#but because systematic power is a thing and a cis gay person saying a trans slur is the same as a Cis straight one

[ursie]

Honestly slur discourse is so wild because somehow on this site people decided to apply the don’t gatekeep everyone should be included logic to like. Actual slurs like?? Genuinely insane. No one understands how systematic power works or how they were actually historically and culturally used so now we have gays mad at old butches for for calling themselves fags while also unironically calling themselves cripples for their anxiety like. Insane it’s insane

[butch-bakugo]

Discourse/political opinions:

Note: I am ok with people following/interacting with me if we disagree on certain subjects on this list but if its got a ❎ next to it, i am not ok with you interacting with me and i will block you. Take everything thats on the ❎ list to be a informal dni

Throwing this at the top: Isreal is an apartheid colonial state and has no right to exist. It is on stolen land. Zionists are committing a ethnic cleansing of Palestine and I will forever stand with Palestine.❎

All cops, especially ur uncle/brother/dad/friend, are bastards. ❎

Black lives matter ❎

Im neutral on ace discourse, idrc but i do feel safer around ace exclues than ace inclues cause yall get pretty gross sometimes

Longsword lesbians are transphobic ❎ but battleaxe bis are vaild

Cis het means cisgender and hetero- in any capacity, cisallohet is not a thing

Aros/aces/aroaces do face discrimination for being aspec and aphobia is a good word for it but its not a systematic oppression. ❎

Bi/pan lesbians, bi/pan gays and other " mspec" gays are homophobic as fuck and the label is bigoted no matter what arguement you have for it. ❎

Punch your local terf and her nazi friends, especially jk rowling( read another book) ❎

Polyam cis hets, kinky cis hets and gnc cis hets arent lgbt for " going aginest society's standards" ❎

Q*eer is a slur, as well as an identity, and calling everyone it is ableist aginest lgbt people with ptsd and flat out just rude. If q*eer is your identity, great but to pretend it's suddenly not a slur anymore just because "q*eer studies" exists is flat out misinformation. ❎

D*ke is for all wlw, F*g is for all mlm, tr*nny is for all trans ppl.

The split attraction model is only vaild for aspec identities, all other uses are lgbtphobic ❎

Aspec can mean aro/ace/aroace-spec or autisitc spectrum, i litterally dont care enough to argue it. But if you say ur " on the spectrum" to mean ur aroacespec and not autisitic, ill rip out ur esophagus. ❎

Saying asexuality/aromantisim/aroasexuality can't be a spectrum is litterally just aphobic

Allo isnt a slur nor is meant to be derogatory in any way. I will call you allo if ur allo in the context of ace/aro but if u dont like it i wont.

Making fun of ace/aro/aroace pple isnt funny to anyone other than aphobic pple and you should really ask urself why you think bullying in any form is ok as long its a group of mostly young, disabled, trans and neurodiverse people.

Dont say ur an ace/aro/aroace ally then turn around and call urself aphobic proudly. Your an oxymoronic moron and ur not our ally.

I dont care if you "would be *insert ace identity* therefore you can comment on *same ace identity as before* validity" you dont identify as it, shut up, no one asked ur opinion on the matter

Fiction 100000% affects reality you nasties, theres not justification for the romanization of r*pe, pedophilia, abuse, incest, etc. Dark topics are 100% ok but not if ur trying to make them look good. The only good villian redemption arcs are zuko and bakugo. ❎

You dont need dysphoria to be transgender ❎

Im not anti-pansexual/polysexual/omnisexual but i am critical of the labels' history and the huge biphobia issues within their communities. All i ask you consider the label bi as bi has historically been defined as attraction to all genders, it has 100+ years of history over pan/poly/omni, its origins are much more humane and you dont spread misinformation about the bisexual label. Bisexuality has a shameful title in society and biphobia is very prevalent so its understandable why people would not want to connect to that label but thats not an excuse to demonize or sexualize bisexuals.❎

Skolio/ceterosexual are only vaild if its a nonbinary person who feels unsafe dating cis/binary people. ❎

Nazis and other bigots do not deserve a platform, thats how fascists and dictators come to power. ❎

Just because trump is worse than biden dosent make biden good. Vote Kamala

Reg means nothing because its all personal interpretation

Gatekeeping is a term made by trans women to explain them being excluded from healthcare, it dosent mean keeping people from invading other communities. Im not a doctor therefore i cant " gatekeep" you.

