#about living part-time in a conservative christian home

[andiv3r]

So my mom's family does this stupid ass weekly bible study thing listening to an idiot homophobic Texas preacher, and I rarely listen (usually I'm spaced out + daydreaming about something) but I snapped back to reality when I heard him say the words "circumcision of the heart" earlier and it was. Exactly what it fucking sounded like. He was talking about circumcision and then about how Jesus was like circumcision for our hearts, removing the sin. I'm so fucking done with this place.

[thekeithmeister]

Being Trans In Southern Nature

Being a nature freak in the south as a well-passing trans man is a surreal experience. I live in north Georgia in a blue county in the suburbs. But as often as I can, I drive out into the middle of nowhere for hiking, camping, paddle boarding, or other outdoor activities. The drive there, in and of itself, is bizarre. Inside my car I’m blasting “This Is Me” from The Greatest Showman. But outside I’m driving by confederate flags, Trump signs, the Don’t Tread On Me flag, a sea of American Flags, and Christian billboards that literally say “you’re going to hell” with pictures of fire.

I often think if I ever get a flat tire on one of these trips, and anyone ever figures out I’m trans, I’d be hanged or shot. But I haven’t been clocked in years, so I push those kinds of thoughts to the back of my mind. I turn off the country back roads and onto the gravel drive leading up to a nature preserve. Pulling into the dirt parking lot there’s about a dozen other cars. Many have Trump bumper stickers. There’s no bathroom, so no concern about me being beat up for taking a piss. I always go in the woods anyway on these kinds of trips.

A full bladder is a concern for any trans person. But for this kind of trip I always take major precautions. They start back at home. After I eat breakfast and drink my coffee, I wait a full hour before leaving. I pee at least twice. I make damned sure my bladder is completely empty and there’s no chance any liquid is on it’s way there before getting into my car. I just described the kind of place I have to travel through to get to a good hiking trail. And I ain’t stopping. Not for anything. I’d rather pee my pants.

So when I pull into the lot I have my gear with me. A small backpack containing my rolled up hammock, a bottle of water, protein bars, toilet paper and my taser. When hiking, I drink barely enough to fuel my body. And if I do it just right, I don’t have to pee even if I’m out in the park the entire day. I don’t risk it. And if there really is just no choice, I’m going to go way off trail to do it. And I mean not just out of sight of the trail, but so far off the path someone would have to be crazy to come out there and spot me. Those are the kind of precautions I take.

But I just pulled into the parking lot and my dangerous bladder is empty. So no concerns at the moment. Backpack on, I start walking up to the trail head. There’s a sign there with a map of the trails on it. A blonde woman in a bright yellow shirt immediately approaches me.

“Excuse me!” she says. “Can you tell me if this is an easy trail?”

I’m used to this. Every time I go out hiking, people approach me. Everyone is friendly. Everyone smiles. And I think I must have a very approachable face. Or maybe I look experienced. Whatever the reason, complete strangers come up to me many times during any hike.

This is my first time on this trail, but I researched it beforehand, so I can answer her.

“Some of it,” I said. I turn and point at the map. “Make sure to take a right at the first fork. The entire eastern loop is easy. See, it’s marked green. You want to avoid the western loop as that goes straight up the mountain.” I pointed to the red part.

The woman nodded, “I see. And are there a lot of people on this trail?”

“From what I’ve read no. That’s why I came today. The reviews say you see hardly any body.”

“Thank you! You’ve been a great help! You seem like a really nice young man. Enjoy your hike!”

“You too!”

We part ways. I enter the trail head to begin my hike and I wonder the same exact thing I always wonder when I have these encounters. Would that nice lady turn mean and ugly and hate me if she knew I was trans? I think it every single time. There’s no way not to. I drove through Trump land to get here. I know what conservatives think of me. Or at least the idea of me. It’s not hidden. It’s not a secret. Trump has been president for 20 days at the time I’m writing this, and he has already signed 4 anti-trans specific executive orders. He is planning on discharging 15,000 trans military service members, possibly dishonorably and without their benefits. He’s planning on making it illegal for trans people to play sports. And he also wants to make it illegal for us to use a bathroom in a federal facility. He’s trying to make healthcare illegal for trans people under 19 years of age, threatening to throw parents and doctors in jail. And I watched as Trump signed these executive orders in front of a huge, cheering, smiling, clapping, crowd of conservatives.

They hate me. They want me to die. But when they meet me in real life, they all smile. They approach me. Ask me questions. Thank me for helping them. Many, especially older white men, seem to want to give me guidance, like a father figure. When I run into them on the trail, they are quick to tell me, “the river flooded that way so be careful,” or “the fishing is great at this pond! Bring your pole next time!”

I have never met an unfriendly person while hiking or camping. And I cannot help but wonder… what if they knew? What would those smiles turn into?

I choose the most difficult route on purpose to try and get out into nature alone. I want the peace and quiet it gives me. I don’t want to hear anything other than the birds, the wind, and the branches moving together. If I’m working hard enough, then my own blood pumping in my ears. For the first hour this is what I get. And I’m immeasurably happy. It’s early February and it’s 60 degrees on a sunny day. There are no leaves or greenery yet, but I’m smelling the warmth from the earth mix with the cool air. The pine trees give me plenty of green to be happy with.

But soon, as is always the case, the peace is interrupted. I hear voices from the trail ahead break the quiet. They’re loud. And there are many. Anxiety immediately kicks in. A prick of fear I can never quite control. It sounds like a group of men. And raised as a girl, I knew from a woman’s perspective just how dangerous this could turn out to be. Even having been transitioned and living as a man for the past 8 years, that was embedded in me. Possibly forever. But also having lived as a trans man for so long, my fear shifts from the possibility of being raped to being beat up instead. But again… that would only happen if someone clocked me. And that hadn’t happened in years.

I breathe in and calm myself down. I’m aware of the weight of my taser in my back pocket. I reach back and flip off it’s lid. But I leave it hidden for now. I’ve never needed it, and likely never would. After all, I have never met an unfriendly person while hiking or camping.

As the voices draw nearer, I suddenly hear a woman laugh. My fear immediately vanishes. This was a mixed group of hikers. I keep going and crest the ridge. I can see them now. There’s five, three men, and two women. And one person was black and another Asian. I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I always found it interesting just how many other minorities I ran into in the middle of nowhere in the North Georgia Mountains. And how many foreigners for that matter. During this hike, I had run into two separate Germans. Where were they staying? And out of all the places in America they could visit, they chose this tiny trail? But that seemed to be the case almost anywhere I went.

I start passing the group of hikers, and as always, I’m stopped.

“Hi! Nice weather isn’t it?” The lead hiker says.

“Yes it is!” I reply.

“Are we close to the top of the mountain?” One of the women asks me.

“Yes,” I said. “It’s not far. You’re almost there.”

“You hear that honey?” She calls back to a man huffing and puffing as he comes up at the rear. “We’re almost there!”

“Uuugh!” He groans. The woman turns back to me. “Are there really good views at the top?”

“Kinda,” I said. “You have to look through the trees, but it is a good view.”

“Oh great, thank you!”

We part ways. I once again have the same exact thought. All of them were so nice. But how nice would they have been if they’d known?

At the top of the mountain I stop. It had been a tough hike. Steep the entire way. I go off trail a decent distance so no one would see me, find me, or bother me. I set up my hammock where I can be alone. Rocking myself in it, I look out to the view. I can see across two sloping peaks in the distance and it’s really beautiful. But I can’t enjoy it as much as usual. Nature always heals me and puts my mind right. But I’d found out just the day before that the Georgia Legislature had introduced a bill to strip away healthcare from transgender people. It would ban all gender affirming care, even for adults, from anything government or state related.

I was on a private insurance plan from my job, but I didn’t know if my nurse practitioner, who’d been treating me for over 5 years, accepted any government or state funding. If her practice relied on that kind of money, I would be in a lot of trouble. She likely wouldn’t be able to treat me anymore, or risk losing all her funding. Or worse. If treating trans people was illegal, she could potentially be arrested for helping me.

