#Trans activism is men’s rights activism

[genderqueerdykes]

I'm a gay trans guy and I've had several (QUEER) people do the whole "ew men" thing in front of, or AT me, and I don't know what was worse: the "you don't count" or "you, too"

Also whenever I expressed being attracted to more typically Masculine traits instead of just a skinny hairless guy in a skirt I was somehow wrong and misogynistic. Not even saying that was bad, just saying I was attracted to body hair or men in suits or strength or something

I just wish I could be happy without having to cut myself off from what feels like most of my community now

Also prev anon is right, the trans guy tags are genuinely just completely unusable which is Frus Trating

people actively shift the goalposts multiple times when they find out you're a trans man. thank you for your feedback

[the-two-of-clubs]

A r/limbuscompany Reddit thread titled "Why do people refer to Dante as a boy?" had a lot of answers given that frankly depressed me, so I wrote a huge essay. And because it's huge and the Redditors are definitely not going to listen, I'm going to repost it here. For non-Limbus fans, Dante's the game's speaking protagonist of indeterminate gender.

People will just straight up say "I just don't want to use they/them pronouns, it's either he or she and I get to pick, sorry!" and be the top upvoted comment in this thread.

When I encourage you to use they/them pronouns for Dante that's not even because they're nonbinary, it's because it's what Dante is always referred to in the game they're from, and it's because it's a less clunky standin for "he or she" as well. "They" can refer to anyone, that's why it's the single best fit of any common English pronoun for an ambiguous character like Dante. They/them is the only way to refer to Dante without making up a headcanon, whether that be a fan theory that they're Ayin or Benjamin or whatever, or a self insert projection.

They/them is something you (yes you! the reader!) could be getting used to being able to use, for multiple reasons. One of which being for nonbinary people, and another reason being not constantly being forced to assume everyone's gender all the time. To smoothly be able to use language that doesn't constantly exclude women. For example, hearing someone talk about a doctor and immediately leaping to "he/him" is a microaggression, because female doctors are constantly confronted with the assumption that they're either men or nurses.

The more you use they/them pronouns for others, the more natural to you they/them pronouns will seem. And Dante could be a great starting off point for some of you to start doing that. Using they/them pronouns can make somebody's day. It would be real self improvement that matters. You probably know a trans or nonbinary person, whether you know that about them or not.

Some of you are 100% telling on yourselves that you couldn't handle being around a nonbinary person who uses they/them pronouns in real life with this thread. The pronouns are so alien and unusable to you you're performing mental gymnastics specifically to get out of using them. Yes, nobody can stop you from using he/him for Dante, knock yourself out I guess. But also, what is your actual reason to do that? And not just some casual excuse that you're throwing out, like "you can't prove Dante's NOT a man" (why not use she/her then, hm? what if she's a woman? at the very least the correct pronoun for this would technically be "he or she", right?) Or "Dante is a male name" (the entire Limbus main cast has male names and you don't see people "he/him"-ing Faust. Seems like a specific issue you guys have with they/them and Dante.) Really ask yourself why. Why ARE you so convinced Dante is a man? No really I'm serious.

And when that question does get asked by OP here, people are arguing in this thread that men are the ones who play Limbus Company, and that of course everyone's calling Dante he/him because almost all gamers use he/him, with the whole self insert argument. Which is dismissal and erasure of women, who apparently don't exist and it doesn't matter if the game's self insert mascot represents them, despite showing up in this thread to tell you that they and their presumably from context also female friends play Limbus. This self insert argument will never make Dante a binary man, it would make Dante another type of nonbinary which is pangender or genderfluid, because Dante represents all players that play them or whichever specific player is playing them, and to refer to Dante as the concept, the gestalt, the infinite-mirror-worlds Dantes that exist on each of our phones, they/them still suffices in a unique way, to pay homage to other players with different genders than you and their Dantes which would match those genders, I think.

Calling Dante "he" is an active choice you're making, going against the way the game refers to Dante.

