#believe trans people

[5ellaal5]

You know what? I totally missed that this came off as supporting anti trans stuff. Yuck. And upon rereading I realize I said misogyny, queer hatred and forgot the obvious trans hatred that is the point. 🙇🏻‍♀️

I read that headline and was like

Hell yeah. Get that abusive ass hat away from children. Look what other horrific behavior [edited for clarity] not respecting people’s identity is a harbinger of!?

Very enormous oops.

Stupid media and their stupid headlines.

Edited. Let me try this again.

You know what’s funny about these fearmongering headlines?

If anyone reads even a little more, instead of furthering the idea that respecting identity is something Gone Too Far (cancel culture aaaarrrgg), instead they link how the behavior of refusing to respect someone’s identity is linked with overall disrespect of others in many realms, and possibly (definitely, here) behavior and beliefs that are a danger to others. Behaviors that act against society.

The headline says, look how extreme the response is. The article says, look how extreme the disrespect is.

The editor who crafted that headline undermined their own vendetta by linking it to a person with documentable terrible behavior.

But of course, this Tumblr screenshot shows the first paragraphs that immediately undermine the headline, but —as many have observed— most people only read the headlines.

Anyway. Stupid headlines.

I apologize if I contributed to anyone felt even the slightest bit more unsafe on Tumblr about being authentically themselves. Truly, I apologize.

Mad this. It literally says he got jailed for ignoring a court order telling him to stay away from the school - yet the headline says it's for not calling a kid they. He broke the court order cos he was being a self righteous stalkery Christian weirdo. I know the sort, they did the same to us at school cos we were scruffy poor unfortunates / desperate people that apparently needed god to save us. Loads of Christians are like this, proper weirdos.

[trans-androgyne]

Remind yourself that this is temporary.

“This will mean I can’t transition” could be more accurately framed as “parts of my transition will have to be delayed.”

This won’t last forever. One day, your body is going to feel like a home. One day, you’ll have people who call you what you want to be called. One day, you’ll look in the mirror and see yourself. Please make sure you’re around long enough to see it. Sending you so much love.

[mueritos]

happy pride to all queer children of immigrants

patreon

[autosadist]

if you would like trans women to stop being suspicious of your intentions as a tme person you should probably take the very important step of not making it about you LOL like it actually really is not about you as an individual at all. part of having friends that are marginalized in ways you aren't - something that needs to be accepted to even get to this point - is listening to them discuss violence/oppression/control enacted on them by people in a group you belong to and accepting that they aren't fucking attacking you personally. how do you think people will come to trust you if you've positioned yourself to assume they look down on you specifically?

[aropride]

i get why people aren't voting for biden but it is really awesome to be pre-transition and dysphoric and being near-certain a trump win will take away more rights for trans people even in safer states. that does feel really awesome and fine.

[shalom-iamcominghome]

If even acknowledging antisemitism within your community spaces is going to "distract from the cause," maybe that's because the foundation of your beliefs comes down to antisemitism. What you're doing is telling on yourself.

[variousqueerthings]

i do think that specifically david tennant being very openly supportive of the trans community has had an interesting effect -- because usually im kinda like "it is nice to know that people whose work i enjoy don't want me dead" and that's kinda my level of (at this point) quite cynical engagement with what a celebrity or artist does or does not think about transness, because these days it feels like it's almost fashionable for well-known (or post-well-known) people to come out of the wordwork and say what they think about trans people, which can get very stressful in its own way (the amount of headlines that try to be misleading or just plain don't say and so you're just like "ok i guess this week i have to find out if [spins wheel] thinks i deserve rights")

but david tennant has a different feeling to it. and to be fair, there are plenty of people with skin in the game, who absolutely deserve to and ought to speak out on behalf of their children/partners/community/friends/family/etc. and im always happy to see these people speak, and dt is included in that list as well

but david tennant is veeery specific in this here country of terf island, in which the labour party will openly state that it will allow certain book writers to affect their policies on trans people, and that's partly because of the effect above in which "having opinions on trans rights seems to be a celebrity game that keeps you relevant, which includes ex prime minister tony blair making his opinion known (hint, it wasn't a good one)" but also because david tennant is known as a national icon to rival that of whatsherface

