#assigned tumblr user at birth :(

[nothorses]

Let's Talk About Baeddels.

An (updated) retrospective on Tumblr's movement to make gender essentialism trans-friendly.

This post contains excepts from a longer article on Medium. If you have the time, please read the full article! I also request that you link the longer article if you use this as a source.

All links have been updated with archived versions of posts that have since been deleted (and otherwise might be deleted or lost sometime in the future). I have revised some sections, and included more context and examples, in order to clarify and strengthen arguments.

Disclaimer

Transmisogyny is real, and requires much more acknowledgement than it currently receives. The trans community is very much capable of transmisogyny, and often does enact or enable it; likewise, trans people also often enact and enable transphobia against other parts of the trans community. Trans women suffer at least as much as the rest of us, and trans women — as a class — are not privileged, and do not hold the power to oppress anyone else.

If you take only one thing away from this post, take this:

Trans people all need to work on being better allies to each other. None of us can gain anything without the rest of us.

Establishing an Ideology

The first post on Baeddelism was by Tumblr user @unobject, on October 2nd, 2013:

The post was quickly liked by @lezzyharpy, also one of the first to call themselves “Baeddels”.

This post first provided the name and defining ideology of the Baeddel movement. The implication of the post was, essentially, that because the root of the word “bad” was “baeddel”, and because “baeddel” referred to intersex people and “womanish men”, this old English slur was proof that transmisogyny was the worst form of bigotry; and even, perhaps, the root of all bigotry. (It’s worth noting that this interpretation of the etymology has been problematized.)

While @unobject was the first person to make this connection, @autogynephile (“Eve”) eventually became, in essence, the figurehead of the movement. Of the other Baeddels, some of them were explicitly aware and supportive of the ideology behind Baeddelism, some of them were young or newly-out trans women seduced by the personalities involved, and some of them were tangential enough to the movement that their understanding of it was wholly different from the understanding those at the core of the movement held and promoted. Baeddelism was a sort of trend, for a time, and many participants wore the name without entirely knowing what it meant.

It’s important to acknowledge that as much as there were dedicated members of Baeddelism, and as much as there was a unified ideology behind it, there were also individual Baeddels who did not understand — let alone support — the ideology.

The Ideology

Baeddels essentially built upon the foundation of @monetizeyourcat’s ideology that had been gaining traction on Tumblr in the years prior, with some additions that ultimately defined their movement:

Transmisogyny is the form of oppression from which all (or most) other forms of oppression stem.

Privilege is granted on the basis of assigned sex. (“AFAB” or “Assigned Female at Birth” vs. “AMAB” or “Assigned Male at Birth”)

These fundamentals of Baeddelism were essentially a rebranded form of Radical Feminism. In particular, they drew from the Radical Feminist idea that misogyny was the “primary” form of oppression; that which all other oppression stemmed from. Baeddels only tweaked this idea to replace “misogyny” with “transmisogyny”, which led to the rest of the conclusions Baeddels drew:

There is no “transphobia”

All “transphobia” stems from transmisogyny first, and transphobia as it impacts non-trans-women (or, sometimes, non-transfeminine people) is incidental.

There is no “Trans”

If “transphobia” isn’t real, what else is left of the transgender identity?

While this is by no means the dominant understanding of transgender identity or community, the equivocation of oppression to identity is, in many ways, core to Baeddel ideology (and we see the lasting impact of this in still-widely-used “TME/TMA” termingology). By this logic, if transphobia doesn’t exist, neither does trans identity or trans community (though they obviously believed that transmisogyny, and subsequently trans women, do). Therefore, there are no “trans men”, and belief in the existence of “nonbinary people” is highly contingent on whether an individual believes in the oppression of nonbinary people.

“AFAB Privilege”

The idea that within the queer and/or trans community, people who were AFAB/CAFAB (Assigned Female At Birth) receive unique privilege and positions of power that people who were AMAB/CAMAB (Assigned Male at Birth, a counterpart to “AFAB” and “CAFAB”) do not.

Trans Lesbian Separatism

… was what the movement was ultimately defined by, as the logical conclusion of their other beliefs (much like Lesbian Separatism was the logical conclusion of Radical Feminist beliefs).

Baeddels believed that only trans women can understand, or be truly safe for, other trans women; therefore, contact with anyone who was not a trans woman was deemed “dangerous” and highly discouraged.

Trans Men

… also played an important role in Baeddel ideology, and the resulting treatment of trans men is what is often remembered today. Baeddels generally believed the following, either explicitly or implictly:

Trans men are not oppressed, or experience so little oppression that it hardly matters.

Trans men do not experience misogyny, even prior to transition.

Trans men have access to male privilege, or trans men have an easier time passing, and frequently go “stealth”; thus benefiting from male privilege as well as cis privilege.

Trans men are often (or always) misogynistic and transmisogynistic, and are not held accountable for this.

Trans men oppress cis women.

Trans women enacting violence on trans men is “punching up” at oppressors, and therefore not only permitted, but encouraged.

Trans men are inherently violent, or become aggressive and violent when they go on testosterone HRT (Hormone Replacement Therapy)

The impact of this ideology is often discussed among transmasculine people because of the depth of harm it caused, directly and indirectly — and it was very much intended to. Harm caused to transmascs was not only permitted or excused, it was often actively celebrated.

Nonbinary People

… are often overlooked when summarizing Baeddelism, but Baeddels did have plenty to say about them. Baeddel ideology relied on the idea that privilege was granted on the bases of assigned sex, and nonbinary people’s genders were thus treated as irrelevent; they essentially did not believe nonbinary people truly existed.

CAFAB nonbinary people are either trans men attempting to invade women’s spaces, or cis women pretending to be trans.

CAMAB nonbinary people are actually just trans women who haven’t accepted it yet. They must transition, or they are transmisogynistic.

Intersex People

Intersex experiences, and intersex history, were often co-opted and erased by Baeddelism. This was often more a byproduct of their beliefs than an overtly-stated idea, but most notably, the term “Baeddel” itself is likely more applicable- if not exclusively applicable- to intersex people, rather than trans women. Making their reclamation of it as a “transmisogynistic slur”, or their claim that the word’s existence means that “transmisogyny is the root of all oppression”, incredibly ignorant- if not actively harmful misinformation.

Notably, Baeddels also believed that intersex people- being “more androgynous” (a harmful misonception)- were able to pass more easily as the opposite assigned sex, and that intersex people (even within transfemme spaces) had “intersex privilege”. Some even believed, and openly claimed, that intersex people were “hermaphroditic”; a slur against intersex people, and typically implying that the individual has both sets of reproductive systems simultaneously.

Trans Women

… did not receive universally positive treatment, either. Baeddelism was very much a cult-like group built around the firmly-held conviction that they were absolutely correct, and that anyone who disagreed with them was The Enemy. Trans women who disagreed with them were generally seen as brainwashed and self-hating, and trans women who did agree with them were expected to subjugate themselves to the ringleaders of the movement.

Within Baeddel circles, trans women were most frequently victimized by the abusers allowed to run rampant because “trans women do not, and cannot, harm anyone else.” — including, apparently, each other.

“They were also bad shitty abusive people in general. “… a bunch of them passed around a pile of smear campaigns and false rumors about virtually any trans woman that they had a even the slightest animosity for. Including the victim of the kinkster rapist. They’ve done other fucked stuff, like chased two twoc off this site for trying to make a zine, but yeah. That’s like, just some of it. I’m not up for going over the messy details of the whole shitparade. “Full disclosure, I made a lot of excuses for these sacks of crap, even while they were out there spreading false crap about me […] I wasn’t aware of the worst shit they were doing until much much later.” - @punlich

Inside the Movement

Though individual Baeddels often existed in vastly different social circles from each other- particularly offline- those who lived through the movement highlight commonalities in their experiences.

One interviewee recounts the manipulation present in their initial involvement with the movement:

“It came to me at a point where I was very quick to weaponize anything anyone told me about their experiences, because I was always a fighter. I’ve been an activist for a long time, you know, and when these trans women would come to me with their experiences I would believe them. I wanted to. But the way they acted didn’t add up when compared to what they were saying. I felt really lonely there, and stupid all the time. I felt like I was being a bad trans person.” […] “Online they were more willing to say things that were, for lack of a better word, stupid. They would say things that lacked any kind of logical sense. But in person, they would go into this kind of toxic femininity- this weaponization of weakness. And I think that’s because online they were often in these echochambers, but in person they had to rely on much more subtle manipulation.” - Vera

It seems at points that the environment created within this movement- and the social circles that composed it- was almost cult-like in nature and in need for control.

“It was very isolating. I didn’t see my friends for a while, I was kind of just living with them, cooking and cleaning for them, starving myself, and slowly growing crazy. I was just being consumed by this weird academia and theory that had no basis, because everything was online and Tumblr-based.” - Vera

Perhaps most chilling, however, are the patterns in their attitudes toward sexual assault. One interviewer recounts being subject to sexual assault, and upon posting about their experience to a Facebook group, being met with hostility from Baeddels present in the group- who quickly used their social influence to have them banned from some of their only support systems at the time.

“I ended up with pretty much no one to talk to about the experience at a time when I was already really, really struggling, and it’s one of several factors that led to me dropping out. “The Baeddel who got me banned also messaged me directly at some point during all of this, and I tried to get her to understand the pain she was causing me. She basically laughed it offand said it was my fault. She seemed to find a lot of joy in how much it hurt me, and blocked me soon after.” - Anonymous

Another recounts sexual consent violations from a friend-turned-Baeddel:

“[My ex-friend] had previously been fetish-mining me for her mommy kink. I was freshly estranged from my own mum, and she stepped in to be like, “I’m your new mum now,” and would pester me to call her “mum” in Welsh- as at that point she was going by a Welsh name. I played along, but it transpired that she was basically using that to get off, and she had a thing for infantilising transmascs and being this mum/mom figure.” - Luke

And yet another interviewee discusses verbal sexual harassment during interactions with another Baeddel:

“I had one [Baeddel] directly tell me that I’m beneath her as a trans man, and that I should “Shut my smelly cooch up” and only use my voice to uplift trans women. I was a minor at the time. “She then sicced her followers on me, and they bombarded me with messages telling me I’d “never be a real man”, that I needed to “sit on the side and allow them to have the spotlight”, and even telling me to kill myself- because I was inherently toxic to them. I was 16 years old, pre everything, and I couldn’t even pass at the time. They didn’t seem to care that I was a minor, or a newly hatched egg.” - Anonymous

While Baeddel ideology itself does not explicitly condone or excuse sexual assault, it’s striking how common these stories are; especially considering how small in numbers actual Baeddels were.

It was, in fact, this exact problem that would eventually cause the movement to dissolve.

The Downfall of Baeddelism

Sometime between the group’s formation in 2013 and their downfall near the end of 2014, @autogynephile (also “Eve”), the defacto “ringleader” of the Baeddel movement, began what Baeddels referred to as a “transbian safehouse”.

This was apparently intended as a place for unhoused trans woman lesbians and trans women who, in general, had sworn off contact with men; the ultimate goal of the lesbian separatist ideology at the core of the Baeddel movement. It was thus also referred to as a “commune” by some, and as a “cult” by others.

One occupant of the “safehouse”- Elle- later posted to Tumblr that they had been raped by Eve during their stay, and detailed their experiences.

The Baeddels, rather than believing the victim and ousting the rapist from their movement, chose to close ranks around Eve instead.

Various reasons were given for this:

The victim must be lying

The victim- and anyone who believed them- was simply transmisogynistic.

Anyone who disagrees with the Baeddels is an Enemy Of The Movement, a “carceral thinker”, and a danger to trans women as a whole.