It had taken me years to find someone competent when it came to transgender health. I wouldn’t be able to find someone else. Or rather, I could, but it would likely take years again. And I might be in a situation where I’d be forced to drive out of state. But even then… Trump was targeting blue states, and trying to force them to stop offering healthcare too. So going to a blue state might not have even helped.

I lay in my hammock, wondering what on earth it was I could do. My best friend the day prior had suggested flying to Canada once a year just to get my medication and then coming home. That was a very expensive solution… but one I might have no choice but to consider. Could they even prescribe me a whole years worth of testosterone at a time? I didn’t think so. But maybe I could have it shipped from Canada? How expensive would that be?

I heard a mom shouting at her giggling kids coming up the path just out of sight. They wouldn’t be able to see me where I had set up. So I was free to lay in my hammock and try to fathom what kind of lives this family likely had. How wonderful it must’ve been to not have to worry about where you could legally take a leak, or how you would legally get your medications. That mom didn’t worry about her doctor being thrown in jail. Or if she and her husband would be thrown in jail for getting her kids the proper care they needed. That little family… had no idea that absolute and ruthless hell trans families had to go through.

I wait until I hear them leave. Then wait several minutes more. Then I pack up my hammock and other things and continue down the trail. I’m blissfully alone for another hour or so. But soon I hear voices again. This time it’s a couple: a man and a woman. As they start to approach I assess them. The husband is wearing a shirt with a huge American flag across the front and the Punisher logo on top of that.

I immediately tense up. I knew well enough that the far right wore the Punisher logo. It meant the same exact thing to me as a confederate flag, don’t tread on me flag, christian cross, American flag, or anything else of the like. All of those symbols were the same. And all of them sent the same message. The woman smiles at me as they approach.

“Hi! Have you seen the pond yet?”

“Yes, it’s just up ahead.”

The man doesn’t speak or smile. He barely looks at me. The woman thanks me and they move on.

If they knew, they absolutely would have killed me. I think.

I run into only one other person on the hike, a Korean photographer. We were both lost at the time we met, and his English was difficult to understand. But I made out that he was looking for the trail to the parking lot. I pointed and told him the way I thought it was, but that this was my first time on the trail and wasn’t sure. I didn’t know if he fully understood me. So I just pointed down the trail. After we parted way, I wondered again,

What if he knew? I knew nothing at all about Korean culture. Did they hate trans people too? Or was that just in America?

I wandered for some time, trying to find the right path back. I had 2 hours of daylight left so wasn’t too concerned and my compass said I was heading west, the direction I knew the parking lot was in. So I knew even if I didn’t recognize this part of the trail, I was heading the right way. I stopped by a little stream. Tired, I sat down on the small wooden bridge going across it. Letting my legs dangle over it’s edge and feeling my blood pound in my feet, I took out a protein bar and a bag of apple slices. As I ate my snack, I looked out to the scenery. It was so peaceful and quiet. So quiet in fact that I could close my eyes and listen to the leaves move through the gentle breeze. It was my absolute favorite sound in the entire world. The day was perfect. And it was exactly why I drove so far out of the suburbs to hike in a place like this.

I just wished…

I wished that…

I wished…

[breelandwalker]

@sonnabug reblogged your post:

#is myth the right word if they were the ones who felt they were being persecuted? #not siding with them just wondering about word choice and technicalities #because its true our history was founded on what they decided to tell us but is it an outright lie or did they truely feel persecuted

Oo oo oo, a teaching opportunity!

Okay, so the Puritans came to power during the First English Civil War - the one where they axed Charles I afterward and abolished the monarchy. Their whole beef was that the new Anglican church wasn't STRICT enough and still had too many Catholic trappings (and way too much tolerance for the remaining Roman Catholics in the country). So they kept pushing for Purity and Piety, in personal and business spheres, basically insisting that a strict Protestant moral doctrine should govern every aspect of life, from the management of the home to the running of businesses to interpersonal relationships to the governing of the country and its' policies abroad.

Sound familiar? Their whole rhetoric puts me in mind of a particular line from Elvira: Mistress of the Dark: "The local council is horrified if someone in Fallwell, wherever or whatever, is having a good time."

Anyway, all this religious kerfluffle (plus a couple of other factors) eventually led to the complete destabilization of the English government and the execution of Charles I. And then when the monarchy was restored under Charles II and the country was like, "Oh thank goodness, we can have things like beer and Christmas again and maybe a little less religious conservatism," the Puritans promptly went, "Well this won't do at ALL." Most Puritan clergy with separatist leanings resigned from the Church of England and many Puritans packed up to move to the colonies, where they could "practice their religion in peace." (Read: "Where they could be as stodgy and strict and bigoted as they wished and created a system of laws based on religion instead of common good.")

There's a lot more to it than that and I'm simplifying and glossing over quite a bit, but that's the nuts and bolts.

The mess the Puritans made both in England and in America was one of the reasons the vaunted Founding Fathers insisted on Separation of Church and State, as well as why Freedom of Religion is part of the First Amendment. They'd seen England tearing itself apart over a Wabbit Season / Duck Season tug of war between Catholicism and Protestantism for a good century and more, and they did NOT want to repeat those mistakes in the new country they were trying to build. (They got a lot of stuff wrong, but at least they had the sense to be like, "Yeah maybe religion shouldn't run the government.")

So while it's true that the Puritans may have felt persecuted, it was for basically the same reasons that conservatives and fundamentalists claims to be oppressed today - people generally don't like it when their stodgy uptight neighbors try to beat them over the head with a Bible and demand that one particular interpretation of a single religion should be the driving force behind the running of every aspect of an entire country.

But since they got to write the earliest chapters of American history with no one to provide a strong counterargument, we get this pervasive self-created myth that the Puritans were these poor ragged refugees, fleeing religious persecution for a new land where they could live in peace and harmony and...decimate the local indigenous population and murder their own neighbors in the name of piety. The Pilgrims were assholes and we've been fed pretty lies in our schoolbooks for decades.

(For modern context, religion wasn't a strong part of American politics until McCarthyism happened, at which point we got the God references in the Pledge of Allegiance and on our currency. Then the Moral Majority movement got Reagan elected in 1980 and we've been fighting modern Puritans in government ever since. America has never been a Christian nation, but conservatives keep doing their damnedest to try and turn it into one.)

Hope this helps to clarify things! 😊

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

wibta if I exposed my friend to her conservative parents?

that title sounds horrid but I have some level of reasoning. sorry, this is kind of long.

my friend (19f) and I (19X) met when we were seven years old. we went to the same Christian elementary school, then she stayed when I left for middle school and on. when I went upstate for college, she stayed at home to attend a small local college.

without getting into too much, this is a girl I care about deeply, someone I considered my ride or die for years.

when I realized I was asexual and bi, she was one of the first people I told, and she received me with open arms. when I began to id as nonbinary, I didn't tell her for several months. it felt odd, after knowing each other so long. it wasn't personal. I didn't tell many of my longtime friends, just bottled it till college.

she was the last person I hung out with before leaving for freshman year. I went to show her something on discord, and she saw my bio, where i have my preferred name and the fact that I just use any pronouns. she quizzed me on what exactly that was about, and all seemed well when we parted ways.

but that was the last time I saw her, almost a full year ago. I tried to reach out to her several times when I was home when my cat died, fall break, Thanksgiving break, and winter break. each time, she declined saying she had to work, and promised me "next time".

she does live about 45 minutes away from me, so I was willing to believe it, until she declined an e-invite for my yearly Christmas party that I'd purposefully scheduled around her work times.

i would have been willing to reschedule it if she'd answered any of my texts, but she never initiated conversations and took a long time to text back, if at all.

i didn't text her again till February, her birthday, and she didn't respond to that at all. I laid off again, and didn't text her for several months, until my birthday recently. I guess I just wanted to make it clear that if she hadn't meant to ghost me I wasn't upset, and she could pick things back up if she wanted. naive, i know.

she responded this time, saying basically that I wasn't the kind of person she wanted in her life anymore, and that I was "taking the queer thing too far" by, specifically, being nonbinary. she told me to leave her alone, and do it for good, because she was willing to spill to my parents about my gender.

my parents have a history of physical and emotional abuse, they're boomers and have the views to match. they made my life miserable when I was outed to them as bi (unrelated to my friend), and I don't have the cover of it being a 14 year old's phase now. this would be worse.

this is where I might be TA. my friend's parents, while not having been abusive before, are still controlling and every bit as conservative. maybe more.

and while my friend is straight and cis, her and her bf have been having sex for about a year now, and she's also been to a good number of parties and gotten drunk multiple times. it's a legitimate possibility that they would disown her if they found out about this.

