#along with all of the women she knows believe in what radfems believe in

[shimenchus]

it's so telling when someone says radical feminism is "white woman shit" and you bring up the fact that in many places such as africa or asia, the only feminism that prominently exists is radical feminism, and for those places it's just considered regular feminism that you get told those women live in places that aren't progressive enough for them to understand their actions properly. to say these women are too dumb to realize that their beliefs are "bad" simply because they don't align with western mainstream liberal feminism is rooted in xenophobia and racism, not to mention a lack of understanding of the struggles and violence women from these countries regularly go through, which can range anywhere from fgm to men rubbing and wiping their cum on the back of women's clothes in trains. but of course, as usual, there's no intelligent response to this so you just end up getting blocked or get rape wished on you.

[femsolid]

The nuns I mentioned? I talked to one of them, a young woman, she lived in a church together with other women, in what they call "modesty" (we had our little debate about that), they don't shave, wear make-up or anything, just their natural selves, and every day they eat together and do whatever it is nuns do. It's a female only community. She told me that she was going on a trip with the other nuns this summer, to a house on the coast, for some spiritual nonsense I didn't care about, but, I thought, in some way they are closer to radical feminism than a lot of so-called radfems out there. Of course it's all nullified by the fact that they worship the male sex and obey the orders of male representatives, real or fictional, but still. They live among women, they frequent only women, they don't date men and many of them don't trust men romantically. And, to be fair, they idolize a female figure called Mary. And so why can they do that, live among women and separate from men, when so many supposed radical feminists say it's impossible and only leads to gloom and doom, a lonely witch living in the woods with her cats and no orgasms. To me it shows that the problem is not that men are essential to women, it's that feminists lack conviction. These nuns have conviction, faith and a crazy amount of ambition, completely deluded yes, but because they believe so firmly, they can practice what they preach. And I know it's not the case of all nuns, but this group was truly determined and excited about their lives. Many radical feminists lack ambition and don't actually believe liberation will feel good and is worth the change. They also don't believe women are worth the effort. There's also this: the nuns I spoke to were moved by optimism, the hope of greatness, happiness, a wonderful reward. And they enjoyed the process that'll get them there. Most radical feminists don't see this in separatism, they don't envision the joy of liberation, they see only fear and loneliness. And they just don't believe it's doable. They just don't. There's no way out of the patriarchy to them, no way out of the male prism. And finally, a not so negligible point, they don't think women can get along. The best motivator is the prospect of joy and self-fulfilment. That's our job as separatists: to put forward the advantages of separatism. Because goddess knows men put a lot of effort into presenting heterosexual relationships as a blissful prospect. Well the truth is, I love being a separatist. I love caring about myself so much, I've loved discovering who I really am and being able to finally be myself and not trying to please anyone, I love respecting myself, I love all the free time I have for myself, I love learning about and meeting other women, I love being safe. My life has improved so much when I stopped caring about men. I feel incredibly lucky to have become a feminist separatist in my 20s. I'm looking at an entire life of being myself, prioritizing women and girls, being independent, resourceful, it's my money, my place, my hobbies, my time, my energy and it's all for myself, my sister, my niece, my female friends and the women I meet (and my dog, okay she counts too.) Literally the only sad thing about being a separatist is that there's not enough women who are doing the same. What a world it would be. Women loving themselves. So, I guess my point is, separatism needs to be promoted not as fleeing from men, but as building our own freedom, the freedom to be ourselves. Because that's exciting and beautiful to experience. There's joy in the reward and joy in the process.

[aropride]

trying to draw lines of who's queer and who's not is unhelpful and a waste of time and i find it's an impossible task to categorize something as uncategorizable as attraction and identity. i've started thinking of it as more of a sociopolitical label as well as an identity label, and in my opinion that's a lot more useful than sitting around trying to decide if a guy who's only ever been attracted to women and ryan reynolds counts as queer or not. because i feel like if, for instance, a straight cis man who does drag and regularly engages in trans activism and sits down with his state senator to discuss making trans sanctuary laws or whatever. wants to identify as queer. i don't really care? i don't think that affects anyone negatively. i think if someone's involved in queer activism and the queer community and they want to use the word queer for themselves i think that's fine and i think it's not any of my business.

also there's this tendency, especially online, for people to go "well what if an allocishet person uses the word queer for themself even though they arent!" and that doesn't feel like a helpful thing to worry about because like.. what if? who is really getting hurt if a gender nonconforming cishet person identifies as queer? or a woman with two husbands? i saw a post along the lines of "we've got straight girls calling themselves fagdykes this is why inclusionism is bad" and i mean. first of all i genuinely just do not believe that. i don't think there are cishet women calling themselves fagdykes. i don't think people who wouldn't be considered queer by cishet society are often proudly declaring themselves part of the queer community in general. people don't paint targets on their backs for fun. i think it's much more likely that the person they were mad at was nonbinary or bi or otherwise queer. but even if they were, like. if for some reason a completely cis completely straight woman wanted to reclaim slurs for herself, she probably has a reason for that. and it's not really our business anyway.

and i think if someone actually is "only identifying as queer to infiltrate queer spaces and cause discord and hurt people," i think that's a them problem, not a "person who uses labels i don't fully get" problem. and i don't think that happens often except for possibly in discord servers, and i think that's generally called "lying" and "being an asshole."

whenever i see stuff trying to draw a line on who's queer and who's not, whether this person can say fag or not, whether it's okay for this person to use they/them pronouns or not, whatever. "are polyamorous people queer?" "can a cis guy use they/them pronouns?" i think of ace/aro exclusionism and bi exclusionism and nonbinary exclusionism. because the arguments sound the same. something about not being "oppressed enough," about "stealing resources" (what resources?), about "well these ones are okay but those ones aren't," about fakers, about people reclaiming slurs they can't use, about how they're "making us look bad," how they're "not queer enough," whatever. and i think it's petty and useless and pretty stupid when we're in the face of a rise in violent transphobia to focus on that instead of actual problems.

i had a friend in high school who talked about how she doesn't understand sexuality and gender and gender roles because she's autistic. she was a lot like me in that we'd both pick at strict definitions of things like "queer" or "trans" and find exceptions to common strict definitions until they fell apart entirely. and she identified with just her name, not trans, not nonbinary, not cis either. not bi or pan or ace or aro or anything else, and not straight. just herself. and she was fully accepting of me and other queer people in our life and was involved in queer activism and was actively deradicalizing her mom from radfem ideology. i don't know if she identified as queer then or if she does now, but if she did/does, i don't see why she shouldn't. i don't think it'd be my place to tell her not to.

i don't know. i just think if someone wants to consider themself queer it's not my business why. because they probably have a good reason. and i think trying to define something like queerness is an impossible task, and i think there's better things to do. it's not hurting anyone for someone you or i see as allocishet to identify as queer for whatever reason. sometimes you don't have to understand the intricacies of someone's identity and life story and why they use certain words for themselves.

[pillarsalt]

How do you cope with loneliness? My friends are so important to me but sometimes I feel like I can't fully relate to them anymore, and I just think about how they would hate me if they knew I was GC. I have TIF and even a few TIM friends that I love and cherish very dearly because I can see that they've just fallen victim to a toxic ideology feeding their body dysmorphia and self-esteem issues. But I can't tell them how genuinely worried I am about their mental health or send them detrans testimonies that I think they would relate to because they'd think I was some hateful violent monster that I'm not. Even the content creators that bring me joy and comfort are all so fiercely anti-TERF and it just makes me sad. I don't want to hurt anyone. I even distanced from the radfem community a bit because I felt like I was becoming too hateful towards men and TIMs when I truly believe many of the ones in my life are just trying their best and fell victim to a manipulative ideology that myself and other women also fell for. It's not that I wish I was still a TRA, because I feel much more at peace internally with my identity and my belief system, but I don't know if I can say peaking has made me happier overall. I feel like I don't fit in anywhere now. Making radfem friends helped a little bit but it's not the same as being around people I've known for years and gotten close to for reasons other than this one shared belief. I don't just want to abandon them all. And it's FRUSTRATING to see people spew misinformed fearmongered nonsense and not be able to actually help them dissect those beliefs. Feeling like the only one who sees things for how they really are, but forced to play along regardless, is just so restrictive and isolating.

To be completely honest with you, I don't have a great answer. I've been lucky to have one or two close friends at a time to whom I can tell everything, including my uncensored feminism-related beliefs. I've also been (and currently am) in friend groups with multiple people who identify as trans or are dating someone who identifies as trans, and have had to keep my thoughts and opinions to myself to keep the peace. I agree it's incredibly difficult sometimes, and I know a fair few of them would instantly drop me if they knew I was a "terf". It's kind of funny because I know some of them have an inkling of what I think about the issue, but say nothing so they don't have to fight with me. If anyone asked my opinion directly, I wouldn't lie, but I admit that I lie by omission.

