#and it's being weaponized now as there are cis people being attacked as being trans too

[allie-leth]

Hey ya'll, gather round, time to talk about what happened and what's next. I normally avoid having anything super serious on here, but this warrants it.

First, no one tumblr user caused this. Don't get mad at people on here for being apathetic, for doubting harris, for refusing to vote. They are the symptom of a broken system, not the cause, please be kind. They're far more ideologically aligned with you than those selling the apathy and reinforcing the status quo. The infighting and turning on each other is the desired outcome, please don't do that. That's how we got here. Now take a deep breath, lets move to what happens next.

Not much will likely change over the next year, you will see a lot of bullshit in the news about bills being passed and other things that attack people, but most of that will get watered down by the court systems and judges and get escalated to higher courts. Like with Florida's "Don't say gay" bill that got watered down so hard as to be almost meaningless, most of what passes over the next year will have no teeth when it's actually implemented. The point is the news headlines and fearmongering, using a scape goat (Queer, POC, immigrants) to sell success to people who have been told those are the problem with this country. Many things will be passed, very few will matter.

If you're in a deep red state, you will likely see anti trans/anti queer items on the docket next year. It's extremely important to vote against those and to get involved, if you can, to make sure everyone votes against those. Those are the real dangers, those are the real weapons. The point of all the items in the headline, all the fear, is to sell apathy and fear to get laws like those passed this time next year or this time in two years. But those won't come for a year or two, and some won't even be implemented for a year after that. That means that for the average person here, if you're in a red state, expect a 3 year timeline before you start seeing laws implemented that actually hurt you. I'm sorry, but if you're in a red state, those are likely coming.

If you're in a purple state or a weird red, like utah, expect that 3 year time frame.

HRT likely won't be limited in any real way to adults, if you see all those "water is wet" studies about trans topics, those studies were done to protect the process and treatments in times like this. Those represent a solid basis of proof that doctors associations won't want to move away from. There is a possibility that supply side regulation is done to artificially create shortages, but that would hit a lot of older cis woman just as much, so I don't see that as likely. I do not have enough information on hand to make any comments on hrt for ftm, I'm sorry, but I'm not involved enough in that process to have the knowledge to make comments.

There will be a lot of laws that are passed over the next 4 years that cause long term economic damage. Most of these will take 10 years to really show their face despite what the headlines show. This isn't great, but it's not going to destroy your life tomorrow. Amusing side note, the US downgrade that happened in the early 2010's was actually because of a prediction of partisan politics creating divides that cause situations exactly like this one.

I've said this before and will say it here again, find community irl. It's the single most important thing you can do. They will have the best resources, the best shoulders to lean on, the best people to be there when things seem bleak. If you've been too scared to go to events that interest you, to find your community, please let this be the sign that forces you out of your shell. Community will be your true savior over the next 4 years, please find it. Find ANY topics that interests you, it does not matter what, just any topic with groups that meet weekly, and start going. Every. Week. Week in, week out. You will make friends, it will take a bit, but you will. You can find community in that. I found mine in the kink and rave communities by doing exactly that. You can too, in whatever community you desire, but you just have to go and be there. I love ya'll, things will be okay. If you are truly scared and need someone to talk to, feel free to reach out and I'll reply as soon as I can. 💜

[polliwoggi]

I’m a short guy with a mid-to-high voice naturally, and let me tell you: people will shit on you no matter if you’re cis or trans if you’re outside their expected “norm”. I live in the deep south and I get “Yes ma’am”’d every time I’m on the phone, and I know I’m a “”manlet”” to a lot of people. I’m only just learning this myself, but I have to say quite firmly: fuck people who want to put you down, and fuck changing yourself to fit their standards and fit in. 

If you want to change things about yourself for your own enjoyment of life, then by all means do it, but you absolutely should not in order to fit yourself into somebody else’s mold. Because more than likely? There’s a good chance they’re going to find shit about you to dislike anyway. If my voice is particularly deep some day, I’m still tiny. I’m still “less a man” in those peoples’ eyes regardless. If you’re too tall, too short, too fat, too thin, wrong voice, too pale, too dark, someone out there is going to be a fuckwit over it and it’s a good filter for blocking them out of your lives.

Also agreed: the discussion about safety is one that isn’t quite getting deep enough into the weeds of why it’s a problem. There are cis women with deeper voices than mine. There are cis women who are a foot or more taller than me. There are cis men with higher and softer voices than mine. There are cis men who are physically smaller than me. These people would be equally targeted by the types of bigots who are going to target you as a trans individual; trying to “fit in” to a standard of beauty designed by the bigots isn’t going to help anyone. It might help you temporarily, but there will always be something else so long as people keep allowing themselves to be boxed into these standards. 

I don’t care if you’re cis or trans, the idiots’ beauty standards shouldn’t be for you. Embrace what makes you happy, and if the people around you aren’t happy for it, then maybe you shouldn’t have them around you. And all of us, every damn last one of us, should be pushing back against these ideas of standards because they’re utterly manufactured and unrealistic. 

[drdemonprince]

have you defined the meaning of “white woman brain” anywhere and if not, can you? /gen

Many Black and brown feminist writers have discussed this phenomenon and I encourage you to seek out a lot of writing about this subject, because there are a variety of perspectives, but to distill it, white woman fragility brain is a phenomenon that is not exclusive to either white people or to women, but is especially common among those who can weaponize white womanhood, and it consists of the following qualities:

A view of oneself as a helpless victim that is constantly in threat of being attacked, especially by strangers (even though statistically, this is not the case).

A refusal to consider oneself as capable of doing harm to others, especially a lack of consideration toward others' body autonomy or consent. (even while being highly concerned about one's own autonomy and consent).

A generally passive or passive-aggressive orientation toward the world: seeing oneself as a romantic or sexual object to be approached, but never wanting to initiate (or feeling that one never can), never feeling comfortable directly communicating displeasure or one's desires, believing that others instead must guess at it. (and then resenting people when they don't, but never expressing it).

A tendency to cry, excessively berate oneself, complain about being made to feel "unsafe," or give up when criticized or challenged, especially when challenged by people of color.

A tendency to associate a person's body type with how much of a threat they are. For example, feeling unsafe around people with penises and expecting a social space to accommodate that fear to cater to you, a fear of people who come from cultures where it's common to speak loudly, a fear of those who are large, assertive, and/or darker-skinned.

Instinctive fawning-type responses to stress, and a pattern of feigning happiness, agreeability, and ease when one is not genuinely feeling it, and expecting all other people (but especially other women) to feign happiness as well, paired with a deep-seated resentment of anyone who violates this illusion and expresses any negativity (being especially punitive toward women of color).