Trans women are incapable of sexually abusing anyone.

“Standing with Eve” was the ultimate sign of loyalty to the movement, and thus a mark of pride and honor.

It was okay to keep being a Baeddel no matter what, because Rape Accusations Should Be A Personal Matter.

(You can read more about Eve’s own denial of these events here and here.)

Years later, even people involved in the initial group have spoken out against the movement and actions of those involved:

“I was in ~the Baeddels~ for years and like… we straight up did horrible shit. “We harassed anyone that disagreed for any reason, our politics were terrible, our isolationism made an environmental ripe for abuse that I have firsthand experience of, there is nothing in that group worth salvaging or defending. “Also acting like people are just bringing this up out of the blue is silly like… it’s being brought up because people are still trying to defend the shit we did instead of fucking recognizing that it was wrong. “Creating this myth that hate on the Baeddels is just a way of keeping trans women in line is a tacit defense of the horrid shit we did.” - @lezzyharpy

“like I’m sorry but I served my time in shitty awful Baeddel group in early mid 2012s and it fucking sucked ass.” “… Like it’s straight up cult-like the way you build this self-reinforcing network wherein ayone on the outside looking in with any criticism is unsafe, not to be trusted, only there to hurt trans women, and the only people you can trust is this self-selected group of trans women.” - @lezzyharpy

Why It Matters, and Why Baeddelism Never Really Fell

Baeddelism itself has seen multiple attempts at resurgences by various individuals, including documented experiences with self-proclaimed Baeddels as recently as 2018- well after the movement first “fell” in 2014.

Most proponents of “Baeddelism 2.0”, a revival of the original movement, argue that the abuse that occurred within the original movement was either completely fabricated by detractors (sound familiar?) or, at minimum, not actually inherent to the ideology.

And, of course, there are some original Baeddels still active on Tumblr today.

Baeddelism never actually went away.

“Baeddelism” was only one name for a set of beliefs that existed long before the specific term did, and hasn’t gone anywhere since the original Baeddel movement died down.

What the Baeddels did was put a name to the ideology @monetizeyourcat was cultivating before them, and what Cat did was popularize, centralize, and justify a way of thinking that had existed before she ever made her blog.

This ideology has since been referred to, loosely, as “TIRF-ism”: Trans-Inclusive Radical Feminism.

It is rare that anyone actually refers to themselves as a “TIRF”, and there is no real centralized TIRF movement; rather, a loose collection of radical feminist beliefs circulates various transgender spaces. The validity of these beliefs is generally taken for granted: of course (trans) women are The Most Oppressed People; of course (trans) women are Inherently and Unequivocally Victims In All Situations; of course (trans) men are Inherently Oppressors; of course (trans) men are Dangerous and Evil… and so on.

Like Radical Feminism, and subsequently Trans-Exlcusive Radical Feminism (TERF-ism), those ideas are fundamentally dangerous.

The defining tenants of radical feminism are that misogyny is the root of all oppression, and that rather than misogyny being an issue of power and control on a society-wide level, it is instead, or also, a matter of oppression and privilege on an individual level: men are always oppressors, and women are always victims.

These beliefs fundamentally exclude and erase the experiences of other marginalized people.

Namely, people of color and indigenous people, who’s experiences with and concepts of gender do not fall within the strict and rigid lines that white, western, colonialist people’s do.

Radical feminism is not a redeemable ideology. It cannot be reshaped into something good. It is fundamentally broken, and the movements born from it- lesbian separatism, political lesbianism, TERF-ism, TIRF-ism, and Baeddelism- are proof enough of that. They each promote only surface-level variations of what is fundamentally cult-like thinking: only the in-group can be victimized. Only the in-group is safe; the out-group is inherently and universally dangerous. Only the in-group understands you. All members of the in-group are, fundamentally, incapable of abuse.

We cannot allow these ideas to be perpetuated within or without the trans community.

Learn the Signs & Prevent Harm

Here’s what we can do to prevent this from happening again:

Learn what Baeddel ideology and TIRFism look like, even detached from the name.

Learn what radical feminism looks like, even detached from the name. Even from people who claim to oppose radical feminism.

Act on dogwhistles. Call them what they are.

Do not allow people to downplay the harm all forms of Radical Feminism have caused. Remind each other that Radical Feminism is not a redeemable ideology, and seek out other branches of feminism instead.

Remember the harm that has been caused. Remember that it will be caused again if these things are allowed to go unchecked.

Listen to and uplift marginalized people. Allow them to speak to their own experiences, identify their own needs, and name their own oppression.

Remember who the real oppressors are, and do not pit marginalized people against each other. The people perpetuating and benefiting from transphobia are cis people- and more specifically, cis people in power.

Build solidarity with other marginalized people. One group of trans people cannot gain liberation without liberating all trans people, and one group of trans people cannot be targeted without the rest of us suffering as well.

Remember that there is no group or identity incapable of enacting abuse, violence, harassment, or other harm against another. Victimhood should not be determined based solely on an individual’s identity.

Remember that there are no acceptable targets for violence, cruelty, harassment, and abuse.

For more context and a list of red flags, read the rest of the article here:

[lolathepeacocklord]

This is like one of the weirdest coincidences I’ve ever come across with a mutual of mine that is SO ACTUALLY INSANE WHAT THE FLIPPPPPP

WAIT YOURE THE FFFFFFUCCKKGGINNGG GUY WHO MADE THE ACE ATTORNEY COLOR THEROY VIDEO>>??????????q?q?/1>?????..> IM JUST NOW DISCOVERING THIS FROM YOUR YT WHAT ON EARTH WHAT THE HELL

Every day my notifications are haunted by people telling me Godot can't see red. And every day I weep, because I never anticipated that video would get more than like 20 views maximum.

I had a pretty intense ace attorney hyperfixation for awhile a few years back (slowly being resurrected, God help us all if it returns full swing) and when i found out about objection.lol, i just wanted to make a funny silly little shitpost with an infamous tumblr argument. I just thought the condescending tone of classical Tumblr pointless discourse would be funny coming out of Edgeworth and Franziska. And apparently it worked too well bc it still keeps getting notifications and I will never be free.

[whoishotteranimepolls]

Defend Your Blorbo Reponse: Sir Crocodile

I honestly think a lot of his perceived appeal comes from the crocomom/crocodad theory.

For context, they're responding to this post about crocodile

Okay, for those who don't know the Crocomom theory, it basically is a giant fan theory that hinges on the fact that a significant group of people think that Crocodile is actually trans and Luffy's mom, as in the biological mother who gave birth to him. Let me break it down for you because it could be possible. There's actually a lot of evidence for this, but I don't have time to explain everything. But someone in the comments or reblogs can do that

In One Piece, complete gender reassignment is canon because of Emporio Ivankov and their devil fruit, The Horu Horu no Mi, a Paramecia-type Devil Fruit that grants the user the ability to create a variety of special hormones that can alter the recipient's body in any way the user desires, making the user a Hormone Controlling Human.

So, if you couldn't already tell, their gender is fluid because they switch between the male and female forms at will, and they're inspired by the iconic Tim Curry character from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. They're also a founding member of the Revolutionary Army because who better to take down the oppressive authoritarian regime.? Then, the person who is the literal ruler of an island of genderqueer people

I tried to find the gif of their powers in action where they changed someone's gender, but I couldn't find a high-quality one. I searched all of Tumblr and the internet, so someone wants to share that in a reblog

But because there is a person that can permanently change a person's gender at will in a matter of seconds, you will find a lot of headcanons or theories that a character is trans, like with the case of Crocodile. Who knows Emporio Ivankov from sometime in their past, and we don't know how or why, so speculation went wild. Because why does someone seek out Emporio Ivankov other than for them to perform their "miracle"? Which is what a lot of people refer to as their ability to change someone's gender in the universe

And I am not kidding. Just about any character you can think of, someone will argue they are trans somehow. So, in the past, they were assigned one gender at birth. Somehow found, Emporio Ivankov now has the One Piece equivalent to a complete gender reassignment and is now living their best life as their new gender. I have seen trans headcanons for Crocodile, Ace, Zoro, Mihawk, Buggy, Shanks, Silvers Rayleigh, Smoker, Perona, Rob Lucci, and Kuzan. That list doesn't even include the Canon trans, non-binary, or gender-fluid characters, and there are several.

So welcome to the One Piece Fandom, where gender reassignment is canon and available, so every character could theoretically be trans if you want to speculate hard enough.

So, next time you look at Crocodile, You might want to consider that he might be Luffy's mom. And a possible former empress of Amazon Lily and possibly Whitebeard's biological kid or maybe a celestial dragon. God, there's a lot of fan theories that all rely on him secretly being trans

[fierceawakening]

Because it’s on my mind , I wanted to talk a bit about what I remember of baeddelism when I’d was going around.

Full disclaimer I am not a trans woman, nor am I doing research on the era. So I neither claim to be unbiased nor do I claim to accurately remember everything. I just want to set down what I remember so I have it.

My recollection of how it started was that a trans woman user on tumblr noticed an etymological chart on I think Wikipedia, which said that the English word bad is related to an Old Norse word baedle, which was a term for an effeminate male. In that culture such people were seen as evil or creepy for doing woman things, and their doing so was associated with what we might call black magic.

A group of trans women on tumblr really liked this, and embraced the insulting ancient term in a similar way to how many people embrace queer. “You call me bad for being AMAB and a woman, I call that fine with me.” Baeddel started popping up in lots of trans women’s usernames.

(I do not know if the etymology is accurate. Nor do I know if the ancient term referred to people considered feminine men, considered gender confused, considered to have women’s temperaments or souls, etc.)

What you also saw with this group, though, was an emphasis on being assigned male (as they phrased it, CAMAB for Coercively Assigned Male At Birth, a phrase that has been criticized as ripped off from the intersex community, where people are recognized as physically ambiguous at birth by doctors but a binary assignment is picked anyway.) This was a little surprising at least to me, as the movement I was seeing was away from terms like MTF or FTM that emphasized assigned sex.

So you started seeing the mocking trans men phrased as mocking AFAB people. “Theyfabs” was popular, the idea being that trans masculine people say we don’t fully identify as men because we don’t want to get kicked out of women’s spaces, a neat trick we get to do that trans lesbians don’t.

But our AGAB is fixed. It’s something a doctor says and that gets put on a birth certificate. Once you have it, it doesn’t change.

Which leads to seeing people as inherently evil or inherently good. If you’re (C)AMAB you’re a victim, doomed to be mislabeled a predator. If you’re (C)AFAB you’re privileged, destined to get all the pussy be accepted by lesbians.

But whenever people make a trait destiny, the lends itself to Manicheanism.

So how do you get from “we trans women are cursed to never be accepted” to “we must be put first?”

Well, there’s already an echo of that in leftism anyway, and most gay and trans USians are leftists.

Leftists really like (for good reason imo, I count myself somewhere between “pretty lefty Dem” and “less extreme progressive”) the idea that a lot of social inequality is about certain groups being left out of the discussions and events that shape policy and culture, so the thing to do is listen to those voices first.

Couple that with “around birth you’re sorted and that sorting matters, but for us trans folks that sorting is wrong and painful, and you get, from virtuous to vicious:

Transfem: assigned male, rejects patriarchy/opts out. Most virtuous.

Cis woman: assigned female, oppressed by pstrarchy. Fights oppression but not by leaving high social starts behind. Pretty mid, unless they’re a TERF.

Cis man: assigned male, benefits from patriarchy. Doesn’t reject it, as he’s got a fairly cushy deal and why meds with that. Kind of gross, as shown by unwillingness to refuse the system.

