#also the way she said i was a terf for not recognizing nonbinary trans women as if i am not personally a nonbinary trans woman

[girlthingdecay]

done talking to the cissoid i blocked her. from now on if any cissoid wants to speak to me they need to send me $20 first

[drdemonprince]

Something I think you're missing in how you talk about trans men: how recently you transitioned.

I came out circa 2007, and there was almost no information about us, no community where I lived (the local support group was all older trans women), no media outside of "Boys Don't Cry" and the way-better-but-still-basic "Parrotfish," no anything at all except TERF lesbian communities that coveted and hated us in equal measure, and general GSAs that were sweet, but dominated by cis people. I learned that the worst thing in the world I could be was a trans man - to be a trans man was to be a regressive agent of the patriarchy, and if I couldn't force myself to be nonbinary or a cis woman, I was evil.

In the early 2010s I attended a conference where a trans woman, a national celebrity I looked up to, made a joke about how useless trans men are during her keynote speech. I walked out of that room crying because as far as I knew, she was right - I was almost an elder by the standards of an atomized community where we were expected to die young, and even I couldn't name a single trans man in history who'd mattered.

We take it for granted now that trans men like Lou Sullivan made a difference, but to bring attention to him, folks like me had to swim upstream against a wave of accusations of misogyny from TERFs, and sometimes even from trans women. The acceptance you rejoice in at bathhouses? That was hard won through outreach by trans men. I even remember a specific trans male-run ambassador program in San Francisco circa 2013 dedicated to integrating trans men into the queer male community.

The world that's welcomed you was built by trans men who, like me, felt agonizingly alone and unwanted in both cis and trans communities. You paint a picture of lazy hangers-on who don't understand how good they have it, and maybe that's true for the folks you're looking at, but they don't reflect the hard work trans men have been putting in at every level of organizing for much longer than our efforts have been recognized. I've been involved in the fight for our liberation since I was a teenager, working on school and state-level policy change, medical access, the preservation of history, mentorship, dodging evictions, and all the little jobs my tired, autistic ass can take on, and I've never been rewarded for it outside the thanks of the people I've helped. All I ever wanted was to make things better for the generations that came after me.

I'd just like to have that reality acknowledged - that those of us who came before you built what you're now able to enjoy, and we can use that history to empower and encourage younger generations to continue doing the work instead of implying that no one's been doing it at all.

Thank you for this message. I would like to read a lot more about your perspective on this history. Please let me know your @ -- in private if you prefer. There are some elements of how this is framed here that do make me go, hm (the view was the worst thing you could be was a trans man?) but I am also appreciative of this this glimpse at what I don't know I don't know, and am interested to learn more about it.

But I also want to push back against the idea that I have no knowledge of how things were during the times you're talking about -- I was a queer, gender-questioning adult at that time too, and I was active in many trans spaces.

My medical transition is very recent in the grand scheme of things but I've been rolling deep with trans guys and going to trans masc events since 2003-2004 (in Cleveland and Columbus). I remember how the not-full-blown TERFY yet still very toxic radfems spoke about men, sexually preyed upon trans guys in some cases, and sometimes said things critical of transition. I knew several trans guys who had quite a guilt complex about becoming a "man" because they had internalized that men were inherently predatory and evil. Personally, I'd always thought that line of thinking was absurd and a very poor excuse for feminism, so it didn't get under my skin in the same way. Instead of making me not want to be a man, it made me not want to be a feminist. Which is pretty typical sexist bro shit to do really. Again, no big evidence of transmisandry here. certainly experiences that were emotionally very fraught and challenging for people, but not misandry or transmisandry.

These queer and feminist groups that I moved within were VASTLY more exclusionary to the trans femmes in the city, who were not even permitted to attend events for sexual assault survivors in the Columbus scene. I DID see trans women on the social periphery of these groups be discouraged from transitioning, and I did hear just about every vile transmisogynistic slur and exclusionary idea you can think of be passed around by many without challenge.

The transmisogyny stood out to me even back then as particularly egregious and rampant -- it disgusted me and caused me to distance myself from those groups of people in 2007-8. It was the outspoken hatred of anyone with an "amab" body and frothing transmisogyny that made me not want to be associated with that crowd or to contemplate transition, honestly -- not any kind of widespread anti-transmasc sentiment. These groups held top surgery fundraisers and hormone start date celebrates for trans guys and expressed desire for trans men openly and included them warmly in just about everything while treating trans women like predators and telling them they should just be feminine men (far, far away from them).

So my experience just does not track with what you are saying. I imagine we have two very different vantage points on similar periods of time, and I think there certainly is a lot more about trans masc history I could stand to learn and so many trans masc elders' whose names I should be putting more respect on. And I'd be very open to hearing more about that from you. But I do have to push back against the characterization of the era as someone who very much was there.

[genderisareligion]

“aun cuando en este momento existen suficientes datos para saber que el sexo también es una construcción y que trasciende el binario macho-hembra”

even though at the moment there is enough data to know that sex is also a construct and that it transcends the male-female binary

A relatively well known feminist in my area, a professor who teaches feminist theory at one of our best universities, said this. This woman is very anti terf or whatever, but usually I hear this kind of argument from people with the most insane takes so I was surprised hearing it from her. She didn’t cite any of the “data” and I know this is a tired argument, but where did these people even get the idea that sex is a construct to begin with? Like what is the data? I want to see it, genuinely, I want to read where it says that sex is a construct that transcends the male-female binary and why that is so. Is it in reference to intersex conditions? Because people have recognized intersex conditions for a long time and nobody was saying that sex is a construct before. And in any case, if it is in reference to intersex conditions, wouldn’t a statement like that only apply to intersex people instead of it being a testament to the legitimacy of trans identity (which is how I’ve seen it most commonly used)? Or is it something else? I’m asking for real lol I don’t know much about the trans stuff and I want to know where they’re getting the information.

Also, completely unrelated, but I know you’ve said you’re Latina. Which country? Lmao I hope this does not come across as creepy, you do NOT have to answer me if you don’t want to lol. I just like to keep track of all the Latina women I follow.

Man I miss @not-your-intersex-pawn. Used to immediately refer people to/defer to her blog since it's always better to hear this directly from one of them. But you're onto something with "wouldn't a statement like that only apply to intersex people?" "TERFs conflate sex and gender they can't tell the difference sex and gender are different!" but constantly TRAs tell everyone of the likelihood of intersex conditions in the population to legitimize their likely non intersex related gender identity. Who's conflating what now? Lol. not-your-intersex-pawn and her orbiters constantly complain(ed) about and sometimes (even though they didn't deserve it) tried to politely explain to dyadic trans people why pretending intersexism has anything to do with you when it doesn't and LARPing as a community member because "I'Ve NeVeR hAd My ChRoMoSoMeS lOoKeD aT yOu NeVeR kNoW" is disrespectful.

Found this piece the day I found her blog many years ago. Glad Medium hasn't given it the axe yet

I also defer to some of the intersex organizations she recommended since despite what devout genderists would have you believe they're divided on what constitutes an intersex condition and their criticism of gender since minority groups are not monoliths.

