#and i was actually always pretty radical in my feminism i was never what one would call a libfem i just wasn't A RadFem because i was into

[radelenagreco]

i'm #newtoradblr i've spent so much time these past two weeks scrolling through radfem blogs i knew i had to make an actual radfem side of tumblr blog for my own sanity. the way i "peaked" is kinda funny 3-4 months ago i liked a radfem post without realizing and all of a sudden i had other radfem posts recommended to me by the algorithm and i was so annoyed because i was very anti-terf etc but for a couple days i read through a bunch of radfem blogs and it was actually such a relief to encounter FEMINISM not some watered down version of it but i felt guilty due to 5+ years of conditioning (and also because i had a nonbinary friend sitting right next to me in class as i was doing this) and i also didn't like the prominent use of the word moid? but anyway, 3 months later, i'm not sure why but the mra nature of the trans movement has grown so much more apparent to me i have like three mutuals who are trans men on my other blog and i would find myself rereading the few feminist posts i would reblog/write because these people are literally reblogging shit like "don't think like a terf. men aren't your oppressors, they're your friends/neighbors/brothers/fathers. if you think that any man could harm you you have been fooled by terf rhetoric" like actual morons/meninists. anyway two weeks ago i saw a post made by someone i knew was a radfem on my twitter tl and i don't know why i knew i was ready i went through her blog and through many others and now here i am.

[butch-reidentified]

DNI if you believe "everyone has a price." you're pathetic & I don't trust your morals.

Skip to bottom for About Me section.

Preface: Most of this blog is not dedicated to trans-related topics. However, seeing as I get nonstop harassment regarding trans matters, almost always from people assuming my views, experiences, and thoughts entirely incorrectly, a disproportionate number of the links in this Pinned will be aimed at this subject in order to provide legitimate insight as to my views, my feminism, and my experiences - both with my transition & the trans community in general. Chances are, you are very wrong about me in all those areas. Only one way to find out 😉

1. What is a woman?

Deep dive into my perspective on gender identity ideology (GII) & my response to an anon regarding "autogynephilia" [this includes the article above]

Argument for Using "Cis-Identifying"

Pitch: New Terminology to Replace "[Biological] Sex"

And related: A conversation with a "NERF" about radical feminism, gender identity ideology, and what we/I actually believe.

2. Inform yourself on some of the work I've done for trans people before you continue the trend of cowardly hypocrisy.

No, I obviously don't hate trans people, and if you believe that, you have a black-and-white way of looking at things. Trans people deserve safety and equality; this must not come at the expense of women/girls, homosexual people, people with DSDs, or any other marginalized and vulnerable group. If you think these opinions cannot coexist, maybe ask yourself why. If you think they can coexist, why do you have a problem with me?

3. My primary thread responding to the way much of the tumblr trans community handled my sharing my story of surviving the 2016 Pulse Nightclub shooting (often by stealing my lived trauma and removing my url) is easily one of the most - if not the most - important posts pertaining to trans discourse I've made to date. And a bonus: This lovely ask.

4. Hope for Women (this is a very new project, WIP)

5. Comparative Analysis of Cult-like Patterns in Gender Identity Ideology, Radfeminism

Another post (not mine) listing indicators something may be a cult

6. Response to an anon asking why radfems team up with conservatives (spoiler: we don't), including THE QUESTION I have about gender identity ideology that would make me change my views completely if answered; response to a similar anon simplifying the differences between TRA, radfem, & conservative views on gender.

About Me:

I am a butch lesbian, married to a badass gnc (but not butch) radfem lesbian goddess whose misandry surpasses even my own; she does have tumblr but rarely uses it - @psychichologramnightmare is hers. I'm 28/Taurus/May baby, though I'll be real, I've never liked astrology and found my birth chart n whatnot always laughably wildly inaccurate to me (sorry astrology girlies). Former competitive rock climber, still in love with hiking and climbing. Wilderness survivalist. Trained & armed woman, advocate for female-only firearm ownership.

My wife and I run our own business, and bought our first home together at 24 & 25 respectively - it's a lovely 4/3 on a quarter acre where we have 5 mango trees and more, plan to start growing our own food and herbs, foster kittens, and provide free housing (and more) regularly for those in need. We do a LOT of IRL feminist action/work/organizing. I post about some of that work pretty often, but I couldn't possibly post about all of it (even if it were safe to do so). I am basically organizing (mostly offline, but some online as well) full-time now.

Survivor of abuse, CSA + captivity, trafficking in my teens where I was forced into porn as a minor, the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando 2016, and more. I am no longer affected by any of these in any negative psychological manner. I own my past, every moment of it, and wouldn't change a thing I've experienced. What I often tell people is, "I'm not glad it happened; I'm glad I was there."

I practice "witchcraft" (kind of...) as a form of artistic expression. I don't subscribe to any literal metaphysical/supernatural/whatever set of beliefs or narrative, and have had a lifelong inability to believe in such things, but I am passionate about lesbian-centered/lesbian-exclusive (esp butch & gnc lesbian) witchcraft. I am also using this practice in part to connect further with my ancestors and their culture & way of life, but this would take a full essay to elaborate on/explain.

I got my Bachelor's in Neuroscience/Neuropsych, used to work in a top neuro research lab, and have been a coauthor on a peer-reviewed scientific journal publication. I wrote my undergraduate thesis on POTS, ADHD, some of the relevant epigenetics, and norepinephrine dysregulation. I was diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos & POTS in 2015, before pretty much anyone had heard of them (including most doctors). My POTS is very well-managed now, but chronic pain from EDS is more of a struggle. I recently went for testing for EDS subtype and was diagnosed with Type IV/vascular-type EDS (VEDS).

Adoptee with complex history. Working through a lot of feelings surrounding my ancestry - one birth parent was white, other was almost entirely indigenous Mexican (Nahua), and I have like zero personality traits in common with the former but have only been able to meet them irl not the other side - and the fact that my adoptive family (white) has not always handled things well in raising adopted kids. I only learned my full biological family history as an adult and was lied to by them about it my whole life. Which, looking back it feels like I always knew on some level, as adoptees often seem to, and it puts a lot of my childhood difficulties etc in context. Adoption-critical but not abolitionist - I plan to adopt with my wife in a couple years. I've talked a fair bit about my experiences, adoption trauma, ethical adoption, and more. Check out my tags such as #ethical adoption, #adopted, #adoptee, and so forth (tagged on this post for easy accessibility).

I spent many years surrounded by majority-trans-identifying friends/acquaintances both irl and online, deeply involved in trans spaces & activism, and even identified for a bit & was on T for a while. I am not "uneducated" or unfamiliar with trans-identifying people, their experiences, or gender identity ideology in general. You, like me back then, very probably have been lied to about radfems ("terfs") and what we believe and fight for. I am happy to talk in good faith (provided you do the same) 1 on 1 with anyone who is curious about what we actually believe and what we stand for, what common radfem takes on gender identity ideology & trans identity actually are and why.