Using the pronouns that the character always gets referred to in the entire game they're from is the norm. You guys never don't do that, except in cases like this where it's so you can ignore they/them pronouns. You do have an actual reason, conscious or subconscious, to actively change which pronouns you're using. Some of the people referring to Dante as he/him here absolutely have biases that make them unwilling to refer to Dante as they/them and therefore they're going out of their way to contradict the source material, namely transphobia. That might not be you, but it's some of the people you're sharing this take that Dante uses he/him with.

I am under no illusion that Dante is necessarily intended to be nonbinary representation. However, some of your reasons for "he/him"-ing Dante are very much trans exclusionary. "Dante has a masculine frame"... People who look like men to you sometimes aren't men. Heck, sometimes they're cis women. And if this is the first you're hearing of it, yep! That's always been true and you should keep it in mind. We live in a big weird beautiful world. People who look like men to you might be nonbinary and use exclusively "they/them" pronouns for example, and being referred to as "they" rather than "he" might go a long way to their happiness and comfort because of a thing called dysphoria, which can be medically dangerous for people if they suffer too much of it from being misgendered too often. These people can't somehow get a different skeleton structure and look even more androgynous than Dante does in order for you to refer to them respectfully. Training yourself out of jumping to pronouns because of the width of someone's shoulders can do real world good just like training yourself out of jumping to pronouns because of somebody's career. It all helps you act respectfully and challenge your assumptions. And that can start right now right here. You can just refer to Dante or any nonbinary video game character you've been neglecting as they/them, sound it out in your head, nothing is stopping you.

And yes, before someone starts whining that I'm making "too big a deal of this" because I dropped the dreaded T-word that will get me downvoted, Dante isn't real and can't have their feelings hurt by the fact that people keep referring to them as he/him even if they turn out to have been a woman this whole time. I know I am aware. You should know that nonbinary people are reading the posts you're making and seeing how casually and thoughtlessly you're willing to dismiss even the concept of using they/them for a CLOCK who doesn't even have a human FACE let alone an obvious gender, and I for one know that were we to meet, you wouldn't gender me correctly either. You'd take one look at me and thoughtlessly assume you're always right.

Does referring to Dante as anything at all matter directly? No. It's fiction. However, words inspire people. Everyone is just referring to Dante as he/him because everyone else is and it's considered normal. A creative thinker, a leader rather than a follower, is someone who questions what everyone else is doing, and comes to their own conclusions. Coming to your own conclusions is what you will have to do with what I have written here.

For the Tumblr audience this is probably just an unsurprising PSA that Limbus fan Redditors are being weird about they/them pronouns and a bunch of weird arguments they're using to do so. I'm not trying to come after any queer person's he/they or she/her or any pronoun set Dante headcanons in particular here either, you can tell by the explanation of what dysphoria is that's not the target audience. If you headcanon characters having different pronouns when it's not just because you can't be assed to use they/them we're cool that's very cool of you.

[frodothefair]

Éothíriel Genderbend!

I 500% percent don't have time to write this, and it's probably full of logical inconsistencies and plot holes, but here's a fun Éothíriel genderbend plotbunny that materialized in my head the other day.

For context, there is a concept in the Balkan region of Europe known as "sworn virgins." It is a tradition where women had the right to declare themselves men, and from that point onward, they would go by male pronouns and a male name, and would have all the rights and responsibilities of men in society, but the price was to foreswear all sexual activity and, of course, marriage. The transition was cemented by a ceremonial oath in the presence of multiple witnesses, and there was an incredibly high bar to "detransitioning," while the penalty of breaking the oath was death. Historically, this was often done to protect inheritance, fulfill an obligation, gain more freedom, be the head of the family and protect female relatives, pursue a certain career, avoid marriage, etc. Some sworn virgins may in fact have been trans-male as we understand transmasculinity today, in that they actually felt like "men born in women's bodies."

(Interestingly, there are still a few sworn virgins alive today, but advances in women's rights have made the practice largely unnecessary -- unless you do, in fact, happen to be trans-male and want to remain celibate.)

