#but also they're totally all trans in some way

[liskantope]

I'm going to get myself an onslaught of pushback that I in no way have time to deal with this week for making the points I'm about to make, but here goes. (I also may learn some new information from some of you, which would be good.)

Argumate's point, as a conditional statement, is 100% correct. I would also say the various Republican proposals of the past three years are, in my opinion, varying levels of reprehensible and idiotic in how poorly they're defined/enforceable. But, unless there are specific ideas on the table that for some reason I haven't heard of despite being on Tumblr and progressive social media bubbles all this time, the implication that Republicans are attacking the right to present as one pleases and choose one's name, even the right of adults to choose to medically transition, is suspect. And distorting that side's political behavior seems counterproductive.

Everything, first of all, seems to revolve around "protecting" the children rather than restricting the rights of adults.

There's clearly been a push to ban drag shows -- that is, a certain kind of performance art based around people cross-dressing (often in a sexualized way) in places where children could be exposed to it: schools, it seems sometimes public areas as well. This seems to have arisen in direct response to a quite novel trend of schools going out of their ways to show children this art when schools re-opened after COVID, not as a direct backtracking of civil rights that they were okay with ten years ago (even if in effect it is a sort of walking back of rights). For the record, I think banning drag shows in public sucks, and if I had my own kid, I would want them to be exposed to a "drag queen story hour" or two in school. But what has been happening there is a far cry from disallowing people from going about their own business cross-dressing or otherwise presenting as a given gender.

Where changing names is concerned, I can only imagine posts above this are alluding to Ted Cruz's proposal to make it impossible to fire someone for deadnaming or using a pronoun different from the referent's biological sex. (The naming thing would depend on the person's legal name; of course if they transitioned and changed their name legally -- which I realize may present its own slowness and difficulties -- there would presumably be no problem.) This seems like one of the weirder, harder-to-enforce hypothetical laws (how would one even prove that someone's pronoun doesn't correspond to their genitalia??), but it's one of those People Resent Being Forced To Utter Things They Feel Are Lies issues in the form of protecting someone from being fired for not making those utterances. I don't support it and hope it never becomes law, but characterizing it as "losing one's right to choose one's name" seems disingenuous.

Banning transition surgery and other medicine is clearly a huge thing right now but completely restricted to minors -- I think the closest I've heard to proposals for banning it for adults is (1) stretching the concept of "minor" here to age 25 due to questionable "mature brain" ideas, and (2) some bill in Missouri requiring six months of therapy before getting the go-ahead for medical treatment. It seems not unreasonable to imagine that if Republicans manage to get enough bans through for minors (by far the lower-hanging fruit, by far more popular among Americans) and are feeling sufficiently confident while running rampant, some will try to ban stuff for adults too, and there's the whole issue of which forms of gender medicine get provided by insurance and so on. I totally get a trans adult not being willing to live in a red state. At present the issue seems to be for minors, though, and again, while a rollback (one that was already happening in most of Europe I believe), it's mainly in response to something -- namely, an abrupt spike by more than an order of magnitude in minors seeking gender medicine.

I don't call for moderate stances on these issues but for some care and moderation on how we characterize them, especially at a moment when trans people are upending their lives to flee the country. I don't see how we're going to get out of this culture war mess with trans issues without engaging with what each side is actually doing (obviously I've believed the same about every type of current issue but this one has gotten especially out of control).

The state of gay rights in the early aughts was not good; criminal penalties for homosexuality were rarely enforced but were on the books in many places, there was no right to marriage, and the morality of homosexuality was hotly contested in public. Big culture war issue. In that environment, where substantive protections were lacking, Democrats could be tepid on gay rights without actively giving anything up—if, like Obama in 2008, you didn’t support gay marriage, you could still be seen (correctly) as advocating for an overall better situation for gay people, or at least one that was no worse, in contrast to your right wing opponents.

Trans rights are not in the same position. Before the big trans rights backlash started, access to gender affirming care was pretty widespread, was everywhere legal, and was a matter for private concern only. Trans people could play in school sports subject to whatever their league’s rules were, and the idea of trying to make it illegal to cross dress in public was absurd. The conservative position since has become one of an explicit rollback of rights: revoke access to gender affirming care, create new criminal sanctions to punish trans people, make it illegal for them to participate in school sports, etc.

In that environment, tacking to the right on trans issues means deciding which elements of trans rights you are willing to concede to this project of actually rolling back trans rights. The only thing comparable from the gay rights fight is maybe state constitutional amendments to ban gay marriage, or DOMA—all of which were, IIRC, passed despite gay marriage not being legal in affected jurisdictions. Their enactment, while deplorable, had no material negative affect; gay people already couldn’t get married.

And that this project of rolling back trans rights is not a particular fetish of the religious right is more worrying. Plenty of liberals and liberal institutions are pretty transphobic. Britain has been working to export its flavor of (Moderate, Sensible, Secular) transphobia to other countries in Europe and the Anglosphere. Transphobes winning these fights isn’t a status quo situation—it’s a sharp increase in repression of trans people.

