#also i doubt this needs a disclaimer but just in case: i'm using 'if thats what the lord put in your heart' as a joke here i am

[gibbearish]

this post is long as fuck already so i'll try to be brief here (no promises)(update: failed) (update: turbo failed) (update: mega turbo failed holy fuck how does this keep happening) (update: gdi), but i've seen a small trend in the notes and i just want to say that if you fell for the original post, please don't beat yourself up about it too much. my main point here is that this post was deliberately set up in a way to mislead an audience with no involvement in the discourse into automatically distrusting a specific side by piggybacking off of predstrogen's banning. op knew that people would already be in a frenzy about a very public display of transmisogyny, which makes it easier to slide things like this under the radar.

a few people now have commented that the reason they shared the original was because they wanted to elevate and support transfemme voices during a time of open hate, which is good and you should do! but that doesn't mean you shouldn't also be critical of the things those voices are saying, or ask yourself what their motivations might be for saying it. because while you might have excellent intentions in boosting things like that, people like op can and will use those intentions against you. and while i said earlier that this post wouldve set off my alarm bells even if i wasnt familiar with the context already, truthfully i have no way of knowing if i would have or not. i'd like to think i would, but i have certainly fallen for internet misinformation in the past and likely will again, so i'm very much not trying to come across as like. "you fools didn't think it through good enough and now look at you. not like me, for i am cool and smart," that's a big part of why i explained this as thoroughly as i did is specifically because the lies are hidden very well from an uninvolved audience. the blame for you being misled lies with op, not with you.

with that though, i should also address something op claimed in an edit (one that i do not have the energy to to break down fully the way i did this one right now nor do i think there would be much more to gain from that beyond what's already been pointed out by others in the replies), which is that that this post wasn't intended for a larger audience and was instead only intended to reach her direct community, not the wider trans community. i'm going to go ahead and classify that as another lie, and an incredibly blatant one at that, because it. literally is not directed at other transfemmes. like, explicitly. it is directed at nontransfemmes to tell them about an issue transfemmes are facing, albeit a very skewed version of it. like, that just. is who the post is directed at. transfemmes do not need to be told about the issues they themselves are facing, especially in the format of an introductory brief, and if there was something else op was meaning by "direct community but not the wider trans community" then i can't see it to address it. regardless, considering her also saying "i didn't want this many eyes on my writing," i feel pretty comfortable in concluding that the real target audience was "anyone who doesn't know i'm lying and can point out the holes in what i'm saying."

if she really didn't want eyes on her writing, she wouldn't have formatted it like a PSA. there's a reason why my post is formatted and phrased in a similar way, i AM addressing a wider audience with no prior knowledge of the situation and i DO want eyes on it, despite my bone-deep reluctance to get involved in discourse ever again. if i didn't want people to see it, it wouldve just been a vague post about how it sucks seeing misinformation being spread, in fact i did make one of those when i first saw this yesterday. but then i changed my mind and decided addressing it in full was something that needed to be done, so i specifically formatted things in a way that would (hopefully) be accessible to others rather than just yknow. unorganized rambling and forgetting the alt text. and while i do reserve the right to turn off reblogs if things get out of hand (no worries yet), i wouldn't then turn around and try to pretend it was never meant to be spread in the first place, ESPECIALLY if the reason i turned them off was because Too Many People Were Pointing Out I Was Lying And I Couldn't Keep Up With It. although i guess if that was the reason i turned them off i probably would say that since i'd be the kind of person to make a post like that in the first place. if lying gets you into a mess then surely more lying will get you out right?