I don't want to squeal if I don't have to. but I wanted to intimidate her into keeping quiet, and I am willing to tell her parents if she tells mine. I think.

so, wibta if I exposed her in retaliation? (or aita for threatening her with it?)

tldr: my longtime friend more or less ghosted me after finding out I'm nonbinary. we both have dirt on each other and she threatened to tell my parents about it, so I reminded her that I have just as much on her that I could spill too.

What are these acronyms?

[britcision]

By the way in light of today’s events I’d like to remind my fellow Canadians to sit the fuck down, shut the fuck up, and get some goddamn legwork in, because we’re at most a year out from our own next election

And voting goddamn Pierre in will be at most marginally less stupid than a second Trump term, so let’s take the important lesson here:

Nothing is safe, nothing is assured, and there’s no point thinking “oh no one would actually want that”

Clearly, some people will happily watch the world burn just to spite their “enemies”, not even for any benefit to themselves - and they live in every country on Earth

We have our own homegrown Trump supporters and we all know who they’ll actually vote for, so unless you want a real quick karmic turn around, stuff any moralizing back in your pants and do something useful

We have less than one year til our next election, Canada

Goddamn Pierre is leading the polls

We will have our own far right, extremist courting bigot at the head of our government unless we actually do something

Make sure your friends are registered to vote

Make sure everyone you know has a way to get to the polls, or to get an early voting ballot

Make sure you are registered to vote and have a way to get to the polls, because you know who votes every time, at every level? Bigots and assholes, and they will win if you do not show up too

Vote just so that one of them has no voice, if nothing else speaks to you

If you can, and someone close to you is a fan of the Conservatives, ask them what they think about his ties to Christian nationalists - not aggressively. Pretend you’re considering him, and you value their opinion, but you have some worries

Then lay out your concerns one by one. The goal isn’t for them to immediately swear off him and change their minds, it’s to make sure all his shady bullshit gets into their head and make them actually think about it

If all they have are justifications like “well all the parties are the same”, well, they’re not

Only one party thinks trans kids should be outed to potentially unsafe homes

Only one party thinks climate change is a good thing that we should be speeding up

So you gotta show up to vote in every single election, at every single level of government, because we’ve just had a crystal clear reminder that democracy only works when everyone participates

Bigots and assholes will put themselves in at every level to slowly take power and change the landscape until they can sweep a national election, and they will change every rule they can to make that sweep happen

One big dramatic vote for the federal government is not enough; you have to do the work or they’ll just keep coming back

Times are rough as fuck right now and we have a cost of living crisis, and for a lot of people who aren’t terminally online that means they’re more worried about putting food on their table tomorrow than a bunch of hypotheticals that might hurt people they don’t know and will never meet

That is a good and normal human survival instinct - there’s no point stockpiling food for the winter when the wells have all dried up and there is no water. One of those problems is more immediate

Moral superiority is alienating and will encourage people not to listen to you, so leave that at home too if you actually want to do anything useful

Anyone I catch bloviating, I’m going to assume you want an ego boost more than you want actual change

Have an outburst, get it out of your system, and then remember it will happen here too

It will be your friends, your coworkers, your family, people you love

Because when people are scared, they get angry, and if someone gives them a target for their fear and pain and say “hey just get rid of that guy and it all goes away”, people don’t go with it because they’re bad people

They need to be reminded to think, to realize that conservative blowhards do not care about them and will sell them for parts for a dollar fifty, and they need to see an actual alternative

A plan that will really make things better, for them personally

And, yeah, plot twist, better human rights protections? Will do that. Better labour regulations? Far more effective than building walls.

And, shit, especially with the latest listeria adventures in Every Goddamn Brand Of Eggs And Chicken Ever Apparently?

Remind them how much more deregulation will hurt them than price increases

Cuz yeah, it is hard to put food on the table right now

But at least most of the food will not kill you! And probably has 0 human fingers in it!

(And hey you’ll probably want some decent healthcare available since, again, Goddamn Everything Has Listeria I Guess)

Show them how Conservatives will materially, demonstrably harm them

Fuck, use their bullshit against them; convince THEM there’s no one worth voting for and they should stay home, then get your goddamn ass out there and vote

[torque-witch]

LONG POST - election topic

Anyhow I ended up talking to my mom about the election results for a little bit the other day and it was some good (considering) and some bad.

My dad voted for orange man. He’s totally bought into whatever Muskrat is touting after decades of AM radio listening. Because he owns a business probably, but he does not make over 400k if my mom is concerned they’ll lose the house over an $800/month mortgage plus whatever mortgage he has at his building. He’s the only employee, for reference. Just a one-man show. He doesn’t socialize. He doesn’t have friends. He just isolates in his photo lab and comes home for dinner maybe and then sometimes sleeps at work.

My mom voted for Kamala, which is nice but she’s still conservative. She’s been trying to subtly or un-subtly get my dad to read non-right wing media on things like tariffs because he doesn’t understand how it will affect his business.

She also acknowledges that both me and my sister would be at risk, but moreso my sister because she is on disability and can’t work. If she can’t get her meds but is forced to work, the cycle of her being homeless will continue because she becomes violent without meds. She could be thrown in jail again.

My dad just wants economic benefits and I guess forgot about his only daughters.

My mom isn’t great though. I’m still not able to tell her all my beliefs because she’s not a safe person at the end of the day, even though I don’t think she would not speak to me or anything.

She thinks abortion is disgusting - BUT agrees that ectopic pregnancy shouldn’t be a part of the conversation because there is no “baby.” Almost had it haha.

She also made her and my dad leave their current church because they were turning into vocal Trump supporters, which she rightly doesn’t think belongs in church. She also was pretty upset that trumpers at church and the Christian school she teaches at are calling liberals “satan worshipping trash” because I and her sisters/extended family are liberal. But ALSO

So my dad sent me a text about Musk’s $200 incentive to sign a petition or whatever - he also sent it to my sister, who is not mentally stable for a good portion of the time. I just said thank you, didn’t sign it and went on with my day. As my mom said, he conveniently didn’t send it to her because he knows she would shut him down.

Anyhow - this text caused a whole breakdown with my sister because she’s on disability, she can’t accept money without it affecting her benefits. She signed up for it. Hasn’t received money obviously. But she as afraid if she did receive money what would she do? What if she won a million dollars? And my mom had to talk her down and explain that she wouldn’t even get the full million, she could just rip up any check and that she shouldn’t accept money from Elon Must under any circumstance.

And my dad just…didn’t think ahead about how the potential for a large sum of money might mentally affect someone with a) grand delusions and b) on disability and c) always threatened with homelessness.

My mom KNOWS he’s just dumb as bricks and under a LOT of propoganda … SO JUST LEAVE HIM.

I feel like if she left him (she won’t because divorce is a sin in her eyes) and moved to the city she would probably learn that she’s actually liberal and highly educated too (she has a masters degree) but the threat of hell is strong for her.

I get it. But I don’t. And I’m grappling with how much I can interact or should because I’m also the executrix of the (paltry) estate. Do I want that future labor? Prob not. But also if it helps us in the future idk.

Idk if it’s worth it to keep holding on because she’s been learning a lot, but at the very least I’m glad that I live 6 hours away. I can’t be doing that kind of socializing anymore.

[snow-and-shadow-fairy]

About Me

This is my feminism sideblog. I have always been a feminist although there have definitely been times where I had feminist awakenings by discovering just how evil men are. I was raised by conservative Christian parents. My mother was a stay at home mother and loved criticising other women for not doing that, for working instead of taking care of their children. Even as a child I thought she was insane and sexist. I saw that women couldn't live lives the way men could if they had children. At dinner we would all sit in silence while my father monologued about his day at work and whatever else he wanted to talk about.