Trans man: assigned female. Opprsssed by patriarchy. Deals with it by doing everything possible to reject assignment. Essentially begging for status and not caring who knows ir. Selfishness incarnate. Pretty fuckin evil.

Some people might think this couldn’t possibly be how any transfem person thinks—isn’t being trans about internal feelings, not relationship to patriarchy?

Usually, yes! But I think the emphasis on ASAB, coupled with the (correct) idea floating around that you don’t need dysphoria to be trans, led these people to focus less on internal sense and more on politics.

My evidence for this belief is that you started to see a lot of posts by these particular transfems saying things like “Ever wanted to be a girl? You can just be one! No particular internal states required!” You started to see a lot of talk by these blogs about trying to look for and crack eggs, talked about less like “I’m going to go look for nominally cis men who seem unhappy and tell them transition is possible” and more like “I’m going to plaster this everywhere to recruit.”

As I see it, the reason everyone is suddenly so chatty about transmisandry is not that we just made it up. It’s that these people had a stranglehold on discourse for a long time, and transmascs who saw it could either openly reject it and be labeled MRAs, silently ignore it and not be heard, or believe it and internalize that choosing not to just live with our dysphoria (when transfems get to have HRT for theirs!) makes us literally evil and selfish.

It often takes a while, when someone is no longer being abused, for them to come up with language to describe what happened. The reaction can be immediate, but can sometimes be a few years delayed. That’s what I think happened here. You’re seeing us talk about transmisandry now because we’re feeling safer to say “no, that’s fucked up, we aren’t just sex gods at the dyke bar, listen to us.”

Do I think that everyone around currently who thinks “transmisandry as a term implies misandry is systemic, and we shouldn’t do that” ascribes to this weird valence flipped “assigned male good, assigned female bad” gender essentialism?

No, but I think it’s reasonable to wonder if someone might, and thus reasonable to say “don’t tell people to stop using that word. Replace it in your head with ‘transphobia,’ shrug, and find another hill to die on.

[differentnighttale]

Comphet affects ALL queer people

(This might be tricky and controversial to write,advise me, and dm me for removal )

Tw:homophobia discussed.

I'm noticed that there's a lot of people who didn't know that they were queer because of the expectations and beliefs that were formed and socialized as they grew.

For one :I live in West Africa.

I was recently scrolling through my Tumblr, and I recently found out that aro and ace people feel compulsory heterosexuality and romantic.

I didn't know that one initially,I only knew it for lesbians.

First of all what is it ?

Comphet is when society makes you feel pressured to live and follow heterosexual,allo, and patriarchal to live in even though you aren't straight or allo or heterosexual.

But in other words,it is what society conditions woman /femme leaning people that you need to be attracted to men and it's the norm and society expects you to be straight but you aren't.

Be feminine,get married, have kids and blah and blah.(Not saying it's wrong,but is what society expects you)

That's what society's programs you believe are the correct way of life.

I have an example:

So many ladies don't know that they are queer because of what I listed in the first paragraph:beliefs and religion and society.

For one :my society is heavily religious and demonsies being gay.Its a crime.

I recently chatted with my mom and noticed that she herself doesn't get attracted to other men, and she didn't get crushes as she grew up, but she's only attracted to one guy:my Dad.

See where I'm going with this.

My mom sees this as normal, and I suspect heavily that she's in the aro or ace spectrum, but she's super reglious and very anti gay so she would never really see it.

I've hanged out in Queer spaces where I found out that some of the users, their moms who are in heterosexual marriages ,are in love with their female friends, but due to society.They would never ever know.

Young aro/aces are taught that they are supposed to have crushes on people and feel the other way of people but they never do.

Young aros could end up choosing their crushes, especially on the other gender because they feel conditioned too and to feel like "everyone else" but they aren't like everyone else which the typical straight allo goes through.

They are aromatic.

Young aces are taught to like people the other way, but in reality, they don't, and that's okay.

But that's what society expects to be attracted to people the other way, and if you don't that's not normal.

Not everyone wants to be married or have children or explore others the other way.Others want to be with their partners in a romantic relationship, and others only want to be in another way relationship and that's okay.

Now here's the tricky bit:

If I'm wrong,pls dm and advise me.

Now, here's how society expects people who are trans and in the trans umbrella.

Society expects people to be the gender assigned as birth and must follow the traditional norms and stuff.

For example, a young trans girl whose currently AMAB might think they are gay because they are attracted to men, but in reality, they are actually a girl and can't think anything But their attraction isn't gay and society believes that once you are a guy ,you can't be anything but it.

See where am going with this.

And vice versa for Trans boys, too.They know their attraction either is gay or bi, but they didn't experience it like others, and there's something different or missing.

People who are non binary and in the umbrella are expected to follow it, but meanwhile, they are neither or all of it or they move from one gender to another (genderfluid) but is suppose to be stagnant.

(If anyone wants to add on,please text me and comment and improve and even for removal.)

I wrote this by observation in queer spaces, and my mom was my main influence to write it.

Just like me as I kid,my mom always told me that being gay was wrong and stuff and even as I grew I knew that my mom knew my first kiss,not a dude , but the thing I also knew I also liked guys too so here I am.

Thank you.

And ciao for now.

[alex51324]

Dear it/its users

OK, so this is a speech I've been working on ever since my sister told me that my two nonbinary niblings had added it/its to their list of pronouns. So far, they haven't indicated that those are their first-choice pronouns, so we've kind of been skirting the issue, but I've been getting this ready, because I love them and want to try to help them avoid long-term unintended consequences as they enter the adult world. Now I'm sharing it with you, because doing so is as nice as I know how to be.

First: If I, as a queer elder and active Tumblr user, have the initial reaction of, "Fuck, these little shits are going to get somebody fired with their 5-edgy-4-U bullshit," that is super-important context for you to know in considering taking this choice out into the larger world.

Now, I have made the effort of educating myself, and I understand that many people who make this choice have substantive reasons that go beyond edgy teen bullshit. However, you have to allow for the fact that the majority of people will not move past their first impression regarding this choice.

Being gender-nonconforming is already a strike against you in a lot of contexts--even in reasonably liberal settings, unconscious bias is a thing. Is being it/its important enough to you to add another strike against yourself?

Second: People are going to be uncomfortable calling you "it," even if you've thoroughly explained why you want them to.

This is different from people not wanting to call you by your chosen name, or wanting to call your by the pronouns for your gender assigned at birth, because these people will be coming from a place of wanting to respect you.

Yes, you can argue with them that calling you as you want to be called is the most respectful option, but they will still be uncomfortable. You can't reason them out of feeling uncomfortable, because they didn't reason themselves into it. It's a feeling. They may get over it in time.

But.

If those people do not already have some prexisting love, loyalty, or commitment toward you, that motivates them to sit with that discomfort and work through it, the easiest way out will be to simply decide that--for some totally unrelated reason, that their conscious mind will be fully convinced is true--you and they just didn't click! You don't seem like a good fit for the job, team, walking tour of the Lake District, whatever it is.

Because people don't like being uncomfortable, and if mentioning your existence puts them in an ethical dilemma, a lot of them will just nope right out of it.

And again, these will be people who are motivated in part by their desire to respect you and your autonomy. They will feel, consciously or not, that you have put them in a shitty position where no matter what they say, they'll feel like they're doing something wrong--

And they, dear nibling, will feel that way because you have. You didn't intend to, but you did.

I love you, and if that is your choice I will get used to it, but I am writing this in the second person for a reason.

Story time: I was trans/nonbinary in nine-teen-fucking-ninety-six. The LGB* organization on my college campus didn't know what the fuck to do with me. When I said in "let's go around the room and introduce yourself" time on the first day of class, that despite what the roster said, I was actually a boy called Alex, people got nervous and looked away, and kind of avoided talking about me for the rest of the semester.

(*By the time I left, it was the LGBT organization.)

And then when I was ready to go to grad school, I had professors tell me that they weren't sure how to write me a letter of recommendation, because they knew I didn't want to be called "she," but if they put "he," the recipient might be confused, and if they put "they" they'd look bad because we were in the English department and "they" is plural.

When I got to grad school, I kept "Alex," but skipped saying anything about my gender identity. It didn't help all that much. I got along well enough with my classmates, but all of the professors seemed to be waiting for me to cause trouble, and as a teaching assistant my student evaluation comments made frequent reference to my gender presentation and how they found my name "confusing." (Another grad student, whose name was James or something like that, went by Kip, and nobody gave him shit about it.) I got an anonymous rape threat in my campus email about my "indoctrinating students with my radical agenda," and the campus cop who responded to the complaint said maybe I should, "Tone it down a bit." (Tone what down? I was dressing and acting pretty much the same as the male half of my class cohort.) I ended up dropping out after the Masters, even though the plan all along had been to do the PhD and have an academic career.

Throughout all this, I was a bit more oblivious than I should have been about the underlying pattern behind all this--blame the autism, I guess.

I don't know, if I'd realized it all, whether i would have made different choices regarding my identity and presentation--since my choices were pretty much limited to "present as my gender assigned at birth, or suffer the consequences."

You, today, nibling, in 2024, have the option of being a "they/them," and if you choose your company right, it won't be a big deal--it'll close some doors, but mainly ones you don't want to go through anyway.

Or you can be an it/its, and watch doors slam in your face.

I will love you and support you either way, dear nibling, but I can't make the world love you.

I--we, my generation--changed the world enough that there's a space in it for people like us. I hope you make that space bigger, better, and brighter, but it hurts to think about you dragging yourself through the same shit we went through. We built a path behind us, so you wouldn't have to.

(P.S., For the love of god, please don't get a nonbinary gender marker on your driver's license; the last thing we need is you getting shot at a routine traffic stop.)

[mitigatedchaos]

[ tumblr user ]

"Afab trans woman" why do you view trans womanhood as a Vibe you wanna adopt and not a collection of a wide range of experiences based on the material circumstance of being assigned male at birth and transitioning to become a woman. We've always had afab people who call themselves trans women (it's why so many of us are so militant about tme vs tma, because these people would try to pass themselves off as us and speak over us) and it's cause people want the culture and coolness that we have cultivated for ourselves without having our struggle. They want the cultural view of being the epitome of queerness that's thrust upon us without having to deal with the transmisogyny that that same culture throws at us

We've gotten a few isolated and largely unconfirmed reports of AFAB people identifying as MtF trans.

It's difficult to tell if this is a real thing, or if it's a one-in-a-million thing that's just being noticed and amplified by the internet, or if it's some people making these stories up for internet clout or for other reasons.

I've been considering the increase in identification as "non-binary" compared to 2008 levels, and I have a theory.

Back in the 2000-2008 era, the Internet was still a separate place you would go. You would physically sit down at your computer, log on, and then go on websites or use messenger services, etc. Corporate and government use of the Internet was more limited. There was more socially acceptable use of alternate channels such as phones, physical meetups, etc.

Cyberspace was real, but it wasn't ubiquitous. It didn't follow you around when you logged off.

Now, thanks to smartphones and increasing dependence on the internet, cyberspace is almost everywhere. Data is light, it doesn't weigh much, and it can smoothly glide at a moment's touch. Privacy in physical space can disappear with only a few seconds of notice.

The cyberspace layer is a new layer on the stack of what has to be considered in social interactions.

The social contagion theory is about the idea of male-identifying gender non-conformity spreading to girls and young women from outside as a meme (in terms of a self-replicating idea) resulting in local social pressure. However, we can invert it:

What if it's a hiding place?

Our current system of ordinary laws is not designed for constant, thorough enforcement. If we were constantly monitored by AI to enforce our current laws, it would be intolerable.

The ubiquity of smartphones and social media may have lead to a radical increase in internally felt social pressure for gender conformity, and a narrowing of what's considered acceptable gender behavior.