It is hard to watch the ones who take the medicalization route hurt themselves. My ex girlfriend and I still talk, she's a they/them nonbinary now and despite always and still being very feminine and never expressing discomfort with her body before (including posting thirst traps often,) she wants to get a mastectomy soon. It sucks because of course after having looked into this phenomenon for so long, I'm well aware of the complications and side effects that can result from a major procedure like this: phantom pain/itching, extensive and restrictive scarring, the risks of infection and necrosis, and of course the risk of regretting having an entire organ unnecessarily removed from your body later on when it's no longer fashionable to do so. It sucks that voicing even the mere suggestion that it might be a bad idea is enough to have you shunned as an apostate. I genuinely care about her and I would feel similarly if she was having any other radical cosmetic surgery like breast implants or a BBL. At the end of the day, our friends will make their own choices regardless of how we feel about it, and the only thing we can really do is be there for them in the end.

I feel similarly to you in that I don't want to hurt anyone, only to protect people and especially women from the harms that are intrinsic to trans ideology. Unfortunately, you can't help anyone who doesn't want to be helped. Sometimes though, you can play dumb and ask questions that might get them to think a little bit more about the rhetoric they're repeating. For example, I often go out for drinks with coworkers, one of whom is a she/they nonbinary woman. One time she said something about how she couldn't be a full they/them because she's still 'girly' sometimes. I said something like "doesn't it seem kind of regressive to associate how feminine you are with how much of a woman you are? what about butch lesbians?" She didn't have an answer and brushed it off, but I could see the cogs turning a bit. Playing the uninformed normie pointing out the obvious sometimes gets them to realize how twisted the logic in trans echo chambers can be. And I think sometimes expressing your disagreement with the dogma can show your friends, who know you well and know you're a good person, that, contrary to what they've been told, not everyone who disagrees with gender ideology is an evil nazi out to slaughter transwomen in the streets.

But yes, in general, it is very very isolating to hold radical feminist beliefs. I'm sorry you're going through it. One thing to remember is, there are tons of women even in your general vicinity, who like you, don't buy into gender rhetoric but aren't saying anything in order to preserve their safety and social lives. I do believe that as the world seems to be becoming more aware of the reality of the situation, more and more people will feel able to be open about their dissent, and it will become less of a fringe opinion as the flaws in the ideology are exposed. Here's hoping I guess. Keep your chin up anon.

[merl-merl]

The whole point about Loki as a deity and Loki as the series, is change. Fluidity. Defining one’s self. Sylvie would be a feminist because she believes in freewill, not hating men or trans people. You’re fundamentally missing the point of her character design and journey, along with her foil being Loki. Two sides of the same coin. Better together. I probably won’t change your mind, but hopefully you can learn a thing or two from the series and not be so exclusive in your epistemic chamber.

I do know that Loki & Sylvie are the same sides of the coin. And I do actually think it’s great that Loki can be ambiguous in mythology. But it’s important to reflect that we all conceptualize Loki in terms due to contemporary (unprogressive) gender climate. If I could shape shift it wouldn’t change my identity and I wouldn’t don stereotypes a male based society to define me. Sometimes people do that in fics, and it confuses me. Also, I didn’t claim really specific things about a character that you stated, I just admitted this is the vibe she gave me personally. I’ll explain why down below!

The reason why I said I tend to think Sylvie herself would lean toward radfeminism instead of just ‘feminism’ is because of her, not her ‘self centered ness’, but rather self focus. She had a goal and achieved it. She wasn’t written to simper to Loki, and that because, as you pointed out —along with what I like to label — is that she has the ‘Loki Privilege’ of actually getting to be a character who’s not following the male lead women are constantly are written as. She sees through the designed systems of the TVA, and does believe in free will. She ended up having to raise herself outside of society and time. She’s just Loki (Sylvie), herself. So she probably wouldn’t subscribe to gender norms as much.

It’s the way in the TV show that she gets to be really gave me that unapologetic radfem vibe, as I explained above. If they were all gender neutral and fluid, why is she the only woman variant of ‘him’? There are men around her story that she of course doesn’t go out of her way to hate, but she doesn’t cater to them. She does her thing and takes care of herself first and foremost.

In the show, Loki’s so taken with Sylvie and ends up not holding her back, letting her go through what he did in order to grow. There’s no pressure for her to join him romantically or plot-wise—it’s not a dire thing. He’s actually more supportive of her choices in such a way that he becomes her supporting character, not the other way around. He sacrifices himself for both of them. It honestly felt more matriarchal toward the end. She didn’t lose her own will and strength and personality just because he loved her. At the same time they both changed and grew from each other, learning to accept themselves (self love) and their flaws at the same time — “Love is a dagger”.

In shows, and with Marvel in general, women don’t often get to be Sylvie. It’s getting better now, but it’s still marketed to a huge male fan base in our patriarchal world. It was just such a bit a of fresh air to see a woman character such as her for me, especially in a franchise like Marvel.

Either way, I think it’s nice everyone can embrace characters differently. If you’d like to talk more without being vitriolic and condescending I’d be happy to. This is just my feeling and it’s okay to disagree and interpret things differently. And no I’m not hoping to change your opinion, if you’re happy with your own that’s totally fine.

Cheers! 💚

[opinated-user]

Idk, like laughing about abusive exes can be fine, the situations are often absurd in hindsight, but when it comes to sexual abuse... I just don't think there is any situation in which someone else should make jokes and laugh about that. The survivor? Sure, but not others. Especially not on a podcast??? Ignoring how it's absolutely horrible optics, we are speaking about someone who prides herself on being a safe space, so it's safe to assume that a good chunk of the audience has similar trauma. You as the podcast host need to keep that in mind!! It's already a difficult subject, but in this instance it has to be handled with extra care! And not bad trivializing jokes!

Which brings me to the 'joke'... The implication that its normal for straight men to sexually abuse and neglect their partners? That's some radfem bullshit. Women can and do abuse partners, I know of several victims, one of them being Mikayla herself? It's also really fucking disgusting towards men who cherish and love their partners. Absolving women as a whole of the perpetrator role is really not the argument you want to be making when talking about a female perp! And it's so diminishing to mikailas experiences to basically imply that she was dating someone who, of course, would abuse her, that's what these 'straight Guy types' do after all!

It's just all over infuriating!

Like I understand if mikaila doesn't want to make a big deal about it, it's a painful subject, but by publishing this anon lily has made it impossible for her to do speak up! Lily should have had a private conversation about this with her along the lines of 'i know we agreed to make fun of our exes, but I might have overstepped in this instance, if you weren't fine with it, it won't happen again' or something. She has already admitted that such a talk hasn't happened because 'mikay would tell her if it bothered her' because it's always so easy to bring these things up...

Anyways mikaila deserves better. At minimum a lily who is better to her.

i think you bring up a very important point there, anon, and that is that MO is not the one making the joke. 90 people have voted in the poll until now and literally just one thought that MO was joking. even if you believe that LO was trying to difuse the tension out of MO talking about such a serious subject, it doesn't really come across as something that MO expected or wanted on that moment, given how she doesn't laugh nor sounds more relaxed after that point. more so... can you even imagine that MO does something like that to LO when she talks about all the alledged horrible sexual abuse Lizzy subjected her too? does anyone think that she'd react positively if she was in the middle of her "i was horrifically abused, i was raped a hundred times" usual rants and MO was positively wheezing before saying that LO dated a straight guy? LO would have MO's head for breakfast faster than you can accuse anyone of being a radfem. if you do hear the rest of the podcast, nobody does that for when LO does talk about all the alledged assaults she went through. but when MO is the one talking, suddenly it's okay to spontaneusly giggle and laugh out of nowhere before her or MO said anything remotely funny. KP sounds like she's letting out small giggles only because LO is already laughing and she sounds so uncomfortable the whole time, but that may as well be my own interpretation. it... it's just gross. it makes me feel gross to hear that. it's gross that's how LO feels comfortable talking to and about her wife. it's gross the way she treats her. especially because MO was the one editing all the podcasts she was in. hours and hours of work editing what was surely a lot longer than 2 hours and not pay at all.