he was the main actor on doctor who, in the top three, if not very top of british broadcasting iconography that exists. he's one of this generation's most famous shakespearian actors, the other thing that this country-as-culture is most proud of. he's a mainstay in children's film and tv, a standout in modern british crime drama (broadchurch, des), and that's not mentioning things like jessica jones, good omens, and star wars

this guy has no social media, and some of the biggest cultural capital in the uk today -- labour i believe it was made a twitter joke about him ousting the current prime minister as the doctor ahead of this week's election, because that's an iconic scene from doctor who

which means that when he openly calls transphobes whingy and asks them to shut up, there's a bit of a ripple... i mean what are you gonna do, get angry with the doctor? from doctor who??? the man who played a definitive hamlet????? the man who's just done rave reviewed performances of macbeth???? scrooge mcduck????????? this man who occasionally guests on cbeebies???????????

said prime minister and his party and hosts of transphobes go absolutely crazy every time he makes an appearance wearing new trans ally apparel, as if a. he sees any of that and b. it's a dignified response to a man saying, in essence, "i would like my kid to be safe and happy"

david tennant constantly making these statements, again and again, is a powerful voice in the modern fight for trans rights in the UK, in some ways unfortunately, because you wish trans people could have been heard before it got to this state and that it wasn't about being famous, but to be fair, he's also making that point again and again

it kind of feels like the first time in a long time that there's been proper pushback against transphobia in this country from a perspective that the transphobes can't dismiss so easily -- they can try but like. again, one side is a bunch of raving nonsense-spouters on a joke website who mostly belong to a party that's about to get decidedly ousted from the political scene, the other is beloved national icon and star of stage and screen, mr david tennant

of course, it doesn't hurt that the three main actors of harry potter and everyone else who's majorly involved in doctor who, past and present, is also supportive of trans rights, which maybe there's a separate point to be made about the strangeness of a mainstream tv show becoming a cultural battleground for peoples opinions on equal rights, especially now with ncuti gatwa at the helm, because i think some of what ive seen in relation to dw is more extreme than any piece of cultural media ive been alive to witness bigoted reactions to (including star trek), and ncuti gatwa as a black queer man is taking a hell of a lot of flack that is racist and homophobic

but labour... if you're inviting random artists to give you opinions on trans rights, david tennant is right there, and you know he'd make sure to bring along trans rights activists and professionals to get the space in the room they ought to have had all along

[mspiggy]

somebody HAS to tell me where the "dipper was supposed to be canonically transmasc but disney wouldn't allow it" rumor started because it's like. Hilariously Absolutely Untrue On Every Level, but apparently widespread enough that ppl in their mid-20s just accepted it as fact and make sure to repeat and spread it on any transfem!dipper posts they see

[spacedustmantis]

just bc finnster came out as genderfluid doesn't mean you get to make egg jokes about people who are not (yet) out as trans. btw

[ms-hells-bells]

at the very core of trump's likely victory is men. young, old, everything in between. they are so spite filled, particularly regarding women's rights, that they want not just a trump victory, but a conservative house, senate and (to maintain a) supreme court in order to reduce and revoke what they see as 'women stepping out of their place' and 'what they have stolen that is rightfully ours'.

not even two thirds and more of voting women voting for harris was enough, because it comes down to the electoral college, which favours the red states, and those red states have bounds of conservative men.

[lazylittledragon]

what do you mean youre technically a detransitioner cause of terf bullshit?

it's a v long story but i detransitioned for a couple of years when i was 16/17, for multiple reasons but mostly because i fell into the blaire white/kalvin garrah chamber of "you have to be This way to be trans otherwise you're not real".

i was already Deeply insecure about myself and my 'passing' and i was led to believe that i couldn't want to wear makeup or skirts, and i couldn't choose not to have bottom surgery, and i couldn't do anything but bind for 12+ hours a day to the point that my ribcage is still misshapen. basically i thought that if i wasn't suffering enough doing 'feminine' things, i couldn't really be trans, so i should just go back to being a girl and suck it up.

the terf bullshit is because i'd seen a lot of terfs/detransitioners talking about the 'dangers' of testosterone and how it would turn me into a horrible ugly evil monster and how there was nothing worse than wanting to be a man. which combined with 'you need to fully medically transition to be valid at all' creates some very dangerous and upsetting feelings to cope with.

it also came from trying really hard to put myself in a little box before i realised that my sexuality/gender are very fluid and it's FINE for me not to have a label and just do whatever i want. when i was 19 or so i went back to using they/them (and eventually he/him) and changed my name again because even though i like doing 'feminine' things, i don't want to be seen as a woman.

tldr: i was conditioned by transphobic/terf rhetorics to think that i was being trans the 'wrong' way so i couldn't be trans at all, so i believed i must actually be a girl if i still wanted to do 'feminine' things. nowadays i am a transmasc who does feminine things because i don't give two shits about what any transmed prick thinks of me anymore.