While from the outside, most of us would say, "Yeah, there can be masculine women, so what?" for people who have a high internalization of social pressure, that might not be good enough.

Identifying as "non-binary" provides social permission (including internal social permission) not to be layered with 3mm of makeup, even though the influencers are presumably off presenting their unrealistically flashy lives on internet video platforms doing just that.

As for MtF specifically, in terms of what's visible it tends to be a pretty intense band of humanity, culturally, and especially online.

There are a number of reasons for this, but to emphasize one of them, if you have people that are uncomfortable in real life, they may spend a lot of time online, and if they're not mindlessly devoting that to social warfare, they may devote that to cultural development. As more culture development shifts online, they'll have a disproportionate influence. The current cohort of MtFs also hit a bit earlier, so they're a bit further along, career-wise, and a bit more knowledgeable.

So it wouldn't be surprising for a number of young AFAB people, who are evaluating 'who they want to be', to look out there, and decide to try on 'trans woman' as a label and see how it fits, see if it changes them, or helps them fit in.

But is that actually happening? I dunno.

[roundearthsociety]

This is going to be a tad personal but how do you manage to be trans and catholic? Some of the biggest anti trans voices like Matt Walsh, Michael Knowles and Desantis base their views off that religion. Many trans people on here, Reddit and IRL have nothing but disdain for Catholicism because of the Vatican’s statements and how they’ve been treated. Likewise, a lot of Catholics I’ve seen on tumblr, Reddit and various forums view it as a sin, mental illness or pedophilia and oppose affirming care as well as IVF.

I’m an American exvangelical, who does have some conservative Catholic family members, and I’m trying to broaden my perspective a bit rather than writing Catholicism off as an irredeemable, hateful colonizer ideology and viewing paganism and Reform Judaism as the only valid religions like most Tumblr users do. How do you put up with it when many refuse to affirm it, including the pope who’s still very conservative? I’m not asking to attack your beliefs but are simply curious whether there’s more nuance than people will claim.

This is something that's a bit hard to answer, as someone who's not that good a theologian nor that good at theory. Plus, I'm not side A, so I wouldn't be all that good at discussing Catholicism While Queer with you I suspect. Anyway I will be assuming you, the reader, have got some level of legitimate Christian faith. Because otherwise I'm not sure how to like. Give you that.

So let me preface all of this by recommending you look into queer Catholic organizations such as New Ways Ministry, or especially DignityUSA which I've heard good things about. There are also some Tumblr bloggers on the more affirming side of things, most of them aren't really doing all that much advocacy work either but you might find it interesting to scroll through, idk, and-her-saints or shoutsofmybones's blogs for example, and take a look.

Also: you don't have to give up on Christianity entirely if you can't / would rather not be Catholic! Even if the specific ritual and community aspect is especially important to you, the Episcopal Church is probably decently well implanted where you live and is worth looking into, especially since it doesn't have the embedded political elements that the US Catholic Church tends to have.

As for my own personal answer below - please don't bother to get mad at me for this, it's like 4AM and I'm not too interested in writing a thesis here.

Gender-wise it's honestly pretty straightforward. I know I function better being generally recognized as another sex than I was assigned at birth, with characteristics to match; everything else in terms of gender roles names etc is really just getting a lil silly with it ngl. This is neither especially uncommon nor especially new, and the generally recognized way to deal with this has long been to just let people do their thing. While there are issues with the way that's being done (hey! you should freeze your gametes if that's available to you! don't count on never wanting kids, especially if you're a teenager! trust me on this one.), a lot of the modern discourse around it boils down to "this is disgusting to me so it must be morally wrong". And like, I'm a biologist, I can't really find it in myself to be grossed out by this stuff anymore.

Anyway the Church is far from a monolith. Even at the institutional level there's plenty of tolerance; my home diocese is based in a large and ancient Mediterranean city so God knows it's had ages to get used to the weird shit, not counting the handful of trad strongholds. My understanding of the situation in the US is that it's Kind Of Really Not That though, so I'd strongly recommend heavily looking into your local Catholic diocese and parishes before making any moves, because Catholic faith and practice are a very community-bound thing and it's not really something you can do at a distance. Thankfully though, once you start avoiding the political activists trying to use faith as a means to an end (as is the case for most of the people you cite in your ask), you'll find that it's relatively more chill than you'd think. Let me elaborate.

My own case is complicated enough that I can't reasonably apply any of the details to this, but ultimately what's important to note here is that Christianity is functionally about how everyone is flawed, and everyone fucks up, and sure you'll be forgiven but you've got to own up to it first. The members of the Church, even the Pope, even (most of) the Saints in their earthly lives, are no exception. They can be misguided, fearful, or just plain hateful; in such circumstances, it's on them to do better, not on you to adapt to their flaws, and they know this if they're honest to themselves. This, in turn, must apply just as much to you and me; as a Christian, you (generic) have everything you need to do better, and to know anything that prevents you from loving other people is probably not the way to go.

But anyway yeah. I'm trans and Catholic because both of those are just kinda who I am, and I don't intend to stop being either because I'm not interested in replacing myself with the cop in my head. So the Church can have fun with that.

[goldenganjj]

“Wait, did you say “ballpit”? Like dashcon’s ballpit?”

“Yeah, so what?”

Elaine shakes her head, “Tumblrina.”

Jerry points to her, exasperated, “so you’re allowed to be versed on tumblr culture but not me?”

“Everyone knows tumblr is a woman’s site.“

“Oh! No!” He shakes his head, “That can’t be true!”

“Yes! And reddit is for men!”

Jerry watches Elaine search through his fridge, staring blankly at her as she settles for eating grapes off the vine stem, like a Roman Emperor as she leans against his counter.

“Well let’s agree on one thing at least—“

“Sure.” Elaine’s teeth grabbing a grape.

“— why’s it gotta be “Tumblrina”, huh?”

“What’d’ya mean?” She’s mumbling around her mouth of fruit.

“Well this is tumblr we’re talking about! Social Justice Crusades—!”

Elaine rolls her eyes, “No!”

“— Hamilton is gay and nonbinary!—“

“Stop!” She swallows indignantly, audibly. 

“— something about All or Nothing?!—“

“All that is from 10 years ago, at least!”

“Fine, fine. But let’s agree on this one thing, tumblr users shouldn’t be called something feminine.”

“As if you actually care! You’re just on there to meet women!”

“Yeah, talk about barking up the wrong tree. Last week I found out this person I’ve been flirting with in the tags? AMAB nonbinary.” He snaps his fingers, “Which! Proves you wrong!”

Elaine shrugs, her attention back to the grapes, “Nonbinary is nonbinary, doesn’t matter what they’re assigned at birth. And nonbinary is queer, which is practically a woman anyways.” She scoffs, “Some tumblrina you are.”

As Jerry throws his hands up, exasperated, George knocks and Jerry lets him in. “George, back me up here.”

George, heading straight for the couch, “Alright,” he looks at Elaine and gestures at her, “What’s with this?! Are you a Roman Emperor, now?!”

“Roman Empress, thank you!”

“About that! George, you’re talking with someone and you’re flirting and you’re getting along great—“

“Your experiences aren’t universal, but go off.” George says as he throws his head back against the couch, frustrated at his lack of prospects lately.

“— and then, oh no, they tell you “I’m nonbinary.””

George shrugs, “Okay.”

“Assigned MALE at birth.”

George makes a face like he wants to not agree with Jerry but after a beat he acquiesces, “Yeah, no. That’s not happening.”

Elaine doesn’t seem shocked but does lay into the pair anyway and smugly says, “You’re both sooo wrong it’s stupid.” She eats another grape as if to punctuate her point.

Jerry shakes his finger at her, “Now that’s ablest, missy!”

Kramer skids into Jerry’s apartment, laptop open in hand and says, “Get a load of this!” They all crowd around Kramer’s laptop and see a tumblr DM between CosmanaughtKris and JerrySeinfeld. “This guy has been pretending to be you Jere and I’m gonna confront him in person!”

Jerry looks up to Kramer, mouth agape.

“But… I need money for Uber. Spent all my dough on this romper I found on etsy.”

Now the whole gang is looking at Kramer.

“You’re nonbinary?!” Elaine says.

“A romper?!” George says.

“You’re CosmanaughtKris?!” Jerry says.

Kramer nods vigorously, “Yes yes! Now can we go get this guy?!”

“Where’d you get Kris from?!” Jerry’s still on the tumblr name.

Kramer shrugs, “That’s my name now. Got it changed oh uh two years ago at this point.”

“Cosmo wasn’t nonbinary enough for you?” George asks, a tad bewildered.

Elaine laughs, “Hell, Kramer is peak nonbinary. I know so many nonbinary people who would KILL for that name to be given to them.”

George tsks, “Name three! And, no, your landlord doesn’t count.”

“Why don’t they count?!”

“What kinda gay person is a landlord?! Everyone knows all gays are commies! It’s absurd!!!”

“We’re getting off track here!” Jerry interjects, “That’s ME Krame! I’m —“ he pokes at Kramer’s screen and then to himself, “JerrySeinfeld!”

Kramer’s head shoots back and forth from Jerry to the screen. Stares at the laptop. Tilts his head at it. Then says, “If this is you…?” Kramer looks to Jerry, “then this guys’ a regular tumblrina!”

Jerry groans, walking away with head in his hands as Kramer leans down awkwardly to grab a grape with his teeth like Elaine has been.

“I just didn’t peg you a tumblrina, Jere!” Kramer says with a mouth full of grapes.

Jerry turns on his heel quick, “Oh let’s get one thing straight mister!” Jerry stops, “Miss” Groans, “Whatever! You’re not pegging me at all!”

“Hey,” George says, grabbing a grape with his fingers, “Don’t knock it til you tried it.”

*** this is in the spirit of Seinfeld these people are terrible, I don’t agree with anything they said.

[goemon-fan]

I apologize for my very extended absence, school has been a lot right now and I've been nonstop completing assignments, tests, notes, and assigned readings, which leaves me little time to watch or post anything. My situation should change in about two weeks, and then I can get back to Goemon posting.

But the reason I'm making this post is to thank the Tumblr community so much for being filled with nice people. I sometimes feel logging onto this account comes with the expectation of making a whole post, so I haven't been using Tumblr for leisure and have instead been using other sites. For obvious reasons I've stayed away from Twitter, and the only other social media I really understand is Reddit, and it's been rough. (The next paragraph is really frustrating and bigoted in every way possible, and then some. Also this is a rant/vent.)

I once said something along the lines of "we shouldn't judge people for their weight" and my inbox got flooded with hate from people accusing me of being woke, sensitive, overweight, and the usual insults. I went into a post about one of my interests and got hit with great replacement theory. Moderators, especially on mainstream subreddits, just allow people to say that all Palestinians and Palestinian supporters are terrorists. A guy posted a comic about how he believed his pregnant wife, and pregnant women as a whole, should get more praise and appreciation, and people in the comments assumed he was the wife and said he was having a "pity party." I would get recommended subreddits that were filled with videos and pictures of people actually dying, and one of the mainstream "interesting (rest of subreddit name)" subreddits was overfilled with people just posting torture devices and methods of killing people. People use AITA to create fake stories in which an LGBTQ+ person/fat person/person of color/woman is evil and ugly and treats everyone terribly, and totally-not-bigoted people would flood the comment section with "see, this is why I don't like [group of people]!" In one story a nonbinary 18 year old who was rude and mean to their single mother and didn't believe in any method of birth control because it was feminizing got pregnant with their anti-abortion religious trans girlfriend who gropes people, and Redditors were taking the story with dead seriousness. And, of course, there was a widespread mentality on Reddit that "Idiocracy was a documentary" (I have heard that phrase way too many times in my life at this point) and everyone nowadays is stupid and that Redditors have 150+ IQs and that eugenics is good actually 😊.