Instinctively "smoothing over" conflict between other people before it even begins, even when healthy conflict is necessary and not at all your business-- often performed by gossiping behind other people's backs, triangulating information when it is not yours to share, asking people to alter their behavior in order to avoid a reaction from somebody else, presenting your concerns as if they were somebody else's ("what will people think!"), tone-policing the airing of grievances, derailing hard conversations with more light-hearted topics, and excluding people who are known to be candid and assertive.

Here are some articles on elements of the phenomenon and why it is so dangerous:

Now, I single white cis women out a lot when I am describing this phenomenon, because they have the most to gain from exhibiting these qualities, but make no mistake: this is a pattern that many types of people can and do use. I have seen white trans women use white women's tears to silence critique. I have witnessed women of color being passive-aggressively derailed and silenced by a Black manager who was in a position of institutional power over them. Multiple of the women who sexually harassed me in the story linked above were not white. And LORD knows I see plenty of t boys falling back on this shit, as well as cis men from wealthy backgrounds. It's a mindset that has deep colonial roots and we all must be on the look out for it in ourselves and others, and we must be vigilant in uprooting it.

[nateconnolly]

“I have tried to show you what I am,” says Barb, the protagonist of one of the most controversial short stories ever written. “I have tried to do it without judgment. That I leave to you.”

Barb comes from I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter by Isabel Fall, a science fiction story about gender and imperialism. It was Fall’s first published story. There was no backlog of stories to analyze, and her author’s bio was sparse. Readers weren’t given any information about Fall’s gender identity, but that didn’t stop activists from speculating. “… this reads as if it was written by a straight white dude who doesn’t really get gender theory or transition,” complained Arinn Dembo, President of the science fiction writers’ collective SF Canada. The author Phoebe Barton even compared the story to a weapon against trans people: “Think of it as a gun,” she tweeted. “A gun has only one use: for hurting.” N.K. Jemison joined in, tweeting, “Artists should strive to do no (more of this) harm.” But Dembo and the hundreds of thousands of others were mistaken about Fall’s supposed cis identity. The publisher responded to the backlash by taking the story down and posting a statement about the author’s identity. Isabel Fall was a transgender woman, and self-identified activists for trans rights bullied her so mercilessly that she attempted suicide. Dembo later adjusted her criticism, saying “a lot of people might have been spared a lot of mental anguish” if Fall had made a statement about her gender identity. Meaning, Fall had a moral obligation to out herself as a trans woman. Both of Dembo’s comments reveal a preoccupation with the author that distracts from the text. The recent obsession with author identities is one of the great failures of contemporary liberal movements. In order to win liberation for any given group, liberal activists must focus less on who speaks and more on what is spoken. 

Roland Barthes’ 1967 essay The Death of the Author argued that an author’s intentions and life experiences do not make the “ultimate meaning” of their text. The author might as well “die” once the text is in the reader’s hands. The text is “a multi-dimensional space” that one cannot simply flatten with biographical details about the author. Barthes has largely been vindicated among literary critics and theorists, but his idea has not been well-received among liberal activists. It is easy to refuse to acknowledge multiple dimensions of a text. Moralistic groups like liberation movements might even be tempted to sort texts into a simple dichotomy—“good” or “bad,” without any gray areas—on the sole basis of the author’s identity. That is exactly what Dembo tried to do: she suggested that Attack Helicopter was bad simply because of the author’s (supposed) gender. 

I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter is not a transphobic story. Although an in-depth analysis would be beyond the scope of this essay, I can confidently say that Fall critiqued American imperialism, not transgender people. I think that would be clear to anyone who reads the story. But apparently, reading a story is no longer a necessary step in the process of interpreting it. Barton—who suggested her fellow trans woman was a “gun”-wielding transphobe—had not actually read the story. Jemison also admitted she had not read the story before tweeting that it was harmful. We now have a complete reversal of Barthes’ idea: this method of moralistic interpretation is nothing less than the death of the text.

Fall is far from the only queer storyteller to face backlash for allegedly not being queer. Becky Albertalli, Kit Connor (who was still a teenager), and Jameela Jamil all came out of the closet because they were harassed for telling queer stories as “straight” and “cis” people. It is a common talking point in activist circles that the government should not compile lists of queer people or forcibly out them. Why, then, do activists engage in the same behavior? It simply is not always safe to admit that you are gay, or trans, or autistic, or epileptic, or that you have had an abortion. The reason that we need liberation movements for these groups is the same reason that people might not want to publicly claim these identities.

You can read the rest on Substack

[punkeropercyjackson]

Not wanting to be a woman is in no way a moral failing but y'all be pushing that shit onto other people and that IS a moral failing,it's harrassment actually and can even be abuse depending on how close you are.Femininity being tied to girlhood makes you dysphoric?Guess how transfems feel when they're defeminized and masculinized and told just because someone is feminine that dosen't mean they could be a girl.You've experienced misgendering by insistently being called a girl and a boy at the same time?That's not the fault of actual multigender transmascs and cissies don't treat us any better than they do you,we're all just faggots and 'delulu girls' in their eyes and f*mboy is a tma slur and you've got no right to use it not only off that alone but also off how you use it to call us 'girllike boys' as an insult.Transandrophobia believers are MRAs not because they believe tboys face a special type ofdiscrimination based on transmasculinity,we absolutely do,but because they treat trans femmes like shit,both transfems and femme transmascs.So many tgirls have abusive transandrodork ex-bfs who weaponized their transfemininity against them and i'm a bigenderfluid transmasc black femme who's first boyfriend was a nonblack tboy that went down the transandrodork pipeline and not at all coincidentally started being meaner and meaner to me the farther he went and now he makes me out to be his 'crazy ex-girlfriend' when i never even talk about him even in dms.As an autistic black woman and as an autistic black man,i've never felt connected to or at home in transandrophobia circles and i've seen and heard about countless transandrodorks treating trans women and nonbinary transfems like absolute shit and even cis/tme queer femme women too.If you're transmasc,it dosen't mean you're immune to misogyny but that's on both ends and we're SUPPOSED to use our male privilege to protect and help transfems,not attack them and then play victim.Really i tend to relate so much to transfem culture norms due to overlaps between transfeminism and black femininity than i do to supposed 'universal transmasc experiences' that're just binary white boy shit.How's that for gender fuckery?Or does it only count if i'm mocking and degrading tgirls and wanting lesbians to date men and minors to feel unsafe and stupid to 'preserve history'?