I have a history of purely physical sex dysphoria (physical sensation like pain or itching). I got "top surgery" (elective mastectomy) due to this and other reasons: constant painful breast cysts & very large breasts (DDD even when I weighed under 100 lbs). I was not trans-identifying by the time I got this surgery (though I tried to briefly identify as nb/transmasc just bc I felt obligated, but hated it). I have never wanted to be a man socially and genuinely hated the very thought. I came out the womb feminist, got in trouble throughout primary school for fighting boys who tried to pull sexist bullshit, always lowkey believed in female superiority (I mean just look at our biology, lifespans, pain tolerance, the things we've done throughout history despite violent patriarchal oppression...). I spent years preparing myself. I read from & spoke to women who regretted this surgery, challenged myself at every turn, dove deep into my mind and thought processes, tried alternative treatment attempts, worked with a non-affirming therapist, made sure my past traumas were fully healed, and waited until I was in my mid-twenties so my brain was more or less fully matured. I have no regrets about it. I still have some (still purely physical sensation) dysphoria ("phantom male genitals" type of thing) at times, but have come to manage this very well. More on this here.

Formally assessed psychopath & participant in research by leading psychopathy experts (read on before jumping to conclusions). Check out this post and my #psychopathy tag (tagged on this post for easy accessibility) for info, particularly about high-EQ female psychopathy, & to find out everything you think you know about us is wrong 💕 (what you know about male psychopaths is usually right tho 💀)

Note: When it comes to politics, I strive to discuss exclusively that about which I am *uniquely knowledgeable* - by which I mean, essentially, that I (believe I) have something to contribute that is unlikely to be found on every other blog. I do not and will not make posts or reblog posts about topics I do not feel this way about. You are not entitled to know my views on every hot-button issue, and I have no intention of speaking on that which I know little about, or that I don't know enough about (through study or personal experiences) to contribute something you can't get a thousand other places.

Tag Guide (WIP):

#mine -> original posts, including ask responses

#ask -> ask responses only

#anon hate, #anon love -> should be self-explanatory. anon love does include some non-anon love for simplicity.

#catposting, #dogposting, #petposting -> images of cats, dogs, and both, respectively (not always my own)

#Wilder wives -> posts pertaining to me & my wife (last name Wilder)

#mvawg, #mvaw, #male violence -> male violence against women/girls

#ethical adoption -> my takes as an adoptee on the issues within the adoption industry & how adoption can be done ethically

#nahua, #nahuatl, #mexica -> ranges from personal journal style posts about my process of reconnecting with the Nahua community to sharing facts about the language (Nahuatl, pronounce it Nawat) and stories from Mexica mythology etc. posts I make specifically as part of the facts-and-stories series are tagged #indigenous reconstructionism.

#what we believe -> fairly new tag for posts trying to educate on what radfeminism is actually about/damage control for disinformation & misinformation about it

#trans violence -> violence committed by trans-identifying people, including threats of and graphic violent fantasies (primarily misogynistic ones)

#trans misogyny, #trans lesbophobia, #woke misogyny, #woke homophobia, #woke lesbophobia, etc. -> what it says on the tin

[drbased]

This is probably a little too personal, so I completely understand if you don’t want to answer, but I just saw a post of yours about how you were previously in the kink scene and how that strengthens your current stance on BDSM and the like.

I was exposed to that sort of thing at a really young age, and just accepted it as normal, but more recently discovered radical feminism. Do you have any advice on coping with previous relationships/ distancing yourself from that sort of thing? It’s really messed with my perception of relationships and sex and everything.

I'm not going to be able to answer this as fully as you'd like me too, I'm afraid.

Deconstructing the unspoken ideologies of BDSM are what has helped me the most. And it's fortunate that most of them can be summed up pretty easily:

forced orgasm, cnc, bondage: ask yourself to consider why it is that the idea of being a fully conscious, present, active and desiring human being isn't more erotic for you. feminist theory really helps with this - patriarchy says that the most 'erotic' thing is an erasure of our agency, our dehumanisation. patriarchy is necrophilic; it seeks death, and will accept symbolic death - that is, destruction of all things resembling living human agency, even when real death isn't available. instead, then, changing your mindset to recognising that the most erotic thing about you is that you're alive and vibrant and make choices and interact with the physical world and you're always you even when having sex; if that seems 'cringe' then you can embrace that, because in cringe lies true authenticity.

d/s roles: embrace the humility and vulnerability of true, unscripted interactions between human beings - bdsm for people is described often as 'safe fear' akin to watching a horror film, but unlike a horror film the 'safe fear' from participating in a d/s 'scene' replaces a much more potent fear of true human eroticism. additionally, doing kink in day-to-day life is another way to numb one's self to the chaos and discomfort of living.

punishment and rules: I've described kink as a form of symbolic state before, and this is why - bdsm, especially the whole concept of 24/7 d/s, is an opiate that substitutes the complicated chaotic world of real vulnerable human interaction where you are entirely responsible for your life choices is watered down to a set of rules you can follow for the rest of your life. you never have to worry if you're doing the 'wrong' thing, because your relationship path is laid out for you. And that fear of getting things 'wrong' is where the symbolic state begins to be formed - because there is no 'wrong'; there are only actions and consequences, and what you personally value. do you value the consequences of your actions? as with all symbolic states, there's a narcissistic childishness at play; you don't want to have to value the consequences of your actions - instead you want to believe that there's some external source of judgment you can always follow. because if you valued the consequences of you actions, suddenly you'd have to stop with the loathing of them - you either embrace them as truly a part of yourself, or you stop. the simplicity of that is hard but as with all hard things, it's deeply rewarding. the 'freedom' that people find in d/s is the escape from having to actually engage with their own personhood, but as with all symbolic states that's a trap. and especially as women, we recieve all sorts of mixed messaging and are punished much more harshly by society for our transgressions, so it's easier to give up and embrace that societal messaging. but it makes you vulnerable to it, and nothing beats the impenetrability of 'I don't care about x' vs 'I do care about x, so I will do something about it'

I'm not one of those radfems that will state with full confidence that all fetishism is bad in some ontological sense - I think the ubiquity of fetishes including those that seem to having nothing to do with dominance/submission, and those that start in childhood, says to me that there's something about fetishes that makes them part of the human experience. But then, as I often say, we don't live in a world where we got to have a healthy understanding of sex first: we live in a world where the default understanding of what 'sex' is for the majority of human history has been some form of rape; a man claims a woman, and her 'consent' is the point at which she submits to him, and as this consent is not an expression of her personhood it can be replaced with something as mundane as a legal contract (marriage) or financial transaction ('sex work').