In light of that, I regard calls to “moderate” on trans issues with at best scorn. I think the party of civil rights condoning the rollback of citizens’ civil rights is really bad for its brand, won’t win it more votes, and may sufficiently alienate members of the base—who are invested in the party specifically because of its historic support for civil rights—that they simply don’t bother to show up in elections.

[sillymushroom17]

Pomefiore is the trans dorm. All the trans peeps are put in there. The Dark Mirror takes one look at you and if you're trans it's like "Another one for Pomefiore".

My source: Trust me bro

Epel is all hung up on being put in Pomefiore and complains to Rook and Rook's like "Oui, it's because you're trans." Being trans is an entry requirement. Not everyone at NRC who's trans is in Pomefiore, but everyone in Pomefiore is trans. The Dark Mirror told me itself, this is 100% fact.

(Also Vil is totally genderfluid/bigender, Rook is 100% transfem, and Epel is absolutely transmasc)

Rook wanted to transfer to Pomefiore and the only question the mirror asked was "Are they trans?" When the answer was totally yes, it immediately let Rook transfer

[moshieee]

Ew, essays :[

I miss the old days of kindergarten when we attempted to color butterflies and ate erasers and glue

-🎁

I hated kindergarten

Essays may suck but at least now I'm not the weird kid in the corner wishing I had friends

However yes I absolutely despise essays with all my being... in fact!

Achievement unlocked: you somehow found a topic moshie hates enough and on a bad day to start them ranting in the tags...

Warning there are curse words, poor spelling, and caps locks

Sorry in advance

[facedock]

listen i'm just sayin' the only way to make Face tolerable is if (s)he's closeted bi and/or trans

[txttletale]

about the "people are allowed to be cis" like i kind of get the optics & context but I do think it's important to recognize that a gender journey can end at the same place it started. Often-times it doesn't because the journey starts due to discomfort with one's gender but in my mind it's the same as questioning any other belief, it's good to do it even if you end up still holding that belief.

The 'problems' faced by cis people who have questioned their gender are not nearly as big as those experienced by trans people but it's still something that happens, particularly among people in trans communities. I think this idea also sort of intersects with the idea of people wanting representation, and the idea of somebody questioning their gender sort of implies they're going to be trans so then there can be disappointment.

Some of this is speculative, and i haven't seen the original post so maybe i'm missing something but your post really hit weird because it's not telling people they can be cis it's saying you can dip your foot in the pool of transgenderism and not go all the way in. Like obviously that's less urgent than people shooting at those in the pool but just dismissing it is kind of weird

people are told it is okay to be cis literally from the moment they are born. i dont want to be harsh but literally everything you're saying could be coming out of the mouth of a conversion therapist -- the current term used to sanitize conversion therapy in the UK is in fact "exploratory therapy". "well we shouldn't rush them into transness we should give them time to decide in case they're actually cis after all" is the #1 talking point undergirding the total annihilation of trans healthcare for young people in the UK. trans people are already told at every single step of the way that it's okay to change their minds and be cis. they are told this by parents and teachers and peers who say "it's just a phase". they are told this by media outlets panicking about """rapid-onset gender dysphoria""". they are told this over and over again by transohobic medical systems that tell them that they should think about whether maybe they're just autistic or gay or they need to have more sex. every single part of our brutally transphobic society is already screaming "IT'S OKAY TO JUST BE CIS" in everyone's ears every second they exist in it. there is never a need to add your voice to that chorus.

[velvetvexations]

I'm a trans woman. You need to stop being weird about men.

The idea that trans women should be allowed in single sex spaces for cis women is completely contradicted by the man vs. bear discourse. Ignore that I keep going back to the meme - maybe it's still doing numbers, I don't know, but it's good shorthand either way. If you think men are inherently suspicious and dangerous, ask yourself: why does that not apply to trans women?

What, exactly, does a trans woman do to make herself different from cis men? How are you not advocating a belief in people being tainted by the way they were raised* which can only logically apply to trans women as much as it does cis men? It boggles the mind how, if that's a true concept, one could simply self-identify out it. Yet, the way transradfems talk, literally the only thing that distinguishes an AMAB better-than-bear from an AMAB worse-than-bear is that the former says they're totally better than a bear and you should take their word for it, which if men are really Like That should be of little comfort or security.

Some, even, will make impassioned defenses of butch trans women, which as a butch trans woman is great. But then they'll go on about how evil men are, and how innocent and victimized trans women are, and I wonder, what, exactly, differs an especially butch trans woman from a man to them? If, like me, a trans butch woman doesn't always wear clearly feminine clothes, has body hair, maybe even a shade of facial hair, and doesn't at all try to train her voice, are you going to be uncomfortable with her right up until she realizes she forgot to put their pin on and you see the she/her? Apparently that flips the switch from someone you desperately don't want to be alone with to someone you're totally fine undressing in front of?