My first feminist awakening was reading the Bible when I was about 19 and 20. There was so much woman hating in there that I just couldn't take it anymore. Non Christians may know about the Ten Commandments given to Moses, but they are just a small section of many rules. One of the rules was that if a woman is raped and she is not married, she must marry her rapist. (May update this later when I can be bothered to find it.) I saw then that men do not see rape as assault, but theft of another man's property. The Bible is split into two sections. The Old Testament, which is before Jesus, and the New Testament, during and after Jesus. Christians tend to worship the New Testament and pick and choose which bits of the Old Testament they want to follow, which I never understood. For example, they will agree with the bits that condemn homosexuality, but when presented with stuff like "marry your rapist", they will say, yeah, that's bad, but don't worry, you don't have to do that anymore. I didn't understand why they were picking and choosing which rules to follow. As a Christian, I thought shouldn't we follow all the rules? But I didn't agree with the rules, or with Christians picking and choosing their own rules, so I stopped being a Christian.

My second was joining tumblr and seeing the misogyny of the trans rights movement. I'm straight, and I wanted to be a good ally to LGBT people, so at first I just thought it was fine, everyone has the right to respect. But I soon found out just how insane they were. My "peak trans" moment was reading this article in buzzfeed about the author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She was asked in an interview about trans women, and I saw nothing wrong with her response. Reading the article I realised that transgender people don't live in the world of reality. I learned that trans women really believe they are actually women, and to say that they were once men is not only wrong, but hate speech. I didn't understand this at all. Surely that's why they were trans women? Also, annoying sjw (for lack of a better phrase) types on the internet love to bang on about intersectional feminism, demonizing the straight white man, and supporting people with marginalized identities, the more marginalized, the better. Yet here was a black women talking about feminism, and hordes of white men (I refused to see them as women anymore) were telling her to shut up. I saw how fake people who bang on about straight white men really are. She didn't say anything offensive, but they were acting like she'd called for their extinction. It didn't make sense.

After that I started following feminist blogs on tumblr. Most of them were lesbians, and I discovered that not only was the trans movement sexist, but it was also homophobic. I tried reblogging their posts, because hey, people on tumblr hate homophobia, right? They love gay people? Wrong. I couldn't believe how many people blocked and unfollowed me for suggesting that lesbians shouldn't have to be attracted to trans women. Eventually I got tired and deleted tumblr. I have a new fandom blog now, completely free of any feminism. I decided to start a feminism blog to post any thoughts I have. I reblog other people's posts at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/snow-and-shadow-fairy-archive.

I believe that sex is the most important part of feminism. Men want sex from women. They want women to be sexually available at all times. Pornography and prostitution abolition should be the main focus of feminism. Women not having to have sex with men if they don't want to should be the main focus of feminism.

Feminists who love to talk about intersectional feminsim love talking about race but never talk about sexuality. Lesbians face the most discrimination due to not wanting to have sex with men. I always knew how creepy men were about lesbians but finding out about the trans rights movement and hearing the phrase "cotton ceiling" really disgusted me even more. It's really sad that "intersectional" feminists don't talk about the intersection of sexism and homophobia. The right pretend that it is only disadvantaged men who assault women. Meanwhile the left pretends that it is only advantaged men who assault women, and do not care when disadvantaged men do it. It's disgusting to see the left completely ignore the misogyny, homophobia and lesbophobia of the trans movement.

Even though I am attracted to men I have never been in a relationship with one and never will. I am genuinely scared of men. I can't even imagine loving one. I'm happy being single. I was delighted when I found out about the South Korean 4B movement. I think that's exactly what women need everywhere.

[numbknee]

Why do you think Kyman gets so much hate? I can understand some things about what people don’t like about it but some of the things they say, the harassment is so out of pocket. Especially on Tik Tok! It is like a battle ground out there and they all will shoot you down immediately if you SAY anything. I just wanna love Kyman without it seeming like a punishment 😭😭

Dude I totally feel you. It's so much easier to live and let live so I don't understand how these ppl have the energy to be so aggressively hurtful all the time. This has been said before ad nauseum but for god's sake, it's JUST a fucking tv show. I'm too old for this shit.

(longer explanation under the cut! like... extremely long lol I'm so sorry my thoughts about this have been building up for a while 😅)

I think the extremely aggressive kyman hate is a symptom of growing poor media literacy and the larger "purity culture" trend that's been present online for a while now. It's very reminiscent of American Evangelicalism or Puritanism, where members of the church have to follow a very specific set of rules for behaving and thinking and if you deviate from those rules in the slightest, you're shot down immediately by the community and shamed for being sinful and blasphemous, all to keep you on the "righteous path" and avoid burning in hell for eternity. This is why so many puritanical christians in the US hate themselves for doing what most of the world sees as normal behavior, and simultaneously force that self-hating worldview onto others to "save" them. (For example see this video by FD Signifier on youtube explaining how hardcore religious ppl/conservatives are doomed to be bad in bed because they see sex as "evil" when in reality it's a normal part of human behavior 😬 It's long but very good).

Though, it's important to note that ppl who think this way may not even be christian themselves, but the behavior is so pervasive in american culture that you absorb it even if you're not a puritanical christian. (for example, to quote Ian Danskin, athiests may think "I don't believe in god, but the god I don't believe in is Jehovah). Tons of the first generation of white USAmericans were exiled British puritans who were kicked out of their home country for essentially being self-righteous assholes and trying to force their shit worldview on everyone else lmao. And I think because so many online spaces are so USAmerican-centric, people from all over the world have started adopting that purity culture as well.

Now, South Park is extremely popular (duh). It's been around for decades so it has a ton of fans both old and new. Unfortunately a lot of new fans, especially young people, follow the show for very different reasons than the average normie/not-terminally-online viewer does. They take the characters out of their original context, use them like dolls to make their own stories and fan content, and ignore all the other blatantly controversial shit that's been going on in the show since day 1 (which is why so many exclusively make blasé creek fanworks imo). They want to keep their thoughts "pure" and only engage with content that's approved by the puritanical online community

It's extremely fitting but also sad that Cartman is the scapegoat for everything wrong with South Park, both in the show and in the real world. Either ppl don't want to acknowledge he exists, or ppl latch onto him and project all of that puritanical hatred toward him or anyone that likes his character. Hell, even I'M guilty of this kind of thinking before I watched the show and understood Cartman's character better.

Kyman in particular is a target BECAUSE it involves Cartman, but also because people boil it down to shipping a nazi with a jew which, at the surface level, seems horrible! But if you've ever actually WATCHED the goddamn show, you know that is an extremely reductive and inaccurate interpretation of their characters. It's horribly poor media literacy. These ppl CANNOT seem to comprehend that you can enjoy watching a character who's a "bad person" without condoning their actions, and that enjoying the shipping dynamic of such characters DOES NOT make you a bad person by proxy.

A huge role of fiction as media is to explore ideas that may be harmful in the real world in a safe way because... *gasp* it's imaginary!! It makes you think and experience emotions you may not have the opportunity for otherwise! However, in the eyes of puritans, the fact you're even thinking about something like that makes you a sinner. It's a thought crime, which is why they consider us mentally "sick" for shipping kyman. So, they send hate at the drop of a hat and publicly vilify kyman shippers to reinforce that behavior with each other, all to say "Hey look at me!!! I'm a Good Person! see how much of a Good Person I am??? I'm gonna go to HEAVEN, and YOU'RE going to HELL". Like I said before, it's not that they necessarily believe in heaven or hell, but that's the general root of the behavior. It's performative puritan dog-piling. Also, because they haven't even fucking watched the whole show, they conveniently ignore all the other horrible shit the show portrays because random kyman shippers online are easy targets while Matt & Trey are gajillionaires who are essentially un-cancellable for things they do on the show at this point because, to quote Trey: For anyone to go up and go "Did you see this thing on South Park? That was really offensive" someone's gonna be like "Dude shut up 😒 that's just South Park".