Men know that rape is a perfect tool of mass terror to destroy the psyche, so it stands to reason that we feminists are not being hyperbolic when we acknowledge the importance of consent for true realisation of the self - and bdsm's hyper-focus on 'consent' seems to me a very liberal application of this idea; a deliberate refocus of excited feminist energy into something more palatable for society that still seems libertine enough to quash any sense of real rebellion (which, from what I've learned, has been a through-line of bdsm from the start). I've noticed that bdsm-ers talk a lot about how bdsm was the first time they were able to really recognise their own agency, and all I can think is how bdsm is offered to women specifically as a compromise: if you do all the sex things I want that just so happen to mirror real-life abuse and rape, then I will dress up for you, I will give you fun, spontaneous, adventurous sex, I will focus on your orgasm, I will make you the center of my attention always, I will discuss boundaries with you.

We should take with a huge grain of salt the ethics of any sexual norm in this society, including those which seem to go against the grain (remember that said grain is man-made, and thus any rebellion against it that men seem to embrace will always be more about their own rejections of the contradictions within the structures that they have built and actively benefit from; this is why feminist critique of bdsm and 'sex work' will always be more true and well-realised than any right-wing hatred of it). Even the word sadism is from the marquis de sade - a man who raped and tortured women and wrote propaganda on how being a true libertine means accepting rape. That's not an interpretation - that's literally what he did; there's no way that the women he was torturing were consenting or able to consent. And I think it says a lot about societal misogyny that you can look at what he did and see it as some sort of expression of secret liberty - it's so transparently misogynistic and patriarchal, once again inexplicably sold to women as freeing just in the same way that being a tradwife is freeing. There's a reason that there's a 1950s housewife kink.

So even if there's a version of fetishism that exists out there outside of patriarchial necrophilia and misogynistic dominance, rape and abuse, unfortunately we don't live in a world where we can find that out. The most basic, pg-13 symbol of kink - the fuzzy handcuffs - are a symbol of a woman being trapped and unable to escape. That is, whether or not anyone wants to accept it, a symbol of rape. And as for those childhood kinks I mentioned - I wrote a whole post a while back on how we seem to see a lot more kinks in kids' shows than anything else; the role of kink as another way to sexualise and exploit women and children, perhaps as punishment for a belief in the madonna/whore complex and assuming that our desire to be taken seriously as human beings means we're weakly protesting our purity, and there's an excitement in breaking those barriers down. So the question always remains; to what extent our supposed kinks that we 'consent to' in the bedroom are even our own, or how many of them are simply agreeing to entirely fabricated constructs of the male mind? And with that in mind, how meaningful can our consent ever be in that context? Or is 'consent' in a bdsm context perhaps a lot less like freedom and a lot more about that patriarchal understanding of consent as an agreement that can replicated? People laughed at 50 shades for the 'contract' but fail to recognise that d/s roles function in essentially the exact same way.

I would wholeheartedly recommend Pornography by Andrea Dworkin and Pornograph and Silence by Susan Griffin, as well as Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape by Susan Brownmiller for some background on the enormity of this subject and a sense of how high the stakes are.

[vexingwoman]

do you ever have those moments of guilt for what you believe in? I was crypto until someone outed me in real life, and the way I’m completely shunned is making rethink everything I thought was true. I can’t tell anymore if I really am just a common bigot or if everyone’s gone insane. I wish there were more resources for “terfs” who have been outed against their will. It’s scary, and the community *never* talks about what to do.

It seems pretty stupid to feel like a bigot for believing in sexual dimorphism but hey. If someone said the sky was green and berates you for thinking otherwise….wouldn’t you just start thinking the sky is green. Or at least wanting to.

Yes, in the beginning stages of my peak, watching women who I considered highly intelligent defending this sexist nonsense constantly made me doubt myself. I used to contact some of these women with my ideological concerns and ask for their input, because back then I was still convinced there was surely something I just wasn’t getting. I still had hope that someone could offer something other than circular definitions or uselessly obscure non-answers, but they never did. Every single person I attempted to have this conversation with simply stopped replying when I rejected their sophism and pressed for actual clarifications.

There was this one non-binary female I was debating who said, “No matter what you think, we will always continue to exist” which was so contrived I could only roll my eyes. But then I kept thinking about that statement and why it didn’t sit right with me. I realized it was because despite how much the TQ+ community declares that gender is a social construct, they fail to see their gender identities as something contingent on that social construct. 

They depict their gender identities as something innate, something they are born with, something comparable to being black, disabled, homosexual, or any other demographic that would continue to exist independently of social constructs. That could be why you’re so doubtful; you’re being made to believe that rejecting trans ideology is the same as being racist, ableist, and homophobic, when in reality it’s more similar to rejecting religion, conservatism, conspiracy theories, etc. You are not rejecting a person, you are rejecting an idea—a regressive and harmful idea at that. 

I also think it’s objectively observable that trans ideology has far more overlaps with homophobia and misogyny than radical feminism does. Ie., trans ideology asserts that if you’re feminine, you must be a woman. Homophobes and misogynists assert that if you’re a woman, you must be feminine. Both of these groups are upholding the same sexist stereotypes, just in reversed ways.

On the other hand, radical feminists don’t believe femininity has anything to do with being a woman at all. Anyone who is intellectually honest can tell who the real bigots are. Unfortunately, trans ideology is anything but intellectually honest. It relies on deceit through word-play, circular definitions, and sophism because intellectual honesty would reveal how unsound, sexist, homophobic, and regressive this ideology actually is.

[wild-wombytch]

So. I'm still new to radical feminism and still in the middle of my peak trans, so I'm trying to be careful with my critical thinking and tonight I genuinely wondered about that injunction that feminism must by default ve trans inclusive. Because does it, really? What do trans people actually bring on the table for feminism? Or are they only beneficiary/exploitative of feminism without bringing on anything in return but misogynistic anon hate? I wondered "hey, if "trans women are women" is a true statement, then what is statistically the involvement of trans women in women's rights? In abortion's rights? In thing that allegedly concern womanhood even if it doesn't concern them personally?"

Because I'm a lesbian and chances are I'll never need an abortion in my whole life. Hell, due to personal reasons, I'd have more chances to want to keep my pregnancy going if I had to have one because I might not be able handle abortion psychologically. Yet, I'm fighting for every woman to be able to have an abortion, to have that choice. Even if more likely than not it doesn't effect me as an individual as much as it effects me as a woman. Because women always have to bear the weight of all the women's rights anyway, we get little privileges in terms of individuation in comparison to men. So I wondered -genuinely, in good faith- if trans women were feeling the weight of this as well or if it was going to be full male "not my problem, don't care" entitlement. And ladies. Let me offer some more exhibit (I swear these are all the first results I had for TWO different wordings on Google):

So let's do the midnight/mushbrain quick unpacking of this :

- No stats

- No arguments, we're supposed to accept trans women benefit feminism because They Said So™

- Lots of vitriolic takes on anyone questioning it ("cruel" "appropriative of the rhetoric of women's rights" that "inflict life-threatening harm on trans people"-lol-, "narrowly interpreting a statement", "bigoted", "anti feminist", weakening feminism)

- Many of those are made by trans women and also denying biological reality [not surprising, BUT an argument of TRAs is that most trans people believe in bio sex...despite hating radfems, somehow]

- It's so focused on pushing the trans activism, trying to prove that trans women don't have male privileges (an idea in these examples often defended by...other males) and that uwu but transwomen experience misogyny too uwu + trying so hard to prove us that there's no threat to women's rights here whatsoever. Nope. None. Please, look elsewhere. That it doesn't answer my question directly.

