think i'm probably going to put the screenshots in a reblog to this post with their url partially censored? and go through each one individually because there are just.. so many problems, holy shit, and they're posting this shit publicly anyways so. i feel like they've lost their right to not getting reposted by a peer whose orientation they directly tried to redefine lmao

#niko speaks #actual post #long post #content warning tag shit:#panphobia #enbyphobia #ableism #queerphobia #transmisogyny #transphobia #biphobia #tumblr fucking sucks and isn't suggesting tags correctly #so hopefully i remembered all of the ones it decided to not give me

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asymbina · 6 years ago

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Yes. This is all true.

The reason I hesitate to impose modern Western QUILTBAG labels on people from other times and cultures isn't because I believe that the system is inadequate to describe their identities, it's that I don't think it's always appropriate to assign labels on another person's behalf. We can see an example of this within this very system: there are people who have largely experienced the word "queer" as an attack, rather than as an inclusive umbrella term, and are uncomfortable with being referred to as queer people. Conversely, there are people for whom "queer" is the only identifier they are fully comfortable with.

And, of course, there's the hostile language of TERFs, who describe lesbian trans women as "heterosexual males."

Moreover, when we're talking about people from a non-Western culture, there are elements of colonialism and imperialism to such labeling. For example, the Thai third-gender concept of kathooey is often taken in the West to mean a trans woman, but it can mean a trans woman, a cross-dresser, or even an effeminate cis gay man. And that doesn't even touch on all the Thai words that encompass gender, presentation, and sexuality in one word (don't ask me about them — I'm not Thai — I just know that they exist).

Similarly, I reject the practice some white American queer people have adopted of referring to any Native trans person as "Two-spirit", as if "Two-spirit" is simply "Native + trans." Suffice to say say that this is not the case; for more information on this, rather than looking to a white person like me who does not claim nor is claimed by a Native people, listen to what actual Two-spirit folks have to say about this. I'd recommend looking up the Native radio show and podcast Trailblazers, and the episode they did about Two-spirit.

Here's another example: in education about the history and universality of transness, we often cite the Bugis people of Indonesia, who have no less than five genders defined in their culture. They correspond roughly to cis man, cis woman, trans man, trans woman, and nonbinary (though I'm not sure if it maps to any particular nonbinary gender we have defined in the West); however, the expectation is that men (cis or trans) will marry, and have children with, women (cis or trans); i.e., in Western QUILTBAG feminist parlance, it is a system that is not cissexist but is still heteronormative. Note that I say this purely in a descriptive sense, although typically we use words like the above to indicate a value judgment; after all, many third-gender systems and concepts seem to exist in order to sustain heteronormative institutions and heteropatriarchy, at least under a naïve, colonized Western feminist analysis.

And that brings me to my last point: often, when we encounter such cultural concepts as hijra or kathooey in the modern world, we're seeing them both through our own cultural lens and how they exist after centuries of colonialism and cultural imperialism. In modern South Asia, hijra are often severely marginalized and oppressed; and yet, prior to British invasion of the subcontinent, hijra had important, even sacred, roles in the commeunity. The Native American concept of Two-spirit is a modern one, which is why it exists in so many diverse Native and First Nations peoples and cultures; it is, among other things, a reclaiming of the cultural territory of gender and sexuality after centuries of settlers working to eradicate these cultures entirely.

So here's the short version: queer people have always existed. Gay people have always existed. Trans people have always existed. Different cultures and times have yielded many different systems and institutions to engage with them, either through oppression, limited normalization, or some other option. It's also worth noting that, because queerness exists in a liminal space if your default expectation is cisheteronormativity, queer people have often been seen as sacred, or touched by the divine, although this is by no means universal.

Lastly, because I just remembered this: the other day I learned of a book, published early this year, that asserts that the modern Western concepts of gender, and specifically of women as emotionally sensitive nurturers and men as logic-driven scholars and warriors, and that these stereotypes are based in neurochemistry or whatever, is a product of Western white supremacist, colonialist thought. That is, a society in which men and women have the cultural and social space to fully indulge these "natural" inclinations (i.e. women towards robust sentimentality and men towards robust intellectualism) is a more "advanced" society, if you will. And this paradigm is still used implicitly, for examples, to defeminize Black women, to hypersexualize Black men and Latinx men and women, and to portray East Asian men, in particular, as effeminate or demasculinized. I'm interested in the book and will probably pick it up sooner or later, and I've read a column by the author which summarizes her arguments and findings and I'm not sure I agree with everything, but it's definitely something that expands a great deal on what I've written above.

homosexuality means attraction to the same sex. marsha p johnson and sylvia rivera were homosexual trans women. trans women who are same sex attracted have even been shown to have different brains than trans women attracted to the opposite sex. so yes, you are saying you don't believe homosexuality exists bc you think everything revolves around gender identity? how does this apply to transfeminine third genders in other cultures, who have no connection to the lesbian community? closeted trans?

Homosexuality means attraction to another person of the same gender as you. Always has meant, always will mean. Homosexual men are attracted to men, no qualifiers. Homosexual women are attracted to women, no qualifiers. Ergo, a trans woman that’s homosexual is attracted to other women. It’s not a hard thing to figure out. It’s always been about the gender of the person you’re attracted to, it’s never been about their genitals, no matter how much people want to keep framing it as such.

Or, are you suggesting that lesbians are required to be attracted to men to really be lesbians? Because if you’re arguing sex to invalidate the gender of trans women, that’s what you’re saying. You’re saying that trans men, who are men but were born with a vagina, are women in terms of their sex and therefore lesbians should be attracted to them?