Geez man this got super fucking long lmao. But my advice is to please take care of yourself because, and this super cliché to say, but FUCK the haters dude 🖕🖕🖕 You're engaging with media that brings you joy and exploring interesting ideas with a community of awesome artists/writers/meta-analysts and more. This is supposed to be FUN!! Anyone who tries to take that away from you or shame you into stopping is a fucking immature, holier-than-thou asshole who needs to get a fucking life. The block button is your friend, so use it early and often. You have the power to curate your own online space, and you shouldn't subject yourself to dealing with these dickheads (this is a big reason why I don't have a tiktok lol)

Good luck dude, and keep on shipping kyman 😎🤘❤️💚

[theprologues]

What does she have to gain from this? 🏈

The answer is money, connections, publicity and a beard.

I want to include that I don’t think any of those reasons are evil. People come on social media suited up for war as if those things are evil and unethical. They are not. Everyone gets in a tizzy about being “lied to” by Taylor. “She wouldn’t lie to us” implying a different reality than what she is showing is interpreted as an admonishment of her character. As if you’re not a real fan because you know the difference between performance and truth. As if fans or the general public are deserving of every facet of her life.

Taylor has made a huge connection with NFL. She has unlocked new fans, brought her own fans into football which they wouldn’t necessarily be into if it weren’t for her. New fans and a different facet of society most likely a new facet of old fan group of white Christian conservatives. Which I do believe is a big factor as to why she is working with Travis as we get into an election cycle with a possibility of T*ump being on the ballot. Part of me believes she will be done with the Travis a few months after the superbowl. Another part wonders if it’ll continue into next football season. Coinciding with the election.

I wonder if they offered to pay her to play the superbowl and she proposed a different alternative because she does not own all her music. This way is both beneficial to NFL and Taylor.

Now to the beard part. For whatever reasons that we are not privy to, the girls have decided to continue bearding. There are a lot of factors why this is but I won’t get into too much theorizing or “speculation”. When I am annoyed by this it’s because I don’t feel it’s necessary for Taylor to beard at this time. As I’ve mentioned I do not know why they have decided this. I feel disheartened as a fan when she beards like this because it plays into this “wag” narrative especially with white Christian conservatives. I want them to live in the light. I want Karlie to not be treated as she is by Taylor’s fans. I still dislike the betrayal narrative. It’s contrived and silly. Because I don’t know why they have chosen this current path and we can all speculate and theorize until the cows come home as to why it’s happening and how much longer this stuff will take, how ever many hints or sources theorize what will happen…this is what is actually happening. So that is why when I share my thoughts it’s because I am living in the present of what I am being shown.

[not-goldy]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nationalheraldindia.com/amp/story/international/skorean-cabinet-passes-bills-to-allow-single-people-to-adopt

Simple

It's only been 1 yr since this new ammendment. And it's gonna be even easier in 10- 15 years as single parent system is increasing rapidly because most korean woman wants to get married/get pregnant and birth rate is declining. So if he wants kids while also being with JK.. all he wants to do is adopt a baby while being single dad officially. He satisfies all official criteria as of now.. he got money and influence which makes legal processes easier and makes him 10x privileged than average single parent.

Do you all really think Jikook 'luckily' won that lottery system to enlist together? Be fr. They might have started the procedures in August but I bet they didn't had to go through 'computer lottery selection'.. they got power, they got money, they got influence, they are governments fav child who they want to finish service fast and start milking, they will be promoted two times faster than average soldier, they will be appointed as head roles in their camps, they will be allowed for companion enlistment if they applied for that, THEY ARE BTS... ONE OF THE PROMINENT PEOPLE IN SK. If SK government approved a Korean queer couple to enlist together and turned a blind eye towards all those protests against it... they don't mind Park Jimin adopting a baby while being in a relationship with Jeon Jungkook. All they want is a official record signing Park Jimin is a single parent, just to make legal sides clear... with whom he's raising that kid is not their concern.

Yea I'm done with them.

They know and admit Jikook have privilege and power but fail to see how and where that privilege and power works in their favor.

Personally I don't want them to just adopt, although any child they adopt would be so lucky- and my goodness would it be nice if they adopt children of different races😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

I will uproot my life and volunteer as nanny with no pay for the rest of my life. I will take care of them kids like they are the most precious beings on this earth🥺

I do want to see their own biological kids too you know?

A Mini Min with his father's eyes and lips and if they turn out even more androgynous with big booty then what😩

Also they will be so loved by us BTS and their kids🥺

One wrote in and said, well single father has nothing to do with Jungkook. They think JM would have to cut Jungkook out of his life at some point in order to live a traditional life.

They are very very highly ignorant if that's what they think. Jungkook will forever be a part of JMs life unless they fall out of love at some point- and even then they would be very good friends too.

Like I said it's his choice and he certainly has options if all that is in his way is institutionalized homophobia.

They came up with a travel documentary as an excuse to go on a trip together before serving they can certainly come up with a billion other creative ways to enjoy a fulfilling life together.

If not, then all the more reason for them to enjoy it while it last. What is it JK says, make hay while the sun shine.

Two years ago I almost broke up with my girl for good because of these uncertainties. I knew I didn't want children, didn't even consider let alone desire marriage because coming from a very conservative Christian black home, that's not an option to marry a woman. You can't be gay and you can't be unmarried and childless. And for me, those who know think it's some sort of phase I will outgrow once I'm faced with reality.

So while I am this way, hiding the truth of what I am from people in my life, openly living in my truth when I'm away from my family- I'm learning to stand up to them. To confront them with my truths without shame and with confidence.

I'm not hiding anymore- may be a little. Lol. But I'm not making excuses anymore. I'm not telling them, I'm still young I'll worry about that latter. I'm not saying, she's just a good friend. That the rumors are false. That I'm waiting for the right one, that I haven't found the right man- I'm not saying all that anymore.

I may not able to tell it as it is but I'm telling exactly what it is not.

No I don't want a wedding but yes I do want life long commitment and I want legal rights with it dammit

I want consistent immutable inalienable rights and that is more important to me than having kids getting married and all that other stuff.

I want to be able to live my life in peace and not worry about changing laws that give one minute and take away the next.

I want freedom. I want paradise.

and may be one day I'll want children may be I won't.

I want what I want and I don't want what I don't want. I'm manifesting for myself through positive affirmations.

Nothing is as black and white as they make it seem.

And I'm cautious in this discourse because some have committed suicide rather than "face reality" or choose to conform to these societal standards they are perpetuating and wielding over jikook's heads.

They are perpetuating the very thing oppressing us and the very thing we spend most of our lives fighting.

They are not saying if Jikook are gay this system would be a challenge for them as it has been for others, they are saying this is the system and Jikook have no right to go against it. This is the system, they must conform to the status quo as many queer men have and they will.

There's something oppresive, sinister and disturbing about that to me. The lengths they will sink to to invalidate Jikook is crazy.

On the flip side, pointing out Jikook's privileges too too much also alienates them and puts a target on their backs as we might make it look as if they would not have to face all the many real struggles others face due to their sexual orientation in SK. It's a lose lose situation however you look at it.

It's their life their choice and whatever they choose to do is very valid. I'm sorry to Jikook they have to deal with this and I pray things get better in SK over time as you have rightfully pointed out.

I stand with Jikook and every queer person in that system. Things are a bit better today compared to years ago but boy are they living in the vip region of hell.

And Bang PD's advice to that artist about the challenges he would face if he chooses to live his truth and wear heels will always give me comfort especially the fact he was willing to help him make it work in his career in spite of the odds against him

I know, there are people close to jikook with the same mentality. They know the "reality" and situation on the ground, they empathize with them, are willing to direct them on how to make it work if they choose this path and so they don't feel isolated.

Please help me support Jikook okay? Stay with them to the end, pray for them love them fight for them.

The challenges they face, I wish I could say it's all just fiction, it's real, it's dangerous, it's traumatizing, the mental turmoil alone is

Sigh.

Support Jikook. Jikook is real.