And by that lack of answer I ironically found it. It's male centered. It's gaslighting us in believing women's rights are ok and NEED trans activism (cause women need saviors and haven't been handling feminism themselves on their own and under hatred all of these centuries, y'know /s?). Nobody cares about women's rights here. It's not based on facts, it's all based on the fact we should blindly believe what TiM say. That including them will benefit us somehow and that it's not male violence because they identify as women so they allegedly can't reproduce male violence. All that while packaging disagreement from female feminists in diverse degrees of insults and misogyny and misinformation...say again how there's no trans agenda here and how it's not like, oh, I don't know, literal male entitlement and narcissism?

Anyway, I'm too sleepy to dig further but by all means, please do if you want to add something.

Just, I'm new to this and this is already pretty exhausting. To think a lot of you have been radfems for years...istg y'all are braver than honeybadgers (complimentary). Literally all the online communities now cater to them and throw us under the bus when we raise questions. It's male privileges benefiting males over females.

Exhibit 4852 about why radfems/gender criticals are right.

[feminismisstillahatemovement]

so I was expecting to see it pinned but I can't: could you summarize why you hate feminism? I feel like it's doing a lot of good but I'm wanting to see other perspectives better of that makes sense?

I really ought to have something pinned so I don't have to keep writing new responses, but I always find there are new angles that need expressing and I never feel I've written one specific post that addresses everything.

I was a feminist myself from the age of 13, when I read Marilyn French's novel The Woman's Room, and within another 5 or 6 years I'd gotten pretty radicalized and gone out and bought my own copy of Valerie Solanas' SCUM Manifesto, along with a bunch of Riot Grrrl records. I stayed in that echo chamber for quite a few years, but increasingly started noticing things that didn't - and couldn't - make sense and asking questions of the movement that no-one within it could answer, and as soon as I did, I was out of the cult. If you try doing that yourself, you'll find the same will happen to you.

I'm at a loss to know how to summarize in a brief and easy-to-digest way the way my life and thinking has developed since then, and what the most pertinent points to relay should be.

Basically, what I'd most noticed was the disconnect between what the feminist movement claims to be and what it actually is. The more involved in feminism any person becomes, the more callous, hateful and contemptuous towards men they will become. If Feminism WAS just a movement that seeks to treat men and women equally, as it publicly claims, then it wouldn't make any sense that that should be the entirely predictable outcome every time: you'd expect the most radical feminist to be the most loving and fairminded towards every man she encounters, instead of gleefully calling for his genocide.

On top of that, the bedrock claims of feminism the past 50 years or more - Patriarchy, rape culture, pay gap, glass ceiling, etc. - are all revealed to be self-evidently false if you scrutinize them with any rigor at all. To be a feminist today you have to believe all human civilization is a conspiracy invented by men to benefit all men through the oppression and exploitation of all women, the world over. But no man knows anything about this conspiracy, which occurred in every disconnected and uncontacted corner of the globe, without a single exception, and there is no evidence or even attempt to theorize how and where this conspiracy is supposed to have taken place (the only attempt I've even heard any feminist trying is Riane Eisler's fanciful and thoroughly discredited theory of "matrifocal" cultures existing at some point in Ancient Greece, that run contrary to everything we know of the past from all historical records and archeology, as well as the rest of the world at that time).

What feminists call "The Patriarchy" is, in reality, the gendered division of labor that we (and other mammals) evolved over millions of years to best survive in a hostile natural world. To frame nature itself as an evil and oppressive human conspiracy is utterly insane and enormously destructive to millions of people's mental health and ability to connect to others.

Feminism has done, and continues to do, massive harm to relations between the sexes, because by framing every second human being on planet earth as The Oppressor, and the other half of the human race as innately abused and perpetually bedraggled Victims, it makes love between the sexes impossible, if taken at all seriously.

It's important to make the differentiation between Feminism (a far-left political ideology) and Women (half of the human race): feminism does not speak on behalf of the majority of women, and never has (the last I heard, only around 10-15% of women identify as such, depending on where you ask). You can support equal rights and opportunities for all without lending your support to the idiotic ideas of class/gender war mostly borrowed from Marxist theories, which is what most of feminism from the second wave onwards has been based on. Although I tend to avoid labels myself, many people today feel much more comfortable identifying as egalitarians rather than feminists, because it removes the century of hateful sexist baggage that word brings with it.

This is already getting quite long, so I guess I'll leave it there, but I'm happy to expand on any specific aspect of feminist belief you may want more detail on. It's easier to get into the nuts and bolts when the topic is not so broad.

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

I can't in any capacity say that I'm an ally to anyone. That's not me being an asshole. That's not me being a bigot. I'm an ally to no group. I'm a friend to people. And I care about people. Someone asked me about one of my asks where I got called a transphobe and a homophobe and it reminded me about the topic in general.

Fact is I don't care what color you are. What religion you belong to. What sexuality you are. What Identity you assume. If you are not a dick to me or to people that I care about, I won't take issue with you. What's weird though is to be called homophobic when a lot of my friends are lgbt. And this is not one of those, "Well I have a black friend" moments. I legit have friends from varying walks of life. One of my best friends from college was a gay black furry. And one of my favorite past times was picking on him in playful ways. Why? Because if was always fun to see him flustered and he actually thought it was funny. Am I gay? No. I'm comfortable in the fact I'm straight. And my friend knew that.

There are going to be a lot of things that people say that I don't agree with. Does that make me hateful? No. It just means that I have my own views on things. I however understand that if I WAS hateful towards certain groups, I'd have to be bigoted against a huge number of my friends. Like my college buddy from Sri Lanka, his friend and our roommate who's have Korean half Black. Several of my ex GF's who've been bisexual. Even friends of mine who are lesbians whom I've defended in public after they have been accused of being transphobes for, and I'm not kidding, "No being willing to suck the dicks of trans women". That's not a fucking joke. And it's sick.

I've made posts about how I'm not an extremist because I'm not. Fact is, and I mean this, I should not be considered an bigot because I don't worship a movement. No one else should either. And on my blog I will cover a lot of topics. Like:

-Groomers -Gun Laws -Radical Feminism -Black Representation in TV and Movies -Race Swapping -Capitalism -Communism -Socialism -Anarchy -State and Federal Powers -Etc.