[whatiwillsay]

Hi Cam I hope you’ve been doing well <3 I’m checking back in on the pod after a few months away and with all the election talk I have a question. Now I’m not American so I am obviously a bit removed from having to actually make choices re the candidates so I get it’s a whole different situation for USAmericans. But I’m curious how you square the circle of not just voting for but vocally being for the Harris ticket when they are the party currently in power perpetrating genocide and doing very little to fight for reproductive or trans rights. I hope this doesn’t come across as an attack bc it’s a genuine question and I do get being in the belly of the beast makes it a different equation. If you’ve already talked about this I’ll be v happy to read your perspective, I’ve missed a lot of the pod and tumble talk these past months

in america we have two choices- kamala or trump. there is no other choice. it is mathematically impossible for a third party candidate to win the election.

the next president may get 2 supreme court appointments. the supreme court in America is overpowered. they are the ones who took away nationally guaranteed abortion rights for example. their decisions on cases become federal law and precedent. trump has already had 3 appointments during his 1st term (this is how we lost abortion rights and they also made other harmful decisions) if he gets 2 more then 5/9 (a deciding majority) of the supreme court will be trump appointments. it will be a defacto trump supreme court and that will last for the next 30-40 years because these are lifetime appointments. this will permanently alter the course of history.

democrats have been trying to protect reproductive rights and trans rights, they can only do so much without super majority in the senate and without controlling the house at all. they may not be PERFECT on these issues but there are only two choices and they are the far superior choice.

democrats and harris are far better for Palestinians (although certainly there is room for improvement, biden performed to the left of where he campaigned, I think kamala will as well, her senate record was the most far left and progressive of any senator except for sanders) than the republicans and trump. trump has said "let isreal finish the job" harris says "cease fire now and let's have safety and dignity for Palestinians" remember there are only two options and we have to pick one. are you really surprised I'm picking the person who says cease fire now? even if their entire position isn't perfect on Palestine, it would be HEINOUSLY immoral to not be vocally against the guy who says "let Isreal finish the job" and vocally for the person who stands in his way to power. again there is only so much dems can do without a senate super majority and house. for example biden put a pause on sending certain weapons to isreal. the republican members of congress passed a bill that disagreed with this. democrats ARE NOT perfect on Palestine but THEY ARE BETTER and again as someone who is very much concerned with the suffering of Palestinians it would be insanely immoral of me to not support the better option of the only two we have.

i am not a single issue voter either and on basically every policy I'm concerned with dems are better. dems want to get money out of politics (hindering corruption). dems want to protect gay marriage dems want to protect workers rights. there's more I'm going to take them in other points!

the genocide in gaza is not the only one happening in the world. there is an argument to be made that there is also a type of genocide being executed against black Americans. dems are for police reform that helps fight against that. i think you could also argue there is an attempt to erase lgbtq people from existence in America (particularly trans people!) as I already pointed out dems are for protecting the rights and dignity of trans people. it would be insanely immoral of me as a cis ally to the trans community and a white ally to the black community to not to loudly oppose the republicans who are the ones attacking these groups. dems are not PERFECT on these issues but they are FAR BETTER.

speaking of mass death do you know how many people will die in climate related disasters if we don't try to get global warming under control? republicans are ACTIVELY fighting against any attempt to protect the environment. dems are trying to fight global warming. they are not PERFECT on climate but they are BETTER. there are only two options. it would be insanely immoral for me to not support the better option.

i do not want to live in an uneducated country I believe access to a good education is a basic human right. trump wants to disband the department of education. this would be DISASTEROUS for some areas of the country.

trump wants to repeal the affordable care act. i, personally, will lose access to healthcare if this happens. so would nearly 30 million other americans. this would lead to the death of many innocent people, sentenced to death just for not having the right type of job or being poor. it would be insanely immoral not to oppose this. dems are not PERFECT on healthcare (I believe the only ethical solution is a single payer healthcare system) but they are BETTER.

thanks to luck and privilege I was able to buy my first home in 2015. this home has been a great source of security and wealth building for me. i want other average Americans to be able to have this same security and wealth. harris's plans increase the ability for more first time home buyers to purchase a home.

democrats in general are much better for the economy. this matters less to me than some of the other issues we've talked about but a high tide raises all ships. a good economy is protective to vulnerable people at least to some degree.

i could go on and on. at every turn on basically every policy from social safety nets to marijuana to unions to women to school lunches for me on every issue democrats and harris are BETTER. they are not perfect on every issue but there are only two options... obviously I'm going to vocally support the better option.

and yes... i do somewhat feel like I am in the "belly of the beast". some of these issues do affect me personally. issues on gay rights, healthcare, women's rights, and the environment... i am scared. i am allowed to be concerned for my own rights. women are dying because they aren't able to get abortions. my own state of Tennessee is ACTIVELY attacking gay rights. every year the world gets hotter and I fear for my life and that there might be an extreme weather event near me. my fear demands that I be vocal in fighting against this terrifying stuff.

but it's also a moral thing. i believe there is value in human life. trump's bungling of covid let to the deaths of millions. marcellus Williams would likely still be alive if we had had 3 Clinton appointments to the supreme court and not trump appointments. ashley thurman would be alive today if trump hadn't gotten to appoint three justices to the supreme court as well. trump's deregulation policies have lead to people being poisoned by our food.

and damn we haven't even gotten into January 6th. people DIED because trump sent a mob to attack the capitol because he couldn't accept he lost a free and fair election.

GOD WE HAVEN'T EVEN TALKED ABOUT TRUMP'S ADMIRATION FOR HITLER. trump's former chief of staff john kelly who is a retired general went ON THE RECORD to say trump praised hitler in office.

i'm guessing you didn't know all of this when you sent me your question and I'm guessing you now understand that yes... it is my duty as a human being to stand against the guy who praised hitler.

lol i could say more but... i hope you get it now. it would be unethical for me to do anything but support harris who is the only person who can guarantee trump doesn't reach office and while she is not PERFECT on all these issues she is FAR BETTER and that matters.

[niiwa-angel]

@dylan mulvaney post, im sorry tras are backing who?? What child murderer?? Is this chris chan

Recently, there was a school shooting in Nashville that resulted in the deaths of three children and three adults. The children were all nine years old, not even double digits yet. The adults were older and in their sixties.

The shooter was 28 year old Audrey Hale, a trans identified female who had made maps of the school and done surveillance of the building long before she actually attacked. Police found two assault weapons on her person and two shotguns and other weapons in her home on later investigations. She also had plans to go to another school when she was done with that one.

Since the killing of six innocent people, half of them literal children and the other half older people, all of them being harmless, trans rights activists have only been concerned for themselves and how it makes them look. Nothing for the grieving families, nothing for the traumatized children, hell, not even remorse for the children who are dead. It's all about them. If you search Trans Day of Vengence on Twitter or Tumblr, you'll find horrible displays of trans rights activists calling for violence against 'cis' people, mostly women.

Twitter has had to crack down on those posting using the tag trans day of vengeance because they are inciting violence.

The trans rights activists are now trying to make Audrey a martyr for their community, claiming that she was killed because she was trans and not because she was shooting up a school.

There are even groups of trans activists rallying their followers together to get fire arm training. Literally days after school children were killed.

Also lots of images like these are circulating.