anyways. don't feel too bad if you fell for a post that preyed on the fact you wanted to help, but also remember what you learned from this. when something big happens that has a lot of people angry for very good reasons, don't let that lull you into assuming everyone else who's mad is on your side or is giving you the full story. be extra critical of if the posts you see are actually good faith attempts to spread awareness, or if it could be an attempt to use the anger already clouding your judgement to push you towards beliefs you would otherwise not be open to. and critically, take all of this and apply it also to the ideologies behind posts like these. don't just keep an eye out for lies, but also ask yourself what it means about a group's ideology that they have to lie like that in the first place. if they have to misrepresent things this badly to get people to spread the things they say, you should be questioning the things they say, because that tells you if they said what they actually meant, you would probably disagree. the notes on this post have plenty of examples of people saying they didn't even notice this was the underlying meaning and were disgusted to find out they helped play into something like that, and that is precisely /why/ it was hidden the way it was, was so that people who didn't know better would just take them at their word and not look any closer.

remember, "you are not immune to propaganda" isn't an accusation, it's just an acknowledgement. i'm not immune to propaganda either. i just happened to be resistant to this specific strain because of prior exposure, so now i'm sharing those antibodies with you! and sitting there feeling bad you got an infection doesn't help anyone, so now that you've recovered go forth and give them a rigorous workout. and in turn when i next fall prey to a strain i haven't run into before i hope someone else will share theirs with me.

and with that, if you are able to call out misinformation and feel like no one else is bringing it up, you can be the first! you can start the conversation! if you look through the notes or the asks ive gotten today, you can see a bunch of people saying they noticed these things too but didn't feel like they could say anything since no one else was bringing it up, and sometimes life is just. heaving a deep sigh and saying "well somebody has to fuckin do it" and getting your hands dirty. and thats not to say theres any shame in not being able to do so, and i leave it up to you to determine what "able" means for you, as there were certainly a lot more factors that went into it for me beyond "can i physically type out these words." if you're not able to call it out yourself then you can still do your part by learning the signs for things like this so that you don't pass misinformation you come across to others. but if you ARE in a place where you can call these things out, it very much is worth it. and even small things can help, it doesn't have to be a full comprehensive breakdown ten times the length of the post itself. shit you can just slap a "that doesnt sound right but i dont know enough abour stars to dispute it" on there and hope that someone else who knows more is encouraged enough by you starting the conversation to break it down for others. and even if no one person picks it up, a hundred people all saying "hey this doesnt sound right" can be just as revealing as one person listing out a hundred things, yknow?

but i mean also, if youtube proves anything it's that people love freakishly long breakdowns of extremely niche things that don't effect them, so like. if that's what the lord has put on your heart to do then don't be shy about listing out your hundred things baybee, embrace the gibbearish lifestyle, the people want your word avalanches, grip it and rip it. anyways, i don't know how to conclude this. um. take it easy but take it. yeah that kind of fits the theme here, sure. ok love u bye

so this post has been made unrebloggable now (shocker) but ive been feeling the need to address it since i saw it on my dash multiple times, so let's explore how lying on the internet works. more specifically, how blending truth, lies, and omissions to whip uninvolved people into anger works, because i think this is an excellent example and that pointing out the misinformation and the tactics used to spread it here is important, both in correcting the specific falsities but also in helping recognize similar tactics in the future.

so here we have several things that are technically true: staff has been very openly shitty to trans women for a long time and them banning predstrogen is clearly part of that, there is currently a movement regarding discussing transmisandry/transandrophobia, transmisogyny and transphobes sending transphobic asks is by far nothing new, and baeddel is/was a slur. however, among all of this are half-truths, unprovable speculation, or outright lies made to make you believe these events are originating specifically from transmascs.