[genericpuff]

no one:

the mold in rowling's brain: pronouns are an invention made up by writers to sell more pronouns

[teaboot]

Is it weird to be a cis woman but want to be trans? Not trans man but trans woman. Like, I tried to imagine myself as a dude but I couldn't really put myself in those shoes. But if I was a trans woman, I don't have to deal with the unwanted subscription and probably taller

I mean lots of shit is "weird" but if you're asking me if it's dirty or evil I'd say you're probably fine

[gibbearish]

so this post has been made unrebloggable now (shocker) but ive been feeling the need to address it since i saw it on my dash multiple times, so let's explore how lying on the internet works. more specifically, how blending truth, lies, and omissions to whip uninvolved people into anger works, because i think this is an excellent example and that pointing out the misinformation and the tactics used to spread it here is important, both in correcting the specific falsities but also in helping recognize similar tactics in the future.

so here we have several things that are technically true: staff has been very openly shitty to trans women for a long time and them banning predstrogen is clearly part of that, there is currently a movement regarding discussing transmisandry/transandrophobia, transmisogyny and transphobes sending transphobic asks is by far nothing new, and baeddel is/was a slur. however, among all of this are half-truths, unprovable speculation, or outright lies made to make you believe these events are originating specifically from transmascs.

firstly, the transandrophobia movement has been drastically misrepresented here in the same way it has been for the whole argument, "they're just trans MRAs" has been repeated so many times now that i'm gonna be hearing it in my dreams when i'm 80. i can understand not being willing to address the nuance of that whole discourse in one post that isn't directly focused on that, i'm certainly not, but in this example it's not unwillingness to address a complicated topic, it's a deliberate misrepresentation to frame one side of the discussion as The Evil Bad Ones That Can't Be Trusted. additionally, this post IS about that discourse and is just pretending it isn't to mislead a wider audience, so refusing to address it at all beyond this brief mention is deliberately misleading people about the goals of the group because They're The Other Side Of The Discourse. "transmisogynists" is used as a buzzword here, it doesn't actually refer to Anyone Who Hates Transfemmes, it refers to Transmascs Who Discuss Transmasc-Specific Oppression Using A Word They Coined To Point Out That Queer Spaces Have A Big Problem With Masculinity and just. doesn't tell you that's what it means, relying on the structure and framing of the post to create the Transmisogynist = Transmasc association in the audience's head so op doesn't have to say it outright (and of course the implied Transmasc = Transmisogynist association that follows because creating THAT association is the Actual Point of this post). the mentions of transmascs in this post are designed to look like afterthoughts, op says "typically those who espouse transandrophobia" to make it look like they're saying there's other people they're referring to here too, but almost everything in this post draws from the transandrophobia discourse. some random cis transphobe in texas has never heard the term baeddel in their entire life much less used it in a debate about transphobia, this is an intercommunity argument through and through, but op is trying to mask the fact that they're just referring to "transmascs who disagree with me specifically" and make it look like it's part of a wider trend. and again, i'm not going to go into the nuances of transandrophobia here, but i highly recommend reading some of the theory on it by @nothorses (x) and @genderkoolaid (x) because the "theyre just trans MRAs" argument kinda just collapses under its own weight as soon as you look into it even a smidgen. i've linked a couple broad overviews there but they both discuss it frequently and in-depth, specifically nothorses has a pinned post linking to many different discussion threads that i would recommend checking out if you do want to learn more about what the actual conversation surrounding these words is.