You have to have did/osdd to be a system and you have to have trauma to have did/osdd. Therefore you have to have trauma to have a system and endos can fuck off, ur ableist. ❎

Tulpamancy is part of closed poc-exclusive religious practice and has nothing to do with systemhood so if ur white and/or claim ur system cause you made a tulpa, ur not only racist and cultural appropriating but also ableist!❎

Pedos/maps/pears are not lgbt. Its a kink not an orientation. (Pocd people are not pedophiles and deserve support!) ❎

Stop stanning freaks like pewdiepie, jenna marbles, thomas Sanders, james charles, fya, cais/bunga, biggest gaudiest patronses, i am fish or other nasties. ❎

Most problematic sources can be consumed critically ( especially if its an autistic person with a hyperfixation) but some sources cant be saved and should burn.

Trying to say which intrusive thoughts are "ok" and " not ok" to have defeats the purpose of supporting those who have them. I have them, shut up if u dont. ❎

Kinnies are rad and i am one. ❎

I support all mogai identities as long as they arent; copycats to make something more " progressive", trans trivializing, fetishizing or otherwise gross. Im mogai neutral as long as the identity is harmless. Xenogender and like altersex stuff is rad as hell ❎

Nonbinary people are allowed to be uncomfortable being around/dating binary people, even if the binary person is trans. Enbyphobia is prevalent in all circles and we're allowed to be wary of ALL binary people ❎

Two-spirit and intersex/intergender people are not inherently lgbt but if the two spirit person is ok using western lgbt labels or the intersex person is trans, then they are lgbt. It is a personal decision and if you arent one or either, it's not your choice to decide if we are or aren't.❎

The drinking/smoking age should be 18.

*insert offputting kawaii death penality insta discourse image* anyway the government shouldnt be allowed to kill you period. Dont care who you are or what you did. ❎

Bring back the guillotine. Viva la revolution ❎

Dismantle the police system ❎

Supporting trump inherently makes you a shitty person cause it means you put no value the lives of those imprisoned at ice concentration camps or literally anything for the betterment of humanity. ❎

Seperate art from artist. Pirate. Fuck disney. Fuck notch. Fuck cavetown ❎

Conceal and carries shouldnt be allowed in hospitals, schools, places of worship, homeless shelters, fesitvals or any places that house oppressed, sick, injured, young, old or otherwise harmless people and peaceful places. ❎

Fujoshis and fundashis are homophobic and nasty asf ❎

"Factkin" dont exist, you cant be another living person, especially seince you dont and never will know everything about their life ❎

Hamiltons music was amazing but idk how to tell you that you shouldnt be supporting a musical that romantizes slave owners. ❎

Hazbin hotels/helluva boss's creator is a horrible person, the music and art style suck ass, alastor is a walking aphobic sterotype, angel dust is a walking homophobic stereotype and the show completely disregards the protags orientation. ❎

Christianity should be abolished and held responcible to the many it has killed and harmed but other abrahamic religions should be supported ❎

Self diagnosis is vaild if the person is well informed. Especially if the idividual is forced within a medical system that would kill, take away their children, refuse them the right to marry or otherwise be oppressive over the idividual if they were successfully diagnosed. ❎

Criminals dont need to be reformed, the system that creates them needs to be. ❎

Descalation officers and social workers who are trained to deal with people in scary situations would kill less people than cops ❎