Yes, those are assault rifles. Yes, they have gained popularity after the slaughter of school children in their classrooms. But don't point out that it's incredibly gross to be making the focus yourself after a member of your group killed six people or you get tweets like these

There is so much more and it's frankly disgusting. I know some of my fellow Radfems have already made multiple posts on this and you really should check them out but the fact remains, six innocent people were killed by a trans identified female and all the trans community cares about is themselves. Now, I'm not going to pretend that I like Christianity, or any religion for that matter, but the fact is that nobody deserves to die because of their faith, or their parents faiths as these kids were too young to believe in anything except Santa.

The trans community has rallied around a child murder, who shot up one school and had plans for another. They wound up canceling a protest at the supreme court they had scheduled because they were concerned about bodily harm coming to their protestors. Not because it would be incredibly insensitive after one of their members killed people, but because of possible threats to them.

[thatstormygeek]

We know and can easily see that these fascists don’t actually care about women or women’s sports, at all. They never watch or mention women’s sports unless they see an opportunity to attack trans people (while often really attacking a cis athlete). They don’t care when Brittney Griner gets locked in a Russian prison, or when women’s Olympic teams are under-funded, or when women’s leagues are struggling in the U.S. More importantly, they don’t care when women or genderqueer people suffer horribly under the law, in fact many of them are the exact people leading the charge to build a society where women would suffer much, much more. That brings us back to fascists’ motives for constantly fomenting a trans panic: reinforcing traditional gender roles and the accompanying control over women and everyone who isn’t a straight, cis man. We see quite clearly in how anti-trans sentiment is increasingly being used to police female athletes and women who deviate from traditional standards of beauty and dress and femininity that transphobia is a tool used to reinforce the boundaries around what conservatives deem to be permissible behavior for women. Butch lesbians, non-binary folks, and others who don’t look traditionally feminine have reported more harassment in bathrooms since laws that are theoretically meant to only address trans people’s bathroom usage have gone into effect. This is how it works. More and more cis women, queer folks, and others are now feeling the effects of the dangerous anti-trans sentiment and movement that’s gained a foothold around the globe.

And a lot of people who might think of themselves as not too political are susceptible to the trans panic being generated, which is part of why the right keeps hammering at it. Anyone who hasn’t inoculated themselves against this fascist movement could read “male boxer beats woman up in the ring in Paris” and be pissed off. It’s reasonable to see that lie and immediately be angry that this is what the Olympics have come to. But, once you see how the conservative media machine fed you this lie, it’s time to pause and recalculate. ... The people generating this dishonest story, working hard to pretend a female boxer is trans, and trying to get you to be mad at something that isn’t true do not have your best interest at heart. Billionaires and the fascists they collaborate with want you mad at a group that is vulnerable in large part so you won’t be mad at them.

[katyspersonal]

Let me get this straight.

You were accused of several phobias based off of defense of a trans person that genuinely needed support? I just caught up on the posts and the responses and it looks like that person held some very problematic (cliche right-wing bs) beliefs but I can tell you didn’t support those beliefs per se. You wanted to prevent a trans person from being attacked during a bad spot in their life. You also didn’t mind sharing their fandom posts and being their friend because you knew that what they really needed was someone to help them. And it looks like they’re gone now?? Un-fucking-believable.

Now all of your mutuals are getting anonymously targeted by the same person that called you out? I am just a lurking witness but this person attacking you is the latent tr*nsphobe. They bullied and isolated someone for trying to help a struggling trans person. That is vile and I hope they rot in hell. Disgusting pos. Weaponizing tr*nsphobia is the number one no-no in fandom spaces and it’s a dead giveaway for who really care and who doesn’t. Helping a trans person through shit even when they are sharing harmful rhetoric takes balls. Good for you.

Gosh... This is always a heavy topic to talk about for me, especially when you put it THIS plainly. I think this is the most direct way to summarise the situation I've seen yet from a person that's not close to me (it is a compliment).

I must specify though - the "trans person" identified as trans man for about 13 years but since then revoked the term and now prefers to simply be described as GNC. In the end, he doesn't find the label he feels truly comfortable with, but this is still a person that is female in documents but male in fact and this IS an important bit in the whole story. Some people might argue that no matter what, but anyone not identifying with assigned gender counts as trans, that I get, but he has strong reservations and negative experience with the community that he shared multiple times - something the bully stalker you're referring to chose to ignore.

I think feeling identically homeless is an awful thing - he cannot line with the cis heteros (you can't just will yourself to identify as a straight girl when you are a gay man lol), but queer community has become ridiculously toxic with infights, imposing stereotypes on each other, ruining each others' spaces, cancelling each other over thoughts 'out of line', claims that someone's different experience harms the rest of the demographics upon being spoken of and god knows what else. You could figure that even in his younger years, he was excluded from his own identity and grossly bullied and misgendered because of the notion of "you do not belong in the queer community / you are not a REAL trans person if you support the [insert an opinion that has nothing to do with being trans]".

This is absolute fucking HELL from the sound of it, and I can't imagine LIVING it. You are so RIGHT for calling Alfred-chan (aka Clod Frollo, aka Slander Man) a latent transphobe. That they absolutely ARE. They do not see trans people (binary, nonbinary, generally GNC, whatever) as PEOPLE, as human beings with their own lives, history, opinions and differences. They see them as ideological soldiers in the "war" against them nasty white cissie hets and they are the EXACT garbage type that will exclude someone from their own gender/sexuality if they fail to match the checklist of strictly western libertarian opinions. They believe that to be trans or gay/lesbian is to have only certain beliefs on everything else that is not relevant. If not seeing trans people as people is not REAL transphobia, then I don't know what is.

From how you're talking you must be familiar with the cases of imposing very suffocating and concrete opinions and behaviour standards on a person for them to not be bullied as "not real" or "not proper" queer person. Some trans/GNC people will be conservative, some will be Christian, some will say 'instead of making 60 abortions just exercise protected sex already because abortion is a murder'. Because they're people, they come to different conclusions in this life, and no one should be put under obligation to assume only certain values to simply have their identity acknowledged.

ALSO from how you're talking you must be familiar with the situation of abusing the sympathy pool for selfish goals. This is exactly how #metoo got a dirty name. Alfred-chan used a very painful, vulnerable topic (transphobia) to fabricate lies and manipulate narrative with the goal of removing the bitch they disliked (yours truly) from the fandom. In general they are ridiculously nasty towards anyone that speaks against them trying to bully certain group of fans - people that clarify nuances on G3hrman as a character, insist that Maria is not "canonically a masculine lesbian" but instead is up to interpretation (that she is) or simply like G3hrmaria ship. They are terminally unable to see people (or fictional characters) outside of stereotypes and cannot acknowledge variety of identities and experiences. Yeah, I was proclaimed a witch to burn over the awful sin of trying to listen and help someone instead of throwing them away like a trash, but even before that they had quite a beef against me; they joined the fandom, lured some audience with cute mari4deline art and then decided to divide us into "normal fans" and "nasty misogynist lesbophobes without media literacy" just after the disco horse in the fandom started to die down. And I said NO YOU DON'T. Still, when they cannot harass people over reblogging a meme from me, they harass them for having an opinion on Maria that isn't 100% like their.