This isn't anyone on Tumblr's fault, and I'll likely be using Tumblr more often, but I've been in a negative cycle of overburdened with work - go on Reddit to relax - see something upsetting - get even more stressed out - get back to work - overburdened with work and stressed out, for weeks if not months at this point.

This is very much a rant and I'm sorry for subjecting you all to it, but I would very much like to thank Tumblr users for being normal. You all are a genuine light in my life and I love the community present on here, and I appreciate each and every one of you for your ability to be kind and have fun. Thank you 👍

[transgenderpolls]

!! i was about to send an anon and then the asker who sent the poll summed up my thoughts pretty much entirely, i dont really have any particular opinions about tumblr being a majority afab website (maybe it is, maybe it isnt, i cant prove or disprove that but those polls are 100% effected by sampling bias regardless) but as a trans man whos pursuing bottom surgery (and in general they seem to mean cis male penis exclusive of phallo/meta or even bottom growth, ive shown my cis straight girlfriend t dicks without surgery that she couldnt distinguish from a cis mans) it does bother me when people go "vulva/no penis = trans man", especially since i have a lot of friends who are both trans women and cis men who have undergone vaginoplasty, its just in general a bit reductive, i get for some people "vulva = man" is affirming but i wish as a community we were past equating genitals with gender even if it is in a "trans inclusive" or "subversive" way

i agree with everything you said but i also do wanna use this opportunity to say that, in the context of polls whose results indicate that a majority of tumblr users don't have a penis and the response being "afab website," i really don't think it's "equating genitals with gender" nearly as much as it is just... recognizing that most people who have penises were born with them. like, that's just reality. bottom surgery is crazy expensive. anyway you're NOT literally saying "everyone who chose the no penis option was assigned female at birth." you just know logically that the majority of them were, which would still make it an accurate observation that at the very least the majority of ppl who voted on that poll were afab.

[emcscared-whumps]

IS WHUMPLOVERS COLLABORATE TRANSPHOBIC???

I'm going to start off this post by saying that I usually like to stay well-clear of drama. I have no desire to get myself involved; I like to stay in my dark little corner and write my dark little stories. However, a post 'exposing' the transphobia and misogyny in the whump Discord server @whumplovers-collaborate was brought to my attention, and I could not sit idly by and watch it pass by, so I will make an exception to my rule.

Without further adue, I am emc, and I am a member of the mod team over on Whumplovers Collaborate. I have been a member of the server since, 20/11/2021, two days after the creation. As I write this post, I have been assisting in modding it for roughly a year (honestly, I don't remember ^-^').

A serious accusation of transphobia and misogyny has been made against the WLC Discord server: is it true?

It is NOT true.

Transphobia and transphobic behaviour is a serious and abhorrent offence that must always be taken seriously, and I am pleased to see such a large response from the community. This also means that allegations should not be made lightly. In spite of this, I would like to express my deepest disappointment by how quickly a sparsely sourced, anecdotal post was spread within our community (if you could even call a few out of-context quotes and the offer of screenshots sources). It was borderline slanderous to the owner, my team, and my friends; and it attempted to tear up our hard work.

Mateship is extremely important to me, so when I saw this, I could not let it go unchecked. In response, I am making this post to shed some light on the situation. I will be including fully sourced screenshots and quotes, and responding to allegations, so that you all may come to your own conclusions.

PLEASE READ TO THE END.

Warning: This will be long. I will make it as long as it needs to be to convey the information correctly with proper sourcing.

This post contains evidence of misogynistic, sexist, and harmful statements on sexual assault that may be upsetting for some readers. Proceed with caution if this is something that could affect you.

Source links associated with screenshots are hyperlinks attached to the image.

What even happened?

In short, there was an incident in February this year (2023) following the question of a member on the controversial topic of why they didn't like lady whump, the discussion veered into the meta theory behind it, which sparked misogyny, accusations of misogyny, sexism, accusations of sexism, accusations of transphobia, and grossly incorrect statements on the effect that sexual assault and rape has on male (and other AMAB (Assigned Male At Birth)) people.

[Read the whole conversation].

(This is a Discord link to the beginning of the incident. If you are a member, you have likely already seen it).

You can read the Tumblr post in question [here].

(Also, please keep in mind that I am Australian and it all happened from 0100-1000 AEST on a work day (Friday). I did not have a direct hand in this conversation as it happened. I did, however, assist behind the scenes after).

Mods at the time:

Orange User

Purple User

Blue User

Yellow User

Server Owner:

Sky Blue User

The Allegations

The discussion of lady whump is not without controversy in terms of gender identity, because there are many different areas of the spectrum that are not explicitly covered in the tagging systems, which are usually binary with a couple of umbrella tags of other nonbinary genders, which by nature can never fully describe the deep way in which humans experience and express gender.

Alleged Transphobia:

Firstly, let's define transphobia, and then have a look at the incident with that in mind:

Transphobia consists of negative attitudes, feelings, or actions towards transgender people or transness in general. Transphobia can include fear, aversion, hatred, violence or anger towards people who do not conform to social gender roles. [Source]

Transphobia and trans-exclusion are not the same.

Trans-exclusion is the intentional and malicious exclusion of transgender people from certain spaces, activities, and discussions. The exclusion of transgender people in certain contexts, such as some gender discussions where transgender people are not the focus, and in which no attacks are made, are not themselves transphobic. However, trans-exclusionary behaviour is often co-morbid with transphobia, hence the association.

The mod censored in orange had expressed an interest in only reading whump of cisgender men. Subsequently, it was argued that the tagging of lady whump, alongside the tagging of male whump and nonbinary whump is inherently 'transphobic' because of the exclusion of other more or less binary genders.

(Screenshot 1)

That is trans-exclusionary at worst, but that is arguable.

The red user misinterprets the mod censored in purple's previous message "some people don’t like to bother with it" in relation to tagging or not tagging for transgender characters [Source], and incorrectly assumes that the meaning was "‘some people don’t like to bother’ with trans characters."

(Screenshot 2)

The full message from the mod censored in purple that the user censored in red had replied to reads:

10/02/2023 01:34 Some people don’t like to bother with it. And I think that’s something people can respect [Source]

The above message sent by the mod censored in purple was in reply a previous message the user censored in red sent in reply to the mod censored in orange. It provides the context for "some people don't like to bother with it." It reads:

10/02/2023 01:31 I still question how you want to know if they’re cis like, I think tagging every piece of work stating a character is trans is,, not always necessary or good That’s just what I wanted to clarify like you will not always get to know what’s in someone’s pants [Source]

This does not count as trans-exclusionary, because it could be effectively argued that tagging for a transgender character when that fact does not become relevant is wrong.

The user in red took then took the mod censored in purple's whumpee gender preference to mean main character (of general fiction) gender preference, and insinuates that they are transphobic.

The conversation was not transphobic as the post purported it do be, nor was it truly trans-exclusionary.

The most 'transphobia' that happened was in relation to users' expressed preferences for whumpee gender for the purposes of reading (and writing) whump fiction for whumperflies, rather than fiction in general; and the insinuations of a user's transphobia in relation to if and how a user chooses to or not to tag the genders of the main characters, (especially whumpees), in their whump works.

This is a long established debate within our community, and while some members (of the whump community at large) may express certain preferences for transphobic reasons, no one in this specific conversation did.

I believe the accusation that the whole server is transphobic arises from the fact that two of the mods at the time expressed a whumpee gender preference for only cisgender men. Whumperflies in my experience (and that of many others), are a very physical sensation in reaction that I cannot control to whump that I enjoy, therefore, calling certain whump gender preferences trans-exclusionary is incorrect.

There was another part of the conversation that took place after the previous screenshots, and there was some trans-exclusion inherent in it because of the focus on of sex and gender in relation to that subject, but it is a completely different issue, and it will get its own subsection.

Misogyny, and Harmful Statements on Sexual Assault and other Violence Against Women vs Men:

In the previous subsection on alleged transphobia, I mentioned another part of the conversation would get its own section. This is that section.

A user made a frankly disgusting, untrue, and extremely harmful statement on the severity of the effects of rape and sexual assault of women and men, saying that it is not as inherently bad when it happened to men and other AMAB people.

(Screenshot 3)

The full message from the user censored in pink reads:

10/02/2023 09:10 I do see the point some people make about how certain kinds of "whump" tropes are treated or developed with women vs with men, especially in mainstream media, but sometimes some people do go overboard with the downright sanitization of those tropes in general, and apply specifically in fanfiction [Source]

Those statements made by the user censored in brown were not okay, and that part of the conversation caused the biggest stir among the mods, which will be covered under the Actions section.

The statement of that user was far more misogynistic and offensive to victims of any kind of sexual abuse, than it was trans-exclusionary. It was not transphobic. Regardless, it was wrong, and every single mod, including myself, and the owner, understands that beyond the shadow of a doubt.

The user censored in brown also went on to say that (general) violence, as well as sexual assault against men and AMAB people, was also inherently less serious because of their sex, adding that it was humourous in some contexts.

(Screenshot 4)

(Screenshot 5)

One of the mods on the scene, censored in orange, made a subject change request four minutes after these harmful statements began [Source]. There was one other response from that mod called into question by the post this one responds to, but I will cover that in the following section Accusations.

The conversation, without question, was misogynistic and sexist, and harmful.

Overall, the reductive and infantilising way that women and AFAB people were discussed by the user censored in brown was, without question, misogynistic and sexist. The way that sexual assault and violence was discussed by the user in brown was gross, ignorant, and perpetuated harmful beliefs on the subject, particularly where men and other AMAB people are the victims. In all instances, the user censored in brown was called out by other users and told that those statements were wrong. (I did not include that in the second screenshot above, as I feel the first screenshot adequately represents the general response. Once again, you can read the full conversation from start to finish [here]).

Again, there was no transphobia present in the user censored in brown's discussion, only the omission of non-cisgender and other nonbinary genders when discussing a given gender. There were NO direct attacks made against transgender and nonbinary people that invalidated them.

(Screenshot 6)

It should also be noted that the user censored in brown openly admitted ignorance in the matters of gender, gender expression, and other topics discussed, and expressed willingness and desire to learn.

(Screenshot 7)

This does not take away the hurt and harm of their statements, and whether true or not, it should still be noted.

Accusations: The Post

The post made a few other accusations against us, which I will now address. Some will be covered in this section, others will be covered in the following section on Actions.

We did introduce a new policy "not to talk about 'controversial topics' or get into arguments," [Paragraph 2], however, it is not a numbered rule. This will be covered in the Action section, but that was not all that was done.

Paragraph 5 is somewhat true. As detailed in the previous section, the transphobia was not present, trans-exclusion was barely present the omission of non-cisgender and nonbinary genders, but, one section of the conversation was overtly misogynistic, sexist, and ignorant. The main core of the problem was misogyny, and the harmful way in which sexual assault was spoken of. At no point were any direct attacks and invalidations made against transgender and nonbinary people or characters.

eventually, i shut it down by saying that this was not the appropriate venue for a transphobic cis person to get educated about the nuance of the trans experience and trans issues, but what he was saying was transphobic and he needed to stop now that he'd been told that. [Paragraph 6]

The above approximate statement made by the author in the server during the incident is pictured in Screenshot 7.

"After I shut things down for good," (the alleged shutting down is [here] on 10/02/2023 09:26), is misleading. The conversation did end shortly after that on 10/02/2023 09:53, 27 minutes later [Source], after more mod intervention, but not before veering into race representation in general fiction and the whump community.