All that sounds like TERFism, which is exactly the problem. The transradfem version of reality is one where TERF talking points are completely logical, because they're both based in the same radfem reality. That's not my reality, YOU have constructed a system perfect for them to operate in, that their ideology is fantastic for pointing out errors of reasoning in, as if it was deliberately crafted by them to be deconstructed. I would not at all be surprised if that's the origin of a lot of trans radical feminism, a psyop to make the trans community weaker with logic twists that TERFism can swing through like the Gordian Knot.

If you accept man vs. bear, TERFism is the only logical conclusion. If you don't, as I don't, then it isn't.

The only alternative is that you think being a woman is the only thing anyone should be and "choosing" to be a man is morally inferior. Which I shouldn't have to tell you is horrifying. It's also again incongruous with at least your defense of butch trans women - what exactly defines a "man" and a "woman" when a butch trans woman doesn't have to try to pass at all? You are literally saying all of this, gender, transmisogyny, misogyny, hinges entirely on pronouns and a difference of two letters in the name of what they call themselves, someone is dangerous or not depending on if they go by he/him.

TERFs will see this and be like "yeah! exactly!" BUT MY POINT IS USING THAT TO SHOW YOU SHARE THE SAME FOUNDATIONAL LOGIC AS THEM. If you don't want TERFs to have a point then you can stop accepting their worldview any day now! Come join me and frolic freely where we think TERFs are wrong!

*socialization is real and the idea pre-dates TERFs who incorrectly use the idea that to say that because a trans woman may or may not** have been pressured by external forces to play sportsball she must be hardcoded to be a sex offender, which is completely ridiculous

**no one can be said to have the same experiences, it's a generalization

[nothorses]

I came across this paper:

https://www.academia.edu/71372307/Trans_masculinities_embodiments_performances_and_the_materiality_of_gender_in_times_of_change

I'm not well-versed in academic language so I can't really understand all of it, but it seems kind of gross and condescending, especially when it's using testimonials of transmasc's desire to be seen as men to, idk, prove that masculinity isn't really queer or something? I'm curious how other (smarter) people would interpret it.

I mean, your understanding of it is just as important as mine! I'm happy to add my thoughts, though.

My understanding is that their thesis is essentially "masculinity is related to maleness and the male body specifically, and we know that because transmascs want to have male bodies". They allow for some nuance here in references to other literature, and I agree with that angle of their argument overall, but their premise is fundamentally flawed in the exclusion of trans theory and trans narratives.

Like, yes, masculinity is in some way related to appearance and the "male body", and there are a lot of reasons for that! But is the dysphoria of trans people really ironclad "proof" of what maleness and masculinity are? And why don't they spend any time talking about what dysphoria actually is, what trans people think it is, why trans people think they feel the way they do, or what trans academics have to say about any of this?

I have a lot of other issues with this paper as well, and I could probably write a paper just as long as theirs going into all of the reasons for that. But I think that answers your biggest question; what they're trying to prove, how they're trying to prove it, and why that comes across so weird.

To your other question ("is it condescending?"): I think this is kind of subjective overlay, but the way they go about analyzing their data is pretty condescending, in my opinion. They tend to frame their participants' responses as kind of misguided or ill-informed, particularly Diniz- who they definitely discuss as "trying to justify his choices" to identify as nonbinary while also seeking medical transition, like this is inherently contradictory and must therefore rely on some kind of delusion or desperation. It's weird!

I do also want to point out, briefly, that they also really cherrypick which claims they bother sourcing, and how they try to back them up.

They argue that trans men have male privilege based on the opinions of, like, three of their 30 total participants- and then carry this as "fact" through the entire paper, uncontested. That's extremely fucking weird and super suspect in a paper like this! I just wrote my own qualitative research paper based on interviews (which is what this is), and it's pretty standard to acknowledge the limitations of your research, and to position your results as non-definitive. Like, that's been a major part of every discussion with everyone I've talked to about my research. I would not have been greenlit to receive my degree if I hadn't been careful to avoid framing my research the way these people frame theirs.

The other weird thing they do is cherrypick statistics- or rather, one single statistic- to "prove" that transmascs do not suffer as much as other trans people, or possess some kind of privilege. They only cite murder statistics from one source; apparently that's the only relevant metric for quantifying all oppression? They also fail to acknowledge any possible shortcomings of this statistic, like the issues of under-reporting and misgendering of transmasc victims.

I could go on; I have a lot of gripes. But I think your criticism is totally valid, this was a weird and frustrating read.

Also curious if @genderkoolaid has thoughts- you tend to talk about gender studies from an academic position more, and you probably have a lot more field-specific expertise than I do. I'll boost other additions too, I love a good academic discussion!

[olderthannetfic]

I just got the weirdest hate comment. Basically, this woman who has loved all my stories and commented on them for months found out I'm a cis man. And now she hates my F/F stories. She's now decided they're "fetish fuel" for "your lesbian kink" and "you probably write with one hand down your pants".