And there will always be more. I'm not transphobic. I just want kids left alone. I'm also not homophobic, but again leave kids alone. If you are an adult you can love another consenting adult. I take ZERO issue with it. And I never will take issues with it. My only focus on any of that stuff is quite literally "Let kids be kids. Let them figure out who they are without pushing them. Don't sexualize them ever." Simple rules to live by. Anything else? I'm willing to have a discussion about. Hell I've been on record losing my shit at least in one of my reblogs borderline making promises to deal with anyone who would threaten any of my friends/family irl because they are LGBT.

What many don't understand about me is that I'm an angry ginger who is actually pretty moderate on most issues. And it's only in cases where people belong to cult like mentalities that anyone can even REMOTELY consider me hateful or radical. More so when we consider that the only people I actively hate are those that actively seek to harm others. And not just in a weird way that won't do anything. I'm talking people that WILL or would enact actual violence onto people I care about. Like the FBI. Or Antifa. Or real extremist white supremacist's. Or segregationists leftists who have called some of my non white friends "house N-". I typically don't give that word any power myself and most of my friends don't, but believe me when I tell you, I'll make you look like a punk and I won't even have to touch you.

So even the notion, that I'm X type of bigot is hilarious to me. And no amount of this, "Bow to me and my ideology or you are a bigot" will make me change who I am to my friends, my family, and the people I care about. I worship no one. And I will never bow to your cult like ideals. And maybe one day, someone like the person who sent that ask will find it justifiable to kill me. Who knows. I certainly don't. All I do know is that I'm a very caring person. And a lot of the time the stuff I mean get's lost in translation. What I say might be interpreted one way by one person and another by someone else.

That's just reality. But if you can't even come to me and ask for clarification, or you just expect me to placate someone because of the group they belong to, then you are barking up the wrong tree. You are not my friend. You are not my family. And a number of you are people that would actively endorse having me end my own life, or wishing someone would end my life for you.

Why? Because you are tyrants. You believe yourselves gods and that your "moral rights" are and should be everyone's "Moral rights". You will not rule me. You will not control me. You will not make me worship you as if you were gods. I am me, and only me. And I will live me best life not just for myself, but for the people I hold dear.

[vintage-bentley]

It’s so frustrating, you kindly gave them the benefit of the doubt and pretty gently (I think) pointed out a really cruel stereotype and yet we are always wrong. They just drop the terf bomb and that’s it

Gay people get no voice. Women get no voice just drop the terf word and shut them up. I don’t even consider myself a terf just a frustrated and silenced lesbian

I really did try to be gentle and nice! My goal wasn’t to be a big mean evil terf, my goal was to kindly explain why the post had homophobic undertones. I didn’t have much hope of that goal being achieved because I know how homophobic gendies are…but you never know. I’ve had great interactions in the past with people I don’t agree with and who don’t agree with me, so it’s always worth a shot.

The fact is that most times, if you say anything about women or gay people that goes against what a gender ideologist is saying, you’ll be discredited as a “terf” even if you aren’t one (and nobody actually is. There’s no such thing as a trans exclusionary radical feminist because radfems don’t exclude trans people. Just males). It’s their go-to shield against critical thinking.

You’re so right that gay people and women get no voice…and it really is frustrating. I’m technically not a terf because I’m not a radfem (I consider myself radfem adjacent, I don’t feel comfortable subscribing to a particular ideology)…but even before I started looking into gender criticism and radical feminism, I felt like I was being silenced as both a woman and homosexual. It felt like nothing I said mattered unless I used the approved language and read the approved scripts. I couldn’t even be openly homosexual—that’s “terfy”.

Like I said, the reason I’m talking about this so much isn’t because of a singular fandom post. That singular fandom post just happens to be a really good example of an attitude towards women and homosexuals that I’ve been observing for a while now. And it’s really frustrating to see it over and over again, women and homosexuals essentially being told “shut up, your thoughts mean nothing if you don’t agree with me”. Because it’s “listen to and learn from minorities/marginalised groups”…until it’s gays and women.

[myopicry]

what are your feelings on arielle scarcella?

oooh this is an interesting one because I have watched my fair share of her videos actually!

personally, I see her as sort of leaning into the "right-wing grifter" category but with slightly more nuance due to her being both a woman and lesbian. because obviously, especially as a lesbian, she would have more interest in defending the safety and respect for lesbians and their spaces. however, much of her content still boils down to "woke leftist tiktok gets destroyed!!" and "look at these weirdos on tiktok!!" and I feel like that's sort of lazy content that only appeals to people who already agree with her and sort of just capitalizes on conservative mockery of anything non-traditional. also, I'm never sure with conservatives if they'd actually care about any meaningful gender abolition and support of gender non-conforming people over adherence to traditional gender roles. but again, arielle, as a lesbian, does tend to have a bit more of an in depth take on it, and from what I've seen, seems to give some pretty okay advice and commentary on self-acceptance and relationships in between saying the obvious about objectively stupid attention-seeking people online.

I also find that most of her content (and honestly, most "woke" tiktok reaction content surrounding gender) to be centered around the "queer" community and non-binary identities, not really meaningfully deconstructing or questioning the fundamental philosophy behind transition and gender ideology, or exploring any tenets of radical feminism. this is especially apparent as she still platforms those invested in "true trans" ideas. so, when I did identify as trans, this content only really pushed me towards a more "truscum" or transmedicalist view, which to me, was incredibly unhelpful and might've even been something that pushed me to a more extreme level of trans ideology. In terms of gender critical youtube content, I personally found it more helpful for my own growth to look for more detrans/desisted voices and resources to deal with dysphoria non-medically.

still, even though I don't fully agree with her politically or her standards as a content creator, I'd still much rather someone like arielle make this kind of content, instead of a straight man making tiktok reactions, and I think it is still fairly respectable that a loud and visibly lesbian creator can stand by her opinions being critical of gender ideology and have such a large platform. a "don't hate the player, hate the game" kind of situation, I guess?

good ask, I always think it's helpful to reflect on the content we might consume so thank you for giving me a prompt to do so!!

[judeesill]

tbf i still find non radfem books like who cooked the last supper, invisible women, the feminine mystique, the second sex etc good recs for girls/women interested in radical feminism. sort of like an intro class to feminism in general before you focus on actual radfem literature. you can't go from 0 feminist readings to gyn/ecology overnight... it's not a given that gyns who find themselves on radblr will have read basic feminist texts

yeah that’s a really good point! I think a lot of the problems on radblr come from the fact that most women come to it without any knowledge about feminism, much less any organizing experience. that’s fine, and to some extent should be expected given the current states of the broader left (weak, disorganized, overrun with liberalism/ anarchism) and the feminist movement (functionally non-existent). That’s just the way it is across the left — I can’t tell you how many so-called socialists I know who couldn’t even tell you what class struggle means. In our case, though, I think it’s especially problematic, because a lot of women are “radicalized” by disillusionment with trans politics (or discomfort with trans people 🙃) — and without a proper grounding in feminist basics, it’s really, really easy to at best lose focus on women’s liberation, and at worst just become a reactionary. lol.