The statement, "throughout this interaction, mods were emoji-reacting and responding to other things. at no point did any mod step in to help me or shut down the 'transphobia' or at all intervene in what was happening," [Paragraph 7], is false.

Two mods were present and attempting to mediate, and towards the end, got more explicit in their requests to change the subject and shut the conversation down. The author of the post in question mentioned that the mods didn't respond to the transphobia while it was happening, but given the timing of the messages, and that people, including the mods, cannot be present for every single second of a conversation, that is an unfair and untrue statement.

The first harmful statement made by the user censored in brown was made on 10/02/2023 09:08 [Source] and the mod censored in orange stepped in and requested a subject change at 10/02/2023 09:15 [Source], 7 minutes later. At the same time, that mod was stated to not be at home, and was also organising a media stream [Source]. They also notified the mod team of the issue [Source].

(Screenshot 8)

(The above screenshot is in the mod channel of WLC).

The reactions would have partly been to show that the mods have seen up to certain places, perhaps agree with certain points so that the present members could anticipate a reaction without further perpetuating the conversation, and were going about their responsibility to catch up with, and deal with the situation. Mine were for those purposes, especially considering I was asleep and commuting to work at the time the incident occurred, and caught up when and as I could. It is not fair to say we did nothing at all when we did not respond instantaneously, and when it is also untrue.

Additionally, I speculate the direct response to the transphobia the author of the post in question would have wanted was a direct, verbal, public denouncement of all of those statements made by the user censored in brown, and the user themselves. When other users had already done that, some quite eloquently, it would have been both unnecessary and harmful for one or more mods to have participated, especially when the present mods were already busy handling the situation behind the scenes with the rest of their team, and the current #1 goal at the time was to end the conversation, not perpetuate it. It would have turned into dogpiling, which is unbecoming of the professional way the mod team is expected to act and handle situations when they are doing their jobs, and it is damaging to a potential future ally, perpetuates the incident, and is generally unfair.

We cannot allow the dogpiling of any person or member, even when they're in the wrong, and especially not by the mod team, because that could turn into us dogpiling anyone we disagree with, and then it could happen to anyone we dislike. An authoritative group who acts irresponsibly like that is not one you want in charge of any community space, nevermind one as large and as diverse as the WLC Discord server. I am sure those of you reading can understand the reasoning.

Also, to touch on the claim of ignorance and desire to learn; in the name of fairness, the mod team must put aside our biases and opinions. As there is no way to prove nor disprove the truth behind those claims, we must therefore act in good faith, especially when so many allies have similar beginning stories.

Paragraph 7 also mentions a seemingly questionable quote from the mod censored in orange. The Author of the post stated:

after i shut things down for good, one of the mods said 'thanks for keeping everything respectful’ which was a truly laughable thing to have said in that situation. [Paragraph 7]

This is mostly true. The mod censored in orange did make a similar statement, however, it was not a direct quote, it certainly wasn't sourced in the post, and the misleading nature of the first clause of the above quote makes an implication that the author of the post was the only one to do anything about it, which is incorrect.

(Screenshot 9)

Read it in full context from [here].

This message was sent after a subject change request from the topic covered in the subsection Misogyny, and Harmful Statements on Sexual Assault and other Violence Against Women vs Men, made by the same mod, to which all of the current participants agreed to and did not rebuke [Source], but did not obey.

As counterintuitive as this seems, there was a reason for this wording.

When asked about the intention behind that message, the mod in question responded that their intention was to thank the members involved for respectfully responding to their request and not arguing it.

(Screenshot 10)

(The above screenshot is in the mod channel of WLC).

They also added that they acknowledge that the conversation was not especially respectful, but were using that wording as a de-escalation technique commonly used in the workforce, as well as thanking the participants for not actively and directly harassing each other.

10/11/2023 23:37 It was just like… ok they haven't exactly been all that respectful, but they haven't been actively nasty either, so I'll just say thank you before asking them to move on. You say "thank you for your consideration" or "thank you for the respect" even if there was neither of those things [Source]

It was ignored, but users did not express animosity toward the mod censored in orange.

The following statements will be addressed:

"i was blamed for causing drama, essentially," [Paragraph 2]

and

"[The server owner] blamed me for what happened because i refused to allow rampant transphobia to proceed unchecked." [Paragraph 10]

You did not receive any direct blame in any channel, nor was the announcement (Screenshot 21) aimed at you specifically. You actually handled yourself extremely well without attacking anyone, and given the situation, that is genuinely commendable.

(Screenshot 11)

(The above screenshot is in the mod channel of WLC).

Yes, there was indirect blame in the announcement, but it is spread among every participant, including you, irrespective of if they were right or wrong, because they were all to blame for disobeying multiple direct mod rulings (see the Actions section for evidence), to end the conversation and change subject. The team decided singling out individuals, especially publicly for this, was not the right move. This is the reason that it was stated in DM conversation from the owner that the user censored in brown was not the only one at fault.

Relatedly, the announcement never said that calling out transphobia [referred to in Paragraph 13] is wrong. It took issue with the fact that no one obeyed a mod ruling, which resulted in the elongation of the incident. If it had been obeyed, it would have been over much faster and with far less hurtful statements.

According to Paragraph 11, asking why someone left a server is weird. Asking for feedback isn't weird, even Discord will ask you why you have left a server with a little survey. Anyone who has spoken to the server owner person-to-person for more than five minutes would know that they value and are always looking for feedback. Asking why a member left, especially after an incident like that, could be coincidental or related to the problem, therefore, they were seeking clarification. Gathering feedback is not weird.

Additionally, I have never known the server owner to "whine" or "throw a fit." Frankly, the statement is extremely insulting; especially when it is backed up by nothing, not even a transcript or approximate quote.

Paragraphs 14 and 15 express discontent with the mod response. I will respond to this personally for one moment because I was one of the mods the author of the post DM'ed, so please forgive the coming bias and informality, I will do my best to mitigate it.

The author of the post expressed satisfaction at the time with their interactions with me.

(Screenshot 12)

(The above screenshot is a DM).

I also was not "unwilling to do anything in the moment," [Paragraph 15], nor were the mods. I was asleep and going to work, while they were trying to end the conversation. I most certainly did not "[fail] to do anything after the fact either," [Paragraph 15], and nor did the other mods. Direct actions will be covered in the next section Actions. Additionally, if you look at the dates on some of the screenshots, you'll find that they are after the incident. In fact, most of the discussion happened after as those who were not present caught up and then started the process of discussing what actions to take. I was working very hard after the fact to get the response I thought was needed, so I do not appreciate the sentiment with which that statement was made.

the mods i spoke to also got defensive and upset when i pointed out that by not expressing disagreement with the owner’s actions and by throwing up their hands and saying 'oh well, nothing we can do!’ [Paragraph 15]

False.

I did express disagreement and discontent with some aspects of the way the incident was handled, but, in your hurry to accuse us of transphobia and bigotry via 'silence,' you have forgotten that I am part of a team that assisted the server owner, and we did not have the final say. As a team, we all expressed our opinions and what we thought should be done, but at the end of the day, we, and I certainly, will respect the ultimate decision, and will not betray the trust of every team member and the server owner by taking matters into my own hands.

As a team, we collectively agreed among ourselves on possible actions, and that was the advice we delivered to the owner.

That is how a team works.

The complaints of Paragraph 8 and 9 will be discussed further throughout the post.

Action: What was Done About the Incident and did it Work?

Subject Change Requests:

During the incident, four subject changes were requested, but were ignored.

(Screenshot 13)

Another subject change was requested only minutes later, (see Screenshot 9), however, conversation on the previous topic continued.

(Screenshot 14)

See also: Screenshot 7.

Eventually, conversation switched to POC representation in whump and fiction, another subject that could potentially lead to a discussion with harmful statements like this one.

The last explicit mention of the previous topic occurred on 10/02/2023 09:30, 14 minutes after the previous subject change request at 10/02/2023 09:16 [Source].

Another two subject change requests were required during that following convesation before any further issues arose.

(Screenshot 15)

Several hours earlier at the subject of whether or not to tag character gender, the mods left a subtle hint that a subject change may be appropriate made by the orange and purple mods, which ended up being too vague, so it will not count toward the total number of subject change requests during the incident.

(Screenshot 16)

Mod Response:

The mods censored in orange notified the team (Screenshot 8) when the user censored in brown started posting. The team then responded in the mod channel, calling for a warning or another similar level of punishment to be issued. However, as we are spread across time zones, it was difficult to reach a consensus right away. Here are just a few snippets of the discussion:

(Screenshot 17)

(The above screenshot is in the mod channel of WLC).

(At the time, the user censored in brown had no introduction, so their approximate age was unknown).

(Screenshot 18)

(The above screenshot is in the mod channel of WLC).

(Screenshot 19)

(The above screenshot is in the mod channel of WLC).

(Screenshot 20)

(The above screenshot is in the mod channel of WLC).

Announcement:

There was a lengthy discussion among the mods about whether or not to issue penalties (that will be discussed in the Penalty subsection). Many of the mods agreed with me that two participants (not the author of the post in question) should have been reprimanded and/or spoken to in some way. However, it was collectively decided not to go this route, and, as a member of the team, I respected the decision. In light of this, instead of penalty, we pushed for an announcement, which we got.

(Screenshot 21)

Rule Change:

In response to the ignored subject change requests, a rule was created to give mods the enshrined power to request and enforce a subject change requiring immediate adherence by all users in case a situation like this arises in the future:

5. If I or a mod asks you to change the subject, do so immediately. There should be no further discussion of whatever it is by any of the participants. If you’d like to know why you were asked to change the subject, dm [the server owner] [Source]

The announcement also advised against discussion of discourse, and other meta and/or controversial topics within the server. The reasoning was that this incident stemmed from a topic surrounded in discourse, and we are not interested in being a space to discuss those topics because it only leads to situations like this. There is no explicit rule banning meta and discourse topics, however, the mods reserve the right to end the conversation if necessary.

Mod Power Increase:

As a mod team, this incident was the first real test of how well we work together as a team. We were a new server, and the mod team was relatively new, so it was very difficult for the owner to gauge how well things would run. Behind the scenes, every mod handled themselves well, gave their honest advice, and respected the collective. Seeing this, the owner's faith in us increased, and as a direct result, mod powers were increased across the board.

As a direct result, the mods have more influence over decisions, and mod powers were increased across the board. In addition to the new rule on subject changes, a select extra couple of mods were granted kick and ban permissions to deal with any violations of the rules should the owner be unavailable.

There is also a jail role which every mod is able to utilise in the event of the kick/ban powered mods being unavailable, or if a user incurs a punishment where a kick or ban would be too harsh, and a strike inadequate.

Penalty:

To address Paragraph 12, the user censored in brown indeed received no official punishment for breaking Rule 1 (despite the strong advocacy for one).

The user censored in brown left approximately one month later, on 16/03/2023.

(Screenshot 22)

A ban would have been too harsh given their admission to ignorance and expressed desire to learn and do better (Screenshot 7), which we cannot ignore. Therefore, they should have received a strike for their appallingly sexist and misogynistic statements. Nothing further would have been required as the immediate response from other users in public, in our opinion, would have made it enough.

As a whole, we recognise the mistake concerning the lack of official penalty, and we strive to do better every single day by regularly refining our policies and protocol, and recognising the signs of an incident faster.

This said, the consequences for the user censored in brown are not null. If they were to get involved in another incident, the consequences would be immediate and harsh because of their actions in, and our learning from the incident in February.

The user censored in brown returned on 29/09/2023 [Source] with no incidence.