Neo-pronouns and emoji pronouns are vaild ❎

Micro-labels are not inherently good or bad

Emo and alternative people are not oppressed for getting bullied wtf is wrong with you. ❎

It's not ok to bully people people over relatively harmless identities like pan/poly/Omni, demisexual/romantic, etc. Like idk how to tell you that isn't ok or responsible just because you think the labels are stupid. It's one thing to advocate aginest a community and it's another to personally harass someone just for being that identity. I may not like the history or the community but it isn't cool to bully these people. Not to mention ur a fucking idiot giving them attention and a person to point at as being "dangerous" to them. ❎

Sysmed and tramascum are transphobic and ableist labels, there is nothing wrong with medicalizing a fucking debilitating mental disorder.❎

Transandrophobia exists and if you still think trans men don't face any issues or suddenly gain male privilege, your a fucking idiot.❎

Autism speaks can die in a deep dark abyss❎

If youre still trying to defend a white YouTubers black face in 2023, what are you even doing?❎

Measuring race/ethnicity by percentages and trying to interpersonally decide whether someone is "x race enough to claim it" is just recycled ethnic purity bullshit, racist and it doesn't matter how low or large your percentage is as long as you are happy and respectful. ❎

Certain media can be consumed critically(mha, soul eater, FNAF, etc ) but other media simply can't( Harry Potter, hazbin hotel, hetalia, etc) and you'll have to deal with the consequences of supporting the entirely irredeemable media.

Will add to this as time gose on

[transrightsjimin]

I'm asking as a confused trans and gay person regarding some of your recent posts saying aphobia doesn't exist, etc. Do you consider asexual people to be inherently LGBT even if they are cisgender and straight (heteroromantic)? I don't want to discriminate at all, I'm just confused because I see people fighting on here all the time about whether aces are part of the LGBT community or not. Do you have some insight for me as an ace nonbinary person? Thanks in advance!

no it’s fine lol dw!

i’m not sure how to explain this w/o being too extensive in what i say bc i’ve talked about this before but more in private conversations (and maybe some rants in tumblr posts) nd i tend to ramble abt it.

first of all i do not actually like the common conception that there is one way to define LGBT or the idea that everyone should fall within that category term or not, for example because the English language is colonial and rigid and does not reflect on experiences of all cultures, bc being gay or trans are not distinctly different experiences everywhere while they would be divided into different categories. so whereas i was more insistent on saying ‘you must be gay / bi / lesbian / trans to be LGBT / suffer from homophobia or transphobia’ i’ve come to realize now that this argument is rather exclusive of many gender diverse identities that do not correspond to all experiences or cultures. so i will stay away from using that argument.

however, i am speaking from my experience with online LGBT and asexual communities and have seen how the latter has tried to force itself into the other. i think a large issue with the asexual and aromantic communities is that they are partially based upon the creation of AVEN, an online forum founded by a homophobic and antisemitic man, and partially (though related to the former) by just blatantly made up statistics and history. not once have i seen a good argument or research or even personal accounts that illustrate very well why aphobia is a thing. i am asexual myself but do not want to take the lack of discrimination i faced for it as proof. there have been accounts of ‘aphobic’ discrimination that are either 1. much more a general concern with the OP facing misogyny and girls being sexualized, 2. someone making a remark based on a misconception of OP’s experiences or 3. misappropriation of terms and applying them to asexuality, e.g. ‘corrective rape’ was coined to refer to (African) lesbians who were assaulted under the presumption that it would turn them straight. asexuals have appropriated this term years ago to claim asexual people face rape on a large scale because perpetrators try to force them into liking sex. some people don’t even know the original meaning of the term because of this. i’m also not a big fan of this new interpretation of the term anyway, because legit sexual attraction is not the main reasons people commit rape; it is to seek power. this kind of mindset of asexual people being inherently vulnerable to sexual violence due to lack of feeling sexual attraction is seriously harmful; in the crime show Law and Order SVU, a suspect was let off because some main character said the suspect was asexual and this couldn’t have done it. people can be and sometimes are raped by an asexual person, because it is about taking advantage of someone and not attraction. the sole fact that so many authors of overly fetishistic fanfiction are asexual should prove this much, but instead the lack of attraction is used to distance oneself from the harm one can still cause.