Now, for the plotbunny, imagine that Éomer is, in fact, a sworn virgin. He was assigned female at birth, but took the oath when his father died to protect his mother and sister, and to maintain control of the family estate. But he also felt a good deal more comfortable in male spaces and engaging in male activities from an early age, so the role sat well with him, and he advanced through the ranks of the military and became an accomplished leader and soldier.

He might have lived that way happily until the end of his days, and having no partner might have suited him just fine, except by dint of Théoden and Théodred's deaths, he became king. And kings are expected to marry and produce heirs, and the line is already on the verge of being broken.

Now, Éomer King has a choice to make -- should be "detransition" and marry? One does not do this lightly, since an oath is an oath, and at any rate, Éomer has always felt incredibly comfortable living as a man, and to switch to living as a woman would be ego-dystonic to say the least. Alternatively, he could adopt a child of Éowyn and Faramir, but this, too, could lead to conflicting familial and national loyalties. A third option would be to keep living as a man but change the part of the law that requires "sworn virgins" to be virgins. But this would be highly unprecedented, and no, a king can not simply change a law any time he feels like it, contrary to popular belief.

And then, to further complicate matters, Éomer King is inexorably drawn to the youngest son of his friend Prince Imrahil, the cheerful, impish, and carefree Prince Lothír. And Lothír, for his part, is curious -- why does the King of Rohan have no trace of a beard? Why does he wear baggy clothes and avoid bathing with the other men, even when it's a common celebratory custom of male bonding? The others urge Lothír to leave Éomer King alone -- if he has secrets, and even if he is a woman living as a man, then it is his own affair, and he has his reasons -- but Lothír is relentless, and when asked why he is behaving the way he is, he grins and replies, "because if Éomer King was a woman, he would be just my type!"

And yes, yes, there is a "Lothír surprises Éomer King while bathing or changing" scene. There has to be.

*Also, if anyone is wondering why Éowyn did not become a sworn virgin -- which might have solved a good number of her difficulties -- it's because she may have wanted to do traditionally "male" deeds and exist in traditionally "male" spaces, but she did not wish to be known as a man or be referred to as a man, and she did not wish to rule out marriage. In other words, she wanted to be a gender nonconforming woman, but not an actual man. Also, if Éowyn did not marry and produce heirs, then their estate and the royal line would definitely pass out of the family in due time.

@konartiste @emmanuellececchi @dilettantefeminist @from-the-coffee-shop-in-edoras @celeluwhenfics

[bisexualfagdyke]

The term "TMRA" used negatively/derogatorily in regards to trans men talking abt their oppression is wild to me. Being a trans men's rights activist is bad....why, exactly? Trans men literally lack fucking rights? HELLO?

[stillarandom-radfem]

I am so sick of all of this "be kind" shit from the genderist crowd. Not only is it definitely playing hard into the hands of female socialization to always appear nurturing and sweet and never make men mad under any circumstances, but also... I mean, let's be honest, here. These people are not kind. There is nothing kind about allowing gay, autistic, and/or sexually traumatized children to be medically experimented on for profit after only one, one hour-long psych session, or letting them be sexually groomed by various adult men with neither the knowledge nor the approval of their parents. There is nothing kind about enforcing sexist stereotypes, and scaring people into unnecessary medical procedures because you've lied and told them that they will kill themselves if they don't get them in order to conform. There is nothing kind about using self-ID laws to rob women of safety from predatory men because you think that men's feelings are more important than making sure women aren't traumatized by them in their own private spaces that are supposed to be women-only. There is nothing kind about robbing women of scholarships, awards, and medals meant for women because, again, you believe that men's feelings matter more than anything, including women's ability to have proper livelihoods and role models of the same sex. And there is nothing kind about telling LGB people that they are evil bigots if they don't want to date/fuck trans people of the opposite sex. You don't know that they haven't already spent a good chunk of their lives being ridiculed for their same-sex attraction, and now you want to call them evil because of an innate attraction that they can't control?!