[werewolffem]

i want to socially detransition (never started medically for various reasons) and i know its probably the best path for me to reidentify as a woman again. im very short so even if i DID transition i would have very slim chances of passing convincingly anyway, plus the various health issues connected with medical transition that are swept under the rug by the trans community.. im only attracted to women (so ..a lesbian) so the internalized homophobia probably played a big part, im 20 now and been identifying as male since i was 13-14:/ my friend group during middle/high school, with whom i no longer talk to, was also mildly homophobic towards me and i think this pushed me to ID as "straight transman". im very scared of "reverse coming out". i lost a lot of friends in the past ~two years due to being severely depressed & its always hard to be all alone and im afraid being a desister is going to alienate me even more:/ i know what i should do (be a woman), but im too cowardly right now. especially after spending my 'formative' years like this.

if you believe it is the right and best path for you, then it 99.9% is. i started out by questioning it as well, thinking about detransitioning, about how i was actually a lesbian, the abuse/trauma/homophobia that helped attribute to this, and of course the danger of the hormones that wrecked my body. it took me some time to accept it due to the fact that i was afraid of losing my friends that i had made through transition. i went to and spoke to the "mean radfems" about it, those who i knew detransitioned, because they were the only ones i could trust to get actual helpful advice from.

i won't lie and say it's not true, but it's likely some friends will drop you for detransitioning -- for some reason they see this as some act of betrayal? they put detrans + radfems as one even if someone isn't a radfem and simply detrans. it is very possible this will lose friends but WERE they ever actually your friend if they drop you for doing what's best for you and who you are?

internalized homophobia plays a big part in this, i know for a fact. my mom yelled at me for being gay. was actually disgusted with me and told it to my face that she thought i was disgusting but proceeds to gaslight me into thinking she didn't which furthered the issue. sometimes you just have to come to terms with things by yourself rather than getting the resolution you needed from someone. knowing the internalized homophobia is there is the first step into deconstructing it within yourself and accepting/coming to terms with yourself. it takes time and a lot of work but you can do it!

if you choose to desist, you will be lost. I'm not trying to scare you but you'll feel like you're lost, you have no clue who you are anymore because you immersed yourself into an identity for so long and at so young. you'll have to find yourself again, but it will feel so freeing once you do! detransitioning for me was so awakening? i have been able to heal from certain things and find myself again, like my true self, and not hide as something for safety and coping. my depression and anxiety even eased up after detransitioning, especially stopping hrt as well.

what you choose to do is up to you, but i will be here if you need help or someone to talk to. this is all just information from me personally and it's not the same for everyone who desists/detransitions. it can be a lonely experience but there are people here who understand and can help along the way. so don't be afraid to reach out to me or someone else again. i know where you're coming from. there's no time frame for this. give yourself time to think things over, do what's best for you, do what you know will make you happy. for me, it was finding myself again in detransitioning. can it be the same for you? yes. but give yourself time ❤️

[antiyourwokehomophobia2]

I don't know what it is about this post that's upsetting me so much. Maybe it's the fact that I'm seeing it only a couple of hours after I voted. Maybe it's the fact that before I voted I ran into my mother on my way downstairs. Her words to me were “If you vote for Trump don't come back to this house. We’re not doing that shit.” And I don't get along well with my mother but I fully understand why she said that. Maybe it's the fact that, after I voted, I ran into my mother again when I came home. During that interaction, she said “I hope to God Trump doesn't win” in a voice that I can honestly say I don't think I've ever heard her use before. It was a voice that spoke to deep seated fear. She spoke like she didn't even want to think about what would happen if Trump won. I don’t blame her. Honestly, I don’t want to think about it either.

Maybe this post upsets me so much because of what happened when I was waiting in line to cast my vote. Across the street, there were a number of people holding Pro Trump signs. They even had a cut out of him. As cars drove past, there were so. Many. Honks. In support. At first I couldn't figure out what the honks were. I associate honking with people driving like idiots, but this amount of honking? When I realized what was happening, I felt my spirits drop with every honk. It was to the point where I hoped to god that nobody asked me who I was voting for because I was terrified of having to say Harris. These people are my neighbors. I’m a black lesbian and my neighbors are honking for a man who undoubtedly hates me.

Maybe this post upsets me so much because it's coming from a radfem. OP, I truly believe that you mean well and I'm really not trying to be mean, but this post is genuinely so fucking disheartening. For all the talk that radfems do about women needing to “wake up”, y’all seem to be just as asleep. You have an opportunity to stop a sexist bigoted idiot man from taking power in a very powerful nation—all you have to do is circle in a few bubbles—and you’re…not gonna take it? Someone in the notes said it best: This is such a “baby out with the bathwater” mentality. I'm not saying that what's happening in Gaza isn’t important. However, if that’s your reason for not voting, you are essentially saying that this war is so awful that we may as well not even try to improve upon other important topics. I don’t understand why anyone would come to that conclusion.

Harris is not a perfect person but Trump is evil. Whatever you think will happen under Harris will be ten times worse under Trump. I know you're not voting for him, but the fact remains that not voting for Harris is wasting a tangible opportunity to make some women's lives better. You're worried about the genocide that's currently going on? I'm guessing you're also worried about reproductive rights? Women’s sex-based rights? Maybe even gay rights? If Trump wins (in other words if Kamala does not get enough support. If people don’t vote for Harris) then you will have to deal with all of these issues getting worse. All of them. Including the genocide. Do you want to deal with a world like that? Or would you rather have Harris, who I agree is an imperfect candidate, and only have to suffer the pain of her being on the wrong side of the conflict? Pain x 1 under Harris or pain x 4 (probably much much much more) under Trump?

Op, what if you remade this post? This time, though, I want you to write it from the perspective of Trump winning. Not only do you still have a genocide supporter but you also have anti-abortion and pro-rape and pro-homophobia. OP, if you wake up to the news of Trump winning, can you honest to god say the amount of dread you feel will be equal to the amount of dread you feel if Harris wins?

If no, then why would you not vote for Harris and do everything you can to not experience Trump levels of dread?

If yes, I really don’t think you care about the things you claim to. I’m not trying to be mean but those are just facts. The women your name says you prioritize will be worse off under Trump. Look at your notes. Various women have told you so.

Posts like this when election season is in full swing hit different. In a bad way. A really bad way. OP, even if you don’t listen, I hope the person reading this does. Please fucking vote. I am straight up begging. Holy fucking shit lmao.

ya I’m not voting for Kamala Harris, idgaf about Trump anymore. There is a limit and Palestine is that limit. If this costs her the election, blaim her, not me. If you think they’re both genocidal, which they are, you should be advocating for political violence, not voting. Which I explicitly am, btw.

[starsilt]

One day you are going to realize you took the side of  fascists and nazis and the evil in this world and I hope you embrace and feel the shame of that and grow from it. You’re young, you’re supposed to make mistakes and learn from them. I hope you do, least you become hate you think you’re standing against in the world. Terfs and radfems are hateful and despicable and a stain on feminism and absolutely not any sort of human rights movement, or anything good or positive, it’s a campaign of hate and exclusion that kills living breathing people in real time through policy and rhetoric. Trans rights are human rights, and you are in fact transphobic.

i never said i was transphobic, and the heart of the radical feminism movement is about liberating female people. being a terf is not hateful. being transphobic is. being a terf does not kill. i would gladly retract my statement if you could provide statistics on how radical feminism kills. being hateful towards trans humans is not the goal or even on the agenda of a terf. to reiterate, when you see terfs being transphobic, they are simply being transphobic. trans rights are indeed human rights. for some reason i think maybe y’all just have no idea what radical feminism is, and instead decide to go along with the hive mindset tumblr follows blindly, but i can’t quite put my finger on it…. oh yeah, also, isn’t blindly following and leading a mass movement that harasses a group of people with certain beliefs (such as those who send terfs death threats, dox those people, block them immediately without discussion or critical discussion just on the basis of them being a terf…) inherently fascist?

also… why a stain in feminism? i personally believe libfems are a negative feminist route because it caters to male comfortability and is digestible to the public eye. liberal feminism cringes at the harsh realities that a colonized and capitalist society impacts females, especially poc, from unconscious beliefs about what true womanhood is, or if you’re a trans man, what being a man is (convoluted ideas about what gender is vs what gender expression is that leads to lifelong unpacking and sometimes consequences. some people are genuinely trans, and they transition for the better! some females find themselves after transitioning to unconsciously escape csa or misogyny and regret it), to conforming to beauty standards by starving themselves (using they/them instead of she/her because i truly believe trans men have a place in the heart of radfem ideologies as trans men were born female and lived a life being socialized and treated as a female before they transitioned) in order to feel worthy of love, to always needing to check the backseat of their car before getting in, how your self worth in society is measured by your ability to be sexualized (how “masculine” women are not respected and ostracized simply because of presentation while “feminine” women are regarded in higher respects in comparison, yet even that is not respect sometimes but a desire to get something from that women), to to to… these are just examples off the top of my head. there is no space for trans women in radical feminism because they did not grow up female, did not experience life and society as a female before transitioning. there is so much depth and nuance to everything i’ve said and more. i wish people would at least try to open up conversations with those willing to discuss (obviously don’t even try with transphobes because just like most people who hate terfs, you’ll likely just get an immediate block and/or hatred). i know you did not as for this but i’m tired of there being nothing being said at all <3 love u babe let’s talk again

[mitskiesque]

I'm not here to debate you as people are entitled to their own opinions. However, I do want to at least understand your point of view, seriously.