They do not care about trans PEOPLE, they care about trans 'identities'. These are different things. They appreciate diversity of flags and labels, but not diversity of experiences, opinions and backgrounds. And if you do not fit - you are a broken gear in the machine, you are not a proper 'soldier', and you must be thrown away. And if someone picks you up? They are the evil one, if not MORE evil. Kindness, patience and understanding are the bad things, but violence, cruelty and exclusion are what makes you trustworthy and good by their logic! True face of the fighters for "acceptance and kindness" as you can see! Fuck the Golden Ord- errrr I mean fuck this hypocritical corrupted witch-hunting nonsense.

----------------------------------------

I'd also not say that his rhetorics were "harmful". Again, Alfred-chan likes to twist what someone says to benefit their witch-hunter narrative. You can explain yourself with maximal logic, nuance and clarity, only for that person to ignore absolutely everything you said except for ONE thing they COULD twist against you, base everything around that thing and then play a victim. If you had the misfortune of knowing a 'narcissistic abusive mother' - the type of manipulation is shockingly similar. He was always ready to explain things properly but witch-hunters are not interested in removing the conflict - they are interested in removing YOU.

I also believe that free speech reveals the opinions, not creates them. Basically, opinions do not cause harm - PEOPLE do. If all it took someone to support this or that right-wing opinion is to read a post from a stranger online? Congratulations, a person found their tribe. It is GOOD if everything is revealed and everyone takes their place, it is GOOD if groups define their territories so you know where they are,. If many people believe in a "bad thing" - this means that many people ARE bad, and dividing and silencing them won't change the truth, only conceal it until it inevitably breaks through. Scaring people never changes their hearts, only makes them strike HARDER when they're ready to do so. Like what in the Brador people try to say with hating the truth revealed SO much? sdfjhdshghds

Me and him argue quite often, but when you befriend someone, it is a very bad thing to argue with them publicly. It borders the level of abusing a friend. If you have a friend that consistently shames you on public - this is not a good friend, and you should inform them that you are not their means of looking virtuous before some strangers/guests. On the brighter note - yes, the person is gone from Tumblr, but he is living his better life now. He got a therapist, he goes outside more often, he found a new passion that gave him sense of purpose, overall his life is getting better.. and he is happy that I get to be a part of it!

[mcivercomix]

I will say that while Terfs have generally not been pleasant to talk to these past couple days, I think a lot of Trans Women have developed a sort of culture comparable to what they have.

Like, both are communities formed by members of an oppressed group who's oppression (although some don't want to admit it) stems from the same source. Both have to deal with the overt sexualization of their bodies by a patriarchal (often white supremacist) society which reduces them to objects and strips them of their personhood.

If a cis woman doesn't adhere to bullshit arbitrary feminine beauty standards then she's expired goods, probably some feminazi, and any claim she makes about misogyny can be written off. If she does adhere to these standards though then she's a whore, who's sexualizing herself, who's probably not that bright and is basically asking for attention so her claims of misogyny can also be ignored.

Likewise, if a trans woman doesn't adhere to these standards then she's probably some sex pervert, a pedophile, and really just gross so why would you take any claim about transmisogyny seriously? If she does adhere to these standards, if she passes she basically gets the same treatment as cis women but if people know she's trans then she's still doing it because she has a fetish, and if she doesn't wanna experience misogyny she can just go back to being a man.

Both of these views are obviously gross and misogynistic, but time and time again you see these two groups weaponizing one to attack the other.

[[Brief side note: Just like how Terfs are a relatively small Internet subculture, so are the Trans Women I'm about to compare them too. I'm really just talking about niche online communities.]]

Both terfs and chronically online trans women attack each other's appearances in order to imply that their moral character is less than squeaky clean. Both these groups tend to only focus on themselves and their own problems, both have issues with racism, both fall back on fascist, vibe based bad faith arguments because they're not actually trying to argue, but to show off to their equally insane community.

Both of them lack any sort of empathy for demographics outside of their own and are constantly pushing the wagon for people who'd like them dead in order to make shots against some other oppressed group. It's a kind of self destructive selfishness that absorbs people and convinces them that they are the universes ultimate victim. Who cares about anyone else when no one has it worse than you?

It's a really interesting (and sad) thing so look at. I think I'm done talking to Terfs after this. I wanted to understand them and I think I do now. Even the Terfs who've been kind to me have expressed this sort of ultimate victimhood that is only to be faced alone. It's a deeply isolating ideology and even if they're kinda horrible people I can't help but feel bad for them. Both Terfs and these insane chronically online Trans Ladies.

[a-humble-narcissus]

So, I really don’t know where to put this but I really need to put this out there or I’ll explode

Today I got harassed online due to a single line in my profile:

“He/they”

Tw transphobia, explicitly described, including the use of the t slur

So I usually don’t disclose that much about me, but I have been working out for one year now and I thought that joining a fitness discord server would be a cool idea to share ideas with others.

For the sake of getting away from the whole shitshow that this discord was, I will NOT be mentioning its name. Sorry but I don’t want anything to do with it.

Upon joining, I did what one does and I said “hi!”. As you do.

Wanna know what the first messages directed at me were?

“Your username sounded cool but then I say your pfp [which is a tiefling????] and pronouns [he/they] and I decided it’s not worth it”

“I’ll never get pronouns. They is plural.”

So let’s unpack this.

At the time all I could do was research the rest of the chat to see if it was or not trans friendly, see that indeed it was NOT and BOOK IT. “Welcoming community” my ass, not when the people are so willing to mock people with “tranny” and also when the people with the “friend” exclusive role are willing to systematically share videos of trans people to bitch about how they are so wrong for existing and begging “fellow people with a sliver of conscience” to agree with your point of view. Oh and also when, upon being asked if the server is LGBTQ+ friendly, the answer from said LGBTQ+ members is “oh there’s some bigots here but we try to ignore them” BESTIE WHAT IS THE MOD TEAM FOR?????? GET OUT???? THERE’S BETTER SPACES MATE I PROMISE.

These things were also not being said by newbies, we are talking about level 20/ level 40 users

So yeah. “WELCOMING COMMUNITY” Y’ALL

But okay what is there to unpack?

Well, how little it takes to be singled out and mocked in online spaces for starters. I share very little of myself online. Pictures, even my voice, background, political opinions, religious thoughts, most of these are kept for people I trust and even then very select few.

All that these people had to start acting bigoted towards me was that I use he/they pronouns. In my profile, which they went out of their way to check.

That’s… that’s it. They say that I use “they” and decided that it would be cool to mock me.