so, after framing the movement this way, they go on to say that the reason predstrogen was banned wasn't /just/ because staff has a long and established hate boner for trans women, but because the transandrophobia movement was teaming up with TERFs to mass-report her and other transfemmes, and implies that this is part of a deliberate conspiracy between Transandrophobia Truthers™, TERFs, and staff. you'll notice that there are no, say, screenshots of transmascs saying theyre deliberately reporting her or of that they're working with TERFs, behind-the-scenes lists of people who reported a certain account, or any evidence for this beyond "she was a trans woman, they're trans men who hate trans women, she got banned, so these must be related". which i find especially funny now given that photomatt has continued melting down about this since it happened and made it pretty clear it yknow. was just part of staffs ongoing hate campaign against trans women that has been going on much longer than the transandrophobia debate? and that maybe the fact that The Literal CEO is having a personal meltdown about this might explain where that could be coming from or at least why it's been allowed to continue for so long, moreso than any individual users reporting someone could? but i digress.

who reported what account is completely unprovable as a casual user unless people directly admit they did it, so to bring it up like this begs the question of what actual reasoning they have for saying it beyond trying to tie a current display of bigotry into an unrelated discourse. that's not to say it's impossible people who discuss transandrophobia were wrongfully reporting her, because again, thats something we have no way of knowing, and the internet is a shit place so i wouldn't be surprised. but given the circumstances and the rest of the lies here, i have my doubts about this being an actual yknow. Thing That Happened rather than just another lie to make people mad at transmascs. now one could make the argument that op wasn't saying transmascs are /deliberately/ teaming up with TERFs/staff, that "teaming up" was just a poor choice of words to refer to multiple groups who happen to have the same goals in mind at the same time but aren't actually coordinating with one another, but given the deliberate misinformative slant of the rest of the post and the overall phrasing in this section, i have trouble extending that grace. regardless, however, that doesn't change that who is reporting who isn't something verifiable, so stating it here as a confirmed fact is disingenuous at the absolute best, and a lie chosen specifically because it's unprovable at worst. if op /does/ have proof that transmascs have been teaming up with TERFs to get trans women banned, not including that with this post is just uhhhhh dumb, and if op /doesn't/ have proof then Why Would You Go Around Telling People That's What Happened Unless You Were Lying To Them On Purpose With Ulterior Motives.

next, op goes on to discuss the rise of the term baeddel. now as i said before, the truth here is that it certainly was a slur and certainly can still be used as one, again the internet is a shit place so i would be a fool if i tried to say "no one is using this as a slur". however, this is once again a drastic misrepresentation of the situation. baeddel's rising use is due to certain trans women reclaiming it and aligning themselves with the original group's politics, namely that femininity is good and masculinity is bad (aka terfism 101), with the added caveat that by abandoning femininity for masculinity, transmascs are evil and betraying devine womanhood and their community by putting more Evil Manhood into the world. of course that in turn is a drastic oversimplification of their politics and i highly recommend checking out this post with an actual in-depth exploration of the history (and without my added flavor), but the important part to note here is that this is not a term transmascs just Started Using one day because they hate transfems so very much as is implied here, its use is directly tied to a group of people saying "hello, here is what i am, and here is what this word means about what i believe," so others went "ok, these specific beliefs are called this." bringing up the fact that it historically was a slur is misdirection here, when you look closer this is almost a 1 to 1 translation of TERFs crying that TERF and radfem are slurs because People Don't Like Their Politics And Therefore Them, so the name for their politics is used negatively, so therefore it's a slur. that argument just has a little more oomph behind it this time because It Was A Slur Originally. and again, that isnt to say no one is now using it as a slur, the rate of decay for online discourse is ridiculous so it being boiled down to and used as "evil transfemme" has certainly already happened, but to act like /every/ use of it is a slur is literally just a lie, when you self-identify with a term based on your shared politics with the original group then you do not get to claim everyone using that term to describe those politics is doing so exclusively to attack you. also this part is entirely speculation but given that op's url is basically just. baeddel switched around to dae bel, i would hazard a guess that they perhaps are indeed aware of the origins of its re-use? but again, that's entirely unprovable and based just on wordplay, but like. given the Everything here i wouldn't be surprised. now, there's definitely an argument to be made about calling users baeddels based just off of their politics when they don't personally self-identify with it, if that constitutes calling someone a slur and if TIRF should be used instead, but crucially, that is not the argument being made here. the argument being made is "ANY AND ALL use of this term is calling someone a slur," and that literally just Isn't The Case.