From my relatively new understanding, since I'm new to all of this, society has conditioned women to be insecure of their natural faces and presented makeup to them, convincing them that they'll be more likeable with it. My own [religious] mother was a victim of this and told me multiple times to avoid makeup because it damaged her skin, along with other beauty products. She constantly tells me that I don't need to do my nails, makeup and other things because God already made me beautiful and I get the sense that she is trying to protect me. My mother faced the risk of ostracization for choosing to stop wearing makeup and my father would ❝subtly❞ suggest she put on makeup because she was ❝embarrassing❞ him.

I'm questioning about just how ❝empowering❞ it is to reclaim makeup, given that you're playing right into the hands of the patriarchy. If makeup was as good as it has been claimed to be, why do we have woman like my mother telling me that I should stay away from it? Why does my father feel embarrassed when my mother is willing to go to church with her bare face?

Can you tell me what makes makeup empowering?

Going to give you the absolute benefit of the doubt here bc you seem very young. I want to start off by clarifying that I am not a terf and I think radfems participate in a hate movement. I’ve never said makeup is inherently empowering. I don’t believe that of anything.

If you’re referring to my post about like alt/“egirl” makeup styles, I do think that ALTERNATIVE or antifashion makeup styles can be empowering. I think we need to look at antifashion and counterculture through a lens of sociopolitical analysis to understand how it can be empowering, and that’s something that I’m interested in.

So, yes, society has conditioned women to use makeup in CERTAIN WAYS to be more conventionally attractive. Makeup cannot be inherently empowering, thusly. However, there are many ways that makeup, like clothing and hair, can be used as empowering forms of self expression (this is very elementary and a well known idea). Are drag kings “succumbing to the patriarchy” by wearing makeup? What about AFAB drag queens, like Venus Envy and Sigourney Beaver? They’re using it as a kind of elevated performance, to express ideas about society and gender presentation, right?

So, when a drag king or afab queen uses makeup for that empowerment, I think that a parallel can be drawn between that and, say, the makeup styles employed by siouxie sioux in her performances.

This is clearly not making her more “conventionally attractive”— if we compare to the beauty standards of the year this photo is from, we can see a distinct separation from the trends of counterculture and that of the mainstream. Let’s also look at a more recent example of the same kind of counterculture being employed— Lolita fashion styles both in Japan and abroad, and the more “editorial” styles that have been on an uptick recently in online communities that center around makeup and fashion.

I’m not going to go too in depth about both the origins of Lolita subculture and the fashion, because I’d like to focus on makeup styles, but it’s important that you know two pieces of background information. Lolita subculture traces its origin to a feminist counterculture fashion movement that aimed to empower women and girls by embracing a more childlike, less sexualized form of dress (Haenfler). The second is that, generally, makeup goes along with dress in counterculture style movements. Exceptions exist (such as when the counterculture statement is not wearing any; although this is still essentially a makeup choice that reflects the subculture). You can read more about Lolita (and other countercultures) from a sociological lens in the article I linked below. I highly, highly recommend you take a look at not just the Lolita section, but the research about other subcultures as well.

So, in Lolita, the makeup facilitates this expression just as much as the dress. This can be seen in the fact that male-presenting Lolitas (more commonly known as Ouji) also wear makeup, including afab lolitas who present as masculine while in Lolita. (Source: Kawamura 2006). These makeup applications also do not flow with the mainstream trends of the Japanese cosmetics industry. Therefore, in the case of Lolita (and other counterculture fashion that considers gender expression, like Decora Kei), makeup use facilitates a subculture expression that goes against the mainstream and aims to allow participants to explore alternate modes of gender expression.

I started to formulate this idea, after seeing a radfem post that e-girl makeup (characteristic of overapplication of blush, enlarged eyes, and highlight on the nose) was ‘disgusting’ because it made the participants “look sick”. She seemed to think that this was a feminist stance to take— but actually, if we use the lens we have applied to previous countercultures on 21st century “alternative” makeup, we can see that in reality what she is reacting to is the fact that the makeup does not make these women conventionally attractive, and is instead inspired by subcultures from countries like Japan. Here I am going to draw a distinction between what I am considering “alternative makeup” in 2020-22, because online trends that fall more along the mainstream have caused some confusion about the term. For visual reference I suggest looking up Jazmin Bean, Rico Nasty, the Afrogoth movement in general but specifically jinxaddie and vladvonkitsch on Instagram.

The mistake to make here would be viewing counterculture makeup through the same rhetorical and analytical lens as you view mainstream makeup, assuming the goal is, essentially, fuckability. When makeup is used as part of a counterculture uniform or ensemble, it is recontextualized and becomes part of the overall statement the counterculture aims to make.

I would also like to emphasize that everything I’ve said about makeup use and counterculture is true of all women, cis and trans— trans women are affected by the mainstream societal attitudes around makeup as well, and actually a larger number of trans women participate in fashion counterculture, and therefore makeup counterculture applications apply to them and are in many instances driven by trans women.

[kissimirrit]

as an ex truscum how did you come to terms with the harm youve caused others and make up for it? do you still struggle with unlearning truscum standards?

i think it’s important i don’t hide or censor my past, no matter how embarrassed or regretful i might be from it. people have the right to know about someone’s past bigotry and to decide their boundaries with that person from that point on. i think it’s an important part of my past for people to know of when the topic comes up.

i stopped being truscum almost 5 years ago; and yes—i still struggle with unlearning truscum standards, because i learned them during my formative years of development. because of that, i really vibe with the saying "The first thought that goes through your mind is what you have been conditioned to think; what you think next defines who you are." —because i’ll still catch myself thinking very... exclusionary things and have to stop and reflect why i’m thinking that, and then correct my thoughts accordingly. it’s forever a process of self-reflection and checking. 

(read-more’d for length) tl;dr—i realized being truscum was bad and then i became a die-hard inclusionist, and even began identifying with labels that 2012 me would hate.

i only really came to terms with the fact i was causing harm in say, late 2016 or *very* early 2017 when one of my most treasured friends admitted to me that xe was afraid to tell me xe was nonbinary, because we both had identified as truscum and xe was in the process of dropping those beliefs, whereas i hadn’t gotten to that point myself until xe told me about hir identity and reason for being afraid of telling me. and if one of my best friends felt terrified of telling me their identity, or literally anything about themselves; then obviously i was fucking up big time and doing something incredibly wrong.

so that was like, my first step in dropping those beliefs. and making up for it has been an incredibly long road. dropping all forms of gate-keeping, queer-separatism, and otherwise exclusionary beliefs in favor of becoming a radically inclusive person of any good-faith identity, to the point of even adopting some “discoursed” labels myself (ie: straight-lesbian trans man) has been a 5 year long journey. 

i started identifying as truscum when i was 13 or 14, back in 2011 or 2012 when the word was first coined. there was a tumblr post, calling those who were binary trans people and (forgive me my memory is fuzzy) didn’t hate cis people as “true transexual scum. truescum.” and the term truscum stuck from that. and back then the community was really small. there was just a handful of us in the FTM tag telling other trans guys that they can’t identify as lesbians and that they should stop tagging their selfies as both “FTM” and “lesbian”. (which is funny to me now because... i literally identify as an ftm lesbian now lmaaooo. i became the very thing i set out to destroy /lh).

