#I'm trans I'm a lesbian I'm not fully white and yet I will always be unlearning transphobia homophobia racism etc

[edelgard-more-like-baedelgard]

re: your note from 2 days ago about femboy never being intended to be an identity, how would i recover from defining my identity as a femboy thinking it was the first time that my "latent self" could be considered deeply valuable and beautiful, thus making my egg cracking the loss of identity instead of the birth of a new one, and never fully being able to love the tgirl identity I never asked for nearly as much as the femboy identity i claimed for myself.

Even though I've become well aware of the beauty of transfemininity since then, I still can't feel euphoria from just being a girl for more than rare, fleeting moments, so I feel like I'm defective compared to other transfems. This fetish cant be expunged: even when beautiful trans lesbians call me "good girl", I still can only get off to being a "good boy". For everyone else, their eggs cracking was a liberating awakening, but for me it was merely an obligation to get out of bed and leave the dream I was engrossed in, never able to recapture the softness of my bed, and unable to go back to sleep when I lie in it. Since I can't redo it, I lost a core element that all other transfems came with, replaced with a toxic substance, and I fear I'll never become as precious as them.

Listen, random tumblr user, to be frank I'm not your goddamn therapist and I can't help you with what seems to be extreme self hatred.

In regards to my tags, I can't stop people from identifying as a femboy but the thing is that the term femboy is inextricably linked to transmisoginy and lots of far-right spaces as its current popularity came out of people needing a new slur for transfems after reddit started banning people for calling people "traps" and "femboy" let them do the same thing while not sounding quite as bad about it. "Femboy" is just yet another way for people to objectify transfem bodies and aesthetics without having to think about transfems existing or dealing with their sex object insisting you respect them as a woman. Racism is also rampant throughout femboy spaces. There's a reason depictions of femboys are 99% skinny, white, and small, and the rare black femboys get the creator death threats and harrassed off the internet. There's a reason people will insist every skinny androgynous looking person is a femboy and get majorly pissed off about things like Bridget from Guilty Gear being made canonically a trans woman and will endlessly harrass anyone that doesn't agree she's still a femboy.

Yeah some queer people use it as their personal label, but as a trans woman who has to deal with this constant transmisoginy and denial of my womanhood because cis people and non-transfems just want to sexualize my body without respecting me as a person, I will never like or respect the term and I will forever be on guard against anyone that uses "femboy" because there is an incredibly high chance of them being a massive racist and transmisoginyst that takes trans women existing as an affront to their "genderfuckery" that's just watering down transfeminism into a fetish for non-transfems to get off to.

You do what you want, but I will always hate femboys and the fact that people are trying to turn it into an actual identity label for anyone to use while ignoring its extremely transmisoginist roots and the fact it was made popular to be used as a bludgeon against transfems.

[strawberryona]

ok ive been thinking about this for too long not to post it.

crush au

(aka: vesperoan as high schoolers in early-mid 2010s small town america)

vesper is the wealthy preachers daughter who lives in a big house. divorced parents, her dad has custody. she wears striped red and white tank tops with no bra underneath and black short shorts (her dad HATES this) and heart sunglasses and converse. she's a wild child, does what she pleases. classic spoiled rich kid, bratty and materialistic.

roan is the teenage dirtbag that every girl in school wants but he just ignores them and smokes marlboro reds by the corner store. he looks intimidating bc he's got a rough-around-the-edges grungy style but honestly he's just sort of quiet and bookish and keeps to himself. has never been in an actual fight

in this au roan doesn't have dueling, so he never gets his insane ego. he didn't grow up in a strict military environment, so he's way less uptight.

i also think roan's sadism hasn't fully surfaced yet. if anything he's slightly too violent during sex with vesper but he hasn't really confronted these feelings or anything. he's kind of too apathetic to actively inflict pain on others. he's definitely antisocial though, he dislikes most societal conventions and he really has no interest in other people bessides vesper.

unforch i think i have to make roan a cis guy in this au, because well he would have other priorities and his ass would NOT be out as trans at 16-17 years old. and i'm not making him a girl because when i thought of this au i was envisioning him as masc. so unfortunately this is... a straight au. for my lesbian ocs. it's so dire because also Vesper would listen to lana del rey in this au . IT'S SO DIRE. THEY'RE LANA DEL REY GF X TITLE FIGHT BF. if it makes anyone feel better, he probably comes out as fem aligned nonbinary 6 or 7 years into the future.

vesper is still unhinged. she's really into slashers, and just a little bit too violent for most people's liking. i.e. roan says something about his mom disappearing off somewhere again (probably to see the guy that roan is SURE she's fucking) and vesper says "I'LL KILL HER" and roan says "please don't"

vesper is also the weird girl that no one likes. she’s one of the few people out as queer in this small town (specifically bisexual) and she is not helping the rest of our case by creeping on straight girls. a lot of female classmates are FUMING at how roan ignores all of them, but chooses to talk to the off putting girl who talks about weird violent porn at lunch.

vesper steals her dad's liquor and they hang out in empty parking lots until they're drunk enough that they can't keep their hands off each other. they complain to each other about their respective lives and vespser says she hates the new (more conservative) clothes her daddy bought for her and roan knows she's being suffocated by her family but he's a bit resentful anyway because he doesn't even HAVE a dad to be shitty to him and he really had to fend for himself growing up

roan is trying hard to ace his classes so he can get a scholarship from an out of state uni and get out of this godawful town (kinda replaces getting out of poverty by dueling). vesper keeps talking about moving to the big city to be with her mom, and roan really doesn't want to be apart from her but he really doesn't know what to do about it.

it pisses roan off a little that vesper shirks her responsibilities, but whenever she skips out on her dad's fellowships and sermons it's always to visit him at his part time job.

as you can tell by the name of the au, it’s somewhat based on crush by ethel cain. roan isn’t the same as the “crush” in the song because he’s not violent and less of an idiot. anyways it gave me the idea that vesper is lowkey a stalker and takes creepshots of roan and puts them up in the back of her closet. when roan comes over one time she's really antsy about her closet and he catches a glimpse of the photos and vesper's like "HAHA YOU DIDN'T SEE ANYTHING WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT" and roan is like "i'm literally going to marry this girl"

also this still from the crush mv is the essence of crush!vesper.

another ethel cain song that reminds me of them is head in the wall!

now, for the interesting part. if i write anything with them, this won’t be addressed, but these versions of vesperoan are reincarnated versions of their canon iterations.

when they met, there was an unexplainable spark, like they were always meant to be together.

there’s a lot of things that are… off about vesper, just never elaborated on. she has nightmares about flesh and black oil. she has recurring bouts of nausea and sometimes it comes up black—she brushes it off as being because of something she ate

also her parents are divorced. she lives with her dad, and her mom lives in the city. she’s always talking about moving to be closer to her mom because she feels this sinking guilt about being apart from her, like it’s her fault. she feels like the reason why her mom isn’t here is because something terrible happened to her.

[rantingcrocodile]

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.

[jottingprosaist]

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