So, I totally agree that some feminism 101 is in order, so we’re all at least speaking the same language when it comes to the messier ideological debates about and within radical feminism.

I think a big part of the problem, though, is that … it’s not a given that women who find themselves on radblr will EVER read basic feminist texts, or even radical feminist ones. it’s pretty obvious from the way people talk about lesbian separatism and political lesbianism that, like, no one knows what they’re fucking talking about. and how could they, if they’re just reblogging quote posts and the same handful of master lists with a whole bunch of random pdfs with no context or commentary? hate to break it to ya, ladies, but all your faves were political lesbians. like, literally all of them. And this is actually pretty clear from the things they write!

I’ll save my takes on radblr’s fundamentally incoherent lesbian politics and the fact that separatism has NEVER been a settled question in radical feminism and the fact that political movements need GOALS and STRATEGIES and DUES BASED MEMBERSHIP ORGANIZATIONS for later. Suffice it to say, we need to stop being so content to let tumblr thought leaders pulling evocative quotes from PDFs decide what we think, and start getting serious about political education.

I don’t think every woman on radblr needs to do a PhD to be able to weigh in on things, but I do think those of us with the time/desire to make intellectual interventions, create syllabi, and/or start cohering some democratic organizational infrastructure (or at least some more discussion groups) can and should step up. Obv people are and have been doing this, but if we want to ever do anything more than snipe at each other online, we gotta get movin.

Thanks for letting me grandstand on ur ask, i just have a decade’s worth of frustration built up about this 🙃 always more to say. (like, I also don’t think we should be so into gyn/ecology at all, actually … but more on that later (-:< )

TL;DR: READ MORE! GET WISE, WOMEN! LET A THOUSAND READING GROUPS BLOOM!

[venusiansage]

new to radblr <3

so! i have always aligned with radical feminism when it came to issues like sex “work” and women’s oppression in general. however, i never sought out community because i avoided anything that could be seen as “TERF-y” with a ten foot pole.

it turns out that blindly listening to the internet morality police about a group of people without ever actually considering their arguments is pretty stupid and useless. i started reading what “terfs” had to say and…it was the most reasonable shit ever. the most logical shit ever. the most factual shit ever. like these are the alleged evil, hateful people? that’s when i was like Ruh Roh Raggy.

i never in a million years thought i would agree with gender critical people or become one myself…i was always a good little internet warrior who did whatever the status quo considered to be Good and Right. i always thought that radical feminists were right about everything except for trans people…turns out y’all were right about everything, period.

i am not transphobic, if you use any definition of transphobia that actually makes sense. what i am is against anything that comes in the way of women’s liberation. and unfortunately many parts of the trans movement, especially denying sex and reducing womanhood to gender stereotypes, does exactly that.

so yeah. hi i guess😭 welcome to my new radfem sideblog. needed a place to store all these amazing resources from intelligent women on the internet. y’all rock.

[auroraapple22]

Also, if you're trying to get MORE women on board with radical feminism or just feminism in general (which as a radfem is what you should be doing in interest of dismantling the patriarchy,) telling them that every single man they have met or will ever meet, every man that's ever lived, is garbage and to save yourself and be a true feminist, you should change your sexual orientation and only have relationships with women and if you don't, you're not a real feminist.

Like?? Number one, sexual orientation isn't a choice, duh. Number two, you are alienating so many women when you say shit like that. Lmfao, I love a lot of radfem ideology, but I saw a post the other day saying feminists only love the right kind of woman. The "radfems" who hold these beliefs aren't actually feminists at all because they want women to deny their own sexual orientation and also tell them that every man, even their own fathers, are evil and hate all women. That's a pretty hard sell if you've had an actually good father.

My mom was extremely emotionally abusive towards me my whole life and fucked me up severely. My dad was really young when I was born and he disappeared, abandoned his own family and entire life for five years. Yeah, that is terrible, but he was only 18 and to be real, he was right when he told my mom she shouldn't have a child. She never should have had children because she's selfish and vindictive and abusive.

So I didn't meet my father until I was 5 years old, but he very much so stepped up to the plate after that. He tried to get full custody of me but unfortunately he was a man who had given away all parental rights when he was a scared 18 yr old kid. I don't speak to my mother anymore but my dad and I talk all the time.

My father and all other men have been socialized in a society that brainwashes everyone from the time they're born with perfectly curated propaganda that tells them society is a certain way and to live in it, you behave like this. Any man who starts to wake up and tries to change the way he thinks about and treats women deserves a little bit of credit. They must've met someone who opened their mind a little bit, or read something or whatever. It snapped them out of it long enough to get them to start waking up.

But there's plenty of people who live in places where it is unlikely they will have anyone close to them that could open their eyes to the way men are socialized to oppress women and subconsciously behave as though they are better. And are those people really at fault for falling victim to the propaganda machine that is so strong and so advanced and so prevalent?

It's not all socialization, plenty of men get the same socialization and take it much further and are virulent in their hatred of the female sex. But don't tell me that every single man truly hates the female sex at their core. Their minds have just been developed in such a way that they may act like they do hate women just by acting like a normal, regular run of the mill man.

Just because someone does something wrong and makes a mistake, like my dad disappearing off the face of the Earth until I was 5 years old, doesn't make them irredeemable forever. My dad abandoned my mom when she was pregnant with me and he was a bad father for that until he made up for it and still is trying to make up for it to this day.

I thank God to have a Dad like mine because if he never came back into my life and I was raised solely by my psychotic mother, I don't even want to think about what kind of person I would be today. He couldn't take me out of her household completely for legal reasons, but with all the time he was able to spend with me, he did his absolute best to make me feel like a loved, valuable, worthwhile person.

He was always trying to give me advice for how to cope with abuse and remind me that it wasn't my fault. I still suffered a lot in my childhood, and his advice didn't help me feel that much better at the time. But as an adult, when all his wise words sank in, it saved my life. I never would have learned how to love myself if no one in my childhood told me I was lovable. Without my dad coming back, that's exactly what would have happened.

He made some bad choices but lucky for me, I have a good father now. He will force me to let him help me even if I try to refuse it. I told him I was hurting for money a bit, which he is too, he's not a rich guy, and he sent me $300 to my PayPal which I told him he didn't have to do.

My mom is an abusive piece of shit but I'm a radfem because I really love women. I often do not feel accepted by the radfem community because I'm a heterosexual woman who really believes the only hope we have to actually accomplish the goals of feminism is through love, hope, understanding and compassion. If we really believe all men are evil and will stay that way forever, why bother being a feminist? Feminism is about changing the world for the better and building a brighter future for women and girls, so if you believe no man is capable of change, then the goal of feminism is moot. A world without any men at all would lead to a world without women and girls, too.