and being truscum was kind of a catalyst for so many of the early exclusionary queer-separatism and incorporating radfem beliefs into early lgbt+ tumblr that i never really noticed until ace discourse got notoriously bad in 2016. 1. nonbinary-exclusion. back in 2012/2013 ‘trans’ used to be written as ‘trans*’, with the asterisk, for the inclusion of nonbinary identities. and at the time, truscum were notoriously against it because at the time, truscum believed that nonbinary identities weren’t real, so the asterisk was unnecessary and useless. and then an article came along that went into detail about how the asterisk was useless BECAUSE nonbinary people were inherently trans without any caveats, and ‘trans’ (without the asterisk) was already inclusive on nonbinary folk, not just binary trans men and women. so that kinda trickled down and eventually became the end of trans* asterisk, and after that an influx of nonbinary folks started to identify as truscum—however a lot of people who identified as truscum prior to this still held heavily anti-nonbinary beliefs. (and then truscum got kinda blamed for adding the asterisk in the first place so that kinda became an in-joke for a year or so. like, things truscum invented: the asterisk after trans asterisk, the word truscum, whales. etc)  2. transmisogyny, and adopting radfem talking points. i know in the early days (and probably still now, but i don’t know the demographics as i never kept up with them), the majority of truscum before 2014 were white, and binary trans men. (emphasis on the white trans men part.) Because of this, whenever there was a collective schism with a notable trans woman for whatever reason (adele idislikecispeople, genderpunkrock, kat blaque, etc. were all big ones during 2014), transmisogyny would be rampant. there were groups dedicated to somehow proving idislikecispeople was pretending to be a trans woman that were really invasive of her privacy (years before kiwifarms even touched the subject), and despite claiming to be a vehemently anti-radical feminist group—willingly accepted radfem talking points and even radfems who self-identified as truscum. and cisgendered self-identified truscum, especially adult cis MEN (usually gay, and were fairly aggressive to us teens??), were accepted with open arms and were looked up to for some fucking reason. y’know, bootlicking.  around 2014 was when the term “transmedicalist/transmedicalism” was coined by john snarkytransman, and was popularized by users who followed suit. it came about around 2013/2014. since then, the term has been synonymous with truscum- but in may 29, 2015, users who wanted to detach themselves from the label of truscum due to drama wish to mark a distinction between the two labels, which was largely popularized by john myragewillendworlds. because truscum was never supposed to be a community initially, it was supposed to be an ideology “like atheism”.  and a lot of the drama around the time when transmedicalist was coined was due to three distinct groups forming: the old truscum (those who had been around since near the beginning, like i was. usually adult binary trans men over 18 and in their early-to-mid 20s.), neo-truscum (mostly made up of teens around my age who were newly out and majorly identified as nonbinary, and latched onto the first group they came across, like i had years prior), and the FUCKING MARIGANG (a notorious group of radfem truscum who only believed in 2 distinct nonbinary identities, agender and bigender, and were... extremely volatile.) i was somehow in all 3 of these groups because of 1. the fact i had been truscum since the near conception of the term so i was oldscum, 2. i was within the age range of most of the neo-truscum so a lot of them were my friends, and 3. mari from the marigang was the first ever other non-SAM asexual (and adult!) i had ever met (aside from my then-gf, Gabe. whomst i still talk to and luv with all my heart <33) and i clung onto her despite how.... fucking wild she was. and her boyfriend eliot was the first ever intersex person i had come across after learning about my own intersex variation, and i was so desperate for validation from these two adults who both held two identities integral to myself that i had never met any else sharing before, so i ignored so many of the red flags they had. (and they had... so many.) which brings me to my next point!!!!! 3. queer-phobia and the beginning of ace discourse. (NOTE: i didn’t realize all of these groups were radfem until years later, and i didn’t know what “TWERF” meant at the time. i barely knew was a radfem was.) so the marigang (2013/2014 i think?) was known for being notoriously volatile and violent at the drop of a hat to anyone who they didn’t like and labeling them as “fauxscum”. even to their own members in the skype group. it was largely made up of radfems and even eliot was a self-described TWERF (despite... at the time identifying as a intersex cis man????). the marigang believed in two nonbinary identities only: bigender and agender. mari herself was agender, asexual, and aromantic, and would brag about abusing eliot because of how much she despised men. she was incredibly anti-AVEN and refused to be called ace, aro, or aroace, and would only go by non-AVEN terms like “asexual” and thought the split-attraction-model was bullshit. (which is why i also refused to go by the terms ace/aro/aroace and would only go by “asexual” up until late 2016/early 2017.) mari was also incredibly hypocritical, criticizing me for having a girlfriend despite IDing as asexual & aromantic, even though she also had a boyfriend with the same sorta partnership (except Gabe and i weren’t abusive, just a bit too young.) despite that, i latched onto mari as an idolized adult figure. branching off from the marigang was a group of asexual & aromantic, usually nonbinary, radfem truscum who called themselves asexual elitists. and i ended up joining that group through mari. this group in either late 2013 to mid 2014 became the basis of what ace discourse would become a year later. some of our key beliefs that would later generally be accepted by truscum (a lot of them even sharing some of these beliefs despite hating the marigang and such) and then later spread throughout tumblr were: 1. there is no asexual spectrum. you’re either asexual or you aren’t. micro-identities like demisexuality and grayasexuality are unnecessary because that’s 90% of the population. (the part about demigray-sexuality was already popular amongst truscum at this time.) 2. people aren’t oppressed for being asexual. it’s either misogyny or misdirected homophobia. (i don’t think the term aphobia/acephobia was coined yet, or was popularized at this time.) 3. queer is a violent slur and should not be used as a personal identity or for the community. (already a common opinion amongst truscum.) 4. the split-attraction-model is unnecessary, redundant, harmful, and destructive. that if your sexual and romantic orientations “conflict” (ie: biromantic heterosexual, homoromantic pansexual, etc.), then you’re either one or the other and just confused. that it’s homophobic/biphobic/lesbiphobic because it reduces people to sex. (was already 50/50 with truscum.) 5. the term “allosexual” is very AVEN-y (therefore bad) and, again, reduces people to sex. because us asexuals were the “abnormal” (an actual word used that i internalized) ones in society, we didn’t need a word to refer to non-asexuals, and just not-asexual worked for it. 6. pansexuality don’t real and it’s just bisexuality under a special label. (was already 50/50 with truscum.) 7. the only existing orientations are gay/lesbian, bi, and straight. asexuality is the LACK of a sexuality and therefore not an orientation.  8. AVEN sucks. fuck AVEN. fuck david jay. MOGAI sucks. intersex isn’t lgbt. (i was the only intersex person a part of the asexual elitists (sans eliot) so i was kinda expected to just... agree with it. so i did. i didn’t have any opinions of my own for it. and mari was adamant about it because she was outspoken about eliot’s intersexuality.) — i’m probably missing some but these were off the top of my head. do those sound familiar? these were the beliefs of both the marigang and the asexual elitists groups, that were probably taken from radfems and then spread to truscum and to the rest of tumblr—which then spread out further through the internet, since many users had deviantarts and twitters and would take discourse to other places. et cetera et cetera. i left the marigang in late 2014 i want to say? and returned to the general truscum community, and the marigang fell apart due to in-fighting. but the damage had already been done at that point, and those of us left were still spreading this rhetoric to others who then continued to spread it. ------ i think i started to become an inclusionist in late 2015 or early 2016 when ace discourse STARTED to take off outside of truscum circles. because whenever i talked about bigotry i happened to face due to be asexuality, i was met with “that didn’t happen” and people dismissing my experiences and telling me i had no place in the lgbt community (“i never thought the leopards would eat my face” -person who supported the ‘leopards eating faces’ party). i began to notice how kinda... fucked up these exclusionist beliefs were, now that i was on the receiving end of them? so i left the truscum community (despite still holding transmedicalist beliefs at this time) and i made an ace discourse blog called acehet (which at the time i made it, was called allosexuel. but before that i helped run a blog called allodiscourse which then got rebranded to something else after i left idk??) i still held onto some of these initial beliefs. that the split attraction model was silly, that asexuality wasn’t a spectrum, that AVEN was harmful, pansexuality is just special bisexuality, queer was a slur, etc etc. and i did my best to actively work towards unlearning a lot of these things and began to blog in support of them, even if my best friend at the time (the one who later came out to me as nonbinary and inspired me to drop transmedicalist beliefs entirely) still believed in all of these things and felt like i was beginning to believe in the wrong things. (i think because of that i sorta inspired hir to become an inclusionist too after hir past exclusionism too? ze's never said what sorta made hir change hir stance. idk!) and through that, i began to realize that the root of so many gatekeeping beliefs and arguments were founded through radical feminism, truscum/transmedicalists, and bigotry in general. that so many of these parroted arguments were rehashed versions of “trans women aren’t women” to “nondysphorics aren’t trans” to “bihets aren’t lgbt” to “asexuals(and aromantics) aren’t lgbt” to “intersex people aren’t lgbt” and so forth. invading communities, stealing resources, preying on young lesbians (making her reject womanhood and become nonbinary/trans, internalized lesbiphobia and IDing as ace or bi, somehow sexually abusing them, etc.) and so on. they’re all the same fucking arguments. from the same fucking sources.  and i have been saying this for years since i realized it. there are maybe 1 or 2 beliefs i held onto since i started interacting with the truscum community back in 2011, before the term was coined. but i believe it only for myself, and do not apply it to anyone else. i, personally and for myself only, believe my own transexuality is a medical condition characterized by my dysphoria, and i’ve never really identified with the trans community. i don’t identify with the trans flag, so i don’t use it for myself. i avoid the term “trans” unless necessary. and in 2016-2018 i pretended to be a cis man online until it became too much and i hated lying. i don’t apply this to anyone else, only myself. because i only want to focus on the medical aspect of my transition. this is a major contrast with my intersex identity. where i don’t consider my intersex variation to be a condition, but rather a major identity of mine. whereas most people would see the inverse of this—that trans is an identity and intersex is a condition. for me, and me personally, it’s the opposite. my intersexuality is my identity and my transexuality is my condition. (i cannot stress enough that i only apply this belief to myself, nobody else.) i identify with the intersex community, i identify with the intersex flag, and being intersex is the most major part of my presentation and gender. there’s probably so many things i’ve missed since it’s been a decade since the conception of truscum as a group. before that i believe there were a similar group made up of trans women on some forums called HBSers (harry benjamin syndrome-ers). unlearning all of these beliefs i’ve internalized in my youth and trying to use my past as a way to dissuade people away from gate-keeping and exclusionism has been what i’ve been doing my best to do since around late 2015, even if i was still in the process of dropping my own harmful and exclusionary separatist beliefs after that time. there are still truscum-y thoughts that creep back into my mind every time i might come across something new or “cringy”, but after 2018/2019 when i finally came to the full realization that HRT would never work on me (my biggest nightmare since 2013 when i learned i was intersex)—i fully embraced my own cringy identity as a straight-lesbian ftm intersex man and embraced MOGAI as a term.  all queer-separatism beliefs, exclusionism, gate-keeping, and other lgbtqia+ infighting all stems from bigotry and hate. it stems from radfems, from truscum/transmedicalists, from people “exclusionists” claim to hate yet have no problem parroting arguments from. it’s all rooted in hatred and elitism and separating the “pure” identities away from the “bad” ones. all forms of gate-keeping in queer communities like this is bigoted and harmful, because it’s a slippery slope into all the other forms of gate-keeping as well. anyway i hope this wasn’t hard to read? i’m pretty rambly and i have trouble keeping my thoughts in check. i’ve most likely missed a lot of things and forgotten many more, but this is more or less the timeline that led me to learn that being truscum was genuinely and incredibly fucking harmful and i am still trying to make up for it. my 2 biggest regrets in life are 1. being truscum and 2. inventing circumgender. 