None of these stories have steamy scenes. One, I suck at writing those. A lot. A lot a lot. Two, the women are busy saving the world. That's stressful and stress makes some people's horniness go way down, so I always assumed they wouldn't be in the mood until the villain is defeated, you know? Three, some of these stories have middle school aged characters and I find people older than me hot, so I have literally, truly not thought once against their sex lives. I assumed they were going on dates like I was at 13 - movies, hang out at the mall, playing video games, that stuff. Nobody I knew was getting laid at 13. (I didn't get laid until I was 20, personally, but idk what the statistics on that are.)

So it's really weird that she's suddenly angry at me. I know most of the fans of the show are women. I get why she assumed I was one. Totally valid. Statistically that makes sense. It's the jump from "you are male" to "you're getting off to this" that I don't get. Don't get me wrong, I know some guys like F/F and some women like M/M. But liking writing/reading something doesn't mean you get off to it.

(Also utter side tangent but I don't like her using lesbian to refer to bi characters. That's... not how that works. Bi people don't become straight or lesbian or gay depending on who they date.)

Can someone explain to me? I think my neurodivergent ass is missing a lot here and I'm lost.

--

Radfem nonsense.

Look up lesbian separatism as a political thing to find the sorts of women who think all men are inherently suspect, dangerous, predatory, etc. Some of them are also TERFs and think trans women are men and predators, but this general attitude on gender happens even without the transphobia.

Basically, she thinks you snuck into her exclusive clubhouse and got your cooties on it.

Some femslash fans do view this type of fandom as an expression of their identity, not just a thing they enjoy, and being confronted with the reality that it can also just be a fiction taste and the space isn't all people like them making a space for people like them can be upsetting. She's being a jerk and not responding to your actual work or your actual self, but if you want to know why, that's why.

[thankskenpenders]

I saw some talk on twitter about there being a trans character in the Lara-Su Chronicles, but didn't see this mentioned in your post, so is this really true or just a rumour? I'm trans and just like to see more trans characters in ANYTHING

Believe me when I say you do not want trans rep from Penders lmao. Please love yourself

Anyway: Ken loves to pat himself on the back on Twitter for planning to put Representation in his stories, but it's really just an ego thing for him. It makes him feel important and progressive. None of it is actually present on the page in TLSC: Beginnings despite his many declarations of how progressive these books will be.

For example, he made a big deal out of the fact that Espio's daughter Salma is autistic now and how big of a deal that is for autistic Sonic fans everywhere, but she's not actually in either of the stories here. She is on the endpaper illustration if you want to look at her godawful new design, though!

He's also spent years making a big deal out of the fact that Rotor/"The Emissary" and Cobar were supposed to be a gay couple in M25YL and how that really broke new ground for comics etc. etc., but in this book all that really results in is a single panel of the Emissary holding Cobar and going "Goddess, don't let him die on me."

And, yes, Ken did, in fact, announce on Twitter some time ago that he plans on including a trans character in The Lara-Su Chronicles. It's apparently even a character we've already met, though whether this means he's retconning a returning Archie Sonic character to be trans or it's one of the new characters is still up in the air. It's presumably an echidna based on Ken's statements about how in the new universe "Echyd'nya" society is so totally progressive and they're "not hung up on gender identity the way humans are" and transitioning is "as common as the air 1 breathes," even going as far as implying that they can spontaneously change sex like amphibians. And yet at the same time this character being trans is a secret in-universe "for reasons that will rock someone’s world."

Exactly none of this is conveyed in any way, shape, or form in the book we got.

I don't really know who the trans character is supposed to be, honestly. My first guess was Dr. Zephyr/Zephur, because their design is slightly gender ambiguous, no one every refers to them with pronouns, and they have no data file to clarify their gender. But no, it can't be them if it's supposed to be an Echyd'nya, and also Zephyr/Zephur is probably just a guy because if they were a woman Ken would've given them an hourglass figure. Maybe... Remington? Given all the shit about his unknown origins, is the Big Twist supposed to be that he was DFAB? I don't know. I just know that, whatever it is, if the story containing the reveal of who the token trans character is even gets published, it's not going to be good.

[genderqueerdykes]

So recently I’ve been getting into the punk culture, but I can’t dress punk or listen to punk music because I have adhd and it triggers my sensory issues. Do I have to wear punk clothes or listen to punk music to be considered punk? How “punk” do I have to look or act to be considered punk?

good question!