[jyndor]

im both really happy for syrians to get to return home because assad is gone but I am also super worried about syrian christians and other minorities. and now shockingly (/s) israel is doing israel shit on the border? plus with the bullshit ceasefire that israel has already violated in lebanon, not to mention the ongoing genocide in palestine. it could be a nightmare in the making, and it was already a nightmare.

but israel is increasingly becoming a pariah state and no amount of greater israel bullshit will ever change that fact. I just really, really hope things work out okay in syria. but I mean there's a lot of reasons to be concerned about certain elements in syria - like how are we gonna bitch and moan about a national resistance movement (even if it is conservative) like hamas but celebrate certain parts of the syrian rebels who literally used to be al qaeda like?? and isis????? obviously this is not all of the syrian rebels, certainly not the kurds for example. anyway idk syria is ACTUALLY complicated but what isn't complicated is that assad was a vile dictator and it's good that he is gone, but also like I remember the overthrow of another dictator, saddam hussein, who was also a garbage monster. but he wasn't overthrown because he was a garbage monster - he was overthrown because he was no longer useful to the us. so idk. we will see.

I just hope that syrians have peace and not live in terror after all this time.

[amoeganism]

🎈🍓🐞🩸 for both creatures !!!!!!!

SUPER LONG LORE DROP TIME!!!!! YIPPEE YAYYY

🎈 (balloon) - What does your character do at parties? Are they a wallflower or a party animal? Do they go with friends or alone?

when mayumi still went to school, she was almost never invited to parties and was generally avoided (she was an insane bully in middle school and freshman year to cope with her home life so #karma #rip #deserved) the ones she did go to though, no one talked to her unless they were super drunk or under the influence of other substances so she'd have a drink then leave. the people who did talk to her would usually cuss her out or try to take a swing at her. it never really changed for her and she knew that, but there's free food and drinks!!!

ryuji grew up in a smaller, more conservative town where parties were generally traditional festivals. he liked them and would go to as many as he could with his family and friends, but he thought crashing random functions with cokeheads and alcoholics was better. his reasons: a shit ton of drunk people are 1. funny, 2. dont gaf about him being there, and 3. he doesn't know anything about them and would be too fucked up to care about who they are

🍓 (strawberry) - Does your oc believe in anything? Are they superstitious? Religious? Atheistic? Has anything in their past made them this way?

mayumi doesn't believe in anything and was borderline nihilistic at one point in life. she doesn't feel like there's a need for her to believe in a higher being and even if she tried, she can never convince herself to do so. in her mind, if there's a god that's punishing her for not believing in it, then they can go fuck themselves

ryuji on the other hand, was raised in a non-religious household that didn't believe in anything apart from traditional japanese gods and goddesses. however he's tried to devote himself to christianity in order to "fix himself" because he has a crippling inferiority complex and unhealed trauma. it didn't work out and now he has an intense hatred for the church and religion in general cuz he thinks it failed him.

🐞 (ladybug) - What does a perfect day look like for your oc? What do they do? Who do they see?

mayumi would like to be in a tropical place out of a touristy area where no one knows her. she has a huge appetite and can spend an entire day eating around. she's also never been outside of japan so somewhere completely different would be like a dream. she's like one of those tourists who pretend to be a local but u can tell she's one cuz she's always taking pics LOL

ryuji fantasizes about living in a high rise apartment in the busiest parts of tokyo and see his face posted on a huge screen on the side of a building, right outside of his window. he'd actually really like doing business and he'd like to close off the day wasted at a club (and maybe make out with one person... or two.... or three....)

🩸 (blood) - Is your oc squeamish? Are they disturbed by the sight of blood? Have they ever been in a situation where they had to overcome being squeamish?

mayumi is not squeamish at all and is scared of pretty much nothing. she just does not GAF abt anything .... absolute menace like puts salt on slugs when she was a kid menace

ryuji isn't phased by bugs since he grew up in an area with a shit ton of crickets and cicadas and flies and shit. he used to make a quick buck by selling dried up cicadas to tourists for like 50 yen #businessman! small amounts of blood doesn't bother him and he finds horror movies boring. however any injury larger than a scrape GETSSS him like he'll curl up and gag kinda reaction -_-

[catboybiologist]

Wait, you're Slavic?

Any perspectives on how that interacts with queernes, that is definitely not a thing I know a lot about. (feel free not to answer if it's too personal).

Not really. I'm American born and raised. My parents are technically immigrants, each from a different eastern european country. But they each came over here when they were kids, and have had interesting on and off connections with their home countries. Neither have accents, and typically don't look or act much different than standard white americans. I have noticed some pervasive quirks and values, however, and talking to my more fully Slavic friends, they seem rooted in the same place.

I can absolutely comment on how this has affected me, but I want to be abundantly clear: I cannot speak to an actual, lived Slavic queer experience. I'm not even bilingual (thank you, weird desire of my parents to make me "more american" by not teaching me their languages). I can comment on the cultural norms that it seems like my family has passed down, and the small amount I've seen in the immigrant communities they're a part of here. However, its pretty much impossible for me to untangle these from the quirks of just my family and family friends. That's my disclaimer, and if actual Slavic people want to comment about this (especially with what's happening in Russia) I would love to hear it.

Obviously I'm also not going to completely air my family's dirty laundry as well, so hopefully this won't get uncomfortably specific for me. I do want to talk about it though.

If there's anything I *can* comment on here, I can divide it into two things: atheistic conservative social values, and immigrant academic culture.

As I've said, I was raised atheist. While the orthodox church and other local Christian branches are still culturally relevant forces in Eastern Europe, from my understanding it hasn't been near the level of Catholicism or various Protestant movements in other countries. Most Slavic immigrants I've interacted with are atheist. They do, however, still carry extremely strong conservative cultural values despite that, and are often politically right wing as a result. The most strong and deeply rooted representation of this is the vehement protection of the "family unit" above all else. Which, as I'm sure you all will agree with, sounds nice on its surface but has a lot of branching consequences. Resolving conflict between family members is more paramount than actually resolving the hurt of individuals. There's a sense of forced closeness much of the time. And of course.... queerphobia. Anti gay marriage sentiments, regressive opinions about reproductive rights, anti-trans opinions based on preservation of the ability to reproduce.... yeah there's a lot to unpack there. A lot of this is a common theme, but most of the time, it's rooted in religion. This is very easy to completely excuse in your head. Slavs, however, typically seem to frame the root mentalities that drive these in terms of "survival", the stability of society and the societal purpose of these values, and also weird, lopsided scientific explanations for them (eg, I've heard multiple times independently that gay people are "evolutionary errors"). Which, I'm sure someone way more qualified than me to comment could write a book about how this relates to post-war and post-Soviet collective trauma, but that would be WAY outside of my scope. This makes it... always just a little different than the types of homophobia that people talk about in more classic american families, and its interesting to compare and contrast.

The other one, which I talked about more in my previous post, is high academic standards. This I think is a shared experience of children of immigrants from many places, even a couple of generations out. The stereotype of the "Tiger Mom" is the typical example, even though the scope is well beyond that. But there's a very simple explanation: the United States put harsh immigration restrictions on many countries that were seen as non-allies for the majority of the 20th century. The best way around them was, and still is, being highly educated. It's no accident that my educated family was allowed to immigrate to this country during an arms race with Eastern bloc countries. Brain Drain policies were a factor, and the cultural expectation for immigrants to be "useful" was another. What this creates is a massive cultural message to immigrants: education is the key to everything. When someone's entire current life is dependent on being high achieving and well educated, its going to create some fucky expectations for their kids. I've compared this experience with some of my East Asian friends growing up, and there's a lot of unexpected parallels.

Of course, my parents are a lot more Americanized than most immigrants, so this also falls under the umbrella of "if I'm speaking on something I actually have no idea about please correct me".

Together, I think this manifested in me not as classic internalized queerphobia, but more as a distinct sense that I shouldn't care at all, and shame for wanting to develop an aspect of myself. I didn't really hate the queer aspect of myself specifically, I had a nonspecific distaste for any aspect of my being that didn't comply with the things I said above. I haven't had that much queerphobia directed at me specifically- moreso, its a topic thats not talked about at all, as if its not real. I can only infer an opinion when loose lips start saying things after some alcohol. Which of course, there's a lot of.