[gateauxes]

the war on gender terror

At this point in my life, the presence of mostly-white liberal feminism is inescapable. While I'm excited to see more people taking baby steps to a radical analysis, largely I am frustrated. On the other hand, involuntary exposure to popular feminism is the reason why I'm noticing a trend in it. Here's my report from where I'm standing: the liberal feminists don't know it, but reactionaries are trying to scare them.

Reactionary feminist projects begin the same way as any other reactionary project - concern trolling liberals over topics at arms' length from the main goals of exclusion and domination. With regard to reactionary feminists the progression of topics are well-known: women's sports & 'human trafficking', then domestic violence shelters & kinky porn, then policing gender-segregated bathrooms, defunding trans healthcare, and opposing sex work of any kind. I've been watching a pessimistic thread emerge in liberal feminist (and radical!) circles which I believe has been pushed into place by reactionary feminists. This bio-pessimism places women into a perpetual state of victimhood that can never truly end due to the essential rapacious nature of men. If this seems like the same shit the second-wave lesbian separatists were peddling, that's because it is. What I want to question is how today's essentialist pessimism differs from its initial appearance.

RADFEMS ARE OBSESSED WITH DICK

Reactionary feminists have not dispensed with a religious-conservative perspective on the power of the penis - and by extension they imagine women identically to how the rest of the right views women. The penis, apparently, is the mechanism by which rape becomes possible. Therefore, any engagement with a person with a penis is a grave risk. Vulnerability is a mistake if you might be dealing with a rapist. The MeToo movement activated an enormous public forum about how incredibly prevalent the violence is, but I now see it used as a tool for re-framing this prevalence as a biological reality. (MeToo, even without being used as a tool, was ineffective at acknowledging that violence is perpetrated by all sorts of people). An explosion of survivors talking openly about violence as an unacceptable status quo has been infiltrated by reactionary feminists who whisper that this is the fate of all women, always. The new bio-law absorbs the third wave's progress in acknowledging diversity of experience - right up to the point where it would be forced to note that sexual nature, like categories of racially-dictated nature, is a myth.

This pessimism rooted in the power of the penis is hypervigilance beyond a realistic assessment of risk. (I also blame true crime podcasts and the media in general) This is not the careful awareness of one's surroundings which comes naturally to many of us. What I'm describing is avoiding going out at all, because of statistics on sexual violence which may not even reflect the risks in the neighbourhood. This, for instance, is purchasing and insuring a vehicle for the express purpose of avoiding public transit. I frequently notice that popular discussion of domestic violence neglects to mention the disproportion of violence toward people with disabilities, asserting that all of us have identical risk. Ultimately, this is the justification for a culture of exclusion as the only recourse to the ever-present threat of men. The fortress must be defended, and the enemy could be anywhere.

BUT HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO GET LAID?

I do not want love or children, so my interest in sex is purely recreational. I have been told this is not in line with my female nature - I stand before you deviant and happy. However, anyone attracted to men must grapple with the contradiction of desire and very real risks. I support caution, and even precaution. My concern is with a bio-law that requires a baseline of suspicion if one is to survive, the assumption that one is always a moment away from violence. To be explicit, how am I supposed to have fun when I am letting the enemy penetrate my figurative fortress?

I think this is why kink is such a problem for reactionary feminists. The only way to make the horror of sleeping with the enemy worse is to find that some people like to confront, satirize, and role play the power dynamic. To choose recreational pain or literal bondage flies in the face of the notion that a woman’s lot is to be in constant pain, and to tolerate penetration as a miserable necessity. The reactionary feminist must sleep with one eye open, aware that her biology has already sealed her fate, and mitigate vulnerability by excluding the threat, since she can’t defend herself (biologically speaking). This is why trans women can’t stay at the domestic violence shelter, this is why you should worry for your life if your boyfriend watches kinky porn. As with vanilla dating, there are true risks - and reasonable precautions. But kink is about play with vulnerability - there is no room for play under the martial law of bio-pessimism. By hijacking post-MeToo popular feminism, reactionaries can reinsert the bone-chilling suggestion that it’s all rape, all the time. All the men want kinky sex, because it’s the closest they can come to hurting women the way they secretly wish to. According to this logic, the only way to safely navigate the risk is constant surveillance of men, the self, and any woman who could be a traitor. He’d better not be watching kinky porn, you’d better not be watching kinky porn, and the women in the kinky porn are either hapless victims or remorseless collaborators. Once we have arrived at this point, it’s obvious why the next step is a crusade against any pornography, and a mission to ensure that kink is understood as something men want and women tolerate. 

How can reactionary feminists get this done? By linking the prevalence of trauma with the increased visibility of alternative sexuality & gender, from kink-at-pride to polyamory to transcending assigned gender. They ask, do you feel uncomfortable when you see all this change? We’ve all been traumatized - who do these people think they are, flaunting a lifestyle that feels wrong to feminists like you? You should trust your gut, they urge. Perform a little more vigilance to be sure you’re safe. If you find yourself unable to open a dating app or sit next to a man on the bus without feeling deep dread and revulsion, that’s vigilance, and realistic given the state of things. Any - and most - men mean women harm.

REDPILLS AND RADFEMS BELIEVE THE SAME SHIT

Incels hate women, reactionary feminists love a certain kind of woman. This distinction is relevant, especially since incels pose a physical threat to women in general whereas reactionary feminists only attack trans people, black athletes, sex workers, the wrong kind of queers, kinksters, child athletes... Despite their own active hostility toward many types of women, reactionary feminists hold up incels/redpillers/the far right as evidence of the threat that all women live under. There is no doubt that women face misogynist and antifeminist violence. Reactionary feminists are are far from the only ones highlighting this. What’s worth investigating are the given reasons that a target is vulnerable, and what should be done to mitigate risk in the future. In these, an incel and a reactionary feminist are in perfect harmony. Instead of a realistic assessment of risk at an individual level, or an assessment of group dynamics that allowed a survivor-victim to fall through the cracks, both parties will insist that all women are simply unsafe at all times. This notion suits a reactionary feminist’s goal of closed-rank suspicion, and an incel’s dream of terrified submission. This perspective neglects to really ask why things turned out the way they did, because that’s not the point. Whether women are innately inferior or innately vulnerable, we must travel in flocks if we want to survive. The reactionary feminist offers herself as the shepherd, having assured the flock that the enemy is close at hand. Women cannot, of course, be a pack of wolves. Members of a wolf pack work cooperatively but diverge at will.