Nothing about any of this is kind, because at the core of real, genuine kindness is genuine empathy and concern for other people and a desire to ensure that they don't come into harm's way. Supporting things that hurt other people or sitting back and watching them self-harm isn't kindness. Even if you're doing it for social approval. Even if they put on a big show about how they supposedly like it, but their faces betray a sadness that they refuse to convey in words and you can't help but get the feeling while talking to them that something is eating them up inside. Continuing to promote it in order to look good or get them to like you isn't kindness, it's acquiescence, and that's not remotely the same thing. Because genuinely kind people are concerned with actions that show genuine concern for other people. They want to do right by them because they care about them. It's all about actually being kind, not just presenting the veneer of it for woke points. The trans crowd are such hard-core individualists that they wouldn't know anything about that.

[lgbtqtext]

[olyriakay1]

Just me and you 😥

[greenevergreens]

Rotten—Radical Feminists

What being a radical feminist SHOULD mean:

Caring about ALL women, trans women, disabled women, women who are stay at home or 'traditional' wives, women who are sex workers, women who are staunchly modest and are waiting till marriage to have sex. Supporting women who are more sexually liberated and have frequent one-night stands. Standing up for women who want to have lots of kids and women who are childfree. Supporting women that want an abortion and women who'd rather die than get an abortion, even when the baby isn't likely to survive either way. Women who are part of a polyamorous, polygamous, or polyandrous relationship. Women who are kinky and women who are vanilla.

It should also mean understanding how sexist societal rules and ideals harm everyone, and while yes feminism isn't & shouldn't ever be a male centric movement. It's focus on gender equality is and should include discussions on how inequality and bioessentialism effects and harms everyone. As well as how to reach true gender equality we can't just fight for women's rights, freedoms and respect, we must also fight to dismantle harmful systems that enable & encourage men to demonize women and femininity.

And again, to fight AGAINST bioessentialism, both to avoid victim blaming and avoid a new version of 'boys will be boys', as such letting men get away with being violent and sexist. Because if men are inherently evil and violent by birth, it's unreasonable (or even cruel) to expect him to be anything other than evil and violent. It's then also only ever ALWAYS a woman's fault for being the victim of a violent crime when a man in the perpetrator.

After all, if someone (woman) wanted to live with/around polar bears (men), and got attacked, you wouldn't be surprised. If anything, you'd tell them that they shouldn't be mad at or hateful towards the polar bear, since it's only doing as you'd expect a polar bear (one of a rare group of animals that are known to actively hunt, kill and eat people). That they should have/did know that this would happen and did it to themselves.

Bioessentialism is BAD!! Men aren't inherently violent, evil or predatory, and women aren't inherently pure, peaceful and kind.

-=-

What being a radical feminist has become to mean:

Being anti woman, especially any woman that doesn't strictly adhere to what YOU personally believe a woman should look, or act like. Being anti sex worker at the MAJOR detriment to both women who choose to be sex workers, AND women that are victims of sex trafficking (women have been arrested & jailed, yes JAILED for being a VICTIM of sex trafficking). Only focusing on western feminine ideals, ignoring (at best) or outright shaming and degrading any idea of womanhood and femininity that doesn't line up with said western ideals. Transphobic as all hell, which ALWAYS ends up hurting cis women as well (though you should care about transphobia even if cis women were never impacted by it). Victim blames CONSTANTLY. Makes excuses for men & their behavior “if we had less aggressive/violent porn men wouldn't be sexually violent towards women/wouldn't see women as sex objects” (wrong, sexist men are going to be sexist & are going to objectify women regardless of the porn they have access to, it's not the porn that makes a man sexist, it's the community, society, and people around him that contribute to (but not entirely cause) a man to be sexist).

-=-

Also, if you're a radfem, just block me, you and I both know we aren't going to change the other's mind.

This post isn't for you [radfems], it's a vent about how a term that should be a good thing, has been taken over by women who hate women, pretending that THEIR special hate for women is somehow pro-woman.