firstly, the transandrophobia movement has been drastically misrepresented here in the same way it has been for the whole argument, "they're just trans MRAs" has been repeated so many times now that i'm gonna be hearing it in my dreams when i'm 80. i can understand not being willing to address the nuance of that whole discourse in one post that isn't directly focused on that, i'm certainly not, but in this example it's not unwillingness to address a complicated topic, it's a deliberate misrepresentation to frame one side of the discussion as The Evil Bad Ones That Can't Be Trusted. additionally, this post IS about that discourse and is just pretending it isn't to mislead a wider audience, so refusing to address it at all beyond this brief mention is deliberately misleading people about the goals of the group because They're The Other Side Of The Discourse. "transmisogynists" is used as a buzzword here, it doesn't actually refer to Anyone Who Hates Transfemmes, it refers to Transmascs Who Discuss Transmasc-Specific Oppression Using A Word They Coined To Point Out That Queer Spaces Have A Big Problem With Masculinity and just. doesn't tell you that's what it means, relying on the structure and framing of the post to create the Transmisogynist = Transmasc association in the audience's head so op doesn't have to say it outright (and of course the implied Transmasc = Transmisogynist association that follows because creating THAT association is the Actual Point of this post). the mentions of transmascs in this post are designed to look like afterthoughts, op says "typically those who espouse transandrophobia" to make it look like they're saying there's other people they're referring to here too, but almost everything in this post draws from the transandrophobia discourse. some random cis transphobe in texas has never heard the term baeddel in their entire life much less used it in a debate about transphobia, this is an intercommunity argument through and through, but op is trying to mask the fact that they're just referring to "transmascs who disagree with me specifically" and make it look like it's part of a wider trend. and again, i'm not going to go into the nuances of transandrophobia here, but i highly recommend reading some of the theory on it by @nothorses (x) and @genderkoolaid (x) because the "theyre just trans MRAs" argument kinda just collapses under its own weight as soon as you look into it even a smidgen. i've linked a couple broad overviews there but they both discuss it frequently and in-depth, specifically nothorses has a pinned post linking to many different discussion threads that i would recommend checking out if you do want to learn more about what the actual conversation surrounding these words is.

so, after framing the movement this way, they go on to say that the reason predstrogen was banned wasn't /just/ because staff has a long and established hate boner for trans women, but because the transandrophobia movement was teaming up with TERFs to mass-report her and other transfemmes, and implies that this is part of a deliberate conspiracy between Transandrophobia Truthers™, TERFs, and staff. you'll notice that there are no, say, screenshots of transmascs saying theyre deliberately reporting her or of that they're working with TERFs, behind-the-scenes lists of people who reported a certain account, or any evidence for this beyond "she was a trans woman, they're trans men who hate trans women, she got banned, so these must be related". which i find especially funny now given that photomatt has continued melting down about this since it happened and made it pretty clear it yknow. was just part of staffs ongoing hate campaign against trans women that has been going on much longer than the transandrophobia debate? and that maybe the fact that The Literal CEO is having a personal meltdown about this might explain where that could be coming from or at least why it's been allowed to continue for so long, moreso than any individual users reporting someone could? but i digress.

who reported what account is completely unprovable as a casual user unless people directly admit they did it, so to bring it up like this begs the question of what actual reasoning they have for saying it beyond trying to tie a current display of bigotry into an unrelated discourse. that's not to say it's impossible people who discuss transandrophobia were wrongfully reporting her, because again, thats something we have no way of knowing, and the internet is a shit place so i wouldn't be surprised. but given the circumstances and the rest of the lies here, i have my doubts about this being an actual yknow. Thing That Happened rather than just another lie to make people mad at transmascs. now one could make the argument that op wasn't saying transmascs are /deliberately/ teaming up with TERFs/staff, that "teaming up" was just a poor choice of words to refer to multiple groups who happen to have the same goals in mind at the same time but aren't actually coordinating with one another, but given the deliberate misinformative slant of the rest of the post and the overall phrasing in this section, i have trouble extending that grace. regardless, however, that doesn't change that who is reporting who isn't something verifiable, so stating it here as a confirmed fact is disingenuous at the absolute best, and a lie chosen specifically because it's unprovable at worst. if op /does/ have proof that transmascs have been teaming up with TERFs to get trans women banned, not including that with this post is just uhhhhh dumb, and if op /doesn't/ have proof then Why Would You Go Around Telling People That's What Happened Unless You Were Lying To Them On Purpose With Ulterior Motives.