fortunately there's no dress codes or anything like that for the community. most punks don't really even dress punk- a lot of people who behave in very punk ways wear plain clothes. many librarians, food kitchen workers, homeless outreach workers, social workers, and other people are punk and dress just as plain as anyone around them

punk is in the behavior and the beliefs- if you behave in a way where you actively break down oppressive structures that we participate in on a daily basis and learn to accept and help our communities and the people who are most heavily affected by that oppression (people of color, mentally ill people, neurodivergent people, addicts, homeless people, sex workers, intersex people, trans people, poor people), you are fitting the part

i also don't listen to a lot of punk music due to sensory issues from autism, so don't feel too bad. i did listen to quite a bit when i was living in a house venue, but it's not something i seek out on my own due to my sensory problems with sound. it's not necessary to be into the punk music scene unless that's something you actively want to participate in and enjoy. many people are just in the punk music scene and that's totally okay. some people really enjoy that, and some don't. artists will express in what ways they see fit, and others will focus their attention elsewhere. there are many ways to be punk

the only way to not be punk is to be a nazi, cop, or other type of fascist- being racist, queerphobic, ableist, intersexist and their enablers is also a great way to not be punk.

many punks are punk in the sense where they do their best to be their for their local community, provide resources and aid where possible, teach others to unlearn racism, queerphobia, ableism and other forms of internalized oppression, and generally try to provide a helping hand to whoever may need it. many punks hand out water and snacks to homeless people in their area. many punks are nurses. many punks work in social services to help disabled and homeless people. many punks dedicate their time to helping the environment, learning how to sustainably garden and take care of the earth while doing so, compost, and other ways to provide sustainable, responsibly and ethically sourced foods

there are punks all around us, even if they're not dressed in battle jackets and ripped jeans with chains and spikes and patches and pins. sometimes a punk is the person standing on the sidewalk in a T-shirt and jeans smoking a cigarette, but you'll never be able to guess or tell just by looking that they spend hours out of their week participating in protests and writing anarchist zines. much like any other group of people there's no way to tell if someone is punk just by looking at them or gauging their interests- it's about how they behave and how they treat people around them

dismantling structures that are designed to keep marginalized and targeted people down is what the punk community is about. you don't have to be an activist, either- as long as you take the time to learn how to treat demonized and outcasted people with decency and respect, and how to support your community in whatever ways you can, you're doing what you're supposed to do. you don't have to volunteer or spend hours handing out resources to people in need. but what is important is to refuse to participate in holding down people who cause no harm who are just trying to live their lives

hope that helps! feel free to ask any more questions you may have

[butch-reidentified]

as you can see, reblogs and replies are now turned off for this mind-numbingly braindead post, but I couldn't resist sharing some of the batshit content in the notes.

typing in color so it's easier to tell my commentary apart from the screenshots

radfems are insane because... we think "all women matter" doesn't include males. incredible insight. I also love "leave my sisters alone. and leave me and my brothers alone, fuckers," as if that's the direction the harassment is typically occuring in. as if radfems are hunting trans people for sport simply by not believing in or supporting the gender construct. yes. we are clearly the insane party here.

more evidence we're the insane ones, as this person claims men aren't an oppressor class and that somehow believing that they are will lead to... believing butch lesbians are an oppressor 💀 this is your brain on gender - completely unable to even consider sex, only "masc presentation," which is how they come to the batshit conclusion that acknowledging men are an oppressor class will ultimately come to include butch lesbians.

... girl. what.

however........ there's one reblog that really stands above all others. It is so long and so unhinged that it surpasses tumblr's image cap, so I'm going to have to do a part 2 of this post. but here's a sneak peek:

Gender worshippers learn what gender essentialism & bioessentialism actually mean challenge: impossible

Seriously. Y'all loooove redefining shit so much, but these terms were created for specific reasons and you can't just rewrite any word or term you want to suit your beliefs. Gender essentialism refers to the commonly held belief that gendered traits are biologically determined by sex rather than learned. The idea that women are "naturally" or "biologically" homemakers, more nurturing, less confrontational, and more emotional, that little girls "naturally" or "biologically" prefer dolls over toy trucks, that women "naturally" or "biologically" feel driven to have babies and there's no such thing as a happy childfree woman, that sex is inherently more emotional and meaningful for women, that men are more logical, better at STEM subjects, better drivers, that it's "natural" for men to cheat but not for women to, that men are "naturally" or "biologically" more aggressive, that paintball and Call of Duty are naturally "for boys," and a thousand other ridiculous things way too many people believe.

But oh shit, what's that? The people who really started fighting back against gender essentialism and arguing that gender is a social construct were... second wave feminists???!!! the very movement radical feminism is born from and shares most of its tenets with???!!! it's... it's almost like... radfems are the literal opposite of essentialists 😱

Meanwhile, today's trans community will tell gender-nonconforming people they're "eggs" and "totally going to come out as trans any day now" while simultaneously claiming not to define gender by stereotypes 🤡 like, OK...

check notes for Part 2!

[sophie-frm-mars]

Transmisogyny discourse on here has such an annoying shape to it.

Like I know that a bunch of it is just because it's from people who are / have always been very online / don't have much life experience as with all discourses that take on annoying shapes so I've been trying to not get too fixated on it but like,

Okay TMA (Transmisogyny Affected) and TME (Transmisogyny Exempt) are absolutely useful and valuable terms in the discussion of transmisogyny and how it works, because you need to be able to talk about who transmisogyny directly affects in order to talk about it. The much larger group of the total population is TME people, because that's (broadly) all cis people, and transmasculine people. So the majority of transmisogyny is necessarily directed from TME people to TMA people, but it's important to understand that as a social force it is actually directed from everyone towards TMA people. Trans women also engage in and perpetuate transmisogyny, sometimes incredibly vicious and harmful transmisogyny - the point of these terms is to identify the groups relevant to the discussion, not to identify an innocent oppressed class and an oppressor class who does entirely 100% of the social dynamic.