THE WAR ON GENDER TERROR

The cumulative effect of this mindset and focus is a miserable hypervigilance, which is further hostile to any who are not miserable and vigilant. We know this scrutiny well from living inside a war on terror, which resulted in a vast expansion of state power to exclude, surveil, and punish. Because they have not abandoned their desire to dominate, reactionary feminists would like to do the same along the lines of gender law. Exclusion requires a concrete set of criteria by which a person can be marked acceptable or unacceptable, and there is trouble when a person shifts between the two. Whether you’re an immigration agent or an officer of the gender police, you’ve got to demonize those who shift, and shifting itself. Special attention should be paid to possible ulterior motives. At the overt end, this looks like the myth of the predatory trans woman and the slavery-complicit sex worker. However, these will not be widely accepted until the audience is made nervous by less ridiculous threats with a basis in reality. Sex trafficking is real, and pickup artists really do share tips online about how to pick up, manipulate, and coerce women. However, alarmist chain-mail suggesting that ‘gang members’ are stealing women off the street via box trucks does not reflect reality, but rather supposes that the threat could be any construction worker or labourer with a truck. Given the way people of colour are disproportionately represented in blue-collar work, the implications of this racially-biased hypervigilance should be obvious. The rapid dissemination of information (true or false) online is useful when stoking fear of ulterior motives. Genuine desire to spread a message that could save another woman fuels the sharing of partially-true and emotionally charged statements. Given the existence of incel and pickup artist subcultures, it seems believable that most men could have consumed advice on how to covertly film during sex, or remove a condom without being noticed. Whether that is true or not is irrelevant - the thing to do is be cautious. No matter how they seem, anyone could be concealing their motives. It begins to make sense to suspect a male social worker, or police bathrooms. Furthermore, failure to agree to this assessment of risk is evidence of insufficient solidarity with the rest of the female sex. Solidarity is imperative, given the horrors made visible by feminists who just want to protect women. Inaction could suggest complicity, and asking for a source on a claim is indicative that one does not believe victims. An avalanche of scorn awaits those who ask questions out of turn. the terror cannot end until the defenses are fortified and the infiltrators exposed. As footage of atrocities is replayed during news coverage of foreign occupations, the danger inherent in womanhood must be grimly acknowledged when we consider stepping out into the world.

WHAT IS MY POINT?

Reactionary feminists cling to the second-wave notion of sex and gender as stable categories by which most oppression can be measured. For reactionary feminist strategies to be accepted by a popular feminism informed by intersectionality, popular feminists must at least partially believe in the inherent vulnerability of women or the base instincts of men. While this sentiment was more readily at hand during the second wave of feminism, third wave feminism resists homogenizing by sex, race, or class. While white liberal/popular feminism has an embarrassing tendency to acknowledge intersectionality only out of politeness and/or use it as a cudgel, even performative acknowledgement is a ward against overt essentialist dogma. For this reason, reactionary feminists must harness movements like MeToo, incel attacks, and further misconstrue actual misogynist violence to encourage hypervigilance against terror. The war on gender terror perverts the desire to confront diverse facets of misogyny into the pursuit of covert internal threats. The war compels commitment to defending the home front. A feeling of perpetual vulnerability is the perfect environment for the proliferation of exclusionary strategy. We must feel our goodness and our weakness to the core. Fully enjoying relationships with men, sexual diversity, and private moments of peace are collateral in pursuit of remaining ever-vigilant.

[gendercriticalthinking]

(Before my rant, I have to point out how telling/revealing the OP's "satire" is with how she went about it. First of all, the whole concept of wanting to make fun of women who are learning about non-liberal feminism for the first time, or are in a relationship with men by choice: why? Strange idea. Unwell mentality. Over 13k likes for a woman mocking other women. And it's "feminist" somehow, because you're on "Level 5 Misandry" and think normies not even getting on Step 1 are inherently stupid or antifeminist or something. I'm getting ahead of myself.

But the super revealing part to me is that the satire isn't even correctly imitating the thing you claim to be mocking!!!

Women cannot practice 4B while being in a male relationship, yes, anyone who claims that is misinformed. [Which, btw, again, being misinformed is not something worth mocking!!! If you think it is, literally why would women want to learn about radical feminism if all they see from the community is you guys making fun of women who are trying to learn??? But again, I'm getting ahead of myself.]

The satirical woman being mocked here isn't even claiming to practice 4B though!!! You're literally just mocking the concept of women trying to learn about feminism, regardless of whether they even get anything wrong about it, and/or the concept of women being happy in their relationships with men, regardless of whether he's abusive.)

Every time I come back to this website of feels like there's another round of radfems on here showing their claimed female solidarity is on a razor-thin edge for "normie" women (if it exists at all).

How is your feminism for women or helping women if you view the vast majority of women as stupid/traitors/deserving of misogyny/the main cause of misogyny's perpetuation/etc??? You make fun of TRAs for sidelining all women by centering men in their "feminism," meanwhile you're sidelining all but a small handful of women you only know online (that you probably wouldn't get along with and would also sideline if you knew everything about them irl).

If you care more about hating men (and the women who love them) than meeting women where they're at*, your "feminist mindset" is just as male-centered as liberal feminism.

But thank you pillarsalt and women like you on here that are speaking up about it. It's upsetting it has to be said, and even more so that those of us saying it genuinely feel stressed/worried to do so, but those things are proof that it needs to happen. I and so many other women left the TRA community because we had serious concerns about it (especially regarding the treatment of women in it) that we knew were forbidden to ask about, and if you don't see the similarities here, and believe "well I actually care about women unlike TRAs so my feminism can never be misguided or misogynistic like theirs", then idk what to tell you.

I have yet to hear a convincing argument as to how the mindset of "the only guaranteed solution to male violence is having all women stop interacting with men period, and if they don't then the continuation of misogyny is their fault and any abuse they suffer is deserved" is not literally the same logic as "the only guaranteed way to prevent pregnancy is for women to never have sex with men period, and if they do and get pregnant then they need to carry the fetus to term because they need to suffer the consequences of their actions."

*Disclaimer I shouldn't need to have: I am not talking about women who directly cause and/or facilitate violence and abuse against other women and girls (and even then their actions, as well as their intentions/motivations and the scope of them, are not at all comparable to men doing the same). I'm talking about nearly every woman on Earth: women who have never heard of Atwood or Dworkin, women who hate having to keep up with the trappings femininity but hate the thought of not knowing who they are without it even more, all of the world's Jakeys' girlfriends. If your feminism doesn't care about most women, if your praxis involves mocking women in abusive relationships and women in happy ones and single women who want to date men alike, who the hell is it even for.

Gonna be honest, maybe I'm missing something, but this doesn't seem like a big deal to me. She's saying she supports 4B, not that she's somehow participating while still married to a man. You're all going to be very disappointed if you expect every normie hetero woman who learns about 4B to immediately get a divorce from the husband she obviously loves lol, no matter how corny and delusional you think she is about it.

[amoei]

I saw your interaction with dj-exrad and I think you're right. Without major inflation and economic collapse, the best we could do is implement social democracy instead of fully revoking capitalism. She's rather naive in her protests she'll take down capitalism and restructure society. Okay, how? Crickets. Unions allowed companies to pay female workers less than men even if women in a union get paid more than women who aren't. It's imperfect. My father's in a steelworkers union and I remember him telling my mother they voted against including expanded paid parental leave as one of their healthcare proposals when it was time to renegotiate benefits. Since men and women are not equal, sexism does effect how far economic equality goes. It's just naive. She needs to work within this parameter and not judge women who are reasonably wary of men always putting women's issues on the back burner.

I think when we're young and see all the injustices in the world. We all like to think of ourselves as revolutionaries.

Like in those cheesy post apocalyptic ya novels. There is always that one person who is destined to be the savior of all humankind. They will save everyone. The great hero.

I often think dj-exradfem and many other radfems are along the lines.

We all think of ourselves as the main character in the world's story and to an extent it is.

But I live in reality. Once u have a very thorough understanding of American politics and economic role in the world and how it is tangled up with the economy of other countries you come to understand (unless a massive WW3 breaks out or major economic collapse)...

Capitalism will not go anywhere. It's not going anywhere. Aspects or theories from communism are good.

But using it as a benchmark for how to run a government or country?

It's crack u have to be smoking. Where every historical example has led to the worst atrocities and human rights violation we have ever see.

All concluded with major loss of life totalling millions.

I believe all radical feminists, ex-radical feminists, liberal feminists and even Marxist feminists & all kinds of feminists NEED TO BE REALISTIC.

I know it hurts but your not going to be some grand hero or savior for women. And the liberation of women & girls will not happen in our lifetime.

But what we can do, is actually enpower women & girl children now.

Through education. Through non-profit organizations saving women and girls from sex trafficking. Teach them how to hunt, farm, self-defense and give them land to sustain themselves. And owning a gun.

To free women and girls from the patriarchy starts with self-sufficiency.

And then, we can work from there.

No political theory capitalism or communism or socialism will save women.

Women need to save themselves by being self sufficient.