Main thing I wanna impress after years of reading her blog is that some intersex people find it offensive for you to call them a "third" or "other" or "nonbinary" category and would like everyone to still refer to them as male or female with a sex specific intersex condition. I tag posts I find/have of hers now she may have mentioned it in there

"Sex is a social construct" lol when will any of these genderists actually tell me who managed to invent that? Seriously. What white colonizer somewhere managed to change the construction of virtually every single member of the species across the globe so that 99% of us are sexually dimorphic? Wild as fuck that this is being preached in academia.

As far as where they're getting their information, usually a game of social media telephone and only reading interpretations of the data that line up with their religious beliefs because "intersex people can be TERFs too!"

I'm Mexican 🇲🇽 But currently stuck in USAmerica lol. As I've mentioned my Spanish is garbage because I'm from like a "white washed" family (don't love that terminology but like we were Bush conservatives and lived in a mostly white community). When my Spanish is better I plan on crossing "the border" (the one they stole lol)

[rad-claid-plaid]

I peaked slowly, over a period of about a year ish. I was dating a man who started identifying as nonbinary and then a woman. I identified as nonbinary at the time. Said ex claimed that his lack of respect for my identity (over a period of a year or two) was "different" than his experience. He started becoming mean and petty about things, saying he was more of a woman than I ever would be (pre any treatment), that he had a "smooth feminine brain", and that his periods were going to be worse than any I've ever had (I have severe menstrual pain). I was completely supportive, even when he went on nonsense rants to my coworkers at work events or he stole my clothes or asked me to spend hours applying his makeup. He was also incredibly abusive in many ways, and when I got the opportunity to leave (it took months to do so in secret during the beginning of the pandemic) he accused me of transphobia and being the real abuser, even though I had been nothing but supportive the entire time. A few months later he then went and told everyone who knew me that I "forced" him to transition a few months later, as I had expressed attraction to women (as I always have).

During my time of healing from this relationship, I continued to vehemently support the trans community and do everything I can to establish that I fled abuse, that I wasn't the abuser, and that I wasn't transphobic. I have quite a few trans friends. But I just, I had this feeling. This little voice in my head that said "all of this isn't right". I had a few more encounters, like a transwoman in a social circle who "unfairly got chased out of her last town due to false rape accusations", where funnily enough it happened a few more times in my city.

I had a lot of time on my hands, and I did a lot of introspection about my "nonbinary identity". I was pushed into adopting it quite a few times, until I quietly picked it up and slipped she/they into a few socmedia accounts. I realized that I *do* feel like a person, not a woman, but are women not people? I thought more about the tifs I knew, and internalized misogyny.

During this whole time, id see "terf blocklists" and such go around, and I would secretly read those blogs before blocking. And then go back to the blocked blogs and read some more. Until one day, when I realized I was spending a lot of time secretly reading "terf blogs", and that I agreed with a lot of what they had to say. That they weren't hateful fascists but rather women who recognized sex. And that's it. I made a separate account (this blog) and it's all been herstory.

I peaked after my friend's little sister became a TIF at the age of 12. She is so smart, so talented, funny, an avid reader, so brave, and also going through some hard times.

The first time I was around her after she identified as a TIF, I legitimately could not get the "he/him" pronouns out of my mouth. I seriously tried. The cognitive dissonance between the amazing girl in front of me and the identity she was trying to adopt just did not compute.

She reminded me of myself when I was young-- when all the adults around me would call me a "gifted kid" but dismiss my mental health struggles.

She wears the exact same clothes I did as a young teen who was uncomfortable with puberty when it kicked in, but now she says those same clothes make her a boy. Jeans, baggy shirts, tennis shoes, a sweater or jacket no matter the temperature.

She cut her hair short, literally just like I did at her age, but now it's a boy's cut.

She's fallen into an online community that endlessly affirms her and acts like her friends, something she struggles to find at school.

She makes "egg" jokes and shares posts about "cracking eggs," a chronically online term that implies any gender non-conforming traits somehow signal imminent trans status.

I legitimately could not see her in front of me and force myself to believe she was truly a boy. I could not, and it sent me down a research spiral that led me to JKR's fabulous essay-- and from there, feminist books, discourse, and online communities.

Did anything in particular cause you to peak? Would you be comfortable sharing? Curious to hear more personal stories.

[vacueabissi]

[Image description:

A thread on Twitter written by Twitter user @ QueerlyHazel that says:

The other day on TikTok I saw a person saying “this song makes me want to be a lesbian and I’m not even a girl” that ended with a look of realization and a “fuck”

Later I saw someone on Twitter who had screencapped it and was calling it fetishization

I just saw the update to that TikTok where OP came out as genderfluid (I think, according to the tags) and changed her pronouns to he/she. He also said in the comments that the first video was partially intended as a sort of coming out video

Exclusionists are so wrapped up in the idea that any “man” who says he wants to be a lesbian is fetishizing lesbians that they fail to realize that people like that person on TikTok are not the exception, they’re how that usually works out

The people in the comments of the original video were supportive, most of them saying that their egg cracked the same way (or in reverse). Literally thousands of comments, the vast majority of which got the very subtle (/s) “maybe I’m not a cis man” message.

The idea that men who say “I wish I was a lesbian” are just predatory cishet men is 1) very rarely accurate, and more importantly, 2) literally just transmisogyny from TERFs who want to frame all trans women/fems as cishet men “invading women’s spaces”.

/end description]

This is what I mean when I say that some of you overuses the word fetishization to the point that it loses meaning and thus you all fall into the tricks made by transphobes. Ypu all spew terf rethoric sugarcoated in a way thaf you do not recognize it anymore. It's genuinly disgusting and alarming.

Nonbinary AMABs that identify themselves as lesbians are not predatory or fetishizing in nature, you all are just too deep in the transphobia rabbit hole to realize who actually does harm to the comunity.

[likeabxrdinflight]

I’m sorry if you don’t want to discuss this but how is acknowledging that biological sex is real ignorant? How can the sex based oppression of women be acknowledged and opposed if biological sex is not real or relevant? Watching 100s of trans women send violent misogynistic threats to JKR on Twitter has scared the shit out of me, and pretty much proved her point. I just can’t understand how everyone can see the vile rape threats JKR is getting from trans women and men & dismiss sexism.

Okay....I will assume you have good intentions with this ask and answer to the best of my ability. But I am not transgender so don’t have the best understanding of the trans or nonbinary experience, so please, anyone I’m following who is trans feel free to jump on this and correct me in any way.

Yes, biological sex is a thing, no one ever said it wasn’t, and no one has ever said sexism isn’t real either. This is a bit of a transphobic, TERF-y dogwhistle that people often use to discredit trans people, and I hope that wasn’t your intention. As I’m sure you know, the majority of people are born with either XY or XX chromosomes that determine their primary and secondary sex characteristics (there are, of course, several exceptions to this, in terms of intesex people and those with certain chromosomal abnormalities, but that’s beyond the scope of my knowledge base.) Sex, however, is not the same thing as gender. 

Gender is much more of a sociological construct than anything biologically driven. How one performs and identifies their gender is much more likely to be based on societal norms. Often, these norms are determined by sex assigned at birth, and certainly in western societies that has always been the case. Your gender is expected to align with your sex- but that doesn’t always happen. 

In simplest terms, sex is part of your physical body, gender lives in the brain and psyche, and when those two things don’t match up well, you get people with trans and nonbinary gender identities. 

This is the tweet which started the backlash, not that she said sex was a real thing:

Not everyone who menstruates is a woman or identifies as such, and she fails to acknowledge this. She’s angry about trans-inclusive language because she thinks, for some reason, that that devalues what people who were female assigned at birth deal with. 