The next annoying part of the discourse is that in talking as if TME people = the transmisogyny doers, we keep winding up at a transfems vs transmascs discourse. This part of the discourse is like 1 part transfems misidentifying where the fight worth fighting is to 5 parts transmascs wanting to talk about ways they're also oppressed to like 20 parts raw transmisogyny. Yes, people who perform masculinity under patriarchy are more respected by partriarchy and get some benefits from that, and this is reflected in the differences between experiences of transmascs and transfems. This will be true everywhere that there is the basic patriarchal binary gender division between masculine (possessing agency, meaningful subjectivity, power) and feminine (being a type of property that belongs to others). Incidentally this is why the dyke butch/femme dichotomy is just there to sell more gender.

Everyone should get to perform their gender in a way that makes them happiest, and the problem is that we live under a patriarchy, which disempowers some people for the ways they perform their gender. I'm getting really basic here because some people on here talk like they need reminding.

The real reason the discourse is annoying though, just like all online discourses are, is because none of it is about how to organise to actually fight transmisogyny - that is, to make things meaningfully better for transmisogyny affected people.

2 years ago in the UK a teenage trans girl, Brianna Ghey, was stabbed to death after a prolonged campaign of transmisogynistic bullying by her classmates that the adults in her school life were absolutely aware of and did nothing about. Her death was the most important thing to every trans person in the UK for a moment, and then the political energy just dissipated without gaining any momentum. This is because organised structures of trans community, protest, politicisation and direct action just weren't there.

3 years ago in the UK a cis woman, Sarah Everard, was murdered by a police officer. There was an organised vigil which was politicised by Sisters Uncut, a feminist direct action group with chapters across london and the UK which had evolved to embrace police abolition over the course of its existence. The police escalated against the vigil and the spectacle of the police crackdown on women mourning the death of a woman murdered by police became a crucial moment in police abolition discourse in the UK. Because Sisters had already been laying down the organisational infrastructure for years, because it had been holding discussions among members and because it had responded to its members needs, it was in a strong enough position to act quickly and make change in the public consciousness. (You can read more about this in Abolition Revolution by Aviah Sarah Day and Shanice Octavia McBean.) If there was an organisation half as well put together as Sisters Uncut present in the trans community in the UK when Brianna Ghey was murdered, the organised response could have done something similar and meaningful.

I wrote a bit here about how trans people could use an assembly-organisation model to achieve meaningful change, but that's just my personal proposal for what would make a difference. The larger point is that discoursing over transmisogyny online, just like all discoursing online, is just shadows on the wall of the cave.

[pawberri]

thank you for all the posts you've made, your takes are always so refreshing to hear.

I want to know your thoughts (if it's okay with you, you can also totally ignore this) about all the "men hate" I see online. like I (poc transmasc non-passing) get it, there are genuine societal gender problems. transmisogyny does exist-women face more challenges than men do. but it genuinely hurts when women, especially trans women, think it's funny/quirky to call men trash or say they want all men dead or whatever. idk I just am hoping someone else understands, you know?

There's a lot of nuances to this question. First, I just want to caution against focusing too much on trans girls as the perpetrators of this. A lot of the asks I get from trans men seem to really fixate on trans women as the perpetrators of hard line gender essentialism. I really think trans girls are not the main people we should be focusing on here. If a trans woman is saying this stuff, take the time to analyze her ideology outside of that pithy comment and consider how much trauma and how little power she has in the world. That said, trans women are affected by this kind of ideology just like us, and they rarely have the power to wield it against others in the way cis people can. I know it hurts to feel isolated by your own community, but that kinda gets into my second point.

Part of dealing with this is learning an impulse progressive cishet dude have had to get used to over the decade. Sometimes, "men are trash" or even "kill all men" are not literal phrases. They are things women say when they're in the throes of trauma to vent their frustration. "Men are trash" in particular is generally pretty lighthearted and used to complain when you have a bad date or something. You have to get used to analyzing what someone actually means and airing on the side of empathy. You, as a man, are the one with some amount of systemic power over that woman, so you are the one who needs to prove you are dedicated to not being a misogynist. The same thing happens when my friends say they hate white people. I have to assume they don't hate me given that I'm their friend, but that I still have some of the negative traits of whiteness. I need to care enough to be a good friend by being anti-racist and checking myself on my behavior. I need to be willing to prioritize their comfort over mine. That includes not becoming this meme:

Now that that's established, there ARE times when "all men are evil and should die" is an actual ideology. It's an ideology that hurts tons of minority groups before it hurts the most powerful, but it's also not really great if we assume it only hurts cishet white guys. Following it to its logical conclusion, it just proposes a reversal of oppression dynamics. This gender essentialism is a key part of radical feminism, trans exclusionary or not, but it leaks out of that community to general feminism all the time.