next, op goes on to discuss the rise of the term baeddel. now as i said before, the truth here is that it certainly was a slur and certainly can still be used as one, again the internet is a shit place so i would be a fool if i tried to say "no one is using this as a slur". however, this is once again a drastic misrepresentation of the situation. baeddel's rising use is due to certain trans women reclaiming it and aligning themselves with the original group's politics, namely that femininity is good and masculinity is bad (aka terfism 101), with the added caveat that by abandoning femininity for masculinity, transmascs are evil and betraying devine womanhood and their community by putting more Evil Manhood into the world. of course that in turn is a drastic oversimplification of their politics and i highly recommend checking out this post with an actual in-depth exploration of the history (and without my added flavor), but the important part to note here is that this is not a term transmascs just Started Using one day because they hate transfems so very much as is implied here, its use is directly tied to a group of people saying "hello, here is what i am, and here is what this word means about what i believe," so others went "ok, these specific beliefs are called this." bringing up the fact that it historically was a slur is misdirection here, when you look closer this is almost a 1 to 1 translation of TERFs crying that TERF and radfem are slurs because People Don't Like Their Politics And Therefore Them, so the name for their politics is used negatively, so therefore it's a slur. that argument just has a little more oomph behind it this time because It Was A Slur Originally. and again, that isnt to say no one is now using it as a slur, the rate of decay for online discourse is ridiculous so it being boiled down to and used as "evil transfemme" has certainly already happened, but to act like /every/ use of it is a slur is literally just a lie, when you self-identify with a term based on your shared politics with the original group then you do not get to claim everyone using that term to describe those politics is doing so exclusively to attack you. also this part is entirely speculation but given that op's url is basically just. baeddel switched around to dae bel, i would hazard a guess that they perhaps are indeed aware of the origins of its re-use? but again, that's entirely unprovable and based just on wordplay, but like. given the Everything here i wouldn't be surprised. now, there's definitely an argument to be made about calling users baeddels based just off of their politics when they don't personally self-identify with it, if that constitutes calling someone a slur and if TIRF should be used instead, but crucially, that is not the argument being made here. the argument being made is "ANY AND ALL use of this term is calling someone a slur," and that literally just Isn't The Case.

finally, to tie the whole post off, op reminds us 1) if you hear anything bad about any trans woman ever, it's probably a lie to make her look bad, and 2) if you hear anyone say anything about transandrophobia, disregard everything else they have to say because they hate trans women. not "be critical of the things you see or get sent" or "be on the lookout for things following a certain pattern," a unilateral "anything bad is probably fake and anyone who uses the bad words is probably evil." that is not something someone does if they are genuinely trying to raise awareness of an ongoing trend, that is what someone does when they want you to turn your brain off and be mad at a group no matter what they say.

so yeah, in summary, do be critical of the things you see and be on the lookout for certain patterns, because sometimes people will just Lie to you. or, sometimes people will tell you portions of the truth while leaving out crucial bits so that you'll come to the conclusion they want without anyone being able to say they lied to you without typing up a thirty paragraph long hell post. transmisogyny is absolutely a problem on this site and there are 100% valuable conversations to be had about it and its presence within the trans community, but this post is not that. this post uses real transmisogyny and the wrongful termination of a trans woman's account as set dressing to say that it was all because of evil transmascs who run the trans community behind the scenes conspiring to take out transfemmes, so you should ignore anything they have to say because All of it is secretly motivated by transmisogyny. they're never discussing transandrophobia because it's something that actually effects them, they're doing it to hurt trans women by saying they have it worse. they're never telling you about shitty things a trans woman did to spread awareness, they're lying to make her look bad, or even if it's true they're only talking about it as part of a hate campaign because she's trans, they wouldn't care otherwise. they're never using a specific term because People Use That Term For Themselves, they're calling someone a slur because they hate trans women. there's always an explanation you can think up that ties it back to transmisogyny, and op says that instead of assessing all of what someone says and the context behind it to determine if that's what's happening, you should assume transmisogyny is the answer and refuse to engage any further as soon as you see a word you've been told is bad.