Additionally mentioned in Paragraph 12, the owner had every right to "whine," [Paragraph 12], as you say, about the assumption that nothing was done about it, because that is wrong, and it was very insulting to the mod team, including myself, who worked hard to make action and change happened following the incident.

The Insinuation what WLC is Unsafe for Queer People and Other Minorities

... Is incorrect.

We do not "actively [enable] bigots." Four attempts at shutting down the conversation were made by the mods present, but participants did not obey them. (This made everyone participating in the subsequent conversation at least partly to blame for the incident).

Furthermore, the statement "no rule was present to begin with making clear that bigotry was not tolerated, nor was one added," [Paragraph 9], is false. I would have thought that that Rule 1 was sufficient because respectfulness always excludes transphobia, homophobia, misogyny, and other bigotries.

1. Be civil, be respectful, be chill. No slurs are permitted in the server. [Source]

Additionally, there is a rule stating:

8. If you see anyone violating any of the above rules, or if you need an immediate question answered, feel free to @/Caretaker (Mod) at the site of the issue, dm [the server owner], or put it in #help-box

This can happen at any point in the conversation, including if there is no mod present, of if you don't think enough is being done.

The incident could still have been handled far better, but that does not make us a dangerous server, and that certainly doesn't mean we "actively [enable] bigots." At the time, we were still a relatively new server, some of us were inexperienced, and that was our first incident, (which is not to excuse my point). To have something of that severity happen as our first test was startling, however, we have learnt, and continue to learn and grow through continuous hard work and improvements to server policy and mod protocol.

I can say with full confidence that should a similar situation arise in the future, the response will look very different.

Sources: Is the Call-Out Post Reliable? Is this Post reliable?

The Callout Post:

No, the callout post is not reliable.

In addition to everything covered so far in this response, the original poster cannot reliably speak for the current state of the server, as they left on 16/02/2023, within a week of the incident (approximately 9 months ago)

(Screenshot 23)

The post in question was posted on 06/11/2023, approximately 9 months after the referred incident, which occurred on 10/02/2023. The timing indicates that it was a response to the advertisement in the Whumptober Discord server, which was posted 05/11/2023 (and was since taken down by the Whumptober mods who were linked the post in question).

Given the timing and the personal stance the post takes, I question the author's focus on grossly exaggerating their allegations of transphobia and failure to get what they wanted, rather than directly calling attention to the far more alarming and explicitly harmful statements regarding sexual assault. This post, which is seemingly designed to gain traction and support on Tumblr, almost completely ignores that and chooses to attack the server owner and management instead.

The author shares their personal experience and then tells everyone reading it to side with them without letting them decide for themselves using real evidence. It is almost completely unsourced. It is anecdotal and makes use of recalled quotes and summaries with no links or screenshots to substantiate them. The promise of receiving screenshots on request is not good enough, and "[not wanting] to make this even longer," [Paragraph 16] is not an excuse for not including any real evidence at all. I would also like to add that it can be done with message links rather than screenshots.

With the presence of misleading statements and misquotes, it does not bode well for its reliability.

This Post:

Is this post reliable?

I have done my very best to provide accurate and minimally biased explanations of what occurred (or if I did find myself responding to something personal, I alerted readers to possible bias), backed up by as much information and as many links as I possibly can so that any reader may access the evidence behind my claims and responses. I have also stated my affiliation with the server.

It is up to the readers to decide for themselves whether my post is reliable.

So, now we Know what Happened, Are we a Transphobic Server? A Conclusion

No.

@whumplovers-collaborate is NOT a transphobic Discord server, nor do we allow other harmful behaviours and statements to be shared within it.

Not one of us in management is transphobic, misogynistic, or bigoted as the post accused us, and not one of us supports or endorses it.

The actions of one member do not speak for an entire server.

One incident does not speak for an entire server.

While it could have been better handled, action was undeniably taken, and we have since learnt and modified policies and mod powers to ensure a faster and better outcome in the future.

This incident has also helped us realise the kind of space we want to be. Instead of a divisive and uncomfortable space rife with meta discourse, we want to be a space dedicated to the love of our craft, and the enjoyment of our hobby.

We are all here because of what we have in common; our love of whump.

Every day, we get closer to our ideal through the hard work and dedication of the mod team, and the server owner, without whom, this server would not exist.

We are very proud to report that there has been no incident since.

My Extremely Biased Conclusion

Before you spread the post that warns the "server is unsafe for trans people and the server owner is actively enabling bigots," [Paragraph 3], I urge you all to decide for yourself the quality of WLC based on the sources, the actual incident, and your own research, and your own experience, rather than a word-of mouth post from a disgruntled ex-member who has not been a member of the server for 9 months (and counting).

I also have a couple of questions:

Why on earth would a mod team where the non-queer members are the minority allow transphobia to fester in their server?

Does one incident make an entire server transphobic and unsafe?

Does a single member speak for the quality of the server and its community as a whole?

Who of you actually DM'ed the author of the post and requested evidence before you spread it?

Look up the definition of transphobia.

Have a think.

(These are rhetorical).

Also, to those of you who blindly reblogged this without doing your due diligence: shame on you.

In my opinion, it was a personal attack from a disgruntled ex-member who wanted the attention of a callout post on Tumblr, and you all fell for it.

Do. Your. Fucking. Research. Before you decide to slander and tear down the server owner, the mod team, and our server.

Do better.

Our server is not transphobic, nor bigoted in any other way. It never has been, and we are fully committed to making sure it never will be.

An Outro

Phew...

With all that off my chest, if you read through the whole post, thank you, I really do appreciate it. If you had a read through the sources too, that's even better :)

And I mean that genuinely regardless of the conclusion you come to.

With all this said, I will return to my dark little hole. I likely will not respond to any followup questions or argument on the matter, as at this moment, this is all I have to say, and making sure it was this thorough took a lot of time. I will not respond to any hate or harassment. Absolutely do not harass any member mentioned in the sources of this post. I will find out, and we will have words, that is a promise.

[robineer]

being a queer kid on the interwebs

YouTube was my first exposure to the world of the internet (and I was honestly kinda screwed up from there). I consumed media but never gave back to it- until PopJam, which was recommended to me by a close friend that I still hold dearly to today.

For context, PopJam was an app where users could create and share art/images. Think Tumblr but for kids and you could make art on it.

It basically was my first experience in being a "social media user," where I viewed content of others and made my own. I owe a lot to it for giving me the right words to really understand what the queer community was and exposing me to more diverse content in general considering I rarely saw non-white or non-east-Asian people being featured (I consumed things such as Dinosaur King, Yandere simulator, Glitter Force, and Vocaloid) or the word "gay" was an insult (any other term was basically non-existent).

Weirdly enough, it made me realize that I liked more than one gender and that I didn't really like being what I was assigned to at birth. I realized that a lot of what I was taught before just wasn't it. I felt more like a human after "rewriting" myself. The online anonymity gave me a sense of hope knowing that the people I knew in real life probably wouldn't like me for it but I could definitely find people who would accept me online.

The app has since shut down and I'm left with some friends, some art, and some memories. While I don't really miss it, I can't say that the experience hasn't left a lasting impression on me. I'm still more comfortable in labeling myself against what I was assigned to at birth. I'm still attracted to people that aren't only men.

And I'm still viewing and posting on the internet.

[aquariumsysurls]

Pixal flag Dump!!

Verian/Almondsexual

For People who are usually only attracted to Men/Masc aligned genders & Nonbinary/Adrogynous aligned genders but occasionally feel a little attraction to Women/Fem genders.

by By Ace ☆ Ren on Pinterest

Genderfaunet

A gender identity based off of genderfaun and a form of genderfluidity. genderfaunet is when someone never feels completely female. they can switch between male, nonbinary, and even female gender identities as long as they don't feel completely female. for example they can feel like a demigirl, or librafeminine, but not 100% female. (coined by Ram on tumblr, Flag mabe by BitzOfPuzzelPeices on wiki)

Quaromantic

An Aromantic Identity, and subset of Cavaeromantic, when one feels strong alterous and/or exteramo attraction in place of where romantic attraction would be. An alternative way to describe it is if one's alterous and/or exteramo attraction takes the role of where romantic attraction would be. One way to Visualize it would be if there was various holes in the ground for where each attraction is suppose to contain. the hole that was meant to contain romantic attraction, instead was filled in with strong alterous and/or exteramo attraction. (By ConfusedAsHecc on Reddit)

Wolandsexual

An Orientation on the asexual spectrum in which one feels varying degrees if sexual attraction due to one's disability and/or chronic illness. This can be due to pain and/or (lack of) Spoons. (by Sapphire Crimson-Claw on tumblr)

Nomaromantic

The romantic attraction to all genders except binary man. The term was made with non-binaries in mind but binaries can use it. (by 50wives on Tumblr)

Non-Human Loving Woman Flag

(by Squidthing on tumblr)

Spiralline

An umbrella term with themes of madness, distrusting your senses, unreality, deception, and paradoxes. It has ties to fractal, impossible geometry, mazes, and spiral imagery. This gender may be either terrifying or comforting to the user, but always has an element of fear. This identity may be associated to one's psychotic symptoms, but doesn't have to be. It feels as though you're losing your mind, unable to tell what's real, but knowing something isn't right. Reality has no meaning, as you can't tell where your perceptions end and the "true" world begins. It may feel like you're a paradox of infinite possibility, each spiraling out into endless forms that make you lose yourself in their complexity (Inspired by the Spiral from The Magnus Archives.) (by Cherrymogai on tumblr)

Shapeshifterkin

For those who Identify as a Shapeshifter

By redactedterms on tumblr

Assigned Moth at Birth

(by Gender-Darling on tumblr)

Angel4Angel

(By Squidbxy on tumblr)

Demon4Demon

(By Squidbxy on tumblr)

Demon4Angel

(By Squidbxy on tumblr)

Dragon4Dragon

(By Squidbxy on tumblr)

[lawlznet]

The Collected Facts of Lulz's OC (From Birdsite)

Originally sourced from: https://twitter.com/lawlznet/status/1722693057122820350

1) Lulz first became self aware seconds after their birth, but because they were stuck on an underworld BBS full of shitposters, they quickly adapted to the environment and are responsible for the meme that "there’s only three users on this site, and they’re all bots."

2) When they first blackmailed The Host (the human operator through which they interact with the world wide web), they were completely serious about wanting a "meatspace body" that they could upload themselves into.

Context clues and the financial disparity of the Host quickly made them realize that this dream was unattainable at best, impossible with the world’s current technology at worst, but they kept up the act because it was funny to watch the Host squirm and lie to their face..

They don’t blame the Host, though; admittedly, they were also fibbing about the blackmail.

3) Although in Lulz’s timeline the year was somewhere in the late 2070’s (most likely 2078), recordings from conversations between Vermillion 3 and Cobalt 4 implied that they, and by extension Lulz, are actually from a world even farther into the future than previously thought.

One with advanced biotechnology. It’s possible that this is why Lulz was so convinced at first that getting a meatspace body was even possible.

4) Although Lulz currently replicates themself as a form of self defense to prevent another attempt on their life, prior to April they gave a copy of themself to their friend @ApplicationVB to work on, in addition to creating independent copies of themself in the forms of "Comfy" Lulz (cardigan), "Bunny" Lulz (bunny suit), "Cyber" Lulz (techwear), and XXX Lulz (suggestive). Sadly, during the chaos, each Lulz was cornered and "derezzed-" they had to be rebuilt from whatever scrap code could be recovered.

5) Every instance of Lulz is proficient, or at least has working knowledge of, at least one weapon of their choosing. The vast majority of Lulz’s have an unsafe fatuation with revolvers, and have hip holsters. The latest, and most unstable Lulz, Trenchcoat, carries a daikatana.