and yes, asexual people can face discrimination, especially if you’re a girl you’re expected to be sexually submissive, which is pretty horrifying on its own. but this is not the same as targeted discrimination on a mass scale or institutional whatsoever. we are not thaught as we grow old that asexuals are disgusting, are a joke, or need to be violently murdered. my biggest issue with the asexual and aromantic community that we (as i have removed myself from it years ago) keep telling it that anecdontal accounts of being mildly discriminated is nowhere near the same as risking being kicked out of your house, being violently attacked due to the way you appear or having a partner of the same gender, being systematically discriminated by all sorts of institutions in society and being thaught that what you are is bad from an early age on. and then the counterargument is that LGBT is more recognized but asexual and aromantic isn’t, so ‘ace / aro’ people deserve to be included because they are underrepresented in media. but that is not the case at all. the speed at which asexuality has suddenly been incorporated and included into LGBT spaces, also offline, has been ridiculously fast. nowadays when you see a bunch of LGBT flags you see the asexual one being included a lot, sometimes in 3 different versions, while the lesbian flag is nowhere to be seen. lesbians are consistently excluded from their supposedly own community and they are not included in LGBT due to a need to change underrepresentation or lack of awareness, but because they face their own version of homophobia. the most mind-boggling thing about cis / cishet asexual and aromantic people being told that they are not oppressed, is that the response is not relief (’oh i’m glad i don’t face systematic oppression for this thing’) but anger (’how dare you not let us into your group!’). LGBT is seen as a fun party that is unnecessarily mean to anyone it gatekeeps, as if it is not actually necessary to keep out cishet people who benefit from their privilege and can use that against the rest in the group if they join.

my largest issue with the asexual community however, and i’ve touched upon this a bit before in the post, is that it victimizes itself, to such a degree where it puts itself oppositional to ‘allosexuals’. the whole idea that people who experience sexual attraction to another person are inherently privileged over abd hold power over asexual people is just not true (and the same goes for this rethoric for aromantic people). this idea is so wrong and the whole concept of the ‘allosexual’ as oppressor collapses once you consider that people who are attracted to the same gender are actually in danger and oppressed for their very attraction. not only are those who experience attraction (that isnt platonic) to other people portrayed as oppressors, but also as perverted freaks. once i decided to stop associating myself with acearo people and instead interact with LGBT people with other experiences, i realized just how much stigmatizing abd frankly, homophobic and transphobic bullshit i’ve adopted within the spaces i used to be in and that i still see gather a lot of traction (now their harmful points are also used on twitter and IRL in the public domain). the community has a huge issue where it teaches you to be puzzled and grossed out by people who want to date / kiss / have sex with other people, and this results in GSAs that now include asexuals to prohibit kissing your partner per request of asexual / aromantic members, asexual people showing up at pride with ‘can we just hug?’ signs, the common serophobic jokes (’at least we dont get hiv!!’ blergh), and for me it led to a great discomfort with kissing and sex imagery and it wasn’t until i left the community that this was in fact subtle homophobia because so much content on here is lgbt themed and to combine that with the increasing aversion to romance or sex without critically looking at that is... very toxic to say the least.

so where it’s standing right now, i don’t think including asexual or aromatic people in LGBT spaces on the basis of those identities is a good idea. one community advocates for the acceptance of sex, whereas the other is stigmatizing it and painting off those who are in fact oppressed for their transness or homosexuality, as the oppressors. it clashes and it doesn’t work. the ‘ace / aro’ community (quote unquote bc i see ‘ace’ being used a lot to imply superiority over ‘allosexuals’ like, theyre being the ace at something) has too many issues, which it is largely based on, to figure out. it can be a community on its own and i do not think you need to join LGBT to have a valid identity that has something to do with sexuality or gender and deals with a form of stigma.

