#abolition is for everyone

[foreveryonecollective]

Bay Davis on the things we deserve

Food, Safety, Healing, Accountability, Housing, Healthcare, Education, Water - For Everyone

Abolition is our guiding path towards a world where we all can be free, safe, and fulfilled.

👕: www.ForEveryoneCollective.com

[emotopunkpipeline]

This bullshit is so disturbing to me, and I fundamentally disagree. Unconditional abolition is possible, and our collective liberation demands that we believe in such a thing. Gender essentialism is absurd and transphobic, and dehumanization is a result of colonialism and systems built upon subjugation, not any gender itself. TERFs will really try to justify anything, huh? TERFs not welcome here, thx bye

Thinking about when I was a freshwoman in college and a formerly incarcerated woman came to talk to my feminist theory class about how she believed in abolition but only for women's prisons. She spoke about how rare violent female criminals are, especially when you exclude abuse victims/self defense etc. She spoke about how many of her peers were broken and abused and needed help. She spoke about how isolating mixed-sex spaces for formerly incarcerated people were because so many of the men were openly threatening or misogynistic. She spoke about how complete abolition is unrealistic and impractical because of the epidemic of male violence. She had so many amazing hot takes that she would say without shame or hesitation. It really opened my eyes because I didn't think I was even allowed to think things like that. Anyway I hope she is doing well and I fully agree.

[junotter]

All the jokes about Ken and horses are good but I just wanna say it's such a good parallel to how actual young men get swept into misogyny and the patriarchy.

Like they're told to believe it means men get to be cool and manly and have this power but with that comes extremely rigid commands of what they can be as a man and a cycle of self hatred for never matching those gender roles perfectly. Patriarchy tells men that if they just do exactly what is expected of them, then they get all the "cool stuff" that comes with. That doesn't work though when there's only a small group that actually gets that power, but men will keep trying to fit into those roles in hopes that they can.

In the end there are no horses or the myth men are told, it's just endless cycles of self hatred and ingroup fighting.

[trans-axolotl]

Image description: [Black text on lined paper. Text reads: Share your story with the Psych Survivor Archive. Hold the psychiatric system accountable for the violence and coercion we've survived. Make space for our anger. Grieve together. Celebrate our resistance. The Psych Survivor Archive is a forum for psych survivors to share about their experiences and be believed. You can share as much or as little as you want. Your story will be anonymously published on the website with writing from other psych survivors. The archive is open to anyone who identifies as a psych survivor, including people who survived inpatient hospitalization, rehab, troubled teen industry, partial hospitalization, outpatient programs, ABA, and any other form of coercion psych treatment. Check out the prompts, participant rights, and content guidelines. Share your story now: www.psychsurvivorarchive.com/submit-your-story]

Hey everyone. I wanted to share this here as well. The Psych Survivor Archive is looking for anyone who wants to share their story and have it anonymously published on the website, in order to create a collection of our experiences navigating the psych system. Your responses will be anonymous and can be as detailed or vague as you want. On the website, there are prompts, but you can feel free to share in whatever format makes sense to you.

This is a more informal way to participate in the Psych Survivor Archive if you are not interested in creating art for the zine, but still want your story to be heard and validated.

For me, it has felt very cathartic to write out my story, on my terms, in the way that I want to be known. I hope that the archive can offer that space to other psych survivors as well, and I can't wait to keep developing this project and offering even more. In the next couple weeks, submissions will open up for the second edition of the zine, so if you're interested in submitting creative art or writing keep an eye out!

love and solidarity always <3

[captainjonnitkessler]

Different anon, but totally agree with both of you about the bait and switch...glad to know i'm not alone in my frustration

Specifically around prison abolitionists

They really hate it whenever you start asking constructive questions about anything related to their magic little wonderland where no one ever commits crimes ever and you bringing up the idea that people might in fact commit crimes is racist actually

Prison abolitionists are prime offenders for the "I'm not explaining this to you, just read this book" line, and the books never seem to answer my questions. I suspect it's because if you really dig down and pull it out of them, they'll admit that even after every single person has their basic needs met there will still probably be some crime, that will probably need some form of incarceration to protect other people.