So my message to my fellow radfems is love your fellow woman regardless of their sexual orientation because you're going to need them and you should want them on your side to accomplish the goal of feminism, dismantling the patriarchy.

some women do not have any patience for abused women and women in abusive situations, and I see it on radblr all the time. it’s unfortunate. what gets me is that they’re very willing to dissect every decision the abused woman made, but seem unwilling to believe in the intentions of his actions. women should know the red flags, but men aren’t responsible for the red flags, those just happen spontaneously. she shouldn’t have trusted him, but anything that happened that gained her trust was a spontaneous phenomenon not something he did intentionally. it’s as if up until the moment of abuse, he’s an amorphous blob who just accidentally explodes into abuse. he’s featureless, but his arms swing randomly. her money ends up in his account due to his oafishness, not insidiousness. when they started dating, he must have been a passive actor - not perusing her with the specific hopes of dominating her once all opportunities align.

Men are responsible for their actions, and not only their abusive actions. They’re responsible for the roses they send, too.

[feminismisstillahatemovement]

Also you seem to say that women are /more/ privileged that men (in westernized societies), not equally so, and the only way I can interpret it is through logic of 'Dangerous jobs are worked almost entirely by men AND in military conflicts it is men who are sent to fight so they have higher risk of death, also men are pressured to always be pragmatic and provide everything whereas the only real demand for women is to cook children and birth food and have sex'. Like, is this something along these lines? Because I often hear men say they'd much rather life a "comfy" less effort life like women and be forgiven for emotional weaknesses or lacking a good job - which confuses me a lot because it feels very depressing and insulting for me as a human being to be seen as 'you don't have to be smart or put effort, just look pretty and do bare minimum'... But I also often hear "you don't count because you are autistic and live in 2nd world country". But if majority of women are CONTENT and it is /minority/ who'd like to work traditionally male jobs or have 'pride' in regards of emotional maturity and intellect - what REALLY happened in western societies where women have ok amount of rights for the past few decades? Did feminists just sorta... spoke for majority and it snowballed? Because to think of it, it doesn't make logical sense for feminists to demand that women LOSE "comfort" and face HIGHER standards for accomplishments, maturity, physical proves, risks for life, etc. Maybe I'm misanthropic but typically humans don't abandon BENEFITS based on honour alone - only singular anomaly humans do. Or gamers, when they want to play harder mode for pride. Was it all REALLY just to, in fact, cover their comfort by claiming this comfort is oppression? (one more time, I speak about 1st world countries specifically (ironically where feminism is the strongest), my neighbour countries are special hell for women)

"you seem to say that women are more privileged that men (in westernized societies), not equally so"

Women in western democracies have every legal right that men in western democracies have and many additional allowances and special protections on top: for instance, women are exempt from military conscription, have far more funding devoted to their healthcare, are routinely given 60% less prison time for the same offences as men, etcetera etcetera. It's a long list. This is not something I'm angry about, or even seek to radically change: it's just a fact of reality that flies in the face of the fundamental premise of the feminist narrative but which needs to be openly acknowledged to understand the world in which we live and make any progress as a species.

“But if majority of women are CONTENT and it is /minority/ who'd like to work traditionally male jobs or have 'pride' in regards of emotional maturity and intellect - what REALLY happened in western societies where women have ok amount of rights for the past few decades? ”

A far larger number of women self-report being NOT content today than when asked 60, 70 - 100 years ago.

“Did feminists just sorta... spoke for majority and it snowballed? “

Feminism has never spoken for the majority of women. It has done a fantastic job of infiltrating and taking over education and media, where it gets to tell women they should be angry and unhappy all the time, but there’s still a great difference between feminists (adherents of a conspiracy theory-based political movement) and women (every second human being on planet earth), and if I remember rightly it’s only about 14% of women who identify as being feminist. The power they wield is far out of proportion to the number of people they actually represent.

"typically humans don't abandon BENEFITS based on honour alone"

There is no honour in feminist thought...

I think it might help you if I lay out how I see our recent history in this regard, as it may differ from the mainstream narrative you will have been indoctrinated with:

Feminism as an actual movement emerged out of the rapidly expanding caste of middle class women living unprecedentedly safe, comfortable and educated existences in the late 19th century, who had cooks to cook their food, nannies to look after their children, housemaids to clean up their houses, and well-to-do fathers or husbands to buy them everything they needed. Unlike the far larger mass of poor working class women, they no longer had work to occupy their time and so they, understandably, grew bored and began to want to have more influence in their community for themselves and other (middle class) women. They, somewhat peculiarly, started to see the burdens and responsibilities their brothers/husbands/fathers were expected to take on as a kind of treat - a privilege being kept from them - seeing jobs as a fun adventure of some kind, rather than the monotonous wage-slavery they have always been for the vast majority of the human race. The tasks these women selected to take on were not the back-breaking labor of coal mines, tree-felling, fishing vessels or construction sites, but light, comfortable and often part-time office duties, organising meetings to police and lecture others, all while demanding special treatment for being women. Which set up the blueprint for all feminist demands to come: all the rights, none of the responsibilities.

Things grumbled along in this way for decades, until the feminist movement (as well as the university system as a whole) was infiltrated and largely taken over by the Marxists in the late 1960s/early 1970s. The main goal of all Marxist-infiltrated movements in the west is to sow discord and create divisions in the populace. This led to the “intersectionalist” model of society, in which EVERYONE but straight white men are told from birth that they are an oppressed underclass who must march in the streets, scream abuse at strangers and feel glee at the suffering of all others outside of their in-group. And that largely explains the madness of today.

“it doesn't make logical sense for feminists to demand that women LOSE "comfort" and face HIGHER standards for accomplishments, maturity, physical proves, risks for life, etc”

For the reasons stated above, the modern (1970s-onwards) feminist movement itself doesn’t primarily care about “women”, only destroying whole families and healthy relationships between the sexes in the west - along with any woman who speaks out against whatever is its present agenda; There’s no sense in the way modern feminism eagerly championed allowing biological males into female spaces and sports and everything else, or how quickly it destroyed and silenced all the old school feminist women who spoke out against it.

I guess the fundamental point I’m making here is modern feminism is a political force entirely separate from women as a class, who, like all the other identity politics movements, it uses only as a human shield to deflect criticism of the agenda it is actually pursuing.

[meeda]

long ramble about idk.. politics?

re: that last post, it got me thinking about the evolution of my own beliefs overtime, starting from maybe 2012 ish when I was a teenager and a pretty stereotypical left liberal sjw type. I mean most of it is still the same shit I believe today, if not a little more naive and annoying about it. I was also a raging “feminazi”, as it was called back in the day, and as many a teenage boy on the internet would label me as because I had the radical notion that women are people

I think the turning point in 2014 (if you know you know) happened as a result of overcorrecting my sjw-ness. Thinking that I was somehow “cringe” for believing in the things I did, in the manner of which I did. Thinking hey, maybe social justice and feminism has gone too far actually. Thinking hmm, maybe men have it rough too actually, and it’s all feminism’s fault. then discovering other people that thought the way I did.