it woukd be a rant, i warned you lol

[poobit]

i urge people to replace “oppression” or “(insertwordhere)-phobia” with “prejudice” , prejudice doesnt have the assumption that a group holds power over the other in a systematic manner, just that theres things that a person can do to harm the other out of assumptions on how they are , what they believe, sexuality, gender or whatever. 

yes, a lesbian can hold homophobic prejudice at a gay man and is capable of hurting them, its not cancelled out because one is a lesbian n the other is just a gay man, a prejudice is a prejudice. one may not have systematic power over the other but it can end up still being detrimental to hurl a slur to anyone thats directly based on the person Being a Gay man. just like the reverse happens much frequently.

yes, a cis girl can hold prejudice at a trans guy, even if the trans guy did something dumb, a cis person doesnt have the right to Hold Transphobic Prejudice at trans guys or assume all the experiences are gonna be the same and not listen to someone who might have an actual problem because “all men cis or trans are stupid”

am i saying misandry is real?, lol no, people go unchecked into their misogynistic assumptions way more often than we are lead to believe, people are more lesbophobic than we are lead to believe, theres a ton of trans guys out there who are transmisogynists, misogyny is something we all have to unlearn forever. But prejudicial assumptions can shape what you are willing to listen and what not. You are not brave if you mimic what a cishet person would say about you but under the guise of defending yourself or someone else.

if you read this and assume im gonna defend misogyny i urge you to reread it over.

[flusteredmountainman]

On the insidious hypocrisy of transmedicalism and colonial conditioning

I’m going to slap down a fairly long post about how transmedicalism is Fucking Bullshit today because I’ve been trying to pin down some of my thoughts and feelings for a wee while about it and I finally feel like I’m ready to articulate it.

CWs for use of the word h*mosexual (censored bc i have friends made uncomfortable by that word who ID as gay), conversion therapy, transmedicalism, colonialism, racism, transphobia, homophobia, trauma, violence mention, classism, ableism.

First off: truscum ideology makes no sense. Transmeds will preach and scream about how being trans* has nothing to do with biology; that gender is a psychological thing (which it is) but then will go on to say that if you don’t experience severe dysphoria you aren’t trans. This literally makes No Sense because if being trans has nothing to do with your biology and your physical attributes, then why should every trans person be forced to physically change their biology to fit binarist ideas of how bodies should look in relation to gender to prove themselves?

The base ideology is hypocritical at best and boot-licking/transphobic/cisnormative at worst: the idea that you have to experience (x) amount of trauma and discomfort to be trans only feeds into the cis narractive that trans people are traumatised, disturbed, othered individuals who have something “wrong” with them or that they’re “degenerate” - this conflation of being trans as being a mental illness is literally a rhetoric used by cishets dating back decades in psychology circles to treat being gay/trans/what-have-you as a sickness that can be cured. People used to be diagnosed as h*mosexual to justify putting them through conversion therapy to cure them of what was perceived as moral degeneracy. The same can be said for being trans. By pushing this rhetoric transmeds are admitting that they agree that being trans is Abnormal - that no one could ever want to be trans or be happy being trans because it’s so far removed from everything polite society considers “normal”. To support these ideas is to incite violence against your trans brothers, sisters, and siblings: it is disgusting and ignorant and smacks of internalised transphobia.

Not only that but transmedicalism as an ideology is also inherently racist! Truscum are uplifting binarism as a structure that was introduced into many societies by colonial powers that systematically erased native and indigenous identities that have always existed - by saying that these identities as well as non-binary identities (for which terms were created in response to debunking the idea that you can only be one gender or another in specifically western contexts) aren’t valid you are literally acting as a tool of colonialism. You are contributing to the cultural destruction and ongoing colonisation of indigenous cultures and identities. By supporting these ideas you are inherently saying that you support white supremacist structures of power and oppression founded not only upon race but also gender, ability, class and oppression of LGBT+ people. You are playing into white supremacy and you are actively inciting racist and pro-colonialist violence towards trans and gender diverse people of colour. 