At which point you're no longer talking about abolition, you're talking about reform. But - once again being uncharitable - reform is an actual goal that you can join the effort for right now, but it's hard and frustrating, it takes a ton of time and energy, and will take longer than your lifetime to achieve to perfection. But just yelling about abolition on the internet is easy and makes you feel good, and it's not currently a viable political option so no one can call you a hypocrite for not lifting a finger to bring it about!

[lorynna]

Please understand I am writing this from a position of genuine curiosity and not one of malice.

I saw your response to the anon talking about their aroace friend and you both agreed that asexuality is being “muddied” by people who identify as asexual since there’s so much variation between them.

I am honestly quite confused as to why you are dictating the definitions of lived experiences you don’t share. Why do you have to decide how people feel and perceive their feelings if those are completely separate people than you?

Is it truly your business to decide how labels should be applied if you aren’t the one using them? As an asexual, the way you discuss my identity dismisses me and other asexuals as people, because you make assumptions about what and how we should be feeling. It feels dehumanizing.

Again…I write this with no malice, I just don’t understand your position on this matter.

Hello anon.

My response to the other anonymous person submitting an ask involved both of us agreeing about the fact that those labels are hard to get taken seriously due to a lot of people either trying to weaken the definition of asexuality/aromanticism by widening it until cinderella's unique custom-designed shoe is a one-size-fits-all, (in other words:) it completely looses it's meaning and can be applied to the average person or a person who simply has a low sex drive and/or are following a trend, where it "seems cool and quirky" to pick out a label and make it your entire personality until you get tired of it and need to get something new.

Touching on your comment implying that I am calling this term (who in my opinion has become useless due to the above mentioned reasons) as me not rejecting the label therefore but because "there is so much variation between asexual/aromantic people". Which is just...sigh.

I don't think I have to point out that the reasons (again, listed above), that I have also stated in multiple of my takes about this subject, don't indicate any sort of valid variation but the broadening of a simple term until it is applicable to the average person who "sometimes does not feel like having sex" or "feels like not having a relationship for some time in their lives".

Now a counter question. Am I really dictating the definitions of lived experiences I don't share (like you claim) or am I simply talking about my opinion? What power do I have to truly dictate how someone can/has to label themselves? Suprise: I don't! People can continue to pick labels how they please and I can give my opinion accordingly, how I please.

I am challenging you to try and analyze if I am truly trying to be malicious towards actual asexuals/aromantics or if I am just fed up by everything getting used as a trendy label or people pretending to "be cool". I am challenging you to form an opinion on wether or not I am truly coming from a place of hate or rather constructive criticism. And I am challenging you to not see everything that defies your worldview as hate. Opinions are like assholes, everyone has them and sometimes they stink!

My favorite saying : You cannot define something, without actually excluding anyone from said definition. To defines means to limit and that's okay, that is essential. Otherwise words, labels, definitions, it all means nothing. To open the doors to everyone means to protect no one.

I would encourage you (if you are really interested in my take on the topic) to take a look into my pinned post, where I am talking about this more intrinsically. I'll link it here down below.

Also linking here now below the question of another anon that THIS anon is referring to.