finally, to tie the whole post off, op reminds us 1) if you hear anything bad about any trans woman ever, it's probably a lie to make her look bad, and 2) if you hear anyone say anything about transandrophobia, disregard everything else they have to say because they hate trans women. not "be critical of the things you see or get sent" or "be on the lookout for things following a certain pattern," a unilateral "anything bad is probably fake and anyone who uses the bad words is probably evil." that is not something someone does if they are genuinely trying to raise awareness of an ongoing trend, that is what someone does when they want you to turn your brain off and be mad at a group no matter what they say.

so yeah, in summary, do be critical of the things you see and be on the lookout for certain patterns, because sometimes people will just Lie to you. or, sometimes people will tell you portions of the truth while leaving out crucial bits so that you'll come to the conclusion they want without anyone being able to say they lied to you without typing up a thirty paragraph long hell post. transmisogyny is absolutely a problem on this site and there are 100% valuable conversations to be had about it and its presence within the trans community, but this post is not that. this post uses real transmisogyny and the wrongful termination of a trans woman's account as set dressing to say that it was all because of evil transmascs who run the trans community behind the scenes conspiring to take out transfemmes, so you should ignore anything they have to say because All of it is secretly motivated by transmisogyny. they're never discussing transandrophobia because it's something that actually effects them, they're doing it to hurt trans women by saying they have it worse. they're never telling you about shitty things a trans woman did to spread awareness, they're lying to make her look bad, or even if it's true they're only talking about it as part of a hate campaign because she's trans, they wouldn't care otherwise. they're never using a specific term because People Use That Term For Themselves, they're calling someone a slur because they hate trans women. there's always an explanation you can think up that ties it back to transmisogyny, and op says that instead of assessing all of what someone says and the context behind it to determine if that's what's happening, you should assume transmisogyny is the answer and refuse to engage any further as soon as you see a word you've been told is bad.

this post is discourse recruitment masquerading as a public service announcement that doesn't offer you any routes to actually learn more about what's going on, it just tells you Here's What's Happening, Here's Who's Evil And Should Be Ignored, And If You Disagree You're Also Evil And Should Be Ignored. content of the actual post aside, i think anything framed that way should be taken with a MASSIVE grain of salt and this would have raised my alarm bells even if i wasn't already pretty familiar with the arguments, people who genuinely want you to know something just because it's good to know will give you options to learn more or encourage you to actually use your critical thinking to assess things, not tell you to sit down and shut up and ignore anyone who disagrees with them.

anyways i guess tldr

[mueritos]

a little strange to get dms from other trans people saying they agree with biden's dumb statemet that he doesnt want minors getting gender-affirming care. if you really think its such an epidemic that 13 year olds are getting their knockers blown off by surgeons every other day, then please point me in the direction of said 13 year olds that are somehow accessing gender-affirming care that literal trans adults can't even access.

like please be fr. we literally have privatized healthcare and insurance where not even people who go through the appropriate avenues can get approved for care they need to stay alive. what makes you think a trans minor is getting phallo or vaginalplasty. feel whatever you want about 13 year olds who want gender-affirming care, but dont parrot transphobic rhetoric that is based on no facts and a moral panic. they second they legitimize barriers to care for trans minors is the second they start finding ways to do the same for trans adults. dont be a buffoon.

[shalom-iamcominghome]

It's absolutely true that delusions can take on religious elements and be fueled in part or whole by religion, but dear l-rd, do I hate when people blanket all religion under this whole "it's all delusion, anyway!!!".

No it is not, and I know that because I know what it's like to have gone through delusions! I was reminded of that difference recently, and I'm religious. Not everything that you personally disagree with is a delusion, a narcissistic power play, or anything else. Sometimes you disagree with others. I am pretty religious, but I am more than willing to agree with non-theists about their opinions because they come up with good ideas and we are equal human beings. In fact, the atheist has strengthened my own religious beliefs because I am challenged by them to actually think things through. My whole issue with this is the - funnily enough - holier-than-thou, stigmatizing attitudes that are necessary to say things like that.

As someone who has a vested interest in mental health and accurate information about it, this stuff unironically angers me. The human in me wants to educate people, but the ape in me wants to take away the terms delusional, narcissistic, gaslighting, and every mental health term under the sun away until people learn how to properly use and apply them. The only people you are hurting are people who are already hurting.