As a young person on Tumblr and Twitter, this deeply affected me. I internalized the idea that you can "just be a girl." It was repeated by some trans girls, but also a LOT of TME people. It was framed as trans inclusive, but it's trans inclusive in the way "political lesbianism" is lesbian positive. It posits gender as a moral choice that is completely up to the individual and unrelated to biology. It's the lazy version of "gender is a social construct." I felt sick and disgusting for wanting to be a boy because tons of well-meaning friends of mine had made it clear that "being a boy" was a choice, and it was the wrong one. "Boy" was a social category that could and should eventually be eradicated. Trans women were conditionally supported because they, in theory, made this future possible. This didn't amount to actual support, of course. It was an ideology mostly spread by afab queer people that mostly benefited afab queer people. There were a few trans girls who spread it, maybe some due to genuinely believing in the ideology and some due to social pressure, but there were also a lot of people straight-up grifting as trans girls who used this thinking to feel powerful in a niche community of teens. Remember fucking Yandere Bitch Club???

At a certain point, I genuinely thought of being a man as an unambiguous moral failing, and I lashed out at out trans men because of it. I wanted to feel powerful, and here was a type of man in my community I could shame and exclude. I still feel bad for making a bunch of ~girls only~ stuff in HS that excluded the one out trans dude at our school, my friend, because he was just a ~binary man~ and leaving him with no friends and no community. I treated transphobia like it wasn't a real oppression on its own and, in doing so, perpetuated transphobia. It happens a lot.

I wasn't really able to accept that there was nuance to the concept of manhood until I read this article while struggling to accept my own gender:

This is a pretty seminal piece of writing. It has its flaws, of course, but the empathy and intersectionality it highlights was life-changing. It also shows that this kind of thinking is largely perpetuated by TME people and hurts trans women greatly.

Gender essentialism is a bad ideology, it's a transphobic, transmisogynist, racist, etc etc ideology. It's literally essential to patriarchy. But it's also very easy to repackage into leftism and easy to dogwhistle. As a result, it's natural to be hesitant when you see someone saying they hate all men, but you have to tread extremely lightly and actually care what they're attempting to express. Because, yeah, men as a social class still hold power over women. They still have reason to fear and hate men.

I'm writing a comic about this stuff, actually, so look out for it in the future..........

[snekdood]

you will never be able to take me out of who i am 😌

[leftneb]

alr here's me yapping about the landoscar Detroit: Become Human AU @lyslsstuff and I have cooked up over the past week or so

(decided to make a full post about it bc a. I have many MANY thoughts about it and b. you people are clearly not normal about this either) (affectionately)

first off have another WIP (peep the blue blush and the lines on their faces I'm totally normal about it yesyes) I unironically had to hide their heads a couple times because the sheer homosexual glee on their faces was making me nauseous (this is how I know I've succeeded as an artist)

the main concept goes: oscar is an F1 driver, and lando is one of his android mechanics. unbenoknownst to the general public (and pretty much everyone except like. zak brown) is that oscar is also an android

androids are very much banned from f1

lando starts out as a normal android, just following his programming and minding his own business really. altough the au plays out after the android revolution androids are still mistreated, just in subtler ways. technically they're not owned by anyone (but they're only allowed to exist when employed) and there's no segregation in public (but there's no laws against it) and some people are vaguely accepting (guess what there's no hate crime or hate speech laws either)

basically I went with the game's commentary on capitalism and treatment of minorities and made it a lot more actual c: we're not oppressing you (but we're also not not oppressing you)

the real plot begins when lando (accidentally) finds out that oscar is an android, which both of them proceed to be completely normal and not disgustingly in love about for the rest of eternity

one of my favorite things about this au (and this was completely unplanned it sorta just happened on it's own) is that the car is basically the 3rd main character. the way I'd explain it is basically: rk800 connor in the game is able to reconstruct entire events (crimes in his case) by examining details and piecing it all together. both lando (being a mechanic) and oscar (actually pulling functions out of the thing) are intimately familiar with the car, like they KNOW it on a personal level pretty much, they can reconstruct every single thing that is happening mechanically by hearing the sound it's making alone

for oscar this is sort of unfortunate because he is suspiciously good at telling when something is wrong (way before anyone else can really). but it also makes both of them emotionally attached feel connected to their machines which I think would be a genuinely interesting aspect of having androids in motorsports

thought I had while writing that paragraph: since irl the cars are usually identified by their drivers' numbers ("car number 4" and such) it could be that oscar litterally just calls his car "81". like that's just it's name. very creative ik

for the enjoyers of the original game I'd add that oscar's deviancy arc (in the sense of which impulses he recieves that lead him to disobey his programming) is most similar to markus' while lando's is more akin to connor's

bonus details that I can't really fit in a paragraph but want to add anyway:

android movements being inhumanly smooth conveniently mirrors oscar's irl driving style (minimal movement)

oscar normally has his pain receptors on despite being able to disable them. something about wanting to feel human (refuses to turn them off after crashes he feels were his fault despite mark scolding him about it)

yk the thing where both of these idiots are always dressed for opposite weather? yeah here it actually makes sense they were just programmed that way