[sam24seven]

How tf do you make friends?? Online and irl, I have no idea

Like, if you like the same things as me, please dm me I'm nice I promise

[edwordsmyth]

Simone Weil

[giftedpoison]

watching my sister outwardly preach morality and right vs wrong, not only to me in arguments about things that have nothing to do with her, but also on her social media page where she is very aggressive and vicious towards people who don't share her views or who she perceives to be inherently malicious, and rather than treat them with kindness she treats them with aggression.

meanwhile she has never done a deep reflection on what right vs wrong is, and clearly has a very black and white mentality about it that is inherently distorted because nothing is black and white.

and i refuse to even engage with it anymore because i'm not going to stand there and let someone scream at me and tell me she hopes i die for merely trying to point out her own hypocrisy.

like pick up a book on philosophy i beg of thee. and just sit with it. don't take it as a metric to lead your life by but take it as a theory to mull with and play with. for fucks sake watch The Good Place or The 100 if reading philosophy isn't your thing. or read the Vicious duology by V.E. Schwab, or read Tokyo Ghoul by Sui Ishida. or No Longer Human by Dazi or read anything that remotely discusses the complexities of feeling like a monster or being alienated in society/media about good vs evil. (my examples in media are thin, despite it being my favorite narrative device because i genuinely am blanking)

like learn that right and wrong is fluid and to not condemn people because they do something you personally wouldn't do. it is not your place to dictate how others live, and if you want people to grow to share your opinion you can't force them with vitriol and you most definitely won't be the deciding factor in why someone might come around to your belief system.

[demonic-shadowlucifer]

people will literally see certain posts talking about how being a bad person doesn't mean you aren't redeemable and that you can still change and will immediately assume it's abuse apologism. you can make a post saying "abusive does not mean the same as irredeemable. there's still a chance to redeem yourself and reevaluate your wrongs and fix them. if you were abusive in the past, don't expect others to forgive you, try to forgive yourself".

and people will respond "so we shouldn't hold abusers and rapists accountable? so we HAVE to forgive our abusers no matter what???" like... no? that's not what we're saying? that's an entirely different sentence. congrats. you missed the entire fucking point.

--a fed up individual who has survived abuse in the past

[beatriceportinari]

as an #immortalsympathizer i voted no btw

[malloryrowinski]

Cool now you know why people are pissed off because of terf bullshit like WoLF backing Trump. And you don't get to be offended as this terf allied right wing is fucking global.

Ah, so we’re back to the guilt-by-association routine. I get that nuance is tough, but disagreeing with gender ideology doesn’t mean signing up for the right-wing fan club.

WoLF doesn’t back Trump—try doing some actual research. They’ll collaborate with anyone who supports women’s rights on specific issues. Believe it or not, diverse groups with different political leanings can and do work together on common ground.

If your argument’s so airtight, why the need to twist things?

Learn how to do some research and develop critical thinking skills. It’s absurd that you’re blaming feminists, of all people, for this. Go cry in a corner.

[mourntomidnight]

*mouth—breathing, greasy, smug and unattractive yt redditoid*: “Well, it was HER fault for having all those kids—! :)”

*Malcom X with a blunt object cracking the skull of the foul redditoid who dare make that foul racist, misogynistic comment about his beloved mom, and the redditoid then lays dying on the pavement, blood gushing from his barely recognizable head*

Also fyi I’ve seen actual Reddit posts where people literally say vile shit like this it literally makes my blood boil every time

[b-lysia]

If a lesbian* is a Woman who likes Women

Then a lesbian does not exist. It is a nonsense word, and patriarchy treats it as such.

The gender "Woman"- the social role "Woman" of Patriarchy, necessitates an attraction to or at least a subservience to the sexual attraction of Men. That is the standard that anyone deemed sexually desirable to Men, under Patriarchy, is expected to adhere to under such a system. A Woman cannot be attracted to another Woman under Patriarchy in the same way flower cannot bloom and wilt at the same time, in the same way a boolean cannot be both true and false at once. A lesbian is a nonsense concept.

So of course when "the lesbian" persists anyway, Patriarchy must shift its language to accommodate the human behavior it cannot seem to stamp out.

A lesbian must be like a man. Or at least one of the two lesbians must be "the Man" of the relationship. But that means that a Woman is a Man. For a while, this is almost fine. The butch is not yet named, the word dyke does not yet bite, the trans sexual is allowed to exist as ftm or mtf under patriarchy for a time, and then patriarchy recognizes the existential threat such beings pose to its existence. So it doubles back.