Despite being knee deep in anti sjw, anti feminism, mra nonsense, I still retained most of my core beliefs. I never actually called myself anti feminist because I knew that in my heart I still supported “real feminism” (which ironically enough included men’s issues). I didn’t fall for the alt right pipeline because i have always supported lgbtq rights and racial equality. I’ve always been religiously agnostic, and I never cared for religious extremism.

Turning point #2 happened shortly after the blm movement started gaining traction. It kinda snapped me out of everything and brought me back to reality, and it also showed me the true colors of many of the anti sjw bloggers i followed. because now the mask was off, and they started becoming full on racist. It was embarrassing and I started to become ashamed that I ever associated myself with people like that.

enter the trump era. by this point i was already out of the anti sjw echo chamber and boy oh boy was i glad because this mask off moment just became a whole face transplant. no emotion could compare to what i felt seeing the beliefs I once entertained suddenly morph into the alt right movement and qanon. It felt like i dodged a bullet.

my relationship with feminism was and is complicated. I was born, raised, and socialized as female. i think it’s only natural that i feel very strongly about female centered issues. Like I mentioned before i was a naive but staunch feminist as a teenager. I remember the teacher asking a show of hands who here identifies as a feminist. I was only one of three people, in a class of majority females, that raised their hand. I remember telling my friend at the time (who, in retrospect, was probably a closeted transwoman) that they’re a fool for wishing they were born female because why on earth would you ever want to be a woman in a violently patriarchal society.

to me, the allure of anti feminism was the chance to redeem myself for harboring misandrist beliefs and not seeing things from a male perspective. but it was also the opportunity to question my own beliefs instead of blindly believing what i, as an afab, am “supposed” to believe. This overcorrection, years later, swung to the other end of the horseshoe when i rediscovered radical feminism in 2021. Prior to that moment I’ve always looked at rad feminism with disdain, even when i was still a so called “feminazi”. They were too extreme for me. It didn’t help when things like gender critical and trans exclusionary feminism were on the rise as well, which contradict not only my core beliefs but my existence. but there was something about it, something that reminded me of the same feeling i had when i discovered anti feminism. Like i was discovering forbidden knowledge. It was time to dip my toes in.

I orbited radfem circles for awhile to try to enlighten myself but it didn’t take long for me to realize that something felt wrong. It felt less like I was trying to “see other perspectives” and more like I was doomscrolling. Bad news after bad news after bad news. It almost felt like they were having a competition for who could share the worst injustices towards women. I did learn some actually useful things, like the detriments of the adult entertainment and sex industry. How “choice feminism” only benefits the patriarchy. The evolution of contraceptives. But the bitterness, the lack of empathy, the tone deafness. The last straw for me was when i saw a terf gleefully express their joy about the murder of brianna ghey, and said they wished it happened more often. It was time to get out of there.

This decade has been a roller coaster for my personal beliefs, but I think for the most part, my core beliefs have stayed the same. I still care about humanity deeply. As juvenile as it feels to say, I do just want things to be better for everyone. None of us asked to be born. Not one of us. Literally we’re all here against our will and we had 0 say on the circumstances of our birth. But we’re here, and we’re here together. The least we can do is help one another.

[rainglade]

The insult "social justice warrior" is one I've always found interesting.

If you heard the term out of context and didn't know its meaning, it sounds pretty neat! Like a warrior? For justice? Sounds pretty fierce.

It kind of reminds me of the term "Radical Feminist," where the term sounds pretty cool (in a good way) but in reality it just refers to TERFs (transphobic bigots).

"Social justice warrior" was initially used as an insult for - in my opinion - valid reasons. It was used against people who did or said performative things in the name of allyship, but ended up being tone-deaf, ineffective, and even harmful. One of those forms is what some refer to as the "white savior complex," for example. These things just ended up being, for lack of a better word, cringe.

Overall, these people harmed and hindered progress indirectly by creating an aversion to speaking up against hate and making advocacy seem "uncool."

Nowadays, though, I feel like the meaning has changed. Although the original definition still holds true, it has morphed into a term that bigots generally use to refer to people who disagree with them. It became the thing that it seemed to be originally, a reference to anti-racists, queer empowerment, feminism, disability advocacy, etc.

Unfortunately, the use of it as an insult never actually changed, so now the effect of it is inherently harmful by making actual activism and calls for progress seem "cringey" and uncool.

I kinda wish that it wasn't the case, or that while the meaning changed, the symbolism of the word changed too. Maybe it will always stay as an insult, or just a dismissive method of putting down progress and positivity. Although there isn't a solution to the term itself, what is important is reducing the impact of it. I know personally I, like most others, were exposed to the term through the internet.

Perhaps young minds shouldn't be exposed to an environment that references progress and anti-hate as uncool in the first place?

[fierceawakening]

Here’s the thing about the fascism though: Lots of well known terfs are allying pretty openly with fascists, though. That’s part of why I asked in my OP what the actual endgame is. Nazis are showing up at your rallies, and your leaders, at least, seem not to be very keen on driving them off. That’s deeply concerning to me.

What the Nazis seem to believe is “women are weak and fragile and need to be protected so they can live as their proper complements to strong men.”

Some people on my side of the debate have started to think terfs believe the same thing.

That the idea that trans women peeing near us is threatening (I’ve peed next to one. She used a stall same as me. We washed our hands at nearby sinks and then left.) is the idea that women are fragile, fainting flowers who need male protection.

I’m not sure I agree terfs think this. Radical feminism has always been, it seemed to me from studying it, about the idea of building a self sufficient society without men. I don’t think this makes much sense, but I don’t think it’s fundamentally a fascist yearning for rigid gender roles. Or a belief that women are fundamentally less capable.

What does surprise me though is the way these alliances seem to keep happening, and the way some people seem to ignore them.

I don’t think people should punch terfs. I’ve never liked that meme. But my suspicion is that the thought process is “boy, lots of fascists hang around these people. That means they’re likely also fascists, as only a fash hangs out with a fash. Fascists should be punched. (Not sure how long you’ve been on tumblr, but it was a fad around the time of Trump’s inauguration to spread memes shaming anyone not willing to punch fascists for any reason as milquetoast liberals.) Therefore, I am cool and punch terfs!”

I do not actually find this very cool. Punching people you disagree with typically only solidifies their belief that you are persecuting them, and people who feel persecuted are notorious for thinking they’re justified in doing things they’d otherwise recognize as cruel and an overreaction.

(More later.)

Weird question of the day: so what is terfs’ actual endgame?

Like I know the middle game is “everyone identifies with their assigned sex and no one modifies their body in ways that alter secondary sex characteristics.” But then what?

They say they’re feminists, so that would imply the actual endgame isn’t just “the destruction of the transcult” but the end of patriarchy.

But how is everyone identifying with their asab and not modifying their body supposed to do that?

It’s very Underpants Gnomes.

Recruit trans people who doubt.

Destroy the transcult!

…..

End patriarchy!

?????