This is patently not true. Transphobia and sexism are not somehow mutually exclusive things and we don’t need to act like they are. It’s not throwing women under the bus to refer to people who menstruate as...people who menstruate, because there are many trans men and nonbinary folks who are affected by periods. Stating that doesn’t mean sexism isn’t real. Now, if people are sending rape threats towards Rowling, of course that is wrong and should be condemned. Trans people can of course be misogynistic and that rhetoric is unhelpful. However, there is a real and legitimate anger towards her for holding these transphobic viewpoints (and whatever she says to the contrary, she has kept continually using transphobic and radfem rhetoric).

She also retweeted an article titled “anonymous letter from a terrified lesbian” that was written by a radical feminist lesbian. Out of curiosity I read it, and it was, frankly, horrifically transphobic in nature and deeply disturbing to think that Rowling supports those views. The article was very anti-queer, anti-helping kids transition, and just anti-trans in general. I’ve seen this type of radfem lesbian before- these are the kind of people that don’t want trans women in the women’s restroom, would not recognize trans lesbians as valid lesbians, and feel that trans women are really just men in disguise. Whether Rowling is aware of that or not, I’m not sure, but either way, it’s a disgusting thing to be spreading around irresponsibly. 

(These people do not speak for lesbians as a community, btw, and most lesbians I know are kind and inclusive people.)

TLDR; yes biological sex is a real thing, no it does not determine your gender identity, yes sexism and transphobia can both exist at the same time, and that still doesn’t make Rowling’s tweets okay. She’s using thinly veiled TERF rhetoric at best.

[wanderingalonelypath]

Déanism, or: God IS a woman

Disclaimer: I am, in NO WAY, trying to prosthelytize anyone or convince them to convert. I wrote this article as an informative resource on Déanism as a whole, and because the information about my faith is so scattered and scarce.

Let’s start with the basics: Déanism (pronounced: day-en-ism) is the belief that God is a woman, known as Déa (pronounced day-uh) and She is the sole Creatrix of the universe, with no male consort or superior. Déa is the Latin word for ‘Goddess’, but many Déanists simply refer to Déa as God, because calling Her Goddess implies that She is subservient to a God, but there is none over Déa, in déanic belief. That is, however, a preference, and one can refer to Déa as goddess if they so wish.

Déanism, while a faith in and of itself, is also an umbrella term for a number of religions and faiths. Technically, any path or religion that believes the highest power in the universe (God, to simplify) is a woman, fits under the umbrella of déanism and is considered a déanic faith.

Some paths under Déanism include Filianism, the largest and most well-known déanic religion.

“The most prominent characteristics of Filianism are that it:

• Worships God in exclusively feminine form.

• Sees God as both Mother and Daughter.

• Is trinitarian (but in a manner very different from Christianity).

• Is monotheistic (but in the same sense that Hinduism is) and has a strong angelology, focusing especially (but not exclusively) on the seven "planetary" angels, who are all feminine in form.

• Has a distinct body of Scripture recognized by all Filianists (although several slightly differing versions exist)

• Has a complete theology, philosophy, and world-view.

• Like Déanism, to which it is related (see more later), Filianism uses the term Déa for God and does not use the word "Goddess"

The best resource for Filianism is http://www.mother-god.com/ which has information on Déanism as a whole but is written from a heavily-Filianic slant. Filianism has its own scripture, complete with different versions, called The Clear Recital, that is used by Filianists and non-Filianists alike. You don’t have to be Filianist to incorporate the Recital into your practice, but the story includes beliefs that are specific to Filianism, so keep that in mind.

Other traditions have other scriptures, but The Clear Recital is the most well-known.

Another tradition under deanism is the Janite Tradition, which, while heavily similar, has a few differences from Filianism. The best resource for this tradition is https://deanic.com/about/ .

Some Déanists also believe in the presence of a masculine consort to Déa, or that Déa can have a masculine face as well as a feminine, but it is inconclusive whether or not these fit under déanic beliefs.

This list of faiths is by no means exhaustive, as any religion that has the supreme ruler be a Divine Feminine could be considered déanic! But these are the most popular. Let me state that you do not have to be apart of any of these faiths to be a Déanist! I am a non-denominational Déanist myself!

On the history and creation of Déanism, there is little information, except that it was created by a group of female college students in the late 60s, early 70s:

“The belief originates from the age of the counterculture movement at Cambridge and Oxford in the 1960s and the resistance to it by a group of young intellectual women, sapphistly inclined but ultra-conservative, who regarded the developments of modern culture and the modern "LGBT" movement with dismay as being, essentially, contrary to the real emotional current, the real psychological desires, and indeed the entire real natural socio-cultural order of nations. “

Nowadays, Déanism is similar but different from how it started, but it obviously isn’t just full of conservatives or just full of liberals. Our community has good people and bad people and everyone in between, just like all religions. A particular problem our faith seems to have is the inordinate amount of TERFs and radfems. This likely stems from the belief of the divine feminine, but let me reassure you: the beliefs of these people do NOT reflect the community as a whole. God loves all of Her children: cis or trans or nonbinary or GNC or agender or any other combination. There are those of us that don’t subscribe to these beliefs, and that love all of our siblings, regardless of gender or lack thereof.

Despite this, our community is still incredibly small, and thus, we have little to no resources for our faith. That’s part of the reason I am writing this article: to have a central, broad source of information for Déanists and seekers alike.

Despite the scattered nature of our community, there are a few things that Déanists as a group believe collectively, other than God (Déa) is a woman. A popular belief, and sort of moral guideline for us, is the belief in thame, or harmony. The simple explanation is to uphold harmony between all creatures in your life. Personally, it gets a little more complicated, as each practitioner has to decide what this means to them in their life, so everyone’s thame is likely to be different. Think of it like the Wiccan Rede. It means something unique to every person.

Déanism as a whole is monotheistic (believing there is only one god) but it's not as...strict? As other monotheistic religions for lack of a better word. There are no tenants or commandments in Déanism, and nowhere does it say that Déa can be the only god in your life. So what does this mean? You can work with and worship other gods, and still be considered a Déanist, as long as you hold Dea as the highest, and believe that She created everything in the universe.

This can come in many forms. Some Déanists, like myself, are hard polytheists (the belief that there are multiple independent gods that aren’t faces or facets of a larger godhead). I personally believe that most gods were created by human need and that Déa created us, and therefore created us with the power to manifest these deities. Some others believe that Déa created these gods since She created the entire universe. Both of these fit under the umbrella of Déanism.

Some Déanists are soft polytheists (the belief that all deities are facets of one or two ultimate divine deities). These Déanists believe that every deity in every culture, male and female, are facets of Déa, and just how mortals choose to see Her.

And some Déanists still, believe that the gods and goddesses of other religions are simply very powerful spirits, and Déa is the only true God in the world. All of these beliefs fit into Déanism

Though our community is small, we have things that unite us, things that make us feel like a cohesive group instead of a bunch of people who believe in the same God. You will often hear people in the community refer to followers of Déa as maids. This is in reference to the Clear Recital, and it is a gender-neutral term for followers of Déa. For those who don’t want to use this term, you could also use the titles Sorella and Fratello, meaning sister and brother respectively. These are usually put before names, i.e Sorella Neria, Fratello Theo. These are all personal preferences though and depend on the practitioner on whether or not they want to use them. Rayati is commonly used as a welcome and a hello, supposedly meaning “come in peace/love”. Amadéa translates roughly to “goddess’s love” but is used as a sort of amen. Déa volente means “goddess willing” and is used as a sort of prayer for others, i.e “Déa volente your dog recovers” or “I hope you have better luck in the future, Déa Volente.”

I hope this article is helpful as well as informative! As I said in the beginning, this is by no means an attempt to get people to convert to Déanism; everyone has their own path! There is just so little information on it that I wanted to write up a sort of ‘primer’ for anyone who might be interested! If anyone has any questions or wants to learn more about the Heavenly Mother and Her faith, feel free to message me! I’m always happy to chat!

[nightcoremoon]

I'm gonna succinctly summarize my thoughts on fat acceptance in this post.

it's good. it's necessary. it's important. I support it. I was once a fatphobic piece of shit back when I also ID'd as cishet, and was anti-abortion, pro-gun, egalitarian, anti-muslim, gender binarist, etc etc... but through seeking education and external perspectives from other people (family, two friends from high school, a couple friends from a social function, a couple of friends from the bdsm subcommunity, my ex girlfriend, and several friends of my best friend) I unlearned a lot of the evil fat shaming bullcrap instilled in me by my parents and society. I can recognize the inherent problems linked with racism, misogyny, queer community, ableism, classism, and the like. I'm aware of the medical nightmare associated with being fat. I'm aware of the difference between obesity and fat. I'm aware of the eurocentric standards of beauty wrongfully enforced upon fat people. Jameela Jamil is a queen and what she's doing for fat people is appreciable especially considering her position. I have no problem with talking about fatphobia and body positivity at all.

but.

I DO have a problem with associating fatphobia with systematic forms of bigoted oppression against minorities, women, and the poor, such as racism, queerphobia (includes homophobia, lesbophobia, biphobia, transphobia, aphobia, gender binarism, and whatever discrimination against intersex people is called), antisemitism/islamophobia and other religious intolerance, xenophobia, ableism in all its forms etc, and all intersectionality included.

being female, lower class, black, brown, asian, gay, lesbian, bi/pan/, ace/aro, trans/nonbinary, intersex, jewish, muslim, of nonchristian faith, handicapped, neurodivergent, mentally ill, etc: these are all marginalized groups who face hatred and prejudice on a massive scale that has resulted in the stripping of civil rights and identity, denial of education and the use of public facilities, death by starvation and a lack of access to healthcare, sale into slavery, even genocide. these are the demographics that are in serious danger under trump and the rest of this wave of fascism sweeping the world right now.

I'm sick of seeing posts discussing oppression and then comments of fat people saying "us too!!1", or posts discussing oppression that include fat people but EXclude black/brown people, lgbtq people, handicapped people, jews and muslims, or posts written by straight white cis otherwise-able-bodied neurotypical financially-well-off christian-atheist americans touting body positivity then turning around and being terfs and trump voters and flat-earthers and anti-vaxxers and capitalists and zionists and white supremacy enablers and the like on their blogs. trump is fat, okay? TRUMP IS FAT.

if you wanna be fat positive go right on ahead, I'll be behind you every step of the way. I mean come on, I'm more than a little bit overweight myself (I'm not skinnyfat, more fatskinny, and not quite medically obese, but I'm certainly not skinny). but don't tack yourselves onto more important shit like getting shot up in mosques or killed off in chechnya or shot in the back by cops or crowdfunding for insulin but not getting enough and going into shock and then dying because you were unlucky and people care more about yet another jenner becoming a billionaire just because hashtag yas queen.

but with that being said:

if I see you talking shit about fat people, if it weren't for the laws of this world and a silly little thing called ethics, I'd fucking stab you.

this is a "make your own post" deal first and foremost. women shouldn't comment on male positivity posts and vice versa, but that doesn't mean they can't make their own posts. and fat people are the same.

hopefully this post settles the current discourse surrounding me once and for all. either that or it'll just stir up the hornets nest.

[icaruskey]

I wrote my original post when I was just waking up. If I’d been more awake, I would’ve disclosed the fact this was just an irritation I had that’s been emphasized by the fact that media at large have glossed over how JKR’s letter goes in repeatedly against trans masc and nonbinary identities because trans women are easier to sensationalize. I also would’ve provided that this is a dumb irritation to come from a US American at 5 AM accidentally clicking on another blog run by (I believe) another US American when trans people in the UK are actively being hurt by JKR’s bullshit. 

That said, I do recognize that trans women are equally hurt by TERF rhetoric. However, trans masc identities are not merely infantilized by TERFs but are just as susceptible to violence. JKR’s letter didn’t talk about trans masc people in that way because she was putting on veneer of “I respect genuine trans people”. 

I don’t really get the point of your addition, but I don’t feel comfortable leaving your response unacknowledged because it’s espousing a narrative that’s only partially true re: trans masc treatment vis a vi TERFs.

accidentally hit that dumb truther blog instead of tumblr and saw voc continuing the bullshit. 

fucking “need to listen to trans women talking about jkr” 

the majority of the manifesto was about “confused girls”

not many “confused girls” in jkr’s definition are trans women. 

[biosex-bisexuality-blog]

@azzythedreemurr this post ended up super fucking long. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time and your post inspired me to actually write it all out, since I get the feeling that you might actually listen. 

I wanted it to be its own post so it’ll show up in tags and whatnot, and I’m going to put a 'keep reading’ here so that people can skip it faster, if they want. 

I implore you {and anyone else reading} to read everything I have to say and really give it thought before responding. Some of it will likely trigger a negative response, I know because I’ve been in your position before and I would immediately dismiss anything that went against what I believed. Please read this with an open mind. As I say at the end of this, I’m seriously trying to present a compromise and a way to move forward so that both sides get what they want and can move on from this nonsense.

{This is the post I’m responding to, for anyone who wants to read from the source. I’ve copied most of it here but for transparency's sake I’ll link to it.}

Realizing that theres a clear line between Gender and Sex is super important, and i plead that you re-educate yourself on this matter.

If you're not one of the ones denying biology, you aren’t the problem. I don't give a fuck about people identifying as whatever gender they want. I think it's stupid, since gender isn't real, but as long as you're not coming at me and telling me I should identify with a gender (like telling me I should call myself cis instead of just woman. I don't identify as a woman, I just am one by nature.) we don’t have an issue.

There are, however, people hell bent on removing all distinctions between sex and gender. That is what I was referring to.

IDK what exactly you want me to ‘re-educate’ myself on, since it seems we’re in agreement.

What Im saying, is that people who transition from amab to female [...]

You can't transition from male to female. You can't change your biology. You can alter the appearance of your biology through hormones and surgery, but trans males will always be male. 

Gender, as we’ve established, is separate from sex. They can call themselves trans women, I don't care. But they'll always be trans women, not women. Words mean something. And the word woman is already defined as adult human female. We need to keep language like that intact, otherwise women don’t have a unifying word to talk about our specifically FEMALE issues. 

IDK if you’ve noticed but, radical feminists in general use ‘female’ now to talk about female specific issues, out of respect for the people who identify as some other gender and view ‘woman’ as something gendered. We’re working for liberation of ALL females, even those we don’t necessarily agree with. Expecting us to also give up ‘female’ as a way to refer to our biology is way out of line. It’s effectively silencing us about the collective experience of being female. And no, ‘uterus bearer’ or ‘menstruator’ or any other words that have been thought up to replace it don’t work. None of those words takes into account the collective experience of having a female body. 

Female is a holistic term, and that is important to keep intact for us.

that date women are equal to women who date women. [...]

They are equal, obviously, as humans we should respect each other and treat each other as equals.

Because they’re both women who date women.

They’re not both women who date women, though. Trans women who date women are trans women who date women.

Trans woman is defined as someone male who identifies as the gender identity referred to as “woman.”

Women are adult human females.

Neither of these definitions require anyone to agree on what ‘feeling like a woman’ means.

The trans woman gets to say she’s a trans woman, and women get to keep the word that refers to their biology. Win win, in my book.

I’m of the opinion that differences should be celebrated, not suppressed. Differences between trans women and women need to be talked about, and not denied. Biological differences are important. As has been established, we agree on that.

An example of what happens when we don’t talk about differences in biology is this new trend of trans women claiming they have periods. If they are having intense stomach pains, they need to see a doctor. That is not a period, because they don’t have the biology required to have a period, but it could very well be an indication of something seriously wrong. Or it could be gas lol.

And there’s also trans women saying that peeing blood is the same as a period, but peeing blood is NOT normal, and it is certainly NOT the same as when women bleed. I thought we had gotten past males thinking that women bleed from the same place they pee out of, but I guess not! ;)

Second of all, No shit gender is a social construct. Gender is more fake than a terf saying “I support trans people”. I identify as agender myself, so we should both know how fucking stupid gender is as a concept in whole.

Good, we’re still on the same page about gender being objectively fake. The difference is that your side is expecting me to treat it as something real. You’re not doing that, that’s great, but you need to understand that trans activism has become obsessed with forcing everyone to center themselves around ‘gender.’ If you’re serious about not seeing gender as a real thing, and in fact seeing it as stupid, you should be using your time to talk to the trans activists who basically worship gender. Not arguing with the people who agree with you more than you think.  

I advise you stop using "terf." It's become nothing more than a silencing tactic because, in my experience, everyone who uses it has a different reason behind it. It doesn't tell me anything as you what you think I'm saying or believe.

Also? You saying that gender and sex are different would get you called a terf by some trans activists. Just a heads up.

Could you elaborate on what you mean when you call me a terf? I genuinely want to know, because if you’re assuming something incorrect about me I’d like the chance to correct it.

Finally: “we realized that none of this trans bullshit actually holds up against critical examination.” Define “None of this trans bullshit” [...]

What I mean by trans bullshit is:

The denial of biological sex. You’ve said you recognize a difference between gender and sex, and you find that distinction important, but your buddies don't anymore. That's a problem.

Insistence on ‘brain sex’ despite all the evidence against it.

Forced assignment of non trans people with the word ‘cis.’ I don’t identify as a gender, I am a woman because I’m an adult human female. I don’t need a word forced on me that means ‘not trans’ or ‘not nonbinary.’

The concept of ‘cis privilege.’ I’ve read through those lists, and as someone who doesn’t conform to the expectations of my sex I don’t actually have most of them. And, most of the ones I’ve seen aren’t actually privileges for women. Being seen as a woman? How is that a privilege?

Forcing everyone to define their sexuality to be based on gender instead of sex.

Bullying lesbians, and bi women who don’t want to date males, into including trans women in their dating pool.

Bullying gay men, and bi men who don’t want to date females, into including trans men in their dating pool. This happens far less, but it’s important to mention.

Bullying straight people, and bi people who only want to date the opposite sex, into dating people of the same sex just because they identify as the gender associated with the opposite sex. Again, happens far less but important to mention here.

Colonizing lesbianism and allowing males to call themselves lesbian, even though a lesbian is a female homosexual.

Changing the definitions of words that we need to remain the same so we can talk about issues and oppression effectively. Words that indicate biological sex, words to talk about sexuality based on biological sex, even the words referring to female biology are being altered (front hole?? Really??)

Lobbying for laws that change protections based on sex into protections based on gender. I don’t mind laws that protect gender identity, I think there should be legal recourse for someone who has been treated unfairly by the government due to their gender identity. Just like I believe in having people protected from being treated unfairly for their religious beliefs. Those laws would also protect people who don’t conform to the expectations of their sex. It’s beneficial to everyone. The issue is that, so far, trans activists haven’t been trying to get new laws created, they’ve been trying to get current laws protecting women changed.

Denial of wrongdoing by trans women. I get that trans activists want to protect trans women, but it’s gone way too far. They’re now defending and denying trans women raping females, and are guilting people out of talking about abuse they’ve experienced at the hands of trans women. It’s alarming how many stories there are about trans women behaving in a very much male way and their victims being silenced and convinced they need to not talk about it in order to protect the trans community.

Denial of the proven fact that trans women commit violence at a similar rate to males as a whole.

The insistence on using ‘correct’ pronouns for abusers and rapists. A person using ‘he’ to describe their trans woman abuser should not be punished or ‘called out.’ Victims have the right to talk about their abuser however they damn well please. This is sometimes excused because it ‘hurts trans women and tells them that we will only respect their gender identity under certain circumstance.’ Yeah, the circumstances of not being a fucking rapist or abuser???

The expectation by trans women of being included in every female space. Females need space away from males. Trans women can, and do, make their own spaces for their own needs. Women should get the same respect. Why is it that trans people get space away from ‘cis’ people, but females don’t get space away from males?

The lgbT community centering everything they do around gender. I dunno about you and your local pride center, but mine has 4 different programs exclusively centered around trans and nonbinary people. Two for youth and two for adults. They have one for adult women, and that program is open to anyone who identifies as a woman. There’s one for adult men, and again it’s for anyone identifying as a man. There are none for girls or boys. And then there are a few that are for the whole community. If we tried to organize something for ‘females’ and one for ‘males’ the backlash would be intense, and it would likely be shut down before it even began. Even if we made it clear that ALL females, regardless of gender identity, and ALL males, regardless of gender identity, were welcome to their respective programs. 

I can provide sources for these if you want, but I didn’t want to make this post longer than it is. I have posts that detail these saved elsewhere, so I can get them for you.

Again, if you personally are not doing these things that’s great. However, the other people who use ‘terf’ and attack radical feminists are doing them. Ignoring that doesn’t help anyone.

because the way you said that, gives me a feeling that you mean “Trans woman dating woman is hurting lesbians uwuwuwu”

I don’t think trans women dating women is hurting lesbians. I think trans women calling themselves lesbians is hurting lesbians.

Lesbian means, as I said earlier, female homosexual. This is an important word to keep so that we can talk about how they are oppressed specifically because they experience the intersection of:

misogyny (which is defined as prejudice against females, NOT anyone who “identifies as woman” because ‘gyn’ refers to female biology) and

homophobia (which is prejudice against same sex attracted people).

Trans women who are exclusively attracted to females are heterosexual. To be clear, I don’t expect them to call themselves straight, especially if they’re stealth. But they need to come up with a different word to use to mean ‘trans woman attracted to females’, because lesbian is taken. It is appropriation for them to use the word lesbian when they don’t fit the definition of it. Lesbian means female homosexual, and since a trans woman’s sex is male she can’t be a female homosexual. Pretty simple, I think.

And, if they’re open to people of both sexes, they should be calling themselves bisexual. If they only want to date woman identified people, that’s cool. But they’re still bisexual because bisexual means being attracted to both males and females.

There are trans people who are exclusively attracted to one sex. They are also being hurt in this campaign to get sexuality to refer to gender. They deserve to be respected in their sexuality, and currently they are not. They are being silenced right alongside non trans homosexuals.

Respecting differences of opinion and belief: 

As long as we’re on the same page about gender and sex being different, I don’t think there should be any issue. Me not believing in gender doesn’t mean that I can’t respect someone’s beliefs about gender. I don’t believe in Christianity, or any religion, and I don’t go around harassing Christians, or other religious people. As long as they just live their lives and leave me out of it, we don’t have an issue. The only time I have a problem with them is when they try to change laws that affect me or come at me and try to convert me to their beliefs. Or if they insist on me referring to myself with some word that specifically means I’m not of their faith. I’m an atheist, that indicates a disbelief in any religion. I don’t need to be assigned a word that means ‘not Christian’ or ‘not Jewish’ or ‘not Muslim.’

It’s the same for trans activists. I don’t misgender anyone, I don’t go out of my way to trigger actual disphoria or even social disphoria. I’ll use the names they choose, I won’t ask what their ‘real name’ is because I find that insulting to them and just plain unnecessary. I’ll use their pronouns, assuming I understand HOW to use them since some of them use odd sets. And if I don’t know how to use them, I’ll just use their name (or ‘they’) the whole time I speak about them.  

Tbh, I respect trans people in general more than I respect Christians in general. I know you might not believe that, but it’s the truth. 

The issues arise when they do the things I listed in the trans bullshit part of this post. If they didn’t do that shit, I would be perfectly content with a live and let live attitude towards them.

Moving forward:

There is a lot of work to be done to erase the damage that’s been caused by trans activists insisting that biological sex isn’t real. I think that trans activists who, like yourself, recognize the important distinction between gender and sex can work with the radical feminists who, like myself, respect gender identity. We could potentially come up with a solution that works for both sides. The LGBT communities in other parts of the world don’t have these kinds of conflicts, and I would like to follow their lead and end this insane war. But that’s only going to happen if we start working together.

Especially those of us who are visibly sex stereotype non conforming. We have a lot of the same experiences, and we should be working together and talking about them together instead of dividing ourselves based on what ‘gender’ we do or don’t identify with. Trans women should be working with other males who don’t conform to sex stereotypes, regardless of if they identify as trans or nonbinary. Trans men should be working with other females who don’t conform, too.

Find the commonalities, and celebrate and respect the differences. It’s a simple thing that has been warped by this shit.

I’ve posted a lot of angry things to this blog, but I genuinely don’t want to be angry about this anymore. I don’t want to fight, I don’t want this hatred, I don’t want this community to be eating each other alive because I think it only benefits conservatives and bigots. We’re giving all our attention to this bullshit when we could be working for the protection and happiness of all of us.

I’m tired. I want to work with people who are just as tired to end this.

This is an olive branch. Take it or leave it. 

[blackbird-brewster]

I had two profound experiences today, extremely unrelated in context but both thought provoking after the fact. The first experience had to do with me getting my first library card in 18 years and how I was very anxious to go into the library for any reason other than to print something.  I will detail this experience in a different post but long story short, all of the embarrassment and shame I felt because of my learning disability melted away and I ended up spending nearly two hours just browsing books. I left feeling to included and happy, I actually cried tears of joy.  Fast forward to the second notable experience of my day. Tonight I went on a date with my flat mate to “Naked Girls Reading: The Feminist Propaganda Edition”. Naked Girls Reading is apparently a sort of “brand”, started in the US as a protest against the ways women’s bodies are usually sexualized when naked. The theory is exactly what it sounds like, performers are completely nude and read aloud to the audience.  I had never heard of this amazing concept, so I jumped at the invitation. ESPECIALLY since tonight’s theme was feminism. I figured naked women reading feminist works sounded AUHMAZING.  [Rest behind a cut for length and transphobia]

The event was hosted by a popular personality in the New Zealand LGBTQPIA scene. They are a self labeled transvestite that MC’s events as their drag king persona, Hugo Grrrl. I assumed, if it was hosted by a gender diverse person it was going to be fairly inclusive.  Welp, you know what they say about assuming. 

Things started promising as Hugo opened their monologue with my favorite greeting “Guys, gals and nonbinary pals”. Hugo then went on to talk about some of the topics of the night including body positivity, body hair, porn, sex work, sex positivity, etc. It sounded really exciting and inter-sectional, I was pumped.

Within the ten minute monologue there was also the disclaimer that “Although this is called “Naked Girls Reading”, gender is a spectrum and the binary is bullshit.” (woo, yeah!!) ”...We only call it that because it was started in America and we didn’t come up with the name.” (Wait, what?)

Ok... but you could literally just call it “Naked People Reading” or “Naked Folx Reading” or ANYTHING else if you want to TRULY be inclusionary. I wasn’t even concerned about the title UNTIL Hugo made the point to say gender binary is bullshit... but then to say “meh, we didn’t come up with the title we’re just being complacent in it” Was sort of shitty.  If you are trying to include people, then INCLUDE them. Don’t say “Hey I’m not transphobic, BUT....” There was no point of this disclaimer other than to point out you recognized a problem but would rather go along with it than change one word of the title of the show.  Things only went down hill from there. A few minutes later as Hugo was wrapping up the monologue they wanted to get the crowd pumped before introducing the performers for the evening. To do this, Hugo had “all the women cheer!” (which they did) then followed by “now all the men!” (which they did). It turned out it was just a set up to make the men a punchline of a very stereotypical “feminist hate men” joke. These jokes are always obnoxious and yes, I recognize Hugo was trying to connect to the large feminist audience so we could all laugh at how society views us...but again, we were back at only acknowledging the gender binary. 

Now I realize many people right now will think I’m being extremely cynical. “Kit, you can’t say someone is being trans exclusionary if they are a queer that self identifies as a transvestite!” But I can because they were.  If you are going to mention nonbinary people. If you are going to make a point of talking about how the binary is bullshit. If you want to have a disclaimer that gender is a spectrum. It’s ALL or nothing.  Inclusion isn’t “I acknowledged you, you should be happy” it’s “I acknowledged you AND included you with everyone else as if we’re all the same.

The monologue is over, I am properly uncomfortable and agitated, the performers come out. From the promises of topics, I expected diversity. Again, that nasty assuming sure got the better of me.

Instead I get two skinny women and one average sized woman. They all appear to be white (although one was painted head to toe in blue and pink body paint as a My Little Pony...and later I learned she isn’t actually white.) They’re naked. So I can tell body hair isn’t really happening. A bit of bush but perfectly smooth everywhere else. All have shoulder length or longer hair and present very feminine.  Idk, again, maybe I was just so cynical by this point that I let my critic get away with me. I just wonder how hard it would be to find a more diverse cast? Am I just too deep in tumblr culture to expect to see different size bodies at a feminist reading? Or people with actual body hair, especially since there was a point of mentioning it in the monologue? Tattoos? Scars? Short hair? Disabilities? More racial diversity? (Again, the one woc was painted blue. And I feel shitty for thinking she was white but they could have included dark skinned people too.)  Introductions are done. The de-robing has happened. We now have three naked women sitting on a couch. Let’s read “feminist propaganda”! Some pretty typical stuff, Maya Angelou, Gloria Steinem, big names of the feminist movement. There was a reading of an MRA’s post from some MRA website. (Why are we giving MRA’s an audience at a FEMINIST reading?!) Intermission.  During intermission, I got up the courage to go speak to Hugo and mention why I was peeved at the start of the show with the women/men division of the audience. They shrugged and said “well it was a set up to a punch line” I smiled and replied, “I realize that but don’t you think trans folks are the punch line enough?” They tried to back track but it got awkward and I walked away. Hugo does some “feminist” trivia during the break. Throwing prize bags of tampons and chocolate to whoever shouts the correct answer. 

One question asks what does “SWERF” stand for. A woman yells the answer and Hugo repeats it back to the audience and says “Sex work exclusionary feminism isn’t feminism. Sex work is real work!” It would have been so easy to also educate about TERFs. They don’t. The irony is not lost on me. 

More trivia. I win one. I’m told, “Here enjoy these tampons!” I catch it and yell back, “Not all women have vaginas” I turn to the women at our table and say, “Hello, I don’t need tampons and I hate chocolate. Enjoy” They gladly accept. Back to the readings... A dramatic reading of Spice Girl lyrics. Some very heteronormative erotica. A reading of a radfem manifesto of the 70s (that included very acephobic commentary) And then, the woman painted as a MLP says she’s going to read Ivan E Coyote.  Now, for those of you who haven’t been blessed with reading their works or seeing Ivan perform (I just saw them again last week!), they are a trans writer from Canada. Very well known in LGBTQPIA circles. AMAZINGLY pure and moving stories and poems and “literary Doritos”. They are an amazing human being and have quickly become one of my favorite queer authors.  SO I AM STOKED!! This night has been so cishet heavy and I’m crank, I am READY to end it with Ivan. Ivan has written four of five books, has mountains of published poetry and she chooses to read a piece that is so personal to me. She prefaces this with a quick word about Ivan being an LGBTQ author. But fails to mention they’re a trans masculine person who identifies as a Tom Boy.  The piece starts out as a love letter to femmes who are often erased from Queer culture because they are “assumed” to be straight. But then turns to Ivan’s journey through figuring out they were trans and how they became jealous of femmes sometimes and how they will never be seen as who they are. How they will always be coming out of the closet over and over and over. Because their identity isn’t “visibly recognized” because it’s outside the binary.  I sob every time I hear this poem because it is so personal to me. The first time I heard it was when Ivan performed in Chch last August. I was in the midst of struggling with how the world saw me and this poem touched a part of me I thought no one would <i>ever</i> understand.  I sobbed again tonight. My flat mate patted my hand. She sobbed too for the same reasons. The journey to figuring out your identity can be so isolating, terrifying and lonely. But when you hear your story being told by someone who is on a stage, with an audience, talking as if your journey was the most normal and natural experience....it’s an emotional time.  After she finished, the performer stated “As a cis woman, I obviously do not identity with the narrator. I do however think this poem speaks to me as a femme. Because we are often overlooked.” (This gets cheers from the audience) I feel sick inside. This cis woman just spoke the very personal words of a trans person bearing their soul and claimed it as a poem for her.  No. You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to bend it to your whim. If you want to include poetry or stories about the trans experience, YOU FUCKING INCLUDE TRANS PERFORMERS.  Thank god the night was over.  My flat mate and I are sitting at our table deciding how to make our own event called “Naked Queers Reading” and how much better it would be. We’re minding our own business when out of the corner of my eye I see a crowd around the stage area.  Of course. There’s a man who has taken off his shirt to pose with the naked women so he can get his buddy to take his picture. Of fucking course there is. That’s when we left.  I don’t know if I am just lucky to live in such a comfortable Queer circle of friends that I’ve become blind to the world of heternormative, patriarchal bullshit or if I am truly too fucking cynical to go out in public...but fuck was I disappointed with tonight.  Anyway, if you made it through this entire post, thank you. I promise I’ll post a really lovely story about the library tomorrow. Right now I want to watch Ivan E Coyote performances on YouTube and drink my tea from my Unicorn Elixer mug. 

[samerbs-blog]

Description of Sam Erb’s Behaviors and Conduct

This document has been assembled by multiple organizations and individuals who have been victim to the continued behaviors and harassment of Sam Erbs. This document stands to address and bring to light their continued misogyny, white chauvinism and failure to be accountable to their behaviors. It is our collective opinion that Sam Erbs is not a safe or responsible person to organize with. We issue this document as a warning of their behaviors and after long abandoned and sorely lacking attempts to hold them accountable for their behaviors were not taken up by Sam.

Sam has a long running history of weaponizing their identities against others to downplay their own racist and misogynistic behaviors. The most frequent examples of harmful behavior, which they tend to use their identity as a disabled person to excuse, are their consistent and often violent literal, verbal, and electronic boundary violations they perpetrate towards others. These include, but are not limited to: physical violations of people’s personal space and bodily autonomy (particularly towards femmes, AFAB people, & POC) via non-consensual touch; rushing into someone’s close personal space; taking up large amounts of [physical] space in meetings in a way that involves repeatedly pushing the boundaries of others around them; shouting at people in private and in public during simple interpersonal or political discussions; throwing or banging objects around them in a violent way for point emphasis during political arguments in closed spaces; refusing to disengage from conversations or confrontations, even for the safety of others; actively soliciting confrontation in delicate or unsafe situations in which they are by no means the most vulnerable individual; harassing and verbally threatening strangers on other people’s social media posts; using their alts to harass and find information about people who have unfriended or blocked a primary account of theirs.

Sam leverages their identities to harass and attempt to manipulate others into doing what they want. When Sam fails at weaponizing identity politics ate people they often move into sucking up to them and when this fails they move on to trying to discredit them. This manipulative behavior is most often seen as them harassing people to defriend people they have debated with. This behavior has mostly been in the form of open badjacketing of others as SWERFs for not fully embracing or being critical, or rather, simply not instantly adopting of Sam’s positions on sex work, and as TERFs for criticizing their misogyny (as if being a nonbinary trans person somehow precludes someone from acting misogynistic).

In at least one instance, Sam weaponized their identities against a boyfriend. Sam frequently misgendered him and fetishized his body in a way which was highly non-consensual and transphobic. Sam would dismiss these discussions by centering their own trans identity as sufficient excuse/justification for their misgendering, cissexist invalidation, fetishization and refusal to use correct terms for their boyfriend’s body parts. Sam harassed their boyfriend into isolating himself from former friends based on said friends’ supposed political unacceptability, and manipulated him into spending nearly all his time with Sam. After this boyfriend finally separated himself from Sam, they used their alts to stalk and harass him, including gaslighting his experiences by accusing him of being “petty” for becoming hostile in reaction to Sam’s abuse.

Sam’s misogynist behavior has also manifested in them talked about bringing “hot girls” into their politics in order to date/sleep with them; in other words, they explicitly plan on isolating prospective partners from their pre-existing social circles in order to ensure their access to these people emotionally and sexually. Sam has had prolonged conversations resenting that at least one of their girlfriends wanted to leave them, and detailed how they use their identities to guilt their partners and make them afraid to leave them. Sam frequently externalizes the repercussions of their actions on women by framing women as vindictive, and abusively badjacketing them. They also have applied this behavior to women who disagree with them publicly. Sam has a pattern of calling these women “queens” or “god queens” when discussing them with others.      In regards to racism, Sam has a habit of speaking over black people on issues related specifically to the black community. What this means is that they will assume lines on issues within the black community and then proceed to argue those lines with black people. This is harmful because these are in-community issues. What this means is that while debate on how best to resist oppression can exist and is encouraged within the community it impacts, people from outside of the community who benefit from or perpetuate this oppression do not have the right to hold lines on these issues. This behavior extends to other people of color as well. Sam has a pattern of behavior where they assume a position of intellectual superiority and talk down to and harass people of color. These behaviors are indicative of an ongoing problem of egoistic white chauvinism for which Sam has not been accountable. On another note Sam frequently engages in extreme “ironic” anti-semitism. At one point they started a Facebook page dedicated to showcasing (or rather posting and sharing) violently anti-semitic and racist memes, “for them to be mocked.” This page was closed but it’s opening in light of Sam’s other behaviors is deeply troubling.

Related to this some people have recorded deeply troubling quotes Sam has shared with them such as:  

“I can’t wait for the Nazis to put the jews back into camps so I can complain about white people with POC” and will often say that they want jews (ashkenazim) to return to not being “considered white”.

“John Wilkes Booth was a hero.”

“this kinda hot girl wants to get together and talk politics but she is in such a shit org lol.” ”Ima get her to quit then ima date her”

As it has been briefly detailed, Sam has a longstanding pattern of creating alt Facebook accounts to add people on Facebook who have blocked and unfriended them. When confronted, they will refuse to identify themselves and attempt to maintain anonymity by directing people to contact people who have not agreed to vouch or vet them to vet them. We have compiled some information to assist folks in recognizing their alts below. This behavior constitutes both stalking and harassment and is not acceptable.

Sam has been approached and criticized about many of these behaviors before by many people and members of our many organizations which they have found themselves isolated and removed from. None of the groups who participated in constructing this document have ever known Sam to actually change their behavior, or even engage in documentable self-criticism. They have displayed a consistent pattern of leaving groups in response to criticism, and then attaching themselves to new organizations without disclosing their history of abusive behavior. Sam also will brush off accountability by constantly, performatively talking about how self-critical they try to be, and by asking people to help them be self-critical, but then never actually following through. Especially in one-on-one or other private contexts, they tend to feign unity with criticisms made of them, but simultaneously center themself and their emotions in order to evade immediate consequences, and to make their critics appear aggressive and unsympathetic. This behavior is a textbook racist, misogynist response to criticism. We wish it to be clear that their continued failure and refusal to self criticize and be responsible for their behaviors has lead to this public outing.

There is no identity or reason that one can cite as an excuse for, or as the “cause” of:

Consistently and aggressively violating the boundaries of others in ways that specifically perpetuate common, pervasive forms of oppressive violence.

Entitlement, ego, arrogance, and a disregard for the fundamental agency and value of others.

Aggressive racism and white chauvinist harassment of people of color.

Violent misogyny and transmisogyny.

Stalking and harassment and other pervasive boundary violations of people attempting to distance themselves from them.

Objective wrecking and fabricated slander of organizations.

We hope that our communities both online and and in person take these charges seriously and call on Sam to discontinue their attempts to push their way into organizations until such time that they have thoroughly self-criticized and can demonstrate proof that they have rectified their behaviors. Over the past few years, the decision to keep criticisms and accounts of Sam’s transgressions confidential, or within our respective groups, has allowed them to continue their behavior unchecked within other organizations, and indirectly resulted in them having the opportunity to harm more people. Therefore, regardless of whether or not they are likely to ever introspect or change, we feel it is necessary to make information about their actions in the past publicly accessible in order to help ensure the safety of our communities. 

IDENTIFYING CHARACTERISTICS TO LOOK FOR IN NEW PROFILES:

    Sam makes a lot of alts and will continue to do so in order to inhabit leftist spaces online. There are some commonalities that may be helpful in identifying future alts:

Sam is vocal and fervent about Marxist-Leninist-Maoism: their socks are pretty consistent about this as well. For example, this quote is on at least two of their known alts: “If you aren't MLM and I don't know you I prob won't accept a friend request”

Their sock accounts are also generally very consistent about trans rights and often advocate violence about this, e.g.: “Intro: peasant Stalinist proud Gonzalo cultist They/Them or a bullet to the face.”

Sam very consistently says “ya” instead of yes in conversations.

Frequent use of “ironic anti-semitism” and posting of reactionary memes “ironically” (especially as cover photos or as albums).

Performatively aggressive and hyperbolic displays of allyship (particularly to POC).

Weaponizing disability and gender in arguments online (and in person) in order to derail, antagonize, or evade accountability for their own actions.

Name trends: When making alt accounts Sam will repeatedly use the same few first or last names in various combinations, as well as using Yiddish names or stereo-typically Jewish/often ironically anti-semitic names (Such as Shlomo and Rothschild, referring to anti-semitic conspiracy theories).

Known Alts (Some may have been recently shut down):

Sam Erbs: https://www.facebook.com/samuel.erbs.1

Yasuke Benjamin (Also Yasuke Postblock Benjamin) may have been deleted.

Shlomo Wallach/ Shlomo Rothschild: https://www.facebook.com/shlomo.wallach.90

Yasuke Perzenlekh: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100014176814936

Micheal McAvison: has been reported and deleted. Was used by Sam solely for the purpose of creeping on profiles of people who had blocked Sam on other accounts: presumably Sam has continued this strategy with another profile that is currently unknown.  

Shlomy Wallach https://www.facebook.com/shlomy.wallach?fref=jewel

Koppel Katzenellenbogen https://www.facebook.com/koppel.katzenellenbogen.3

JohnSmith Perzenlekh https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100014176814936&fref=ts

Important Considerations in Evaluating Possible Alt Accounts: A lot of this stuff is pretty vague and general--there are a lot of trans and nonbinary lefties on Facebook, and it would be very easy to accidentally harass someone who is not Sam, who is marginalized, angry about it, and real stoked about MLM-ism. The identifiers above are not, on their own, enough to justify trying to isolate someone/report their profile/get them kicked out of groups. If you come across a profile that strongly fits these indicators, but you don’t have any behavioral context, it is worth asking if others can provide more context for this person/profile’s behavior. At the same time, because Sam is a disabled trans person, it is essential to be careful when engaging in this process process, as mistaken callouts will likely hurt people who are already very vulnerable to social isolation.

If there is a profile that has a consistent pattern of harassing/attacking/badjacketing leftists, that particularly targets women and femmes of color (or in general demonstrates misogyny and white supremacy in their targets), and that fits the other profile characteristics listed above, it is reasonable to believe that profile may also be another Sam alt account. And regardless, that profile belongs to someone whose behavior isn’t okay. Contact Information: If you would like to contribute or share information about being personally or organizationally targeted/harmed by Sam Erbs, or if you believe you have identified another of their alt accounts, you can email the authors of this post at samerbsaccountability@yahoo.com. We are committed to maintaining the privacy/anonymity of our individual sources, in light of Sam’s harassment, so we will not attempt to include any information you send us unless you explicitly indicate that you would like us to do so. We are happy to serve as both a channel for voicing harms done, and simply a resource/repository of information for those who have been harmed in the past.