It’s also no coincidence that it’s classist: as I mentioned before. The idea that you have to transition to be trans hinges upon the assumption that there is equal  opportunity and access for every person to transition: which many people don’t for many reasons including that it’s expensive, in my country only one surgeon can perform surgeries at all (literally inaccessible), many people can’t afford to take time off work, many people have various disabilities or illnesses that literally mean they cannot transition if they may want to: all this not even considering that some people may not want to physically transition. When we consider that combined with the institutional oppression people face for their race that means many, many people of colour are living in poverty due to their families being trapped in the poverty cycle and intergenerational trauma from colonialism, it’s no coincidence that the people impacted by this bullshit ideology the most are trans* people of colour! Plus disabled trans* people and disabled trans* people of colour! It’s disgustingly ableist, racist and classist and just reveals how these people don’t give a single shit about any trans* person who isn’t white and ablebodied.

There is already so much prejudice and oppression that trans and gender diverse people face in our society already it just doesn’t make any sense for transmeds to play the oppression olympics. Your experiences are not universal! Just because you experience extreme dysphoria doesn’t mean that people who don’t are not valid in their identity. Gender euphoria is equally important and besides gender as a construct is a fucked up concept anyway, so why are y’all sucking up so hard to the Cissies TM! Please get over yourself and examine why the hell you feel the need to pull other trans people down with you: you are a deeply sick, sad individual if you see someone else being proud of who they are and feel the need to knock them down a peg just because you’re in pain, and you aren’t above being a transphobe just because you’re trans!

All this to say that if you proudly self-ID as a transmed/truscum you can literally choke and die and you will never in any way be welcome on my blog! Same to Terfs y’all can fuck off too.

Cis people do Not add to this or I will Come for you I do Not want to hear your opnions on this: nothing you say can meaningfully contribute to this conversation so please just reblog to amplify trans* voices. 

[rotationalsymmetry]

Theory 1: The Limitations of Theory

I'm going to be making a bunch of posts about my political and ethical worldview, tagged "theory series", on grounds that there's only so far yelling about people who are wrong can go unless you can offer an alternative framework for understanding reality.

This probably will not be good, and I am one person with opinions. Ultimately your worldview is your own. First principle: theory is never more important than people, and if theory conflicts with someone else's account of their lived experience you either live with the contradiction or you adjust your theory, you do not deny the other person's lived experience. (This is an axiom. It's a terminal value. It is an assumption and does not require proof.)

Example 1: Your preacher says gay sex is sinful. Your kid comes out as gay. After a lot of extremely awkward conversations, you seek out a more accepting church (or leave it entirely), because your kid keeps insisting that they can't just stop being gay.

(This also applies to, like, evolution and the earth rotating around the sun and stuff -- I said people, but theory needs to give way to physical reality as well.)

Example 2: You've read a book that says that abuse within a romantic relationship is never something that men do to women. A man you know tells you about being abused by a previous, female, partner. He isn't trying to make any particular political point, your "is this person is telling the truth?" instincts are saying yes and there's also some aspects of this person's behavior that make way more sense if he's a trauma survivor. You conclude the book was wrong.

Example 3: When you were a child, you were taught certain things about gender and body parts and chromosomes in a very binary way. Later in life you find out about transgender and intersex people. You adjust your worldview, even if it doesn't really make sense to you.

(After all, you were also taught as a kid that Pluto was a planet and that dinosaurs didn't have feathers.)

A corollary: You'll notice I haven't said anything about marginalized people. This isn't about whether people are marginalized or not because that's, again, theory. It kinda matters in that more or less by definition marginalized people's perspectives are, well, marginalized and more privileged people's perspectives tend to be centered. Still. People first, and being privileged does not negate personhood.