But today we know a little better, and trans people are still discriminated against, but at least we collectively know that's a shit thing to do on a personal level. There's some shame in being a transphobe, even if many people are. It's at least something worth either hiding, or making into your personality's cornerstone, so you can adamantly refuse ridicule.

But the question remains, "what is a lesbian?"

Patriarchy required a lesbian to be; a person who fits all the criteria of Woman, but exclusively lusts for other Women; because Patriarchy demands that the definition, "Woman," describe people who can give birth as most desirable, and then sexually arousing after. The utility of "Woman: Madonna" is just as relevant to Patriarchy as the utility of "Woman: Whore" after all. Patriarchy requires the flattening of gender and sexuality into one another.

The word, "lesbian" I think, is something of a vestigial consequence of that. Because; what is "the lesbian" today?

We are dismantling Patriarchy brick by brick. We are destroying the "Woman," and rightfully so. It is a cruel and evil expectation to place upon a child, and expect they never deviate from, under penalty of suffering and death. We understand today, that a human is not defined by the assumptions we place upon the expression of their genes and sexual organs. These have nothing to do with desires and needs, with interests, and sexualities, or the value of one's personhood. We know better. But "Lesbian," is a word borne from the flattened understanding of gender and sexuality, a oppressive melding of physical utility to the machine with personhood, is... Useless.

Lesbian/Gay, is a nonsense word again. Two, almost three definitions, fighting for dominance.

What does the word woman mean, in the definition "lesbian?"

Is it the physical body? Do barren people not count? Which physical traits contribute to being a woman? Does a butch or femme even count?

Is it the social role? Does that transphobe RuPaul count, as long as they're on stage? Which clothes, voices, aesthetics count as womanly?

Neither of these questions can be adequately answered without either reinforcing the gendered oppression Patriarchy/gender places upon humanity in some fashion. Each answer one could give both invalidates a slew of candidates most would find ridiculous to exclude, and belies a dehumanizing strain of abuse.

What then do we do with these words; Lesbian/Gay/Bi/Pan/etc?

They are borne out of a fumbled response to existences that Patriarchy/Gender does not want to accommodate, just as much as trans/cis. And the confusion that these words carry is inherent to their core, they cannot be distilled to their essence, and made clear because Patriarchy allowed them to exist only as nonsense words. As a stopgap for further transgressions against its hegemony, the trans sexual and the trans gender.

We need better, new language.

Addendum: Don't be a fucking dumbass. Everything said here applies to the other descriptive label, "Gay" as well. We don't have a phrase for the dichotomies within the "Man" gender afaik, so let them be; "Soldier,*" "Slave,*" to "Woman's;" "Whore," "Madonna."

[theorderofthetriad]

oof, looking through a terf's blog to block them and their pinned post was meme saying "everybody's dysphoric" no the fuck everybody is not, you need to do some introspection.

[sam24seven]

I hate how women in TV show are always sexualized. I know this has been talked about a lot, but I don't just mean that they're seen as weak, I mean that they're always portrayed in a sexual way even when it's supposably "empowering". I don't think women shouldn't be able to express theirs sexuality or anything, but it makes it seem like women are just are inherently sexual, if they're laughed at, it's in a sexual way, if they're powerful, it's in a sexual way, if they're sweet and nice, it's in a way that is still somehow sexual. It makes it seem like being a women is being sexual, and tbh I think a lot of people see it that way subconsciously without realizing it.

It reminds me of a post I saw a while ago about how when people make more harmless jokes about men's bodies, they couldn't do that to female bodies cuz jokes about that will always be sexual. People can't seem to think about a women's body in a non sexual way, and like the voyeur inside women's heads that Margaret Atwood brought into light, women do that too.

I have a lot of thoughts about that, and even though I'm gender fluid it always bothered me when women are seeing that way because I felt crazy that nobody else realised how messed up this is.