Politically, I'm actually very proud of how my parents and grandparents act. They vote in left leaning ways- but they're oddities in their communities because of it. They also do so very begrudgingly (except my grandma, who has strong progressive whoop-your-ass vibes [I love her so much]), and I'm pretty sure its more about the current state of the Republican party as opposed to their actual values. With everything I've said as well, I also have very little idea how they would react to my queerness on a personal level. I'm not out to them, and I know that there's a huge difference in many people's minds between supporting queer rights as a political movement, vs how you engage with a queer person in your actual life. I've heard some very nasty things said by my parents in that regard, and the way there's a rift between "consenting adults doing whatever they want with themselves" vs actually evaluating people as... yknow. People. The "family unity above all else" aspects are particularly scary for me, and I have no idea how they'll react if I ever bring a man home to them, much less when I come out to them about gender. But that's a tangent.

Would love to hear more experiences related to this!!!! Again, its very difficult to untangle how much of this is Slavic cultural values trickling through the generations, and how much is just quirks of particular people I know.

[queering-ecology]

Chapter 3--Penguin Family Values: the nature of planetary environmental reproductive justice by Noel Sturgeon

Sturgeon’s article opens in a discussion of the award-winning nature documentary The March of the Penguins and how the animal was simultaneously adopted by “right-wing fundamentalist Christians in the United States as an inspiring example of monogamy, traditional Christian family values, and intelligent design” & was becoming “a symbol of the naturalness of gay marriage”  to others(102)—Tango Makes Three (a children’s book based on ‘gay’ penguins at the Central Park Zoo who raised an egg—naturalness and success of gay marriage for raising children). “Queer families turn out to be just the same as straight families. […] they’re determined by nature” 117

Another example of penguins and reproduction in media—Happy Feet—singing/dancing and themes of normalcy. Homosociality and references of homosexuality but “always flavored with the kind of liberal tolerance covering over ultimate rejection that is  thin veneer for heterosexist anxiety”. And ultimately, the main character’s differences are settled when he ends up ‘happily ever after’ in a heterosexual and successfully reproductive nuclear family.

“Penguins (along with polar bears) became popular symbols of what we would lose to global warming. Relatively invisible in the public cultural arena in contrast, were the growing and unequal effects of the pollution of our atmosphere on marginalized human beings such as indigenous peoples in the Arctic regions, who are struggling to preserve their cultures and societies in the face of rapid climate change” (102).

The author uses the term “Environmental Reproductive Justice” as a way of connecting environmental issues with social justice issues. This builds off insights by feminists of color and Global South feminists who tend to argue for the term ‘reproductive justice’ over ‘reproductive rights’—not just the ability to control pregnancy but also the need for childcare, health care, prenatal care, freedom from coerced sterilization, healthy environments, clean air, food and water, adequate housing, etc (103)

Living environmentalism-reproduction as necessarily about the intertwined reproduction of the environment, communities, and individuals (Giovanna Di Chiro, 2008)

How we reproduce—whether we are reproducing people, families, cultures, societies, and/or the planet—is politicized in several layered and contradictory ways (103). Gender and sexuality are often ignored as part of explanations when examining contemporary political and economic systems. I.e. when exploring the contradictions inherent in the right-wing—“far right conservatives have been able to mobilize low-income people on their side even though the political and economic policies working-class people are asked to support are contrary to their own class interests” (frank 2004)—gender roles and reproductive labor are not oft explored as ways they've been able to inspire feelings of fear, anger, oppression=abortion, ‘vulgarity’ in popular culture, homosexuality (I would also add transsexuality/transgenderism now), family values…all centered around gender expectations, driven by changes in economic practices in a globalizing economy (104)

“The politics of gender are often both the politics of reproductions and the politics of production—the intertwined ways that people produce more people, manage bringing up children, figure out how to do the work at home at the same time as the work that brings in a paycheck, decide how and where to buy food, clothing, shelter, and transportation, take care of elders, and create and maintain all of the social institutions that surround this work. And all of this is central to whether or not our ways of living cause environmental degradation.” (104)

“Heterosexual culture achieves much of its metacultural intelligibility through the ideologies and institutions of intimacy…First, its conventional spaces presuppose a structural differentiation of ‘personal life’ from work, politics, and the public sphere. Second, the normativity of heterosexual culture links intimacy only to the institutions of personal life, making them the privileged institutions of social reproduction, the accumulation and transfer of capital, and self-development…intimate life is the endlessly cited elsewhere of political public discourse, a promised haven that distracts citizens from the unequal conditions of their political and economic lives, consoles them for the damaged humanity of mass society, and shames them for any divergence between their lives and the imitate sphere that is alleged to be simple personhood” (Berlant and Warner, 1998 553) (105)

Heterosexist arguments are binary (homosexuality vs heterosexuality, ‘opposites attract’, ‘men are from Mars, women are from Venus’) and normative (heterosexuality is better, more natural, more moral, more normal, more wholesome, better for parenting). So social institutions are structured in a way that privileges heterosexual sexual practices and solidifies what a family should look like; who does the domestic work; how women/men should act, look, behave; how life should be maintained (producing heterosexuality) (105) These heterosexist arguments are usually about preserving and reproducing particular forms of family, social power, and economic practice.

Pro-life/pro-family—not just about preventing abortions, but about the reproduction of a certain historically and culturally specific idealized family form; father is authority; mother is helpmate and childcare provider; several children living in a framework of Christian, religious, patriarchal, heterosexual, nationalistic, U.S. and nuclear—right-wing. “The family acts as a miniature welfare state, modulating consumption, curbing excess desires, improvising child care and providing social security—[…]it is the dreamworld conveyed in the…’serious’ media…where the conservative variant of the neoliberal utopia is attributed to the biologically fixed ‘nature’ of desire (Lancaster 2003, 336) (106)

Fear of allowing women (especially young women, especially women of color, especially poor women—ESPECIALLY young, poor, women of color) have access to choices and support for their own reproductive decisions and thus forming families that do not adhere to the right-wing model…..divinely created=natural, normal so all else is unnatural and opposite of divine

This particular family model especially when located in a suburban, consumer economy dependent on extremes of global inequality, might be an important origin of our present environmental problems. (107)

Nuclear family model relies on women’s unpaid domestic labor (childcare, eldercare), using nonrenewable fuel-intensive transportation such as cars and long-distance shipping of consumer products, women as shoppers/consumers—these stores are part of globalized production and distribution chains dependent on exploitation of the labor of the poor (global south and often women) (107)

Environmental health is centrally important to reproduction as well as production (107) Reproduction is a materialist and a planetary issue—all reproduction comes with consequences for the global environment, economies and social practices.

Planetary reproduction and environmental reproductive justice

Deconstructing Polar Opposites: Endangered Peoples, Endangered Cultures, Endangered Natures

Missing from the conversation is the immediate threat to numerous groups of people especially vulnerable to climate change by reason of geography, poverty, or political discrimination (documentaries that use images of penguins and polar bears to dramatize the consequences of melting polar ice fail to mention the impact on Arctic Indigenous peoples…)

Indigenous people are not penguins, endangered tribal cultures are not endangered species—racist and the parallel trope of the ‘disappearing Indian’ discounts and obscures the struggle of real indigenous peoples to exist and successfully transform their cultures strategically for survival. Arctic indigenous tribes may be threatened by climate change but they are resilient and experienced in resisting threats to their people… (119)

“We’ve adapted in the past, which is why we are still here” (Chickaloon Grand Chief Gary Harrison, 2005)

Arctic Indigenous peoples have been addressing the problem and suggesting solutions for many years because they knew the threats they faced were early warnings for the people around the world.