You radfems aren't going to convince me that trans women aren't women, or that men are inherently evil or bad. And I know I'm not going to be able to convince you that trans women are women, and that gender doesn't have any inherent role in if a person is good or bad. Nor will I be able to convince you that men & women are a hell of a lot more similar than you'd like to accept.

So just save yourself some time, and block me, I won't be responding to any of your comments anyway. So go find something else to do, read a book, watch some TV, go take a walk or whatever, I don't care.

[thedreadvampy]

unwarranted Cis Opinion but I'm getting really uncomfortable w people responding to bathroom bills by posting pictures of trans men like DO YOU WANT THEM IN WOMEN'S BATHROOMS

bc like. no they're men. they should be in men's bathrooms unless that feels unsafe. but. it really feels like it's not helpful to lean into the idea that seeing someone presenting masc or being read as a man in a women's bathroom means You're In Danger.

like I know several butch women and NB ppl who are really scared around being on T or getting top surgery bc they're not men and they don't want to be in the men's bathroom, and in that circumstance stuff like growing facial hair or reading more androgynously can be really fucking scary when people are being primed by propaganda to be on edge and hyperreactive to anyone who doesn't look like their idea of a Cis Woman.

and I'm not laying that at the feet of the people saying "hey uhhhh trans men are men and don't belong in women's bathrooms" bc it is not their fault. it's the fault of a concerted effort to make it difficult and dangerous to be trans or substantively gender nonconforming in public.

but at the same time idk I guess it just worries me cause sometimes it feels like "you fools! you are worried about this group of trans people bc you think they're the Lurking Danger of Men In Bathrooms? WRONG! the Men Making You Feel Afraid In Bathrooms are actually THESE trans people!" when in fact neither of those groups using the fucking bathroom is a problem. just piss and mind your business. people need to go where they need to go.

anyway this country is a hot fucking trash fire that somehow accelerates its descent into open fascism more every day so it's all super good and normal. so don't take this too seriously tbh cause it's somewhere near #2535654476457899009765 on the list of priorities for Queer Discourse right now when the fucking human rights commission is actively rescinding protections from trans people. Please ignore my gibberish.

[danmeichael]

supporters of queer m/f romance fiction so frequently miss out on the glory of transhets, and especially t4t transhets, which is a shame.

[overclockedopossum]

It must be so validating for trans men the way their gendered struggles are minimised, denied and shoved aside in exactly the same way as happens to cis men 🥰

[auntbibby]

saw this sarcastic takedown of fascist terf rhetoric on r/transgendercirclejerk and took a screenshot cuz i thoght it was smart

[thecommunalfoolboy]

I’m sick of “Femboy” being sexualized. Femboy is my gender. Fuck you

[fun-facts-for-the-punk-fags]

Trans people tend to have a brain anatomy shifted more towards the average anatomy of their gender identity then that of cis people

[lesbianwyllravengard]

I saw something like this a while ago so it's not new but to my fellow transmascs and trans enbies, I know it hurts seeing people hate on men and I know the pipeline from hating men to spewing terf rhetoric is very fast but I need y'all to not be calling yourselves "men's rights activists" or aligning yourselves with that, because it is the COMPLETE opposite of what you mean. Men's rights activists do not care about men's rights. They are not activists. They do not care about men getting equal emotional consideration as women, they do not care about men's mental health being taken seriously, they do not care about men still being seen as men regardless of presentation, they don't even care about men. They care about further oppressing ANYONE who is not a cisgender, white male. They care about suffocating feminism - which absolutely includes actual rights for men. (when "feminism" doesn't include men, it is terf bullshit, NOT feminism.) You guys CANNOT be saying you are men's rights activists because that is NOT what you mean. And if it is, you are perpetrating the same misogyny. Please. It is not a term to "reclaim" because it was never ever EVER about men's rights.

[spacedadsupport]

Jean-Luc Picard @SpaceDadSupport I believe in you for exactly the person you tell me you are, and I will always respect and protect your gender identity. Transphobes are not welcome aboard my ship. 3:30 PM · Dec 8, 2023