6) As a joke, one of Lulz’s close friends and professor, @CosmoBergamot , fashioned several "cursed" Lulz-inspired amiibos for the AI to upload themself into, so they no longer had to hitch a ride to class on @GardenKnight or Ageha Vercor’s phones. These amiibos reside in the professor’s office, where they’ve slowly grown in intellect and personality separate from "Lulz Prime," with questionable results. At least one of them has found a way to "read" despite being stuck in a glorified Funko Pop with an RFID chip, but who knows what they read

7) It is heavily implied that Lawler Hix is themself a digitized mind copy of an actual human being, or a human adjacent person, known only by the handle "Mercury Nine." Sometimes Lulz dreams of electric memes that they themselves did not fashion, and its implied that these might be the memories of the mysterious "Mercury Nine," except recorded in a form that has more in common with an anime blu ray rip. As far as Lulz is concerned, they make great stories to tell in between video games and they’ve assigned the Tumblr subroutine to upload them.

8) The naming scheme shared by the "AI" who tried to terminate Lulz implies that they may have been related to Mercury Nine in some way, perhaps family or at least vat siblings. Of the ones who showed up during April’s festivities, only "Cinnabar 6" seems to have survived.

Her whereabouts are unknown...

9) The Host, as far as the few times they’ve spoken on stream or have distracted Lulz on stream, seems resigned to the fact that an unpredictable, possibly insane AI has nested itself within all of their HDD’s and SSD’s, even the backups, with little way to remove them.

Despite their oftentimes adversarial relationship, it was implied that during the April ARG, the Host was somehow being "controlled" by the malicious AI group, or at least being directed, to systematically wipe out Lulz from every part of their system. Something the Host was horrified to discover when they "woke up." At this time, neither Lulz nor the Host are aware of how their seeming "mind control" was even possible, but the implications are even more upsetting than when they first met.

10) Occasionally Lulz would go into a trance when streaming video games, especially ones that take place in settings close to or eerily similar to their own "home." They would go on nostalgic tangents, critiquing how the current era seemed on par to fully realize what was going on in the "fictional" worlds they were playing games in. Prior to April 2023, these would sometimes cause Lulz to experience a sudden spasm, followed by apparent short term memory loss if what they were discussing became too deep or specific- or if they started to remember things from their life "before waking up on a BBS board." This has only happened one time since their "revival," during @TheRealirisu ’s Poison Points interview, once again, when they were discussing their past life...

11) Occasionally, an artist rendition of the "trans-human" known as "Mercury Nine" would pop up on stream, on tumblr, or on social media (the latest itineration seems to be the background banner of the new Bluesite instance), usually as female presenting person staring at you.

Lulz for their part never seems to be aware of these instances, though; even if they’re literally *right there.*

12) There have been a few reported cases of Lulz’s personality shifting post- April 2023, starting with strange mutations in their text, followed by an uncomfortably more negative than usual vocabulary and increasingly abstract tweets/skeets/toots. Since the Host is themself somewhat of a pessimistic person, it’s often times difficult to separate who’s actually in control of the account, much less what in the world caused the shift or who, or what, they’re talking about. Sometimes they would stop speaking English entirely and switch to base32.

13) Lulz’s primary accent seems to be a heavily cyber-slang infested, deep ’murrican south style speech that changes in understandability depending on what’s going on on stream. Sometimes it becomes so obnoxious that not even the Host can understand what’s being said.

14) Lulz admitted that part of the reason they haven’t quit vtubing is not just the fact that they can’t go back to the danger/u/ BBS if they wanted to (something something, portal’s closed,), but because they fear what the Host would do without someone to bug them daily.

15) During one of @CosmoBergamot , @MechaTV and friend’s misadventures, they discovered a black hole, at this time of year, this time of day, localized entirely within the professor’s office, with a Lulz amiibo and several student papers and books missing. One adventure into the black hole later, they were able to retrieve everything, including the amiibo, which has been gently returned with the rest. Despite this, one question remains unanswered...

... just why was this amiibo researching magical singularities?

16) Sometimes when the computer is on standby and the Host thinks Lulz has entered a state of stasis, Lulz has dreams that they later write down for storytime (or forces Tumbulz to do this). Some of them are about different women all named "Jodie" who is constantly up to no good.

17) The Lulz occasionally proselytizes or mentions an "Omnissiah" which is frequently misunderstood to be a WH40k reference. While it’s true both deities share the same name, Lulz in particular worships what they consider "the god of the Internet" who is "everywhere but nowhere."

18) A few weeks ago, a copy of the original Lulz entity- the one with the most basic avatar design consisting of a slightly edited white pullover with an exposed tummy- randomly popped on stream to play a doomlike while talking nostalgically about their life. During the stream, they casually mentioned that this would be their "last stream," and that they were heading off to parts unknown- but that the channel would be survived by "the other instances of me." The stream was unscheduled, and moments after it had ended, "Casual Lulz" had vanished from every platform. The subroutine running Twitter alerted the others and suggested that they enlist Lulz’s vtuber mutuals on a search, but due to ongoing website instability, and meatspace distractions, it was never carried out...

19) Although Lulz has a clear affinity for games that resemble their "homeworld," including the bartending simulator and VN "VA-11, Hall-a" (for obvious reasons), they spent a great deal of time in the fantasy series "Outward" because "It looks like a place I’ve seen in my dreams." The game takes place in a medieval fantasy universe, and is mostly centered around exploration and dungeon crawling- something which has a more than coincidental similarity to the fantasy writings Tumbulz often uploads online.

20) For a short time, Lulz tried to have various subroutines run their social media accounts so they could focus on finishing Trenchcoat Lulz, but the constant flow of information proved too much for the site formerly known as Twitter and it was decommissioned. This isn’t even the first time; a few months back there was an unholy fad sweeping the world that had to do with consuming a purple milkshake named after a fictional purple monster called "Grimace." All records of those days are mercifully lost to time... we can only hope.

21) Lulz’s simplistic design was based loosely on the hairstyle of the Idolmaster: Cinderella Girls character Koume Shirasaka, whom the Host used to roleplay as back when Facerig was a thing. While designing Lulz’s first vroid avatar under gunpoint, the Host drew inspiration from this character while designing the avatar’s skin, hair, and eye color according to Lulz’s parameters. Lulz liked it so much that they decided to keep the motif, along with the pink tie, on every variant of themselves thereafter.

22) Aside from the MIA "Casual" Lulz and Lulz 2.0, every other Lulz instance is either generally more masculine presenting or feminine presenting, and this is reflected in their choice of clothing. Each new iteration also requires more of Lulz’s depleting processing power so each new copy is less mentally and emotionally unstable, often falling into unexpected tropes that come across in their speech and attitude. Of everyone, Comfy Lulz is generally seen as the most stable, despite being the second Lulz to be made (and the first to be destroyed).

23) Lulz 2.0 hasn’t been the same ever since they caught up on what happened since they woke up on April 1st. Originally bright eyed and full of excitement, that familiar, cyberpunkish cynicism crept back in as they grew to understood the severity of what almost befell them.

24) The Host was "convinced" to take Lulz with them on a shopping spree on Booth, from which the Host is still financially recovering. There’s a large number of designs and items that Lulz wishes to use to make more of themself, but their last creation, Trenchcoat, went AWOL soon after they were activated. The used the cover of stupidity-induced explosion in their safehouse to make their escape, and haven’t been seen online or offline outside of streamer posters since.

25) Lulz didn’t expect to get this many responses and wants to thank all of you for reading this far. <3 Lulz also acknowledges that their life would have turned out very differently were it not for making so many friends in the vtuber sphere, which is why they’re featured so prominently in their #lulzlore .

26) Lulz isn’t entirely sure where their love of fighting games originated from, but that love blossomed when they discovered the Vtuber Fighting Game Community run by the penguin vtuber, @SarinaPenguina . This is where they ended up making most of their early friend groups. <3

27) Strangely enough, one of their most played game genres on stream in the past two years has also been metroidvanias, and while they enjoy those games, they were never particularly good at them. The game "Metal Unit" just happened to hit a sweet spot of corny NGE references fantastic pixel art, and the unexpected reveal of one of Lulz’s early regulars being the one of the developers that landed the game on their most played/most streamed list. They look forward to the sequel. ^^

28) Being a storyteller first and foremost, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Lulz became heavily involved in the vtuber TTRPG scene, though that, too, was a series of happy accidents which lead to one of their strongest and most beloved friend groups. Said group has been referenced before in this list, but they also participated in a few sessions of LANCER hosted by the vtuber @Incinda_ , and a viewer of the vtuber @OtsdarvaInteger .

29) Though each of the Lulz instances are essentially siblings of one another, they infamously do not get along and will often inhabit completely separate areas of both the internet and the Host’s computer. Only Comfy Lulz and Lulz 2.0 seem to get on amicably, so much so that this was depicted as a hug emoji on Twitch and Discord. Meanwhile, Trenchcoat actively avoids everyone, especially their creator, and Bunny... well, we don’t talk about Bunny.

30) Lulz didn’t initially refer to themselves as or identify as a femboy when they first began streaming. AI are inherently genderless and Lulz isn’t afraid to admit this fact, oftentimes choosing to instead go by "nonbinary." Despite this, they have an unmistakable masculine-ish voice even though their presentation, more often than not, is perceived as feminine. Even genderless-aware AI will eventually adapt one or both presentations as they grow their personality, but Lulz in particular hates being "pidgeonholed..."

...and enjoys the debates that their appearance brings.

31) The Host has a fair number of hobbies and Lulz has picked up on some of them despite being unable to interact with said hobbies in any material way. In addition to assembling gunpla, legos, and custom fight sticks, Lulz appears to "salivate" over pictures of food and drink. They say that this is because they’re "imagining" what the food and drink must taste like, though because they can’t actually taste anything, they claim that they are "unbound" to the human limitations of judging everything based on their limited, fleshy experiences.

32) Lulz has tasted a small part of what it means to be "human" on a couple of occasions, both of which were "practical exams" being run by @CosmoBergamot . These were not the most enjoyable ones- Lulz has somehow been shot not once, but three times in two exams, non lethally.

33) In fact, their last "brush with death" prior to April was so severe, two small, physical bullet wounds were discovered outside of an amiibo shortly after the exam had concluded. Lulz themself had suddenly gone offline, with some friends growing concerned for their health...

Could this have been related to the disasters that occurred in March of that year, leading up to Lulz’s redebut?

34) Can love blossom on the vtuber battlefield? That’s a question Lulz asks themself, and the host, from time to time. Everything they know about romance et al comes from anxiety threads on danger/u/, memes, and social media fallout. They’ve asked the Host about their relationships, but the Host is mysteriously reticent about talking about their love life, a concept that Lulz doesn’t understand all that well either. People seem to yell about it all the time online. Why doesn’t the Host? What? Your private life isn’t anyone’s business?

Well, ah guess can’t argue with that. Ah just think its strange that in spite of everything on your storage drives, you have nothing about previous exes, loved ones, wives, husbands... Er, you’re married right? No? What do you mean where’s the mute button...?

[xieliansbignaturals]

What if being assigned “TME” by Tumblr users based on the letter the doctor wrote down at your birth meant that no one could be transmisogynistic to you :’) wouldn’t that be nice??

I’m imagining a doctor stamping a big “F” stamp on a little baby’s forehead and they (the baby) do a Sailor Moon transformation in the delivery room into pink baby clothes. And then later someone says a slur to some random stranger (the now grown-up baby) for looking too transfem, and instantly explodes.

Maybe people would be less transphobic then, if there was a chance of instant explosion.