And that’s so terrifying. I keep my pronouns in my profile because it’s usually useful, thankfully most of the spaces I’m in are queer owned ot queer friendly. No one minds them. It’s so small of a detail. Otherwise you would have no reason to think I am not a cis guy most of the time. But that’s enough of a small detail for them to be bigoted.

It’s terrifying to think what they do to people who are visibly queer, who use neopronouns, who use pride flags, who sound a way that might single them out as trans. It’s terrifying that these are the kind of spaces that also exist in real life people have to deal with, where the smallest flaw will make people hound at you, so you have to constantly check if you are in line with the program.

It was terrifying, no matter how small a tell is to say “your pronouns are not okay with me”, because I felt so exposed by such a small thing, such a small part of who I am, and that once they zeroed in it, they made it all who I was, the “stupid weird tranny”. No longer it mattered to them who else I was, that I also love working out, that I am aiming to do a full pull-up by the end of the year and would love some advice (my core is TERRIBLE LMAO). Things that I had yet to say because I like to say “hi” right once I land in a server.

No. “He/they” = “Freak/attack”

And suddenly, the one thing that I use to empower myself, the one thing which I refuse to have taken away from me when any form of physical masc presentation is wishful thinking due to the irl circumstances of my life, that thing is being used as a WEAPON against me.

“He/they” = “I love myself”?

“He/they” = “I hate you”?

Bigots will cling at the smallest thing about you and use it as a weapon. We should be mindful of this. You cannot change to a palatable version of yourself without giving up on who you are, and that will destroy you in the long run. And others being more visible than you will never be the problem (yes, I am staring transmed and trans people who invalidate other trans people’s experience in the eyes as I say this) because it was never a matter of trans people looking unserious.

It was always about trans people looking “out of place”, no matter how small the details are.

[jonoodles]

It's not hard to understand why there are more out trans people now if you aren't a dullard acting in bad faith. When the threat of violence and legal marginalization was even more of a threat, people lived whole lives in the closet or just commited suicide quietly, not adding to the statistic. Pretty easy conclusion.

I can also say anecdotally that being on estrogen has been far more helpful than the cocktail of SSRIs, Stimulants, and Antipsychotics I've been made to take since I was 11. And I know that being on puberty blockers instead would have spared me a lot of pain

I imagine you're going to pretend you're against all those medications for children too. Even though it's far more widespread and harmful, it's clearly a lower priority to you. And you're going to continue credulously qouting the same psych industry that doles out those meds numbers on diagnosable gender dysphoria.

Either way as shitty as you are I hope you find happinees some day. I mean performative Christian whose obssessed with us, come on, we've all seen where this goes before.

Until that day stop shitting up our tags, I'm trying to look at nice posts on my lunch break.

So this person is saying people who are in the closet also commit suicide, because they couldn't come out and be themselves. (I believe that's what they are saying). I agree that is probably true. And I am not saying trans people commit suicide because they are trans people. I am saying they commit suicide because they struggle and I think we need to help them not only by transitioning them but offering counseling and such. It is simply a fact, I am not attempting to weaponize it, against trans people but rather people who say cis people are just jealous.

Now please do not be offended by my response.

Was it hard to get put on estrogen? Were you diagnosed with gender dysphoria? What was it like to get put on estrogen? I disagree that puberty blockers are a good thing. I still don't think children can consent.

If you're 18 I have no qualms with your transition. I don't applaud you as a hero. But I'll let you live your life. I don't think being trans is really a big deal. Unless it is a child who has yet to go through puberty.

You bring up a good point with the other medication kids can be on

Those medications for children: SSRIs ( anti depressants I believe), stimulants, and anti psychotics. The reason I am somewhat okay with those for kids is because they do not change your body's function or structure on a physical scale to such a great extent as puberty blockers. (Ex: they do not change your bone density ect..) I wish kids didn't have to be on them (anti depressants and such), but sometimes their situations call for it. That should be a medical choice that involves a professional and their parents.

Another thing on that point is: no one is glorifying their mass amount of medication. (Well some are but not the extent of people glorifying being trans)

We can probably both agree being trans is a difficult journey. That is why it is not fit for a child.

I do not enjoy being called a performative Christian. I don't care how you judge me but rather how God would.

Isaiah 56:1 (NIV)

“This is what the Lord says: “Maintain justice and do what is right, for my salvation is close at hand and my righteousness will soon be revealed.”

Here are my beliefs layed out for you to attack as you please;

I disagree with transition as a Christian (that means I will not transition myself or encourage it). But I believe from a legal standpoint adults have the right to do as they please to their bodies. Children do not because they are underaged.

I believe your best point was about the use of other drugs on children. But you still failed to actually defend your case as a whole. You have mainly attacked my character. Which isn't really what invalidates an idea.

I would also like to know what it is like for you to be on estrogen. If you don't respond that's fine, if you would just tell me about it in an "ask" I won't respond publicly to it. I am genuinely just curious.

Thank you for your ask ♥️

~ 𝒥ℴ 🪐

[box-dwelling]

I stg people really need to start re-evaluating the fact the women's rights is by far the progressive rights movement that has had the greatest change and that now misogyny often acts as an intesifier of other kinds of injustice rather than as much an injustice on its own. An able bodied rich white straight cis lady is not particularly more privileged in 2023 than a male counterpart. Even when it comes to shit like roe v wade being over turned, by having resources, the have the ability to get the healthcare they need by traveling. I'm not saying misogyny doesn't exist or that there isn't genuine issues that make it suck ass to be a woman but if you have all the privileges except the one that we have done the most to overcome, you do not get to be a POS to people who have disadvantages that make them worse off than you. And it is almost always people in that category who are like this. Generally, trans people avoid this because they have to have a more nuanced view of gender, poc watch the men in their lives be hurt by racism manifesting in similar ways to misogyny (better people than me have talked about this at length, but this is a big problem especially for black men), most lesbians I know don't give enough of a shit about men to think this way and most mspec women tend to be far kinder to men than straight women ime (my theory being they have to actively come to terms with their attraction to men and don't just have it as a default). Disability and class are slightly more complex but I think women in those categories tend to realise that you get aid from wherever you can and disregarding 50% of the population is not a great way to build solidarity. I swear so much if this rhetoric is the advantaged grabbing the one thing they are disavantaged by and using it as a weapon to further attack those they view as being below them and claiming it's progressive because they're targeting someone who has the only privilege they lack.

Hmm I don't think radfems are very left wing actually

[anamatics]

Your opinion on old fandom forums vs, fandom today?

I didn't answer this one last night as I wanted to be able to type out a proper response, and one that's partly adapted from an essay I wrote back in 2016.

As a fandom old, I’ve spent a long time in fandom spaces. I did my time with writing slash and het ships, but I always loved writing stories for me about people like me. I have witnessed first-hand the rise and fall of listservs and live journal as places where people who liked femslash gathered to discuss their favorite shows. I know a lot of fandom history. When I comment on the events in fandom, it still comes from my position as a fan, not as a creative. I want to preface all of these thoughts with this.