Like this guy, Buck Angel:

Are you suggesting that for a lesbian to be a lesbian, she’d need to be attracted to this guy? Because if you are, well, that’s kinda gross and I’d suggest you reconsider.

That’s the kicker, you see. All I want is for people to stop invalidating trans women, but so many people who don’t want to stop invalidating trans women feel that it’s so important to do so that they’re willing to invalidate all lesbians just for a chance to attack trans women. Sounds pretty suspicious, no?

As for how this applies to transfeminine people from other cultures, whether that means third gender or something else, what’s not to understand? Granted, the idea of being gay is a little more complex to discuss if you’re non-binary, but that’s due to our slow uptake of language that’s inclusive of non-binary people. I figure that’s one of the reasons there are non-binary people who might describe themselves as non-binary women, transfeminine, or other indicators that both acknowledge that they’re non-binary but also include them in the definition of ‘women who love other women’. Sure, it’s not exact, but in what way is gender supposed to be an exact, binary model?

And closeted trans people are still themselves. A closeted trans woman is still a woman, even before she transitions. Woo, spooky, I know! It’s not like trans people get some surgery and it redefines who they are and what their gender is.

PS: Last I checked, Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera were both bisexual women, which suggested that they were attracted to other women like themselves and also other genders too.

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jottingprosaist · 7 years ago

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So close, yet so, so very far away from accuracy.

The acronym "LGBT" didn't spring fully formed from Zeus' head with the value-neutral passive-voiced intent to support some people but not other "just because." The idea that the modern acronym was "created to support L G B and T people specifically" is a lie unbased in actual queer history, meant to fuel modern intracommunity exclusion politics. Let's have some history:

The acronym began as "GL." As in "gay and lesbian." The nearest gay bar to me was called, up until like 2015, "the GLC" as in "Gay and Lesbian Community." Now gay and lesbian didn't mean quite the same thing a few decades ago as they do now: namely, they could include bi people and ace people (who didn't specifically use that label yet). We know this from oral histories of actual bi and ace people who were in the "GL" community of the time, using those labels. Unfortunately I can't cite links because I'm on mobile, but you can look in my "queer history" tag.

Anyway. History moves on a bit and the "B" gets added as bi people gain and desire greater visibility. There was pushback against this from biphobes within the community. Since bi people were and always had been in the community, though, they stuck around.

Then, due to an organized push by lesbians to have gay men be somewhat less the singular unrepresentative focal point of the entire movement, the acronym was shaken up a bit: from GLB(T) to LGB(T).

Where's the T? Not there from the start, that's for sure, even though trans people were damn well there. Even as recently as the early 2000s I remember hearing the term "LGB" from adults around me, newscasters, etc. (I was a smallish child and not involved with the community yet.) Many cis LGB people did not want to be associated with transgender people. Many still don't. I think it was in... 2011? 12? that there was a publicized attempt by some cis gay men to push the T out of the acronym because "gender issues aren't the same as sexuality issues and we're not really the same community, go make your own." (Sorry again for shoddy citing, but again, see my 'queer history' tag.)

Thus, saying that the modern community should rightfully exclude certain groups of people who are newly organizing/getting vocal/putting labels on things that have always existed, just because the modern acronym doesn't already include them, is an ass-backwards bit of logic designed to exclude. "They're excluded because they were always excluded." (Never mind that ace people were always in the community, even if they didn't self-identify as such. Never mind that ace people who weren't in the community, who didn't KNOW yet that they could be something other than a "broken" "heterosexual," truly deserved and could have benefited from inclusion in the community.) The acronym isn't set-in-stone community law. It's a flexible and evolving description meant to serve the community, not a dress code meant to define us.

In fact, "LGBT" HAS been expanded multiple times to include more people, since at least the mid-2000s (in my memory alone): LGBTQ+, LGBTQIA, LGBTQQ2IA, QUILTBAG, etc. Like it or not, people within the community have been officially opening more doors for a decade. If you choose not to acknowledge that and stubbornly stick with LGBT because it serves your purposes... that's on you.

Re: the comparison to feminism vs. humanism-- I disagree. You're suggesting that adding "QIA+" to the acronym (and welcoming those people into the community) would be letting unmarginalized people into the community, and would distract from the true political purposes and needs of the "real" community members, all to serve a need for liberal lip-service to "true equality" without regard for historical context. This is not the case. "LGBT" (more like "LGB.....T?") is comparable to "white feminism." It serves members of a marginalized group who are also privileged on another axis. They're generally respectable and their voices are now fairly mainstream. They've made social and political gains (good for them) but now they refuse to help others. In fact, they made some of those gains by throwing other members of their own group, who are multiply marginalized or otherwise less respectable, under the bus. (Women of colour. Trans, ace, NB people.) The group would be stronger, more effective, more compassionate if it included everyone. But they don't want to.

You're right that the acronym has always left people out. But that's because people inside the acroynm WANTED to leave others out. All cis people can be transphobic. All binary people can be binarist. All monosexual people can be bi/panphobic. All allosexual people can be aphobic.

We can all also do better than that.

Take a look at your history and decide what your actions are saying about you.

when ur ace and u wanna follow a blog

#lgbtqia #looks like i'm going to have to switch to using this version if the old one has become a dogwhistle #damn-- lgbt just saved me keystrokes on mobile #intracommunity shit #queer history

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