this post is discourse recruitment masquerading as a public service announcement that doesn't offer you any routes to actually learn more about what's going on, it just tells you Here's What's Happening, Here's Who's Evil And Should Be Ignored, And If You Disagree You're Also Evil And Should Be Ignored. content of the actual post aside, i think anything framed that way should be taken with a MASSIVE grain of salt and this would have raised my alarm bells even if i wasn't already pretty familiar with the arguments, people who genuinely want you to know something just because it's good to know will give you options to learn more or encourage you to actually use your critical thinking to assess things, not tell you to sit down and shut up and ignore anyone who disagrees with them.

anyways i guess tldr

[ftm-radio]

Merry Christmas hope your having a wonderful day!! I'm having a crisis and need some advise. i finished school after doing 2 very different things. I got a degree as a camera operator and then i was like nah i can't do this my whole live so i did a study in outdoor sports where I'm currently working as teacher. but again I'm like nah. I mean i like both but i think is just don't want to be done with school jet and now I'm thinking about doing something completely different jet again. But i figured out i was trans a year ago and i have kind of pushed it back in the closet. Now i don't know what to do because both studies are mostly done by men and i got a job as a teacher because they needed a woman but turns out that's not the case for me and i think I'm like finding a way out by doing another study but now I'm having doubts and i don't know what to do or how to go about it, cut my hair so thats done but now im lost

thanks, merry christmas to you as well!

first, congrats on finishing school! I haven't done that yet haha. 😅 tbh I'm in somewhat of a school crisis of my own, debating on whether I should continue studying art or move to something else... :/

but we're talking about you here! quick disclaimer, I don't think I'm that equipped to give Big Serious Life Advice, so please don't take whatever I suggest as gospel or anything lol.

I would say an important thing is to take your time and not rush into anything. that goes for both school/career stuff and gender stuff. if you can, take your time and feel yourself out, try to figure out what you really want/need. if you have a journal (or really just like.. notebook paper or an empty document on your computer) writing about it might help—getting all the thoughts rattling around your skull on paper where you can look closer at them is helpful for me, at least.

If you really feel like you want to go back to school & you are able to do so, I think you should do it. Maybe you can try talking to an advisor or whoever to help you find what you want to do. (I think I'm planning on doing that myself come next fall!)

As far as gender stuff goes, if you haven't explored that very much, you should probably start doing that. It can be overwhelming,, but if you take your time and go slow it can also be really fun! If you want information there are many blogs on here, and several youtube channels as well (I recommend Jammidodger, he was the first trans youtuber I watched & is very informative!) and the rest of the internet haha.

If you haven't yet, you could also try out different pronouns/names online to see how they fit & how you feel about them. There are even websites where you select/input pronouns and names and they generate sentences and stuff to give you a feel for it, though I can't think of any specific ones right now. (I didn't use them much myself.)

If there are any lgbtq+ groups/communities in your area, it could be really helpful to reach out to them for advice and community. My own queer journey was helped a lot by my joining the gay club at my college, and when my egg cracked I had a trans friend right there that I could talk to about it! ^u^

That's all I've got right now, sorry if it's vague and/or not especially helpful. 😅😅 If you have any more specific questions or anything feel free to send another ask in and hopefully I can help you out!

[theelliottsmiths]

do you feel like talking about tillchard? 🥺👉🏻👈🏻 not necessarely in a shippy way, just,,, how their relationship functions and why,,,, how they made it work for so long even tho they're so different,,,, i'm trying to write them but i'm in a bit of a block and i feel like you can word things so well and hopefully it will make me able to string words together again 🥺🥺 have a good day in any case 🥺🥺

Okay we have to ease into this my brain needs to warm up to switch tracks so I'm just gonna

Disclaimer: this is mostly conjecture and inference, take it with a full handful of salt.

I feel like whether or not they're all that different is up for debate? Maybe in terms of interests and conflict management skills, but the fundamentals seem pretty similar. I'd argue that's usually the basis for long, intense friendships: your core structures are the same but there's enough difference further out towards the surface that it stays a little spicy.