[radfem-gossip]

I sent this to the radfem confession blog but only got one response and really need some advice so I hope this goes through. A family member who I trust very much told me that his mom has been accusing my dad of raping her for a long time. The family member who told me this has heard the story many times over the years, which means she was telling him this when he was a minor. I’m not very close with the accuser/victim so it wouldn’t be an easy thing to bring up with her. And even if I brought it up with my dad and he said it wasn’t true I would always feel suspicious anyway. I’m thinking about going low contact with most of my family, but I don’t know what to do with this info. My dad will always be around any time I want to visit my family. It goes against everything I believe in to not believe a victim, but I feel guilty believing this of my dad, and I feel guilty not believing this of my dad. My dad and I aren’t what I would call close. I did spend time with him during my last trip to my hometown and it was nice. He’s helping me pay off my student loans. I’m just having a really hard time reconciling the image I have of my dad (which is by no means perfect) with someone who could commit such a horrible crime. I don’t know at what age this supposedly happened. I do know that they never got along and that both are mentally ill. I don’t know what to do or how I can ever look my dad in the face again. My friend told me I should sit down and ask her what happened, but I agree with the person on the confessions page that doing that is just not realistic, and I’m also not just gonna assume that she would be comfortable talking about this with me (she also just tried to commit suicide shortly after separating from her husband. There were no beds open in the mental hospital so they just sent her home and within days she was back at her job. I’m sure you all understand why this might worry me). We are not close and I don’t want to get in her business like that. It’s hard to think of my dad this way because despite his anger issues and substance abuse issues in the past he seems like he’s always been respectful of women. I know that the “perfect family man” is just as capable of violence as anyone, and he wasn’t perfect. I would really just like some advice or to hear if someone has had a similar experience where a close relative was accused.

.

[rametarin]

Little note hider. Or, alternative title: “Ante up for arguments.”

So a few days ago I made a post about the tactics I remember from my youth.

Actual disruption and propagandists that filled little girls’ heads with emotionally charged political shit and encouraged them to, “stawt convuhsayshuns uwu” to, “change society.” And we’re talking kids being emotionally blackmailed to accept many of these subjective things as truth.

Taught to argue with other children, the age where they weren’t even really clued in on how to read or argue with academic buffoonery or emotionally charged appeals to authority.

I remember quite well the interactions.

Babby Radfem: “Our society is racist.”

Me: “No it isn’t. Societies can’t be racist, only the people in them.”

Babby Radfem starts citing known examples of racism talking about slavery.

Me: “Yes I know you can talk about things that happened, that doesn’t mean society is racist, it means there are racists in it.”

Babby Radfem: “Proof? You have any proof? :^) Because I have proof of what I’m saying! So YOU have proof for what you’re saying?”

And you have to understand; these little socio-politically programmed children didn’t just waltz into a library and grab up some Feminist Book of Statistics. They were coached, they were groomed, they were armed with bogus academia huffandpuff and then set loose to go after kids who’d never even heard of these issues before.

In my case, I learned what the concept of rape was because a baby radical feminist informed me because I was a boy, and, “epidemic societal rape” was a thing, that she could never wholly trust me of be comfortable around me, because, “men in our society are so violent and rape women.” Not really an appropriate mindset for a girl under the age of 7. Or a boy, for that matter.

It’s at that point they’d put on this big performance with that smug, disgusting expression on their face, setting up a bunch of articles and examples of things that’d happened in the past and examples of singular racist assholes operating, conflating that deliberately with, “a racist society.” Because you know, if one member of the hivemind super colony acts bad, I guess to socialists that’s, “proof” that “society” didn’t do its job in programming them right, or something.

And it’s at this point that no matter what you say, they aren’t looking for a reasonable discussion where you respect one another’s positions and perspectives, they’re looking for a show trial, and they think they’re being clever by trying to make you defend the actions of actual racists, since in their minds, you’re denying their actions ever happened.

No matter what you say, like broken interfaces, they’ll just sit there smugly reminding you, “you aren’t proving society isn’t racist yet! Do you even have an argument? Do you have proof? Any actual PROOF, not emotionally charged denials? Still not seeing any proof of what you’re saying. Guess you don’t have an argument. I’m sorry, I don’t accept crybabying nuh-uhs, I’m a rational person with a scientific mind :^)”

I say again, this shit, these big blowhard guns, were brought out and used on me. I was fucking 5, at the time. It’s not like I was going to stand up, shout, “Foucult was a boy toucher and a monster!” and show the 10 page report with bibliographed citations. You can’t spur of the moment refute someone handed a book wwwwaay about their age range just to tell you bogus statistics like women only make 50-75% of what a white man makes, “for the same job,” that demands you also spur of the moment disprove what they’re saying in order to dispute or disregard it at all.

Then plays to the peers around you like your outrage over the things you’re being accused of by proxy of being a boy, is just because you don’t like, “hearing the truth.”

And you know what this behavior influenced? Yeah. Annoying Youtube Atheists of the 00s. I’m an atheist, but the difference between me and An Annoying Youtube Atheist, is I don’t make not participating in an organized religion or believing in supernatural creators. While the other considers themselves an intellectual for arguing with probably the easiest arguments to disprove and discredit you can possibly engage.

So when I talk about shit like this that I witnessed and observed happening in the fucking late 80s, early 90s, of course I’m not going to have “proof.” Who the hell happens to have examples of such a random a sporadic thing in the wild? The odds are literally a million times better now than they were when our communication and interactions were in person, without internet, with only access to the information resources in the books you had in your local library or in your house.

The, 1.) Inflammatory Statement 2.) Whipping out a book that may as well have been written by Jordan Peterson or Ben Shapiro for all the bias it has 3.) “Here’s my proof. You have proof? Any proof to source your beliefs, or do you just have feefees? :^)” approach, predates on people being both unfamiliar with the subject matter, as well as not having the resources to effectively dispute the claims.

It’s predatory, it’s deceptive, and it is used to socially browbeat women into their corners, whom them become like enablers and believers and supports in the pew after their cryfests, powwows and ‘come to socialist Jesus’ moment.

But no, I don’t currently possess any proof of this phenomenon or effect, and the mercurial social nature of young girls means catching this interaction in the wild is very unlikely. Which is exactly why that disingenuous request for, “Proof? :^)” is so disgusting.

Even when you HAD proof, the next step after isn’t to concede they’re wrong. It usually went in a number of ways.

1.) The person requesting proof goes dead inside and ignores what you’re saying, and if they respond at all, it’s simply to speak as if you hadn’t just shown them the proof, still arguing as if it wasn’t shown. I guess in a silly attempt to socially override the new information from the discussion and give the speaker the burden of proof to try and make it stick to their denial filled, teflon minds.

2.) They meet all the effort taken to argue with stupid shit that wastes your time and energy. Replying to a thorough rebuttal that rebukes and dismantles the things they are saying with, “KUNG POW PENIS, *GIGGLE*” or just going “DURRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!” and giggling to show they don’t actually care what you have to say and won’t take you seriously. This one is done alone or only when they have other supporters there that won’t accept opposition as legit or genuine, proof or not.

3.) They’ll simply retreat and then scream if you follow them. If they retreat, the conversation effectively ends, and they won’t hear any more of it since it threatens to challenge them, OR they simply wanted to convince people to take what they have to say as fact and it’s a waste of their time to sell lies to people that know they’re lies. But they will scream and make the priority that you’re apparently following or harassing them, when they see argument is futile.

4.) They’ll nod along and pretend you’ve corrected them when you demonstrate you aren’t going to believe what they say, because you have both proof and conviction that their argument is weak, they don’t have a leg to stand on, or you throw in their face you know what they are. But, they won’t retract their stance, they’ll simply go on to, “stawt that convuhsayshun” with someone else, to try and convince them of their politically charged talking point.

5.) They’ll start crying or looking like a kid with their hands caught in a cookie jar, and admit, “I was just twying to stawt a... convuhsayshun..” Which is code that means, “I was trying to propagandize and make you think this thing was true, and make you mad about it as if it was the truth.” This typically happened when I called them out in front of adults that also didn’t agree with the things she was saying, had been programmed to say, and was around adults that could cite proof that what they were saying was false.

It happened so often I realized that at some point it might be in my best interests, to at least THINK about how to prove arguments to random strangers.

In the past, being sidewound by baby radical feminists that, “just started conversations” around the water cooler, axes to grind disguised as random conversations, was a thing. They were like social guerillas or velociraptors. But they were always tangentially rooted in whatever thing they’d been handed to read in order to sound smart.

So, if you knew the contemporary radical feminist talking points, had the time, literacy and resources to research and understand the holes in their claims, where they substituted for integrity, you could unravel them. Or could critique things like sample size or the likelihood they arrived at their conclusion and worked backwards to meet the result they were looking for, or started with a faulty premise.

And when they tried to stretch and flex and get believers and followers, presenting these, “facts” (that were not facts, but lies, subjective talking points, or just feelings) trying to use the trust bonds of friendship to get people to accept them as true for risk of hurting the relationship and their friend’s feelings (an exploitation of people, by the way) you could dispute them.

But they really do not like that, and once you reveal yourself as someone capable of shooting holes in what they say, they’ll only bring out their talking points to your mutual friends when you, ye that has identified yourself as capable of disputing what they say, aren’t around to dispute them.

Pre-internet, pre-cell phone, this was the methodology by which radical feminist zealotry was reproduced among young girls and young women. And drove them absolutely fucking nuts for a few years, until they resolved it and came back to reality. For one reason or another.

But do I have proof of this? Not on hand.