“All of this will have a profound impact on the viability of indigenous cultures throughout the North and further afield. Everything is connected in nature; what happens in Alaska will affect all other places of the world as a cascading effect, as scientists call it, will occur” (Cochran 2007) (120)

The possibility of losing indigenous knowledge along with the animals and ice….Subsistence living is part of cultural survival and an important method for keeping the world in balance (Harry Bower Jr. 121) The environment is part of a larger universe with moral and cultural aspects that are maintained by the practices of indigenous peoples who have lived on the land for thousands of years (121)

The expansive knowledge [indigenous people have] about sustainable practices, whether it was supported by scientific expertise or traditional experience, was knowledge that arose from a particular way of life, one that needed to be respected and maintained. It was not knowledge gained from the mystical identity of being Ecological Indians, but was rather sophisticated information needed now by all those, Indigenous or not, trying to understand and address climate change (121)

The reproduction of industrialized economic systems, particularly by the United States and other Western countries, has consequences for planetary ecological workings on a global scale as well as on the scale of communities, families, and species, determining the ability of animals, families and cultures to reproduce in healthy and sustainable ways (122)

Too Many People, Too Few Penguins

The concept of over-reproduction and over population are inherently problematic. Human reproduction (especially that of the poor, immigrants, and people in the Global South), is depicted as a major environmental problem…some environmentalists argue against having children at all.

The “Other” population is portrayed as the central problem environmentally and socially whereas “Our” society (developed industrialized societies) are made invisible.

We encourage ‘other’ societies to engage in family planning, education for women, birth control access among other things while ignoring how the US often prioritizes abstinence only programs rather than birth control for their own population, among failing to provide support for women when they do become pregnant (this article was written prior to roe v wade being overturned. But I bet that would be in this article now…)

“When environmentalists sound warnings about overpopulation, they are usually expressing fears over the reproduction of (poor) nonwhite people, not of white people, whose populations in all Western countries are in decline (but whose consumption habits generally are not). Calls for educational fixes to inform ‘populations’ about why they should want to bear fewer children advance an imperialist cultural agenda that demands that nonwhite people adopt the cultural, social, and economic practices and systems of organization dominant in Western countries (e.g. the prototypical nuclear family), while blaming the ‘foolishness’ of Third World men and women (since the solution is Western education) for environmental degradation. (Gosine 2005, 80-81) (126)

Environmental Justice Family Values

“We are not outside the earth looking down upon it. Instead, we are inside specific biosystems and complex relationships with other biological entities; we impact and are impacted by the interrelationships of those entities. Responsibility to these ecological niches, networks and dynamics can be brought into view only if we understand ourselves as animals among other animals, with varied sexualities, complicated family relationships, complex political systems, and multiple desires. Perhaps we are peculiar animals with astounding abilities, but we are still part of an interconnected world and thus answerable to it” (129)

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Carter Sherman at The Guardian:

Dozens of anti-abortion activists streamed into the conference room of a Washington DC hotel. They jostled for seats as speakers, dotted throughout the room, blasted a song about the need to be “a little more like Jesus, a little less like me”. By the time a trio of advocates, assembled on a dais at the front of the room, started to talk about the “Future of Chemical Abortion in America”, the title of one of the first seminars at the National Pro-Life Summit, it was standing room only. When it was Erik Baptist’s turn to address the crowd, he said: “Chemical abortion is the No 1 priority and issue of our time, for the life movement,” using the anti-abortion movement’s lingo for medication abortion, which is performed with pills. Baptist is in a rare position to do something about it. Since July, Baptist has led the Center for Life at the Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), one of the foremost conservative advocacy organizations in the US.

Formed in 1994, the ADF is today the rightwing answer to the American Civil Liberties Union. The legal group’s attorneys are at the forefront of virtually every conservative cause du jour, such as campus free speech, access to gender-affirming care and, of course, abortion. The ADF played a critical role in demolishing Roe v Wade, as it helped craft the model bill that became the Mississippi abortion ban that overturned Roe. But its lawyers have also been a part of recent supreme court cases over access to abortion pills and emergency abortions.

As the Center for Life’s director, these kinds of efforts are now within Baptist’s purview. “We do have a comprehensive approach to lawsuits and what we’re trying to do. We’re obviously trying to win in courts and try to protect as many unborn lives as we can and support mothers who [are] in unplanned pregnancies. And how we execute that manifests itself in multiple ways,” said Baptist, who is also senior counsel at the ADF and served as one of the Environmental Protection Agency’s top lawyers during Donald Trump’s first term. He added: “We have brought cases on behalf of pregnant centers, sidewalk counselors, pro-life doctors, and we’ll continue to do that.” In an interview a few days after the summit, Baptist laid out many of the ADF’s priorities for 2025 – and the organization is poised to have a big year.

In December 2024, a petition by ADF attorneys convinced the supreme court to hear oral arguments in Kerr v Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, a case that could determine whether states can refuse to send Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood. Defunding Planned Parenthood, the anti-abortion movement’s arch-nemesis, has long been one of the movement’s most cherished goals.

Then there’s the fight over the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, known as Emtala, which requires hospitals to stabilize patients who arrive at their doors in emergencies. The Biden administration said that Emtala also covers emergency abortions, but ADF attorneys have joined Idaho – home to one of the nation’s strictest abortion bans – in fighting that interpretation. That case went all the way up to the supreme court last year but, like the abortion pills case, is now continuing in a lower court. The ADF is also involved in at least two other cases over Emtala.

Anti-abortion extremists, emboldened by the Dobbs ruling and Trump’s return to office, are moving on to the next battle: the fight to ban mifepristone and medication abortion.

[littleapocalypsekitten]

Something I've been thinking of lately in regards to how much I mistrust people. This time, politically. Alright, I know enough that Conservatives Cannot Be Trusted. Even the "mild" ones who aren't full-bore MAGA kind of truck with them, share like-mindedness, even if the milder ones might not like a big orange blowhard because of optics. He's making them look bad by yelling the quiet parts out loud, but those parts are still there. However, I am thinking that Leftists Cannot Be Trusted, either. I truck much more on that side of the political aisle. I want Universal Healthcare more than anything. I'd like to break the backs of corporations. I want to give everyone free homes and utilities as a basic human right. Even a Universal Basic Income might be nice. Work for the luxuries and a higher standard of living, but no one starves. (Hunger doesn't drive people to work, starving people are too weak to work). I am very much on the same page with not just the "liberal" values, but even some things that are considered outright leftist. But I do look askance, sort of have a feeling of looking over my shoulder because of some things I hear from self-proclaimed Leftists and some of the historical leans they've had. I mean, first of all, some of the people I've seen on Youtube are pretty abelist, actually. I see a lot of throwing around of the r-word and poking at people for being autistic. (Granted, even if you're making fun of Elon Musk, it leaves a bad taste in the mouth). There's a lot of down-punching on people with any kind of psychiatric condition (but that's nothing new, the entire world, right, center and left does that, it's just that the left pretends that they don't do it and do it, anyway). There's even someone I talk to on a forum who has severe kidney disease and takes dialysis who has been told in response to pointing out that the aftermath of a Revolution is going to leave things a mess for good while, the kind of mess where he cannot get access to medical care that he should be willing to die for the Revolution. He does not want to die for their idea of a Revolution. People who claim to want to ultimately save people like him are ultimately telling him that he needs to die. Another thing that makes me nervous is just how many "reddit atheists" / "fedora atheists" are self-proclaimed uber-leftists. There is nothing wrong with being an atheist. You do you. I'm theistic in my beliefs, but I don't believe in eternal conscious torment Hell - I gave up being an Evangelical when that belief and being a spiritual used car salesman wasn't working out for me. Still, yes, even though I haven't been to church in decades, I have some religious beliefs. They're a personal method of getting through life for me, nothing less, nothing more. I was very online in the 2000s, including on religious fora. These places got a lot of trolls. I encountered a lot of AGGRESSIVE attempts at deconversion. A lot of leftists were of this stripe and wove their politics into it. It seems like "that crowd" since 2017 or so, split off into two factions: The guys who followed the rather blatant Islamaphobia of certain popular authors and listened to junk about women being "more religious" and therefore inferior because of our soft, tender ladybrains, a fear of trans people and the like getting them really alt-right and in bed with some of the Christian fundamentalist people they used to despise and... those that stayed leftist, went even harder leftist and anti-capitalist and actually started to recognize that Progressive religionists exist and are good allies in the fight against common enemies. They took off their fedoras and got to work in allyship against those who oppress minorities and the poor. Good for us all. However, I look at these same people sometimes and I think, "Alright, once we achieve a more equitable world together, if it is even possible, are you actually a leopard that's going to eat my face?"