Fandom used to be something that you didn't talk about. It was secret, never mentioned in public, zines and stories mailed back and forth across the country. The internet changed that, people's attitudes toward things like queer and trans identity changed that, people's want to see diversity on their screens changed that. Yet, at the same time, there is a whole new generation of young queer creatives emerging onto the writing scene who have grown up witnessing the rise and fall of these great, monolithic fandoms that exist beyond the space of shows themselves. More and more, networks, writers, and producers are paying attention to what the fandom says and to what they react to.

This is why I don't really like fandom these days, because I've seen both sides. I struggled with this working on Carmilla as someone who had been, and in may ways still was, a fan. I know fans have power, I've done things because I know fans have power. And yet, I felt like I'd lost my place in a community - in old fandom - because of this realization. And I myself asking questions about my place in new fandom. Questions that, most of the time, had no answers.

Is it valid to be both grateful for the acknowledgement of fan desires within the creative side of television and web writing and a little horrified by the amount of entitlement that any capitulation by those productions seems to engender within fans? Am I valid in feeling trapped by this feeling of wanting to be the best possible arbiter of representation and knowing that I can never be perfect because the perfection demanded by the queer community isn’t achievable? Does my voice even matter in fandom circles anymore because I’ve “crossed over” to the other side? Am I allowed to continue to speak critically about representation in shows that are not my own because I haven’t “fixed mine yet”?

I struggled with this when Carmilla was airing. I still struggle with it now, too, because I see how trolls on Twitter and Tumblr have reacted to folks like me speaking out about problems we see in our communities or within fandom. People like me aren’t allowed to criticize fandom, or fandom culture, because we’re no longer seen as truly a part of it: by being creators who can’t always live up to fandom’s sometimes unreasonable standards, we’re now considered just part of the problem. We can’t critique behaviors and call things out within this fandom community that should also represent us because when we do we’re hurting the fandom community.

Every queer creative out there has shouldered some of this hurt, I know I have. I stand by what I’ve said despite the backlash. If you cannot believe in the truth you speak, what good are you to a community looking to you for change?

Those who speak to the internal problems of fandom culture are shouted down. People with years of fandom experience, who are far more knowledgeable of the history of fandom (and especially the femslash corners of it) and presence in media than the present-day narrative setters, are shouted down and told that we are part of the problem. Creatives who speak out and criticize other works are treated equally poorly. The problem is that in refusing to look at the problems within our fandom spaces, and saying that everyone outside the group is to blame for the problems of poor representation, we are sticking our fingers in our ears and refusing to look at what’s wrong with us. We eat our own.

The queer community – and by extension the queer fandom community – functions like an ouroboros as far as I can tell. That’s the snake from Norse mythology that eats its tail, representing infinity but also representing the inevitable crush of our own bullshit as it comes down around us with the hopes of becoming a better community. There should be a place within this community for everyone, and yet it’s this same space that is preoccupied with gatekeeping characterized by constant infighting, identity policing, and silencing or invalidating opinions that don’t perfectly align with this vision of what is considered acceptable in the eyes of the thinking of the day.

Queerness is messy. There’s a lot of nuance to it. And there will always be people who want their own community within that umbrella of queerness. That’s a valid want. You want to be around people who are homogenous, because it’s when variety is introduced that feelings get hurt. But the existence of a community for marginalized people should not come at the detriment and degradation of other vulnerable people, nor should it come at the expanse of dismissing intersectionality within our community.

But instead, we eat our own. We dismiss trans headcanons like people in old fandom used to dismiss queer headcanons. We're doing the same bullshit, just rinsed and repeated, directed at a new set of people whose voices are smaller than the small specks of power new fandom has granted (cis, white) queer people.

We fight ourselves amongst because we feel as though we cannot fight the forces of our own oppression. We censor ourselves to make sure that we don’t say anything to upend the proverbial apple cart. We do this not because we’re afraid of the problematic elements outside of the community that could come into our community, but rather because we’re afraid of those within our own community who have the power to kick us out from under our own umbrella and back into the rain.

So when I think about fandom these days, I imagine this moment of losing community. I imagine the hurtful message sent, the dismissive post on the forum, the hateful tweet, actions that cost nothing when they are directed at creators, fan writers, fan artists. These people exist to create content that is to be consumed. They aren't human. They aren't even real. They're just the producers of content that fandom sucks up like a vacuum cleaner without bothering to engage with the creators except to demand more or demand better. Nothing makes you feel alienated from your community like realizing you only exist to produce for it and when you don't produce to standards, you are attacked.

What's worse is that a lot of folks in fandom don't even think about this these days. There's no risk in blasting off a message or a tweet. But social media is an echo chamber. It’s a hive mind, and it’s a place where people can get hurt, very badly, and very quickly. Social media should not be used as a weapon to badger the people trying to get into positions where they can create change, which is what I feel new fandom has done. But at the same time, new fandom has also become a space where voices can be uplifted, where people can be seen and heard who maybe weren't before.

So TL;DR, I think social media ruined fandom, I have a lot of baggage/trauma from working on a show as fandom was transitioning from old fandom to new fandom, and like... we have to be better to each other.

[ex-terf-anti-terf]

i want to ask some genuine questions if that’s okay bc I’ve never actually encountered an actual ex-rf who was part of the community but changed their mind

1. what is your definition of ‘gender’, if you don’t understand the radfem definition, then what do you define gender as?

2. what does being non-binary mean to you? do you not think it just traps you into another binary system of being either binary or non-binary?

3. what is your response to the “genital preference” narrative that is encouraging homosexuals to “examine their genital preference”… and how is it any difference to homophobic conversion therapy rhetoric?

again this is all completely genuine, i really do want to engage in a proper conversation about this and hear your side!

Well I do answer similar questions to these in this post, but I can elaborate on some stuff I didn't say there as well!

1. Reading the definition that you gave in the notes of this post, I agree with parts and disagree with others. For me, gender is an umbrella containing gender roles, stereotypes, norms, identity, and expression, as well as both sex-based and gender-based oppressions. All of these things look different in different cultures and in different individuals. (And I can make a different post defining each of those things at some point but I'm really tired and dissociated right now so I can't at the moment, I'm sorry.)

None of these things is inherently harmful, but many of them are used in harmful ways; by the patriarchy, by trans people, and by those who oppose trans people. The important thing to note there, though, is that each of these groups weaponizes different elements of gender.

By which I mean the patriarchy, especially the main agents of the patriarchy cis men, largely push gender roles and gender norms onto others, particularly cis women. Trans people largely rely on gender stereotypes, and gender criticals attack gender identity and gender expression.

ALL of these actions are harmful, but that doesn't make any of those individual elements inherently harmful. This is something I talk about a lot in regards to fiction. If a CC creates a work of fiction, and then a person uses that work of fiction to hurt another person, that CC is not at fault for that harm. They were creating art, which everyone in the world has a right to do. The blame for the harm that was caused lies solely on the person who manipulated that piece of art.