For a start, they both had rough home lives, though to different extents and in different ways, and I think that's one of those things that really helps people bond deeply (especially as young adults). Finding someone who understands what you've experienced can be difficult, not even accounting for the fact that they didnt have the internet to seek others out and kind of met by chance.

For Richard, who learned from a fairly early age it was him against everything and everyone else, and Till, who at that time had gone through some interpersonal shit with the people he worked with before leaving to move in with his dad and then also the stuff with his dad, it must have been almost... Shocking? to meet someone they could click with and depend on. It doesn't sound like they had that before, but nobody really has asked them. On top of that is all kinds of other trauma and the mental health issues (depression, addiction, anxiety etc) that they can at least to some degree understand in each other. I have no idea how long it took for their friendship to get that intense or any of that more specific stuff, but I honestly don't think that matters: They understand each other at a pretty fundamental level now. Sometimes I think about how Till believes in karma and Richard believes in fate and I just... Yeah.

They have very different feelings and reactions when it comes to disagreements (Till hates conflict and will try to placate people or just do what they want completely, Richard prefers a good cathartic argument) and I can absolutely see them having a hard time with that, especially when they lived together for a while. Whether they have much to fight over besides silly friend/bandmate/brother things remains to be seen.

They're also both very driven and creative almost to a fault? Though Till seems a lot better at switching off and leaving that headspace, whereas Richard doesn't seem like he'd be able to even of he wanted to, which I don't think he does. If one is lost in their work the other will understand. I wonder whether they try to offer support, given how much emotion they both channel into it, or if that's not something either of them would want.

They feed into each others creativity so nicely too. They use that to their complete advantage and honestly just... Can you imagine Rammstein if they didn't go to each other with their ideas first? I think they need each others encouragement before they face the more critical members of the band: the support of a single person can make so much difference.

When the Mutter Situation was in progress Till was the only one in Richards side, though I doubt he inserted himself into many arguments because he's allergic to shouting. I with my whole heart believe that Richard would have tried to leave Rammstein if it wasn't for Till. He'd already thought about it, in particular at times when they were struggling financially. Without that tether would he have gone back willingly? I'm not so sure. He loved them and they were still friends outside of the work, but I don't know that the work with them would feel worth it. Complete conjecture.

Theyll have inevitably drifted in and out of their friendship over the years, which I know a lot of us (especially those of is in our teens and twenties) hate the idea of because we have not experienced 30-year adult friendships and therefore it feels Risky, but actually thats pretty fine. It seems like at some point Richard wasn't happy with the gap and he made efforts to change it, which says so much about him and them. No idea if it worked, but it (along with the stuff with the other guys) shows he's willing to work against his whole lone wolf thing. Again, that man will fight. I'm sure Till was receptive.

I also really do think the other guys being there and them all forming the band was vital. Yes, it did eventually mean their friendship morphed into something more like brothers and colleagues than friends, but again, Let's Go. "Sometimes people need to be reminded". Having those shared friends/bandmates—as well as Khira li, come to think of it— meant that two men who seem fairly prone to cutting themselves off from everyone else didn't have the choice to completely grow apart. It means they had even more shared experiences and had no choice but to be physically together for long stretches of time.

Related to the mutter thing, I do wonder sometimes how Till is when it comes to Richards drug addiction. He's not exactly a fan of the therapy (did it hurt Richard when Till said therapy makes people egotistical, what with him praising it so highly himself?) and still does drugs and binge drinks. How safe is he to be around if Richard is in a bad spot? Presumably Till isn't like that when he's not in work mode, so hanging out one in one or with family/the other boys is probably okay, but in tour? Well, maybe that's why Paul looks after him on stage like that.

Yeah. They're sweet boys and I'm glad they met each other, both because of the band and because they were clearly good for each other. Regardless of any of the negative stuff I just said they love each other. So. Fucking. Much.

Okay so looking back upon this I do not know if I did what you asked. Uh. Shit. Distraction: