#an adult person without a y chromosome

[clementimetodie]

fr I hate the "adult human female" definition, can we please come up with something less circular?

[raybug-theradfem]

it's funny how y'all can't define what a woman is either. i'd like to see you define what a woman is without excluding ANY cis women. "oh a woman is someone with two x chromosomes ! ☝🏿🤓" uh oh! cis women who have turner syndrome are only born with one x chromosome and cis men who have Klinefelter syndrome have an extra x chromosome! "Someone who can give birth" so we're just gonna ignore the millions of women who can't give birth and now they aren't women anymore? "no,no,no someone who has a euterus!" how about the cis women who get hysterectomies or are born without euteruses? guess they aren't women to you! and then when y'all are all out of options, you say "adult human female." re-read what i said and replace the word "woman" with "female" you're in the same predicament buddy!

A woman is a person born without a Y chromosome and female external genitalia. It’s funny cuz I saw this exact question on one of my moots’ accounts, did you just copy and paste this hun? Also uterus doesn’t have an e at the beginning. Using infertile women for your argument of why men should be allowed to be women to is honestly disgusting. Women who have had hysterectomies still had a uterus, that’s like saying an amputee never had an arm. A woman to you is a a set of stereotypes.

[kharmii]

now that these reports come out about the truth of everything messed up, shi**y and sinister going on in the trans community gibes me hope that we're witnessing the beginning of the end of this madness and lunacy.

I've seen posts of people being upset about these reports not realizing the people wanting to help and save these people... but I guess you don't want to be saved if you have a "freedom to do everything without consequences" card to be revoked from you... Honestly I'm torn... I feel sorry for all the people pressured into this shitty mess but I can't say I feel too sorry for the people abusing their newfound power and harrass anyone with opposing views...

My hope that once I'm an old lady people look back at this time and think: "WTH was wrong with these people???" has chances of becoming a reality and it gives me comfort...

What needs to happen, -and what eventually will happen- is that there will be hordes of adult survivors who will give testimonies of how they were manipulated into mutilating and sterilizing themselves at a vulnerable age. They wouldn't have had the emotional maturity to be given that sort of agency. People need to wait until they are adults to vote or buy alcohol, but they can chemically sterilize themselves before puberty? They can take drugs that will disintegrate their bone structure and set them up for cancer at an early age because it's super trendy on Tumblr?

Side note: I'm surprised someone hasn't told me personally that I should be arrested for saying such things. That's what they are doing to JK Rowling right now. I keep seeing all the posts here on Tumblr smearing her and basically calling her a criminal because her opinions on biological reality challenge the world views of the militant left delusional narcissists who have to destroy all non-believers. -Like really? She is considered a threat to you people because she doesn't believe, say, a female cosplayer with XY chromosomes is really a woman? -And you think her life and career should be destroyed over this?

Same with those people on the Volo Nation Discord who had a member recently do a plug where they wrote: "Bans are not issued based on what someone draws or writes outside of the server save for extreme circumstances or bigotry (but I'm not gonna vet every newcomer). Your actions within the server are more important." Hello, but didn't you people discuss me in a private channel and throw me out, even though I was a committed lurker and never contributed anything? Were you that petty and narcissistic you saw my opinions as a threat on a forum devoted to simping over a fictional blonde cartoon character?

Here's a hint. Being clannish little twats in whisper networks is a very feminine stereotype, even though a lot of people in fandom fancy themselves as being masculine. That's not to say most women are actually like that. Perceiving females as being cliquey and gossipy is actually a product of culture misogyny. Woman-haters will base all our characters on the actions of the worst, just because they are often the most vocal and vicious. Anybody with a desire to fight against the patriarchy could try doing better. To be fair though, it is considered masculine to want to murder people and stomp their heads into the ground, which is something the radical left has always proven good at throughout history.

Secular progressivism: The cause of more death and misery than all religious wars combined.

Transgender movement: High casualty modern human sacrifice.

[ray-moo]

Replying to TERFs about Gender

I originally wrote this as a reply to a TERF but my queer friends will never see it because it's attached to TERF tags so im reposting it a little edited to be less contextual to the conversation here. Anyways you can find the original convo here https://www.tumblr.com/ray-moo/731679366383337472/you-brought-up-one-last-defense-of-why-trans-women?source=share The scientific definition of 'woman' as 'an adult human of the female sex' is shaky in and of itself because so many of the concepts necessary for defining it that way are arbitrary.First of all, adult is a term that varies in meaning by culture. In other words, it is socially defined. In some cultures, you’re not considered an adult until you reach a certain age. In others, there is a ritual which brings you into adult. In some cultures, that ritual is marriage or sex. Many radical feminists would staunchly oppose such definitions of adult as sexist and wrong, rightly so I believe. But how can the definition of a woman as an ‘adult female’ be as simple as you claim if no one can agree what ‘adult’ means?

Second of all, female is also a term that differs in definition, especially in modern times. Many, many TERFs like to define female through biology, specifically citing the existence of two x chromosomes. They will claim that this definition has always been the case until the birth of gender movements and so on and so fourth, but that ignores the fact that the x chromosome was only discovered in 1890. That is 11 millennia of human history where the definition of woman, universally, across all cultures, and without exception, was defined with no regard to whether the individual had an x or y chromosome. Defining woman through biology the way some insist on doing in the present day has only been possible for 133 years.

The problem with citing historical precedent as evidence for the objective, biology-based definition of femininity is that you can't have both a traditional and biology-based definition of femininity. You have to pick one or the other. Either you support female only as being defined by tradition, or defined by biology. Either you abandon the weight of tradition or the backing of biology. You can’t have both.

There are problems with using both a tradition and biology-based definition of womanhood as well. For the biological definition, the simple problem is that edge cases exist. Is an intersex person a woman or a man? How about someone with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome? Which washroom should they use? You could argue that these are edge cases which don't have any bearing on the daily lives of most people. But by it's very definition, a scientific definition ought to cover all cases, no? What would it say about radical feminism, a movement which seeks the liberation of all women, to operate on a definition of womanhood which does not necessarily include all women?

There is also the arbitrary nature of the biological definition of 'two x chromosomes' being the operational definition of womanhood. Why is it the x chromosome that determines womanhood and not the y chromosome? Is femininity (defined for this conversation as the traits of being female) contained in the x chromosome? Why not, instead of requiring that a woman have two x chromosomes, specify that a woman be someone who does not have a y chromosome? It would be just as effective as differentiating what TERFs would consider female and male in the mainstream population. But to define male and female by the ease of how the mainstream population is split up would be to admit your definition is not founded on scientific principles. In which case, to maintain an appeal to biology, you would have to argue, scientifically, that femininity is either emergent from two x chromosomes, or that masculinity is inherent to the y chromosome. In either case, people with Turner Syndrome would be genderless under this scientific definition so there wouldn't only be two genders.

Of course, this is all assuming that you are arguing from a scientific definition of femininity and I shouldn't really put words in people's mouth. 1/4

EDIT: Fuck you Tumblr Here's the link to the full blogpost since it isn't showing up in the tags https://www.tumblr.com/ray-moo/731826525504159744/one-last-defense-of-why-trans-women-are-not?source=share

[anadrenalineslut]

i think the reason i dont care about defining manhood or womanhood is because it feels inherently sexist to me. like to define these concepts in an objective manner is to imply that there exists traits out there that are exclusive only to the Y chromosome or X chromosome and that's just false.

Like, it's just not true. there is nothing truly masculine or feminine in this world and once you truly accept that men and women are equal human beings who only differ in the genitals we have it just all feels so completely pointless to sit there and argue about what makes a woman or what makes a man because no matter where u land on that conversation, at the end of the day, all you have done is define sex.

there is no name, no personality trait, no amount of body hair or body structures that is inherently masculine to the exclusion of femininity and you simply cannot ever define man or woman in a way that isn't exclusionary if you are looking for a set of biological characteristics you can search for to verify "correct" social behavior of an individual. like any definition you come up with will be exclusionary to some person out there who would be called cisgender.

and so when conservatives and terfs sit there and whine about how trans people are destroying the sanctity of gender, it all just seems so sexist to me. "a woman is an adult human female" okay what does female mean? not to be all intersex people exist but like they do. its impossible to define female without being intersexist (is that the word for it i forget i think it is but oh well) and so like for that reason alone, it doesnt work.

but even if it did, so the fuck what?

are you saying people born with penises cannot get a boob job? why? are you saying there are only certain outfits you're allowed to wear if you have certain genitals? are you saying there are certain names you're allowed to call yourself?

like okay, you've defined woman/man. Now what? Are you going to check the pants of everyone who looks like a woman to make sure they can wear that dress? what about cis but masculine looking women? is that not the definition of sexist harrassment?

you've defined womanhood, now what are you going to do with that definition? how are you going to enforce your personal definition of a word onto every single human being on earth.... without being fascistic or terrorizing about it??????

you literally cannot do jackshit with your "correct" definition of womanhood because at the end of the day, people are going to wear and call and act how ever the fuck they want and unless ur seriously purposing underwear checks for everyone, there is no feasible way to exterminate genderqueer behavior.

because your definition of womanhood/manhood is so restrictive, it becomes freedom in a way. Either way, you have to admit that your name/pronouns/dress/body hair amount/deepness of your voice/facial structure/height/hip to waist ratio/the existence of breasts is not apart of your definition of womanhood/manhood and if that's the case, your BEST case scenario is you define woman/man the way you want to and then have to let women and men do whatever the fuck they want anyways because there is no such thing as masc/femme names or body hair or temperament etc etc.

and so unless ur seriously purposing that we perform underwear checks to verify that people dressed in dresses have the right genitals to be wearing it, then you winning the "define woman" argument does nothing to get rid of genderqueer behavior.

if ur not purposing underwear checks to enforce this definition of genders, then how else are you gunna verify that samantha over there was born with a pussy? defining womanhood as must have pussy at birth does nothing to prevent "men from wearing dresses" actually lol.

you'd have to enforce that definition somehow and your only two options or genital checks or defining gender by things that have nothing to do with gender (name, voice pitch, dress, hair distribution patterns etc) and thats why nobody gives a fuck that the definition of womanhood is circular.

thats the only way it can be without society dissolving into actual fascism to uphold gender yall get that right.

[nightcoremoon]

I wanna coin a term:

Cismisogyny

the misogyny that cisnormative people utilize is focused on "biological/natal sex" and birth assigned gender, as well as intersex erasure, and is basically just glorified genital supremacy. that people with penises have power over people with vaginas, and therefore people with a uterus are inferior. it's a very particular type of sexism that's a blend of transphobia and misogyny but from a cis lens.

transmisogyny is specifically prejudice against what they deem to be trans women (as they're unaware that "passing" trans women exist), so cismisogyny would be specifically prejudice against what they deem to be cis women (or what they would just say is women), and is a separate notion entirely from the misogyny that misogynist trans men and misogynist but not transphobic cis men (and brainwashed dumb white blonde haired blue eyed bimbo trophy wives for conservative men so think a cookie cutter carbon copy of tomi lahren) frequently feel.

so to clarify:

Misogyny: hating all women

Transmisogyny: hating trans women

Transphobia*: hating trans people in general

(*includes gender binarism and truscum)

Cismisogyny: hating people with vaginas, indeterminate of whether they're trans or not

...

It's a very specific term but it describes a very specific type of sexism, you see. As someone who does not have a vagina, is transgender, and has the benefit of viewing things from an objective standpoint due to autism, it's a very disturbing trend I see in many parts of society. Even here on Tumblr.

I just saw a take that was blaming trans men and dfab nonbinary people for the lack of trans women's voices in trans spaces, and saying that they are silent about it because the silent oppression of trans women benefits them. A very cold take indeed. Trans men and dfab nonbinary people aren't responsible for the transmisogyny. Cis people are. And the reason why is because cis people typically are usually also male supremacists. If what a cis person perceives to be a male tries to "become a female" such as trans women and dmab nonbinary people (because cis people and male supremacists typically are also binarists), that is them rejecting the privilege society awarded us for having the magic Y chromosome that allows humans to be treated with dignity and respect. If what a cis person perceives to be a female tries to "become a male" such as a trans man or a dfab nonbinary person (see my prior parenthical remark), that is them attempting to reject femininity and embrace the superiority of masculinity, which accepts them into their ranks.

So trans men and dfab nonbinary people are typically lauded by many cis male-supremacist people are socially acceptable, especially since many of them seem to be okay with tomboys and women wearing suits and just a general overall sense of women embracing masculinity and rejecting femininity. That's acceptable to a bunch of white christian post-colonials. And of course degenerates would feel it's an "added bonus" to ~get~ to see breasts and vaginas in the locker room because tHaTs sO hOt.

But dmab people who identify as anything but men? Absolutely loathsome, in cis eyes, because femininity is EVIL and BAD and INFERIOR.

Cissexism is of course a definition I've seen, but it seems to be basically a synonym for transphobia. But see, while cismisogyny as I am describing it is indeed rooted in transphobic ideology, it doesn't seem to be in and of itself explicitly transphobic. I'll have to explain that.

Like. All white people are racist. Every person with white skin color benefits from the privilege accompanying it, at the expense of the people who don't. We perform microaggressions that we don't notice all the time. We absorb all of the negativity and racism society forcefeeds us, subliminal propaganda, and it releases itself. Now, a white person could actively fight and campaign for black rights. They could respect black culture and art. They could listen to and understand wu tang clan without ever letting a slur pass their lips. They could date black people who don't find them racist. They could be the least racist person you've ever met. But they would still be at least somewhat racist because that's how human development works. But just because they're not republican or a 4channer, don't laugh at lynching jokes, don't use slurs, don't treat black people as less or inferior, don't literally murder black people, that doesn't mean they aren't racist at all. It just means they're not specifically that kind of overt explicitly violent antiblackness like the kkk. It's a different tier of racism. It's not as severe or as noticeable, but it's still racism.

And it's the same way with cis people. Many cis people are supportive of trans people on the surface. They'll smile and welcome you into their homes and hug you and walk you to the bathroom and respect your name/pronouns and go clothes shopping with you and be the shoulder to cry on when someone attacks them and fight congress for your rights and punch a transphobic asshole in the face. But they still can & do perform transphobic microagressions for no other reason than society instilled those ideals in their heads since birth when they put the M or F on your birth certificate or in slightly rarer cases performed surgery on your infant genitals without parental consent. They can sympathize, they can attempt to empathize, but they will never fully understand. And that's okay. If they try, that's good enough.

Just as there are many tiers of racism there are many tiers of transphobia. Cismisogyny is one such tier that intersects with binarism and standard misogyny. People who aren't typically transphobic could still be cismisogynist. Even I can admit to experience cismisogyny in my life through sexual exploitation. My orientation is bisexual with a strong preference towards cis women, trans men, and dfab nonbinary people. I don't want it to be like that. And it's not like cis men, trans women, and dmab nonbinary people are not attractive to me, because they are (unf chris hemsworth 👌🏻🤤), but due to the social conditioning in my being born and raised a "straight white christian red blooded hoosier man" and the cismisogyny accompanying that, the entitlement complex that manifested side by side with my "nice guy in the friend zone" complex, that I didn't unlearn until after I was already a fully grown adult, that's how my brain be like. I recognize it in myself, and that's how I know that it exists. And it took that ignorant shitty post for me to actually be able to put these thoughts in writing.

I don't blame trans men and dfab nonbinary people for my social isolation and distinct lack of friends who are also trans women. I don't blame this new wave of drag kings and bio queens. I blame cissexism, cisheteropatriarchy, transphobia, transmisogyny, and cismisogyny. I blame the people responsible for the situation of our society. I don't blame my brothers, my siblings, my friends and family. I won't throw them under the bus, just as they didn't throw me under. We're all in this together, and I'm glad that they're having less difficulty than I am in that specific situation. Especially because due to my aforementioned objectivity, I've also noticed all of the hatred and vitriol hurled towards them, especially by dudebro gamer culture. I've seen it. I know it's there.

So I know I'm not really popular online. Very few people know me. My only claim to fame is the "aliens: [slide $40 to nasa] nasa: lmao what aliens" post and even then they don't know the individual URLs of the three of us involved. In fact I'm pretty sure the number of people I'm blacklisted by and blocked by is double my follower count. Even with the bots. Maybe even triple. Things I've said taken out of context have in the past made me look like I'm racist, transmisandrist, a sexual predator, a fucking rape apologist, and worst of all a person who "didn't get a joke" that I ignored heaving pile of religious intolerance that hates jews, muslims, christians, and... everyone else (people who weren't judeochristian didn't seem to care). Certain circlejerks herald me as a king of clowns of a sort (I'd say queen but they were mostly transphobic lmao). So I know that this post will get ignored. Maybe two or three people will like it. Maybe one person will reblog it... like that one crimson lady monarch, or the mildly irked homosexual wyvern, you two know who you are. Maybe nobody will. And looking back it's much more likely for a bunch of dumb uglyass terf cunts taking my sexual preferences bit out of context to make all trans women look like evil sex predators, than any people will see my vocabulary suggestion. But there is a reason why I'll hit post and not delete.

Cismisogynist trans women don't speak for me. Despite the problematic microaggressions my shit tier bad brain development perpetuates, despite what any ignorant cis tries to tell me, despite all of that shit... if you try to talk shit about my family I will obliterate you.

[stars--n--stripes-blog]

Like any religion, wokeness understands the need to convert children. The old Jesuit motto (sometimes attributed to Voltaire) was, after all, “Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man.” And so I was moved but not particularly surprised by George Packer’s tale of a progressive school banishing separate restrooms for boys and girls because this reinforces the gender binary. The school did not inform parents of this, of course:

Parents only heard about it when children started arriving home desperate to get to the bathroom after holding it in all day. Girls told their parents mortifying stories of having a boy kick open their stall door. Boys described being afraid to use the urinals. Our son reported that his classmates, without any collective decision, had simply gone back to the old system, regardless of the new signage: Boys were using the former boys’ rooms, girls the former girls’ rooms. This return to the familiar was what politicians call a “commonsense solution.” It was also kind of heartbreaking.

As an analogy for the price of progressivism, it’s close to perfect. Authorities impose an ideology onto reality; reality slowly fights back. The question is simply how much damage is done by this kind of utopianism before it crumbles under its own weight. Simple solutions — like a separate, individual gender-neutral bathroom for the tiny minority with gender dysphoria or anyone else — are out of bounds. They are, after all, reinforcing the idea that girls and boys are different. And we cannot allow biology, evolution, reproductive strategy, hormones, chromosomes, and the customs of every single human culture since the beginning of time to interfere with “social justice.”

It’s also vital to expose children to the fact of their race as the core constituent of their identity. Here is an essay written by a woke teacher about the difficulty of teaching “White boys”:

I spend a lot of my days worried about White boys. I worry about White boys who barely try and expect to be rewarded, who barely care and can’t stand being called on it, who imagine they can go through school without learning much without it impacting in any way the capacity for their future success, just because it never has before.

This sounds to me as if he is describing, well, boys of any race. And when boys are labeled as “White” (note the capital “W”) and this requires specific rules not applied to nonwhite boys, they often — surprise! — don’t like it:

This week, a student spoke up in class to say that every time a particular writer talked about White people and their role in racism, he would start to feel really guilty, and it made him not want to listen … I try to keep an arm around the boys who most need it, but it’s hard, because I’m also not willing to give an inch on making my room safe for my students of color. It’s not their job to keep hurting while White boys figure it out.

Children, in other words, are being taught to think constantly about race, and to feel guilty if they are the wrong one. And, of course, if they resist, that merely proves the point. A boy who doesn’t think he is personally responsible for racism is merely reflecting “white fragility” which is a function of “white supremacy.” QED. No one seems to have thought through the implications of telling white boys that their core identity is their “whiteness,” or worried that indoctrinating kids into white identity might lead quite a few to, yes, become “white identitarians” of the far right.

One of the key aspects about social-justice theory is that it’s completely unfalsifiable (as well as unreadable); it’s a closed circle that refers only to itself and its own categories. (For a searing take down of this huge academic con, check out Douglas Murray’s superb new book, The Madness of Crowds.) The forces involved — “white supremacy,” “patriarchy,” “heterosexism” — are all invisible to the naked eye, like the Holy Spirit. Their philosophical origins — an attempt by structuralist French philosophers to rescue what was left of Marxism in the 1960s and 1970s — are generally obscured in any practical context. Like religion, you cannot prove any of its doctrines empirically, but children are being forced into believing them anyway. This is hard, of course, as this teacher explains: “I’m trying. I am. But you know how the saying goes: You can lead a White male to anti-racism, but you can’t make him think.”

The racism, sexism, and condescension in those sentences! (The teacher, by the way, is not some outlier. In 2014, he was named Minnesota’s Teacher of the Year!) Having taken one form of religion out of the public schools, the social-justice left is now replacing it with the doctrines of intersectionality.

Last week, I defended drag queens reading stories to kids in libraries. I don’t take back my words. Getting children interested in reading with costumed clowns strikes me as harmless. But when I was directed to the website of Drag Queen Story Hours, I found the following:

[DQSH] captures the imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models. In spaces like this, kids are able to see people who defy rigid gender restrictions and imagine a world where people can present as they wish, where dress up is real.

However well-meant, this is indoctrination into an ideology, not campy encouragement for reading and fun.

And then there is the disturbing “social justice” response to gender-nonconforming boys and girls. Increasingly, girly boys and tomboys are being told that gender trumps sex, and if a boy is effeminate or bookish or freaked out by team sports, he may actually be a girl, and if a girl is rough and tumble, sporty, and plays with boys, she may actually be a boy.

In the last few years in Western societies, as these notions have spread, the number of children identifying as trans has skyrocketed. In Sweden, the number of kids diagnosed with gender dysphoria, a phenomenon stable and rare for decades, has, from 2013 to 2016, increased almost tenfold. In New Zealand, the rate of girls identifying as boys has quadrupled in the same period of time; in Britain, where one NHS clinic is dedicated to trans kids, there were around a hundred girls being treated in 2011; by 2017, there were 1,400.

Possibly this sudden surge is a sign of pent-up demand, as trans kids emerge from the shadows, which, of course, is a great and overdue thing. The suffering of trans kids can be intense and has been ignored for far too long. But maybe it’s also some gender non-conforming kids falling prey to adult suggestions, or caused by social contagion. Almost certainly it’s both. But one reason to worry about the new explosion in gender dysphoria is that it seems recently to be driven by girls identifying as boys rather than the other way round. Female sexuality is more fluid and complex than male sexuality, so perhaps girls are more susceptible to ideological suggestion, especially when they are also taught that being a woman means being oppressed.

In the case of merely confused or less informed kids, the consequences of treatment can be permanent. Many of these prepubescent trans-identifying children are put on puberty blockers, drugs that suppress a child’s normal hormonal development, and were originally designed for prostate cancer and premature puberty. The use of these drugs for gender dysphoria is off-label, unapproved by the FDA; there have been no long-term trials to gauge the safety or effectiveness of them for gender dysphoria, and the evidence we have of the side effects of these drugs in FDA-approved treatment is horrifying. Among adults, the FDA has received 24,000 reports of adverse reactions, over half of which it deemed serious. Parents are pressured into giving these drugs to their kids on the grounds that the alternative could be their child’s suicide. Imagine the toll of making a decision about your child like that?

Eighty-five percent of gender-dysphoric children grow out of the condition — and most turn out to be gay. Yes, some are genuinely trans and can and should benefit from treatment. And social transition is fine. But children cannot know for certain who they are sexually or emotionally until they have matured past puberty. Fixing their “gender identity” when they’re 7 or 8, or even earlier, administering puberty blockers to kids as young as 12, is a huge leap in the dark in a short period of time. It cannot be transphobic to believe that no child’s body should be irreparably altered until they are of an age and a certainty to make that decision themselves.

I don’t have children, but I sure worry about gay kids in this context. I remember being taunted by some other kids when I was young — they suggested that because I was mildly gender-nonconforming, I must be a girl. If my teachers and parents and doctors had adopted this new ideology, I might never have found the happiness of being gay and comfort in being male. How many gay kids, I wonder, are now being led into permanent physical damage or surgery that may be life-saving for many, but catastrophic for others, who come to realize they made a mistake. And what are gay adults doing to protect them? Nothing. Only a few ornery feminists, God bless them, are querying this.

In some ways, the extremism of the new transgender ideology also risks becoming homophobic. Instead of seeing effeminate men as one kind of masculinity, as legitimate as any other, transgenderism insists that girliness requires being a biological girl. Similarly, a tomboy is not allowed to expand the bandwidth of what being female can mean, but must be put into the category of male. In my view, this is not progressive; it’s deeply regressive. There’s a reason why Iran is a world leader in sex-reassignment surgery, and why the mullahs pay for it. Homosexuality in Iran is so anathema that gay boys must be turned into girls, and lesbian girls into boys, to conform to heterosexual norms. Sound a little too familiar?

Adults are increasingly forced to obey the new norms of “social justice” or be fired, demoted, ostracized, or canceled. Many resist; many stay quiet; a few succumb and convert. Children have no such options.

Indoctrinate yourselves as much as you want to, guys. It’s a free country. But hey, teacher — leave those kids alone.

By Andrew Sullivan

[llamamakethisveryclear-blog]

Aggressiveness=Success

I spent an hour and a half debating with a friend’s roommate about why this was not the case. 

According to him, the reason capitalism is good (and this’ll be a shocker) is because it forces people to take initiative, and pull themselves up by the bootstraps (yada yada baby boomer slogan). This initiative he then called the aggressive trait, and of course went on to say that men are generally more likely to have this trait than women, hence why they are in higher positions of power. 

To paraphrase: men are more successful because their innate aggressiveness allows them to succeed in a capitalist economy. 

(Some disclaimers: said person did not outright pin males against females. He did not bring race, or class into play. For all intents and purposes, he was “politically correct”. He was placing theoretical individuals within a framework, without looking at the greater systemic picture.)

Things we do know about biology: men have more testosterone. The presence of testosterone is what causes the fetus to develop into a male (in the presence of the Y-chromosome). Testosterone increases with physical activity (see athletes). Testosterone causes an increase in aggression. Therefore, biologically, men can be considered more aggressive. 

HOWEVER, socially conditioned responses play an enormous role. 

Many of you may have heard of the baboon example. A troop of baboons lost all their adult, alpha males because they ate infected meat. The rest of the troop then became very peaceful. Males grew up to be peaceful, and males who joined the group later were taught to be peaceful. 

Baboons are primates. Humans are primates. While there are a plethora of biological differences, it doesn’t change the fact that primate, especially haplorrhines (monkeys and apes) are often characterized by social participation. In this case, it is evident that these baboons could be taught to not be aggressive, and therefore that biology is not the be all end all of social interaction. Additionally, humans are not only primates, but also the only animal (as we know) with the ability to reason. Theoretically, this means it should be easier for us than for baboons to choose not to be aggressive. 

According to aforementioned person, this isn’t true at all, or if it is, it doesn’t play into the systemic network. Each individual is biologically programmed, and then it is up to them to succeed in the capitalist framework. 

Great, BUT, there are many people in the world with that innate aggressive trait, who due to social circumstances and social conditioning, CANNOT simply pull themselves up by the bootstraps. 

In the case of women, they are conditioned to not be aggressive. Femininity, the “be all end all of womanhood”, is characterized by meekness, acceptance, forgiveness, compassion, charity and so on. These are all arguably good traits. However, when you spend years and years telling women that they can only be these things, it doesn’t matter about their biologically preconditioned aggressiveness trait. A woman can get to a situation where she can ask for a promotion or a raise, but she has been taught to be grateful for what she has and to not take up for space than she needs to. This is a conditioned response. On the contrary, men are taught to be assertive throughout their lives, and for a man to not be assertive, he is seen as weak and submissive. 

People of colour face a similar bind (and here I cannot speak with absolute authority, so I apologize for any unintentionally false information). Regarding those of African descent, especially in America, they were labelled as aggressive from the get go. The machismo element was displayed (incorrectly) in black men. This aggressiveness was then used as a means of dehumanizing and animalizing a certain group of people, to the point that if these same people are angry at injustice today, their emotions are completely disregarded as “well they’re just aggressive and uncivilized people”. What does this do to African-Americans in potentially high level positions? It creates a scenario where if they are assertive and do ask for a raise/promotion, then they are then seen as too aggressive. 

These are examples of socialization, not biology. 

Moreover, everyone knows that the bootstrap hypothesis is garbage. Poverty is cyclical. 

If you’re poor, and you can’t afford to feed yourself, you get sick. If you get sick, you can’t work, and therefore you don’t have money to eat or to get medicine. 

In another case, say there is a really driven individual works three jobs. They are also in school, and they volunteer every Saturday. They know that to get a good job after university, not to mention scholarships, they have to have very high grades as well as a good resume. But working even one job while being a full time student is tiring and stressful. This causes your mental health to plummet, which you can’t afford because you need to finish your degree as early as possible, and can’t drop any classes. You also can’t quit any jobs because you need to pay rent and feed yourself. In this case, the individual will spiral downward until they either give up on school, or damage their mental health too much to continue. 

This is not saying that there aren’t people who do work hard enough, and who do get those scholarships, and who do succeed. There are inspirational stories everywhere, from actors/actresses to authors to athletes to Bill Gates. But, in the end, these successes are down to luck - not the hard work they put into it, and not the aggressiveness. If you come from a foster home, or a family with abuse or addiction problems, you face a myriad of barriers that aren’t there for some other peers. If you are a person of colour, a member of the LGB community, or a woman, you face barriers that some of your peers do not. This is the basis of privilege. And in the end, hard work and aggressiveness isn’t always enough for you to succeed, because capitalism is based on the principle that there isn't enough of the pie to go around. 

While there were many other points made during the argument, these were simple facts that apparently could not be understood. I understand that said person is in criminal justice (very much focused on fitting people into cookie cutter policies). As an anthropologist, it is frustrating the effects of social conditioning are not as obvious to everyone as they are to me. 

(This doesn’t even include the fact that Western cultures are infinitely more aggressive than North American indigenous culture. Also, humans were never the top of the food chain, and one of the “human characteristics” looked for through evolution is community and working together - not aggressiveness)

[sciencetransgender]

Scientific and Medical Organizations Recognize Transgender and Nonbinary Identities as Valid

People with right-wing politics often claim that basic biology proves that being transgender or nonbinary is not valid or real. This argument does not match the understanding of gender that modern science and medicine have reached.

Here is a collection of statements by major scientific and medical organizations supporting the validity of transgender and nonbinary identities.

Image: American Medical Association Logo

“American Medical Association (AMA), organization of American physicians, the objective of which is “to promote the science and art of medicine and the betterment of public health.” [T]he AMA has about 240,000 members.” https://www.britannica.com/topic/American-Medical-Association

“AMA takes several actions supporting transgender patients” JUNE 12, 2017

Acknowledging that individuals’ gender and sexual identities do not always fit neatly into binary paradigms, delegates to the 2017 AMA Annual Meeting in Chicago took several actions that support broadening how gender identity is defined within medicine and how transgender patients are treated by society…

Delegates directed the AMA to work with other appropriate organizations to “inform and educate the medical community and the public on the medical spectrum of gender identity.” The authors of the adopted resolution wrote that gender is “incompletely understood as a binary selection” because gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, and genotypic and phenotypic sex are not always aligned.

The HOD also adopted policy opposing any efforts that would prevent a transgender person from “accessing basic human services and public facilities in line with one’s gender identity.” Transgender people who live in states with discriminatory policies have “statistically significant increases in mental health and psychiatric diagnoses,” according to the resolution delegates adopted…

To protect the public health and to promote social equality and safe access to public facilities and services, the American Medical Association is opposed to policies that prevent transgender individuals from accessing basic human services and public facilities in line with their gender identity.

https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/population-care/ama-takes-several-actions-supporting-transgender-patients

Image: Nature logo

“Nature (founded in 1869) is the leading weekly, international scientific journal.” https://www.nature.com/npg_/company_info/index.html

“US proposal for defining gender has no basis in science” 30 October 2018

According to a draft memo leaked to The New York Times, the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) proposes to establish a legal definition of whether someone is male or female based solely and immutably on the genitals they are born with… The proposal — on which HHS officials have refused to comment — is a terrible idea that should be killed off. It has no foundation in science and would undo decades of progress on understanding sex — a classification based on internal and external bodily characteristics — and gender, a social construct related to biological differences but also rooted in culture, societal norms and individual behaviour…

[B]iology is not as straightforward as the proposal suggests. By some estimates, as many as one in 100 people have differences or disorders of sex development, such as hormonal conditions, genetic changes or anatomical ambiguities, some of which mean that their genitalia cannot clearly be classified as male or female…

Even more scientifically complex is a mismatch between gender and the sex on a person’s birth certificate. Some evidence suggests that transgender identity has genetic or hormonal roots, but its exact biological correlates are unclear. Whatever the cause, organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics advise physicians to treat people according to their preferred gender, regardless of appearance or genetics.

The research and medical community now sees sex as more complex than male and female, and gender as a spectrum that includes transgender people and those who identify as neither male nor female…

If the Trump administration does attempt to impose genetic testing, it will have many surprises. For instance, genetic recombination can transfer Y chromosome genes to X chromosomes, resulting in people with XX chromosomes who have male characteristics.

Political attempts to pigeonhole people have nothing to do with science and everything to do with stripping away rights and recognition from those whose identity does not correspond with outdated ideas of sex and gender… Sadly, the move is only the latest in a series of proposals that misuse and ignore science and harm marginalized groups as part of a quest to score cheap political points.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07238-8

Image: Endocrine Society logo

“The Endocrine Society is the world’s oldest and largest organization of scientists devoted to hormone research and physicians who care for people with hormone-related conditions. The Society, which celebrated its centennial year in 2016, has more than 18,000 members in 122 countries. Building on our rich tradition and the historic breakthroughs made by our 10 Nobel Prize-winning members, our current members are at the forefront of scientific innovation and leaders in providing high quality patient care.” https://www.endocrine.org/news-room

“Transgender Health, An Endocrine Society Position Statement” September 2017

Considerable scientific evidence has emerged demonstrating a durable biological element underlying gender identity. Individuals may make choices due to other factors in their lives, but there do not seem to be external forces that genuinely cause individuals to change gender identity.

Although the specific mechanisms guiding the biological underpinnings of gender identity are not entirely understood, there is evolving consensus that being transgender is not a mental health disorder…

Medical intervention for transgender individuals (including both hormone therapy and medically indicated surgery) is effective, relatively safe (when appropriately monitored), and has been established as the standard of care.

https://www.endocrine.org/advocacy/priorities-and-positions/transgender-health

Image: American Academy of Pediatrics logo

“The American Academy of Pediatrics is an organization of 67,000 primary care pediatricians, pediatric medical subspecialists and pediatric surgical specialists dedicated to the health, safety and well-being of infants, children, adolescents and young adults.”

“AAP Policy Statement Urges Support and Care of Transgender and Gender-Diverse Children and Adolescents” 17 September 2018

In its first policy statement on the topic, the AAP reviews the latest research and provides recommendations that focus specifically on children who identify as transgender or gender-diverse, a term used to describe people with gender behaviors, appearances or identities that do not align with those culturally assigned to their birth sex…

While the data is limited, population-based surveys estimate that 0.7 percent of teens ages 13 to 17 identify as transgender, according to the report…

Additional AAP recommendations include:

Providing youth with access to comprehensive gender-affirming and developmentally appropriate health care…

Advocacy by pediatricians within their communities, for policies and laws that seek to promote acceptance of all children without fear of harassment, exclusion or bullying because of gender expression.

https://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/Pages/AAP-Policy-Statement-Urges-Support-and-Care-of-Transgender-and-Gender-Diverse-Children-and-Adolescents.aspx

Image: American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists logo

“Founded in 1951, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is the specialty’s premier professional membership organization dedicated to the improvement of women’s health. With more than 58,000 members, the College is a 501( c ) (6) organization and its activities include producing the College’s practice guidelines and other educational material.” https://www.acog.org/About-ACOG/About-Us

“Health Care for Transgender Individuals”

The social and economic marginalization of transgender individuals is widespread. Harassment, discrimination, and rejection occur frequently within an individual’s own family and affect educational, employment, and housing opportunities…

Obstetrician–gynecologists should be prepared to assist or refer transgender individuals. Physicians are urged to eliminate barriers to access to care for this population through their own individual efforts. An important step is to identify the sexual orientation and gender identity status of all patients as a routine part of clinical encounters and recognize that many transgender individuals may not identify themselves. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists urges health care providers to foster nondiscriminatory practices and policies to increase identification and to facilitate quality health care for transgender individuals, both in assisting with the transition if desired as well as providing long-term preventive health care.

https://www.acog.org/Clinical-Guidance-and-Publications/Committee-Opinions/Committee-on-Health-Care-for-Underserved-Women/Health-Care-for-Transgender-Individuals?IsMobileSet=false

Image: American Psychological Association logo

“The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. APA’s membership includes nearly 115,700 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students.”

“APA Decries Apparent Administration Attempt to Erase Transgender Definition in Federal Programs”

A reported attempt by the administration to redefine sex in civil rights law in order to remove anti-discrimination protections for transgender people fails to recognize decades of scientific research into psychology, genetics and physiology, according to the American Psychological Association.

“We are appalled at this apparent attempt by the administration to remove protections based on gender identity or expression,” said APA President Jessica Henderson Daniel, PhD. “For decades, researchers have recognized that gender is not necessarily determined by a person’s biological sex assigned at birth, which can be physiologically uncertain in some cases…”

“Reliance on the term ‘biological sex’ ignores the complexity of the spectrum of sex, including natural variation in gender identity and the existence of people with differences in sex development,” Daniel added.

https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2018/10/erase-transgender-definition.aspx

[veale2006-blog]

Who and What God Is

Monday February 22, 2022

There are many people, mostly foolish gentiles, that don’t know who God is. To a point, it is understandable. God did not reveal Himself to gentiles. He revealed Himself to the Jews, particularly the Hebrew nation of Israel.

God is not in any way associated with Buddhism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Taoism, Shintoism, or any other Eastern religion. None of them offer remission of sins. God is not “Allah”, which is an Arabian moon god that was made popular by Muhammad Bin-Abdullah, who was born in April, 570 AD, in the Makkah Province in Saudi Arabia. The Roman Catholic Pope influenced Muhammad to start a pagan religion, so that Rome could obtain ownership of the Holy Land.

Allah was an old pagan tribal "moon god" in the Arabian Peninsula. However, the Pope lost full control of the Arabs, and a man named Al-Malik, had the Dome of the Rock built, and hijacked the legacy of Muhammad. He had a falling out with the Pope, and changed the belief system to fit his own evil agenda.

If anything, God is Jewish. His name is Yehovah. Yehovah founded the Jewish nation of Israel, and gave them the unique language of Hebrew, at Mt Sinai, in June of 1598 BC. There, He came down upon the mountain, with fire, smoke, and spoke with a loud voice, scaring the people nearly to death. So much so that they begged Moses to tell Yehovah to stop. Has any other “so called god” ever done that? No, they haven’t. All other deities are figments of the imagination of ignorant, pagan mankind.

Because of the evil of Lucifer, the archangel that we know as Satan, all modern mankind have fallen into sin. Yehovah provided a way to be freed from sin by becoming a human being, in the person of Yeshua. Yeshua became the sacrificial “Lamb of God”, shedding His sinless blood, to provide remission of sin by water immersion using His name, which is “Yeshua the Messiah”.

The question of the godhead often comes up. Many pagan gentiles that accept Yehovah as the Creator, mistakenly think that there is a “trinity” of persons in Heaven. That is false doctrine, begun by the Catholic Church, in order to maintain their polytheistic beliefs. Again, Yehovah revealed Himself as One Entity to the Hebrews. Pagan gentiles are the ones that try to make “the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost” as separate persons.

This is the mystery of the godhead revealed, so that all can understand. Let’s say that Yehovah is the Eternal Spirit, the color Yellow. He quickened the womb of Mary, by giving her a “Y” chromosome. The male child that was born had the “Y” from Yehovah, along with an “x” chromosome and 22 autosomes from Mary, in order to develop into an adult human, whom we know as Yeshua.

Since the child did not have the sin (curse) of Adam, Yeshua was born without sin. He died on the cross at Calvary, dripping His blood upon the West end of the Ark of the Covenant, hidden about 25 feet below. He rose from the dead, 72 hours later, in a “glorified body”, let’s say of the color Red. When He ascended the Heaven, He merged with His Father, and they became the color Orange.

Once you mix red and yellow together, they cannot be separated again. They are not “two colors”, but one Single Entity. What people call the “Holy Ghost”, is really the Ghost of Yeshua, given as “the Comforter”.

Therefore, there is only One Lord, one faith, and one baptism (Eph 4:5). God is an Eternal invisible Spirit(John 4:24). He is a single entity, and just one person (Deut 6:4). He is the First, and the Last, and there is no one beside Him (Isaiah 44:6). Also, Yehovah declares that He doesn’t know of any other deity (Isaiah 44:8).

Have a blessed day and week.

[blaze8403]

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[etherealeunoia8]

Intersex Information

There are too many people who believe that intersex is a gender or sexual minority identity. This may be due to both the failure of sexual education and the systematic hiding of intersex individuals in society. It’s important to understand that some intersex individuals consider themselves part of the LGBT+ community based on being intersex, while others do not. Intersex individuals may or may not consider themselves LGBT+ based on their gender or sexuality, and these individuals can be any gender, and have any sexuality, regardless of their intersex condition.

*As a non-intersex individual, the information given is based on research, science, and intersex experiences in literature and media. This means it is limited due to my inability to give a direct experienced explanation. I welcome discussion and clarification if I have misspoken anywhere in this post*

What is Intersex?

According to the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA): 

“’Intersex’ is a general term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male.”

This is further explained by the World Health Organization:

“Humans are born with 46 chromosomes in 23 pairs. The X and Y chromosomes determine a person’s sex. Most women are 46XX and most men are 46XY. Research suggests, however, that in a few births per thousand some individuals will be born with a single sex chromosome (45X or 45Y) (sex monosomies) and some with three or more sex chromosomes (47XXX, 47XYY or 47XXY, etc.) (sex polysomies). In addition, some males are born 46XX due to the translocation of a tiny section of the sex determining region of the Y chromosome. Similarly some females are also born 46XY due to mutations in the Y chromosome. Clearly, there are not only females who are XX and males who are XY, but rather, there is a range of chromosome complements, hormone balances, and phenotypic variations that determine sex.”

The ISNA continues:

“For example, a person might be born appearing to be female on the outside, but having mostly male-typical anatomy on the inside. Or a person may be born with genitals that seem to be in-between the usual male and female types—for example, a girl may be born with a noticeably large clitoris, or lacking a vaginal opening, or a boy may be born with a notably small penis, or with a scrotum that is divided so that it has formed more like labia. Or a person may be born with mosaic genetics, so that some of her cells have XX chromosomes and some of them have XY.”

What are some forms of intersex?

(Each condition below has a link attached for further information)

5-alpha reductase deficiency  

Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS)

Aphallia

Clitoromegaly (large clitoris)

Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) (links 1, 2)

hypospadias

Klinefelter Syndrome

micropenis

mosaicism involving “sex” chromosomes

MRKH (Mullerian agenesis; vaginal agenesis; congenital absence of vagina)

ovo-testes (formerly called “true hermaphroditism”)

Partial Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (PAIS)

Progestin Induced Virilization

Swyer Syndrome

Turner Syndrome

*This is not an all-encompassing list*

Aren’t they just Hermaphrodites?

The INSA explains…

“The mythological term “hermaphrodite” implies that a person is both fully male and fully female. This is a physiologic impossibility.

The words “hermaphrodite” and “pseudo-hermaphrodite” are stigmatizing and misleading words. Unfortunately, some medical personnel still use them to refer to people with certain intersex conditions.”

Some intersex individuals may use this term to define themselves, but unless the person themselves have claimed the use of “hermaphrodite,” (and have given you permission to call them by that term), “intersex” is the best term to use.

Aren’t they medical conditions that need to be “fixed?”

In many cases, being intersex is not a medical emergency and cause no health threats. Many issues that may come with an intersex condition can be addressed when the individual is old enough to understand and consent to such procedures. 

Slowly, it is becoming more common place to not undergo immediate surgery on intersex infant genitalia due to the growing evidence that these “corrective” surgeries are purely aesthetic in most cases, done without strong evidence proving necessity, and can cause emotional and physical issues later in life (this will be discussed later). Only if the genitalia cannot preform important bodily functions, such as urination, should surgery be undergone.

Having genitalia that does not match the common male or female expectation, is not, in itself, a medical emergency.

The ISNA explains some of the medical issues associated with intersex conditions:

“Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) is the only one of all the various causes of intersex that can actually cause a medical emergency.”

“In general, gonadal tumors are unlikely in the absence of a Y chromosome or Y genes which may be present on the X chromosome. When there is a Y chromosome or Y genes are surmised to be present, the gonads are at elevated risk, and should be carefully monitored.

Because the risk is slight before early adulthood, gonadectomy should not be imposed on infants. It should be delayed until the patient can weigh the options and choose for her/himself.”

“Testosterone or estrogen are necessary to maintain healthy adult bones. If you were born without functioning gonads (ovaries or testes), or if your gonads have been removed, you should be under an endocrinologist’s care and maintain hormone replacement therapy for life.

Many people with intersex conditions, having developed a distrust or aversion for medical people, avoid medical care and drop hormone replacement therapy which was prescribed during puberty. This can result in extreme osteoporosis (brittle bones). Osteoporosis worsens silently, but at advanced stages it can destroy your quality of life. Persons with advanced osteoporosis are vulnerable to frequent bone fractures, especially of the spine, hip, and wrist. These fractures can be caused by a small amount of force, and are extremely painful and debilitating.”

So they aren’t male or female And they aren’t boys or girls?

The majority of intersex individuals are assigned a sex (male or female) and gender (most commonly boy or girl) at birth, just like everyone else. Often, these individuals are content with their assigned gender (cisgender due to identifying as the gender they were assigned at birth), and use the binary sex terms of male or female depending on the individual. Some feel that neither male or female explains them and they choose to use neither. Intersex individuals can be cisgender or transgender, and can consider themselves male, female, or intersex. 

There is currently a scientific debate on whether or not intersex should be considered a different sex than male and female, due to it being neither male or female, but current scientific literature still uses the binary understanding for simplicity sake.

For some information on the idea of a non-binary sex spectrum, visit the articles  Sex biology redefined: Genes don’t indicate binary sexes, and Sex Redefined,. For an intersex person’s opinion (which does not encompass that of all intersex individuals), read The Five Sexes, Revisited, by Anne Fausto-Sterling.

Isn’t it best to make the babies genitals look like everyone else’s?

For centuries, that was the most popular opinion, even among medical professionals. Now, however, with intersex activism growing, and intersex individuals gaining coverage on their dissatisfaction, opinions are changing. Medically speaking, the majority of intersex infant genital surgeries are done due to societal and aesthetic purposes. Many doctors were taught to persuade parents that immediate “normalizing” surgery was required for their child’s health, however this is based on very little medical evidence, and flawed psychological evidence. 

Consequences of these surgeries include scarring, loss of sexual sensation, pain, incontinence and dysphoria. 

Surgeries (especially cosmetic), that are not done due to medical emergency, should not be done until the patient can understand the operation and consent based on that understanding.

More on these surgeries can be found in articles such as UN Condemns “Normalization” Surgery for Intersexuality by Georgiann Davis,  What evidence is there that you can grow up psychologically healthy with intersex genitals by the Intersex Society of North America, and Surgery for intersex by The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.

*Sources can be found by clicking on the underlined portions of the post. They will take you to the web based source*

The most used sources were:

The Intersex Society of North America, www.isna.org

The World Health Organization, Genomic Resource Center, “Gender and Genetics,” http://www.who.int/genomics/gender/en/index1.html

Genetics Home Reference, https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/

[moodsmithmedia]

An ‘Atypical’ Piece of Television

Warning! Spoilers for all three seasons of Netflix’s Atypical ahead.

I’m a mixed kid. I don’t mean that I’m bi-racial though. I spent time in both public and private school which is a mix I think is worth reflecting on. I spent half of elementary school at a public school and then the other half of elementary and all of middle school at a private, Catholic school, before returning to the public education system. Before I went to private school I signed up to be in the Boy Scouts and met a young man named Matt. He and I would never become friends, but we’d spend much of the next several years together camping and doing...scouting activities. He’d consistently test the limits of my patience. As it turned out, at that age I didn’t have much patience. They say teenaged girls are mean...boys aren't much different. I suppose we’re just quicker to accept shittiness when it comes from a person with an X and Y chromosome. Matt was a remarkable kid because he was autistic, which made him a fairly difficult person to know. Or at least that’s what I called logic at the time told me. It wasn’t until about 12 years later when a show on Netflix showed me the complexity of the situation I barely understood.

‘Atypical’ is a Netflix Original Series about a high school senior named Sam and how his high functioning autism affects the lives of those around him in profound ways. There are a number of things about this show that stand out. Michael Rapaport turns in a performance I’d have never guessed he was capable of, no disrespect intended. He’s not particularly nuanced, but neither is his character. He’s a simple guy in an exceptionally complicated situation. But some things are simple. Sam is his son and he’s going to have his back no matter what. This is just one example of a multitude of ways that Atypical shows how much heart is at the center of its story.

Just entering its third season, Atypical is far from a perfect show. Or even a particularly well produced one. Jennifer Jason Leigh is profoundly strange in her role as Sam’s mom Elsa.  In the third season Sam’s sister, Casey, is revealed to be atypical in her own way as she begins to realize that her sexuality is far more complex than she’d realized. In what I imagine is an effort to reflect the reality of how people actually come to terms with their sexuality that storyline moves slowly. Like...geological timescale slow. And then once it’s clear what’s happening the season briskly wraps up. Sam’s best friend Zahid is a caricature of a caricature. And just when you think they’re going to make him a real boy things get even more ridiculous. Virtually every misgiving though is forgiven because at the center of this story is something genuinely heartwarming. 

Atypical portrays Sam in a light that is both pitiable and enviable. I’m happy to live my life without the burden of having emotional outbursts in public. I’m sad for Sam and people like him that this is something he has to deal with. Simultaneously, I deeply envy the ways Sam can be truthful with people. If something is stupid, he says so. If something is wrong, he lets you know. It’s almost as though there’s something wrong with us neurotypicals for behaving in ways that we KNOW are inauthentic. Quick aside, I learned from the show that neurotypical is how you refer to folks who aren’t burdened with autism or some other intellectual disability. The word is neurotypical. Not neuronormal. What even is normal?

The show opens with a bully picking on a young woman and promptly being punched in the face for it. Scene after scene you find characters who are indifferent to the adverse consequences of doing right by the “disadvantaged”. These situations had a pretty profound effect on me because there were situations where I wish someone would’ve had my back. More importantly though, and much more common for me, were situations where I wish I’d had someone’s back. I’ve grown to be much more empathetic than a younger me seemed to have the capacity for, mostly an expression of youth angst and insecurity. Easy to say now that I’m an adult who’s never in as robust a social setting as a high school. The show makes it a point to address insecurity, infidelity, friendship and authenticity through a perspective that I hadn’t experienced in, what feels like a long time: innocence. 

Quick aside: I took a break from writing this to go to the grocery to restock my depleted kitchen. I was walking past the butcher section oogling over meat products I mostly don’t eat anymore, but deeply miss. There was a gentleman with a son who was (and I mean nothing untoward when I say this) clearly not neurotypical. At the youngest he was 18. I stepped aside and pulled my cart away so that they could pass by me. The area was a bit congested and I wasn’t in a rush. The father thanked me and walked by first and his son approached me with his hand up to give me a high five. Was he saying thank you? Was he just being nice? Was he doing it to every person he walked by in the store? I don’t know. But look at that. The way the world works these days, before any interaction we subconsciously consider the racial, gender and political identities (among other factors) of the people we come across. This young man was unburdened by the fact that I’m African American, heterosexual, liberal...but felt compelled to connect with me. For all the things we say we value and have learned to value...how can neurotypicals claim to be normal?

In both public and private school I dealt with what we now call bullying through furrowed brows. In private school some of that bullying was delivered by the very people my parent’s tuition money was paying to educate me along with my peers. The remorse and sympathy we feel for the bullied today, while an awesome development in culture, simply wasn’t in stock when I dealt with it. That said, I look back with some resentment, mostly toward myself rather than those who imposed upon me, because I consider myself neurotypical. I should have championed other bullied people. Instead I did something far more cowardly and attempted to replicate my abusers in the hope they’d have me. Shock of the millennium: they didn’t. It took a long time for me to realize how flawed my thinking was, and when I did...I overcompensated for it. 

I’ve deserved to have been punched in the face more than I have in my life (once). I was sucker punched at a bar in a college town for sticking up for a friend who was socially awkward. I hated how he was being treated and didn’t want to see him go out like that. Call it karmic retribution for all the times I hadn’t stood up for myself but more importantly for the people who needed it more than I had, like Matt. 

When Todd Phillips ‘Joker’ came out earlier this year the backlash was vicious. “It’s an incel instruction manual!” shouted the morons who knew nothing about the minutiae of the film because it hadn’t been released yet. They attempted to boycott, never mind that their ignorance almost certainly helped propel the Warner Bros. film to one of the most historic and profitable runs in the history of cinema. The thing Joker does best that those too closed minded to have seen the film wouldn’t know, is it begs the question: “Do we treat each other in a fashion that encourages evil?” There’s no question that in some instances evil may be a consequence of mental illness or hormonal imbalance of some sort. But sometimes, just the propensity for evil is fertilized by an awful attitude by people who are too self interested to realize the ways they tread on the well being of others. And there’s something necessarily wrong with seeing the intellectually disabled as potential criminals with an excuse for their bad behavior. That young man at the grocery store lead with love in his heart in an interaction with a stranger. And it’s probably far more common than we care to admit that his endearing positivity be rejected on the basis that he’s different. We should all be so lucky to be just a bit atypical.

[tsubameongaku]

{Fanfiction} Age of Innocence

Title: Age of Innocence  Author: Tsubame Ongaku Fandom: Riverdale and BUGHEAD Rating: T Disclaimer: The series belong to CW with characters belonging to its respective artists. 

Summary: [Pre-Series] Jughead and Archie reminisce on their past and understand the meaning of innocence.   

Innocence.

A word often used on while we were young. But what does it mean? And whom does it really apply? Does this really only refer to those youths that don’t seem to know any better? Those without guile, cunning and dark agendas behind the eyes of the adults that no child sees or understands until they become one themselves …

“So, what are you writing?”

Forsythe “Jughead” Jones III looks up from his laptop screen to his bestfriend, Archie Andrews slipping into the seat in front of him. He was still wearing his football jacket and his hair was still slightly wet and slicked back from the shower that he most likely just had after practice.  

The two were in Pop’s Diner to discuss their upcoming camping plans.  To people watching them, no two people could be different.  Archie was the smiling boy-next-door that everyone instantly liked. The other boy, Jughead Jones, was brooding and seemed very difficult to approach.  

Jughead shrugged and took a bite of his burger before he responds.  “Nothing much.  I was bored. What did your dad say?  Are we still on this weekend?”

Archie nodded and grinned.  He has been excited for this trip for months and it would be the first time his father would let them go camping without his adult supervision. “Can you believe it?  Maybe there is something about being sixteen that makes parents stop seeing you as a kid.”

Jughead became very quiet and couldn’t help but think that his friend still looked like he always had for the last ten years.  He still looked … young to Jughead.  Archie still believed in doing the right thing, justice in the justice system and that people are still innately good.  So … innocent.  

At the same time, he knew that Archie had stopped being innocent the day he and himself watched their first porn video at twelve years of age while his father was away.  Since then, Archie began looking at girls very differently.  

However, there it was.  A very young Archie Andrews, whose biggest problem at the moment was probably who to take to the school dance and passing Chemistry pop quizzes.

It made Jughead wonder when he started feeling so old. When did he essentially lost his innocence?  Because he lost it long before Archie lost his.

“You got quiet all of a sudden,” Archie said, interrupting Jughead’s thoughts.  

“I was just thinking really,” he answered dismissively.  As much as he knew that his boy-scout bestfriend would try his best to understand, Jughead knew he never really would.  “Do you remember when we were kids, we used to think how cool it was how Superman could do all those stuff in the comics?”

Archie frowned.  This was a bit random of Jughead, especially since he stopped reading comics a long time ago.  Also, he was still a pretty big fan of comics, so he still thought that Superman was still pretty cool.  He did remember though the time they were both still fans of that world.  Jughead had often came over to his house after school where they would both read comics.   Even back then, Jughead was more of a fan of Batman but lately Jughead was more interested in writing his own stories than reading someone else’s work.  “Yeah, I remember.  What is this about?”

“As kids we really never thought about all the people that had have been killed by the bad guys, like people that died from the Joker gas or the collateral damage from fights in the city or the victims of abuse.  We just seemed to shrug it off.”  

Archie thought about this.  He hated to admit it, but he still didn’t.  He liked a cool story just as much as the next guy he supposed. It wasn’t like something like in the comic books was really going to happen in a place like Riverdale anyway. “We were young I guess…”

His reply was pretty lame and Archie knew it.

Jughead didn’t seem to think so.  He just nodded as if to agree with him.  “I wonder how the people left behind feel, especially those people that died so brutally.  What is their story? Vengeance?  Grudges? They should also have a story to tell right?”

“Where are you going with this, Jug?”

“Innocence … I suppose.  Where does it begin?  More importantly, where does it end?”  

Archie looked at his friend and thought about this. He could tell that knowing was important to his friend.  However, he couldn’t say he was sure himself.  Even though it has only been a few years since he was a kid, it already felt much longer.  

He did remember that as a kid, comics had been an escape for him.  

Suddenly, they were interrupted by the ring of someone’s cell phone.  It was Betty texting to let them know she would be finished with her tutoring soon. She would be catching up to them soon.

Archie smiled and told Jughead.  “I guess it really ends when you start looking at things differently.”

“Like what?”

“Life?  Girls?”

“You mean sex.”

Leave it to Jughead to be very blunt about it. “Maybe not just that.  Even things like death.  We don’t really think much about it since as kids we really only think about our heroes and every time our hero dies in the comics, they just come back so you could say we developed this naïve outlook of life and death.”

“And sex?  When did you start looking at Betty differently?”

Archie blinked.  Jughead was really laying it on him.  “Betty?  What are you talking about?  I don’t see her differently.”

“You said when you start seeing girls differently and as we all know.  Betty is a girl.”

“Betty’s different!” Archie said all too quickly. “She’s not just a girl.  She’s my bestfriend.”

Jughead just stared at him for a moment and frowned. It was a weak argument and he could sense that even Archie knew it.  It was clear to even him that he just refuses to see Betty as a girl.  He’s seen Archie eye plenty of girls in school but the one girl Jughead believed who probably was the best person he knew was just off the table.  “My friend, as long as she has an X and Y chromosome, she is, by all means, female.”

“You don’t understand.”

Jughead made a little shrug again.  He already knew how stubborn Archie was.  “You’re right.  I probably don’t.  She’s a great girl.”

“The best,” Archie agreed.  “Which is why she deserves better…”

“But she wants you …” Jughead didn’t say that out loud.  He sensed Archie probably knew this little detail anyway and it is probably why he was avoiding the subject.   Betty had always had eyes for Archie since they were kids.  He had always been on the outside looking in when they were together.  “Maybe, but maybe you just probably don’t love her enough to fight for her.”

“What do you mean by that?” Archie actually looked angry this time.  While it wasn’t unusual of Jughead to be painfully blunt, and usually Archie was too used to it to really mind, this time he was so mad his face was almost as red as his hair.

“Exactly as it sounds.”  He didn’t feel obligated to lie to his bestfriend.  “Arch, don’t be a coward.  You will regret it.”

“I am not a coward.  I care about Betty too much to … well dirty this.”

“Dirty what?”

“Our friendship.  Her.”  He wanted Jughead to understand.  All his life, a lot of people probably already thought he and Betty were “endgame”.  They have been together for so long and friends for so long.  He knew better.  Betty had a real future not tied to this town.  In fact, last night she told him of an internship she had out of town.  “She’s too smart … too innocent for someone like me.”

“And maybe that is your problem.” Jughead smirked. “You put Betty on some kind of pedestal.   If you think Betty is simply just pure and perfect, then you probably don’t really know her at all.”  

Archie became quiet as Jughead began finishing the burger he had been eating.  He just didn’t know what Jughead was talking about.  Of course Betty was perfect.  He should know — they have been together almost their whole lives.  He has seen Betty impress teachers after getting the highest grade in their class, lead charity drives for cancer patients and provide free tutoring to kids that can’t afford it.  

Jughead knew that Archie just didn’t get it. While he sees what Archie sees and knows that she would never hurt her friends, he has also seen how her eyes darkened when someone from the football team says something out of line.  It didn’t escape his notice how she has no qualms with getting even either, such as offering to tutor and teach the things that couldn’t possibly come out of the test.  

No.  Betty wasn’t perfect … nor was she as innocent as Archie seems to think.  Then again, he was always the first to notice things about her.  Such as … the innocence that Archie seems to think she has been lost long before Archie lost his …

“Why all this sudden interest in girls anyway?”

He gives another shrug. “I can’t say I am interested in girls per se.  We’re talking about Betty aren’t we?”

Archie looked as his watch and began getting ready to leave.  “I got to go.  I am supposed to help dad at the construction.  You’re going to be okay here?”

“Of course.  Who do you think you are talking to?”

Archie leaves a few minutes later, again leaving Jughead to himself to write …

—

However, is the loss of innocence such a misfortune? After all, they gain something infinitely more precious.  

The moment a child loses the stars in their eyes and their rose-tinted glasses they gain something very few will truly appreciate…

… they become wise.

—

He didn’t know how long he had been writing before Betty walked in with her books and bag in tow.  She looked a little stressed out but there still wasn’t a hair out of place.  Betty looked perfect and maybe that was why the world sees her as such, he realised.    

She smiled when she saw him and he found himself smiling back.  

She slid into the seat Archie vacated not long ago and gave a deep sigh.  It has clearly been a long day for her.   “Hi, Juggie. Did Archie leave?” She tried not to look disappointed but Jughead knew her too well to not notice.

“Yeah.  He had to get back and help his dad,“ he told her.  “Congratulations getting that internship by the way.”

She brightened.  “Thanks, Juggie.  That means a lot to me.”

“I know,” he nodded.  “He’s happy for you too, Betts.”

She nodded knowing he meant Archie.  She began rummaging through her bag, looking for her notes to start with her homework when something fell out of her bag. Jughead bends down to pick it up and finds that it was a pill bottle with Betty’s name on it.  

“Are you seriously still taking these?” Jughead asked quietly, slipping them into her bag.  It wasn’t the first time he’s seen them.  He had seen in her room a few times when he sneaked into her room to visit.  “Betts, you have to stop.”

Betty looked troubled but didn’t say anything. She knew he was right and she wanted to stop too.  However, sometimes when the hurt was too much she get too weak to resist the temptation. “I can handle it.  You don’t have to worry,” she assured him.  “You worry too much.”

“And by the looks of it, you don’t worry enough.”

Instead of replying, Betty simply pulled out her notebook and began to work on her assignment.  He would offer to let her copy off his, but he knew that she would always prefer to do it herself.  

While the world saw Betty’s grades and her charities. Jughead saw little girl that was scared to go home because she was afraid to show her mother her test paper that didn’t have a perfect score.  He saw the girl that cried into her pillow because she failed to raise enough money to save a little boy dying with Stage 4 cancer.  He has seen her rage at the doctors for refusing to allow her one last visit before he died.  

Perfect?

Archie doesn’t see it and Jughead doesn’t blame him. Betty Cooper wasn’t perfect … and that was why he loved her.

“Juggie?”

“Yeah?” he answered, not looking up from his computer screen.  

“You’re playing Rebel without a Cause at the drive-in this weekend, right?”

He smiled behind the screen knowing that she wouldn’t see it.  “Yeah. I guess I will see you there.”

She smiled. “It’s a date.”

[mild-lunacy]

I start with a characteristic of individual men, a kind of (powerful) taste, a significant desire for physical intimacy (of one or another kind — cuddling and kissing, body play, various sorts of genital sex acts, whatever) with other males, and in adult men, significant arousal by (some) other men (what my friend Steven Levine calls DHL — dick-hardening lust). Call this Taste Y (Y as in Y chromosome).

On the other hand, there is a related social category, a recognized kind of person in our culture, a kind of social identity (well, probably, several kinds, but let’s keep it simple). We view some set of men with Taste Y as constituting a class for social purposes. Call this Category G, and call a member of Category G a G Man. (Yes, I recognize that these are desperate, unlovely labels. But we need to get away from the usual labels, because they’re used in diverse, even contradictory, ways by different people on different occasions, and the concepts in question are frequently confused.)

People suppose that G Men will tend to share properties beyond having Taste Y and that they will fit into society in certain ways. G Men will tend to believe that are in some significant ways like (many) other G Men. (These are the ways social categories work in general.)

The existence of a Category G is a historically contingent fact. It’s reasonable to claim that in Western culture in general Category G is a fairly recent development, that before some period there were no G Men.

Ordinary language is generally very poor in distinguishing properties of individuals from social categories.

I ran across this post on Arnold Zwicky’s blog about Brokeback Mountain, and it really made me think about the use of these categories in fandom. On the one hand, you could say this is totally different than slash, because Brokeback Mountain is canonically about gay men. However, Jack and Ennis don’t ‘identify’ as gay (and neither do Ronan or Adam in the Raven Cycle; needless to say, John Watson emphatically doesn’t in BBC Sherlock). In fandom, we like to say so-and-so is ‘gay’ if they show signs of Taste Y or even demonstrate too much affection for another person of the same gender pretty easily. Being ‘gay’ is just an expression of identification, a social category. You can pretty much include anyone-- any person and any character-- into that category, given you use the right frame. The same cannot be said for having Taste Y: you either have it or you don’t.

I was thinking particularly of John’s denials of being gay. It’s interesting how fandom has sliced it and diced it, and it’s undeniable that it’s sliceable. That is, you can certainly mean a number of things if you say you’re ‘not gay’, and a number of them have nothing to do with lacking Taste Y. You could argue that John meant it differently than Jack or Ennis would in Brokeback Mountain, but that’s a supposition. It’s an axiomatic statement for which there can be no proof. If the word ‘gay’ itself has contextually shifting meaning, saying you’re ‘not gay’ cannot definitively be said to refer to homosexual attraction in and of itself. This is simply a problem of language. You have to know what the person or character means. There’s only one way to really know, and that’s to share that person’s cultural context, as intended.

An old fandom friend of mine once told me that she thinks casual fans are inherently more likely to get the intended meaning from a competent enough show, ‘cause fans tend to be too invested in certain characters and/or interpretations. A casual fan might understand plot and characterization more shallowly, but overall they avoid huge diversions from canon plausibility. The intended meaning or context is almost certainly going to be broad. Aside from the prevalence of heteronormativity, the simplest and most obvious interpretation is always a good bet in TV. That’s just how communication generally works. This is the general cultural context we’re talking about, that gives the words and concepts their meaning.

Obviously, casual fans will also miss plenty of deeper shades of meaning in dialogue, most obscure references and even a lot of in-show continuity. Of course, the benefit of intense attention to the text can also be a flaw, as my friend said, since what starts out as an axiomatic frame for analysis (say, John has Taste Y and is actually bisexual) can become a set of blinders. You certainly see that in Sherlock fandom a lot these days (and in any fandom, anytime).

I do think that overall, though, casual fans of an average intelligence do tend to get the gist correctly if the show’s relatively well-written. With that in mind, there’s something to be said for the heteronormative reading, in that it’s usually right, as far as intent. So most people don’t parse language super-closely. They simply understand that Jack and Ennis (or Ronan, say) are G Men (gay) because they act gay, or act like other ‘G Men’. This is performative queerness. It doesn’t depend on the characters’ internal identity; in actuality, it becomes irrelevant. Characters essentially become ‘gay’ as soon as they act on queer desire; if you don’t (or won’t) act on it, it doesn’t exist for your average casual viewer unless the character declares themselves gay. Conversely, John (and Sherlock) aren’t G Men because they don’t perform it, or participate in the social category. Instead, they both conform to the boundaries of heteronormative behavior, which are really, really broad. 

This sort of outside-in approach is hard to avoid in film and TV, which essentially chronicles the external actions and reactions of a set of characters. Usually it is enough. Of course, that’s only usually.

But there can be problems. People can slip easily from the question of whether someone is “gay” to the question of whether they have a “gay identity”.

Jack and Ennis deny a gay identity, and there’s no reason I can see not to take them at their word. But it seems to me that they are unquestionably men with Taste Y, at least for each other (and in Jack’s case, rather more generally), and there’s some evidence that they are both Y Men.

That’s interesting, and probably only possible in a certain historical context. This situation wouldn’t really work in present-day America, not even out West. Still, it’s worth keeping in mind the separation between attraction and social identity, although both are aspects of identity. Most people prioritize their social identity in real life situations, and in character analysis, there’s more of a tendency to psychoanalyze.

This is a situation that really only exists and is only understandable in the context of fiction, because of the degree that we know the characters, in a manner we could not if Jack and Ennis were real people. We can agree or disagree with the self-identification of fictional characters, ‘cause we can see inside their head (to varying degrees). Besides that, with fictional characters, we can see them as a part of their narrative, with all the mirrors and metaphors and parallels that entails. Queerness isn’t just a social category but a textual one. Rather than simply using behavioral evidence, we have access to subtext.

That’s where it all gets muddled and complicated, of course. As Grace once said so succinctly, ‘you don’t interpret a story the way you interpret real events’, full stop. That’s analysis, though. In real life, casual viewers may use the context they have most readily available to understand the surface of the text, and it’s usually enough. You could also argue a story is meaningless without the addition of real-life context. For example, as @s-l-martin said earlier, in reality, most ‘ambiguously gay duo’ type couples are actually gay. If people give off ‘gay vibes’, it’s almost certainly not platonic. At the same time... well.

Some people say that it was entirely “natural” for Jack and Ennis to express their love for one another through sex. This is profoundly silly. If by love we mean a relationship to someone else characterized by intense pleasure in their company (probably accompanied by elevated levels of certain hormones), desire to spend time with them, admiration and respect for them, a feeling of being a better person when you’re with them, feelings of trust and support, feelings of simultaneous likeness and complementarity (Jack and Ennis are wonderfully paired on these two dimensions), etc., then there are plenty of straight guys who love one another. They call each other “best buddies”, or have no name for their relationship at all. But they’re very important to one another. Almost never do these relationships involve physical intimacy, even at the cuddling and kissing level. And that’s because these guys don’t have Taste Y. For them, there’s no natural progression from love to sex. Jack and Ennis do have (heretofore unrecognized) Taste Y, so they’re soon going down that slide into fucking.

Like Zwicky says, there’s ‘no natural progression’ from having any sort of feelings (even ‘romantic’ feelings, that being a fuzzy category) to sex. If you don’t have Taste Y, then you simply would not progress to queer behavior no matter how close you are with someone of the same sex or how much you love them. Not to put too much of a fine point on it, but it’s true that no matter how much John loves Sherlock (and vice versa), it doesn’t have to have anything to do with sex for either or both of them. There’s no limit to feelings. A character can literally have any kind or degree of feelings and not have them turn sexual, because one can simply fail to have Taste Y. That is (probably) what John’s supposed to be saying with the whole ‘not gay’ thing. Of course, that’s exactly what Irene dismisses at Battersea, but my point stands.

The problem is really contextual and narrative in nature, and that’s what makes it queerbaiting. In other words, there are certain conventions and tropes, certain kinds of coding in stories that signal queerness without having to actually show two dudes doing the do, like in Brokeback Mountain. This is how we used to have our heteronormative cake and eat it too. But it’s certainly one bitch of an unsatisfactory situation, so to speak.

[fuzzysparrow]

3.5 of 5 stars

What would the world be like if there were no men, only women? Would it be an idyllic, peaceful planet, where compassion and courtesy are more important than money and owning commodities? A world without war, without crime, without weapons? Global agreements with everyone working together and not for personal gain? Endangered animals suddenly thriving in a landscape no longer inhabited by poachers? Perfect, perhaps? Welcome to the Matriarchy.

Who Runs the World? by Virigina Bergin explores the concept of growing up in a world with no men. Sixty years previously, a virus wiped out anyone with a Y chromosome (i.e. men), leaving women to pull together to survive in a dystopian world. River, aged fourteen, has never met a boy, and never expects to – they are as rare as unicorns. Conditioned to believe that men used to be monsters whose only aims were to rape, harm and kill, River believes the world is a faultless society. But, then she meets Mason.

Mason is a similar age to River, but has a distinct difference – he’s a boy. After escaping from a sanctuary – something River never knew existed – Mason has been on the run, seriously ill, but, amazingly, not dying. Despite the initial antagonism between the two characters – after all, they have both been conditioned to believe the opposite sexes are dangerous predators - River and Mason quickly discover that the older women in power have been hiding secrets from the rest of the world.

For six decades, men have lived in sterile sanctuaries, isolated from the deadly virus and the rest of the world. Their purpose is to produce sperm to be used in IVF in order to keep the human population going – obvious when you think about it. Yet, there is clearly an ulterior motive amongst the women in charge, for why else would they keep the male existence secret and teach young girls that men were monsters?

As River and Mason try to come to terms with the hidden truth, events begin to unravel the harmony of the Matriarchy. Perhaps an all female world would not be so perfect after all.

Initially, the tranquil civilisation Bergin creates feels false, a mockery of today’s politics. It is almost like feminism gone too far, claiming that men are the reason for the suffering in today’s world. True, women are still oppressed by their male counterparts, but the generalization that this is a result of ALL men, is a stretch too far. Once the truth about the situation begins to break through, it becomes more acceptable, more realistic even, given the corrupt society we are used to.

But Bergin has a point, how would the world survive if there were no men? For all we know, a deadly virus could rid the world of XYs, leaving women to piece everything back together. What the author is trying to point out is that women CAN be as powerful as men. Women deserve to be part of politics, of decision making, to have equal rights. Despite the initial suggested perfection, Bergin is showing that women are as capable as men, not better or worse. 

Targeted at young adults, Who Runs the World? is written in a way that current readers can relate to, but not in ways one may expect. References made by or about the older generation are much more significant than the life and experiences of River, for it is these women that were alive at the beginning of the 21st century. These women were us.

An innovative novel from an up-and-coming British author, Who Runs the World? will make you think about the future as well as open your eyes to the discrimination of the present. It is a very interesting concept with the potential to be followed up with further novels, or left to the reader’s imagination.