But I'm a little off-track, sorry. The point is, gender is a lot of things, and it is different for each person experiencing it. It can be influenced by a number of other things, like neurotype, sex, orientation and attraction, race, ethnicity, and culture. And there's not really one definition that's going to fit everyone's experiences, the same way there isn't really one definition of attraction that fits everyone's experiences.

(A sidenote, but I've noticed many trans people don't particularly care about the gender aspect in and of itself, but more about how it affects their relationship to the world, especially in regards to language.)

2. I do not! This is because nonbinary doesn't mean 'not attached to either end of the binary'. In fact, it just means 'not fully attached to one end of the binary'. (The word for the first one is 'abinary', which is a subset of nonbinary.) So I am a female nonbinary woman. (I'm also genderqueer but that has a little more to do with my sexuality than my gender.)

To answer what nonbinary identity means to me, I'm gonna draw from the post I linked at the very beginning of this response.

My lesbian identity has significantly impacted my understanding of my gender. I feel more closely tied to the idea of being a lesbian than I do to any gendered term, woman or man or otherwise.

My dysphoria related to my breasts has recently spiked in intensity, and I've found that certain things are just more comfortable for me. I find womanhood to be quite welcoming and positive, and I would not separate myself wholly from it, but I have an experience of myself as something entirely other, as well.

If I could choose any body for myself, it would be entirely devoid of sex organs or secondary sex characteristics. But I would still view myself as a woman, because the connections I've made to women have shaped my understanding of myself in a very particular way.

I've seen many women (particularly radfems/GCs) talk about womanhood as if it is inherently an oppressive, miserable thing and all women hate being women. I've never felt that. And maybe that's because I don't feel like I'm just a woman, or maybe it's something else. Who knows.

I guess the best way I can describe being nonbinary is through my wants. I want to be a masculine woman and a pretty boy and a genderless cryptid Eldritch entity of unknown intent. It's about rejecting the dichotomy of man vs woman entirely and saying 'I'm just going to be what I am, and I'll call myself whatever I want to call myself, and I don't have to deal with people who won't respect me.'

Some people on both sides like to say "gender is not a feeling!" (And depending on which side they're on, they mean this in one of two very different ways.) But I disagree. Especially for trans people, gender is at least partially about feelings. We feel dysphoria. We feel euphoria. We feel connected to certain words and less connected to others. Those are all feelings.

I would say that "man" and "woman" aren't feelings, but that's because ultimately, they're just words. They are labels that were created to ascribe social categories to differences in biology, and they don't carry any real significance.

3. I'm really, really glad you asked this, because I've been meaning to talk about this anyway. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about 'genital preferences'.

First of all, people with genital preferences are not inherently transphobic. Second of all, it is blatantly homophobic to tell a person that they cannot identify as gay if they are ever attracted to someone with different genitals from the ones that they were born with. To attempt to dictate another person's LGB identity is homophobia, full stop. I won't debate this.

I honestly think both sides fuck this up a lot, I'm gonna be honest. Trans people often take it too far, and gender crits are often homophobic about it.

I often see gender criticals (in response to, say, a cis gay man dating a trans man) say that the gay person is actually bisexual, or that they shouldn't call themself gay. And I've never been okay with that, even when I was deep in radfem circles. It was one of the big turn-offs for me, actually. This is because, in my mind, labels don't exist to dictate our experiences; it's the other way around. We take labels on because they describe our experiences. So if your label is prescriptive, rather than descriptive, and you are weaponizing that against other same-sex or same-gender attracted people, I don't trust you.

(Not you specifically, harringtn, just the general 'you'.)

I also often see trans people say "if you won't date a trans person who identifies with the gender you're attracted to, you're a transphobe" and that never sits right with me either. Recently, this has been changing a bit, but a while back when I was looking in all the wrong places, I saw this constantly, and it definitely pushed me into TERFdom.

There's a middle ground there, and I think it's this; it is entirely okay and understandable to be repulsed by a certain set of genitals, especially if one is a victim of sexual assault or abuse. I think it's important to identify the reason for that preference or repulsion, doubly so if it's a result of trauma so that one can heal from the traumatic event/s, but it doesn't necessarily have to be changed.

When trans people say 'examine your genital preference' I tend to agree with the sentiment but not the wording. The wording tends to sound like 'check your privilege' which is just... not applicable. The ability to choose who one engages with sexually is not a privilege, it's a fundamental human right. If the reasoning behind it is bigoted, then the bigotry needs to be addressed, but there is more often than not no bigotry present. I've met plenty of lesbians who were penis-repulsed and fully trans-positive.

So my tl;dr on that is I think very few people approach it from the right angle and there's a lovely gray area between trans folks' approach and TERFs' approach.

Anyway, I hope that answers your questions, this is super long now I'm sorry ;-; Feel free to send another ask if you have more!

[dragynkeep]

IronPines: *criticizes the inappropriate actions of four RT employees*

Your homophobic Anon: *conveniently ignores the three men you mentioned and downplays their inappropriate conduct as "talking to friends" while simultaneously reducing Kdin's entire personhood into nothing more than a label so that they can intentionally weaponize her against two trans people in an attempt to attack them and silence their voices and invalidate their justified grievances, all in defense of a show that's so homophobic that only around 1% of the cast is confirmed as LGBTQ+ and exactly 0% of the cast have ever had an explicitly romantic interaction with someone of the opposite sex*

Ye-up. Sounds about par for the course in the FNDM alright.

These people only pretend to care about LGBTQ+ rights as long as they can profit from them or weaponize them against their own community. If you start treating LGBTQ+ people as if they're ACTUALLY PEOPLE, which includes being allowed to call them out for their toxic or inappropriate conduct, the big guns come out. It's very obvious and honestly despicable.

And to IronPines' homophobic anon? Yeah, do better - and if you refuse to do better, at least shut the fuck up and walk away before you cause more harm than you already have. The only person attacking trans people right now is YOU, you just think you're clever by weaponizing another trans person to do it. If you actually had ANY respect for Kdin, you wouldn't be reducing her entire personhood to a label so you could attack trans people in her name without her permission behind her back. Congrats, clown. You're the problem here. Grow up and check yourself; your bigotry is REALLY showing.

i would love to know if the anon themselves are trans, or are in any way queer or if they're just moralizing on kdin's identity to whitewash her creepy & inappropriate actions.

but yeah, you hit the nail on the head. kdin is not being attacked because she's trans. she's being criticized because she centred herself over queer men & is violating parasocial boundaries by going into fan's private dms which is highly inappropriate. her identity does not protect her from this criticism & it is not only about her, because we have called out the three other cis men who followed the same pattern & were enabled by rooster teeth's environment & the fans ignoring the warning signs.