I have no idea where lando's name comes from androids don't have names by default. they just get called "it" for the most part except oscar sometimes slips up and calls lando by his given name (that sounds very trans when I put it like that) which everyone else collectively goes "who the FUCK is lando" at

android transgenderism

I will not elaborate on that (note: I am trans. I will project this)

fun fact the piece that started it all ^^ was quite litterally just me seeing a picture of lando and going "dbh vibes" despite my knowledge of the game consisting of maybe half a playthrough I kinda-watched in 2021 (tubbo played it on stream lmao). it's safe to say that I may have hyperfixated on it a little tiny bit taking into account the 10 hours of playthrough I've watched and 2283 words of google doc we've written since that fateful day. whoopsies

also want to conclude this by saying that I purposefully didn't give too much away about the AU plot-wise because the hypothetical fic that hypothetically may come into existance at some point is hypothetically still a ways away and I don't want to spoil it too hard. consider this a director's commentary if you will

lmk if you wanna be added to the tag list for posts related to this au btw!!! I absolutely love hearing people's thoughts on it (though I am gonna be a bit busy in the coming weeks)

tag list (more people asked me to talk about this than I anticipated soz if I didn't respond directly I hope this makes up for it) @roosterhouse @wisteriagoesvroom @kpiastri @kingkestrel

[cringelordofchaos]

Stan questioning their gender in The Cissy

For the purpose of this post I will refer to Stan with they/them pronouns, although I usually use he/him for them.

This is the end... Of being cis...

Ahem.

Let us start, from The beginning:...

Cartman told Stan Wendy/l is "telling everyone (s)he likes girls" and identifies as a boy, "which would mean Stan's a girl", which starts confusing them... ("cartman's a girl? Wendy's a boy? Could I... also be something nobody noticed before?" - Is what I assume was going on inside their head.)

Their confusion/curiosity prompts them to seek some form of explanation... Support, reassurance.

They go to their dad.

"Dad, Is it possible for someone to be one way on the outside, but totally different on the inside?"

"I mean - can someone identify as one sex, but be something else, but still have it be nothing about sex?"

I do find it somewhat interesting that Randy is the first person Stan goes to when confused about this. It wouldn't be the first time - similiar scenario occurred in "Tweek x Craig", where they were confused about Tweek and Craig being depicted as gay by the new girls in school, despite neither of them showing any signs of being gay before. They turn to Randy, despite their rocky relationship- but I digress. Randy simply tells them yes, that can be the case. And explains to the, how he(?)'s actually Lorde, to which Stan faints - i have no comment of relevance

Leaving them possibly more confused then before...

Further confusion ensues.

They don't know where they belong ...

Did they ever?

And they finally decide...

But, shortly after, they get in Trouble (or at least undergo interrogation)

When asked why they felt the need to go to the transgender bathroom/didn't feel comfortable using the boys bathroom, they respond -

"I just... Two people close to me are having gender identity issues and I'm confused."

So, their confused feelings of gender identity could possibly be due to their empathy, rather than them actually being trans. Throughout the series it is frequently shown that Stan is a pretty empathetic kid, and easily emotionally influenced - this could easily be another demonstration of their high emotional empathy.

But ya never know.

But the interesting thing is that in this episode, it's acknowledged that being transgender and gender dysphoria is a real thing people struggle with, but that's not Cartman, as cartman's only using being transgender as an excuse to get access to a cleaner bathroom. Stan here could possibly be the demonstration of a kid actually struggling with gender identity, as a parallel to Cartman in a way (?), as while Cartman's new gender identity is accepted despite probably not being trans, Stan is perceived to be cis and transphobic by everyone despite them genuinely being confused about their gender, unlike Cartman.

At the end, when it is officially announced anyone can go to any bathroom they feel comfortable in, including trans and cis kids, and if they're not comfortable sharing a bathroom with anyone possibly trans they'll have to go to a separate "cissies" bathroom, Stan feels comfortable enough going to the boys bathroom, only with this knowledge intact. (I mean, if they were non binary and possibly had to choose between "girls" "boys" and "cissies", they possibly felt most comfortable with "boys")(and also, perhaps knowing they're not the only non-cis/not fully cis person in the bathroom at all times comforted them..?). However, they're bullied into the cissies bathroom, because everyone assumes Stan's transphobic because they're all fucking dumbasses.

Now, them questioning/being confused about their gender is never referenced again in the series, at least I doubt it is. But, from what we've been shown, I just find it all very interesting. Idk.

Long post short, non binary/demi-boy Stan real 💯💯💯