An example of this corollary: if you know someone personally who, for instance, was a white kid at a majority-black school who had some negative experiences with that, this is probably not the time to pull out the "there's no such thing as reverse racism" concept, because those experiences happened. Or do pull out the concept of racism being a systematic thing that requires systematic privilege/power and not just prejudice, but do it in a way to reconcile the theory and the experience, not to dismiss the experience. I would not recommend this sort of dialog with someone you don't actually have a relationship with, and I especially wouldn't do it with someone who's in online fight mode.

A second example of this corollary (this is the terf example, sorry): I know a Hispanic trans woman who had a rough experience in school with a cis black woman who was utterly convinced that 1. this trans woman was not actually a woman but was claiming an identity that wasn't hers and 2. nor was she really a person of color, but was claiming an identity that wasn't hers. I'm bringing this up to illustrate how being very convinced that you know who's marginalized and who's not can hurt, you know, marginalized people.

People before theory.

Another corollary: it can be worth paying attention though to who you're not empathizing with. For instance, are you empathizing more with the caretakers of disabled children or adults than the disabled people themselves. And it can be worth paying attention to what sort of people you never really get a chance to interact with or hear the stories of at all. Are you not noticing rape victims, because people have a hard time talking about that sort of thing. Are you not noticing people in prison, people who are in other countries, people who are poor, the elderly, people who are "crazy", people who are ugly, people who have difficulty communicating. (Edit: I remembered after posting this that "empathy" is kind of a loaded concept for some people and not everyone experiences empathy and so on. So, what I mean is compassion, OK? Who are you having compassion for. When I talk about ethics I don't really care what your feelings are or aren't, feelings aren't grounds for moral judgement, I care about your choices. I care about whether you're being thoughtful and compassionate about other people and whether you're treating them right.)

[goingtobed]

What the fuck is up with you being so against straight people? Like seriously you’re doing the exact same thing homophobic people do to gays. How exactly is this helping?? I mean I get it, homophobic people are assholes but not all straights are homophobic. You’re giving gays a bad name here like you make me ashamed to be gay I also meant to message you about this before bc some time ago you either posted or re blogged something about bts hating straights??? Like what’s wrong with you?

“you’re doing the exact same thing homophobic people do to gays”

No, I’m not. And here’s why.- Straight cis people do not experience any sort of oppression based on their gender or orientation. None. They have systematic, institutionalized power and privilege.

When my friends of color say they hate white people, I don’t get offended or upset. Because they have every right to hate white people! They’ve been oppressed by white people as a whole across every single playing field. If someone calls me a cracker, or says I can’t dance….. who the fuck cares. It doesn’t do ANY damage at all. However, if a white person was to call a non-white person a slur, that DOES have an impact, and it has systematic oppression to back it up.

Homophobic straight people calling me a fag has deep rooted, evil history. Me making a tumblr post venting my anger over my oppression has nothing. I can’t give blood because I’m gay. My insurance won’t cover me because I’m trans. There are ACTUAL LAWS trying to be put in place to deny me access to medical care. There are conversion therapy camps that my people are sent to by the hundreds each year.

My roommates have been physically attacked, I have been yelled at and harassed, I have every damn right to express my upset on my own personal blog.

Sorry I’m “giving a bad name” to the community, but I’m an angry, radical queer who is tired!! of the micro and macro aggressions against me. Cishets (as a whole, as a class, as a system, since you don’t seem to understand that) have made me tired. My patience is gone. I want justice, and I’ll draw blood to get it.

I love my cishet dad and sister, they’re great people. And guess what? They know the struggles I’ve been through, and they are okay with me joking about hating cisheteronormativity. Because they realize it’s an actual issue, whereas me, saying on my blog, that I hate cishets, is not.

[caden]

Are you being serious about the biphobia thing? There are a lot of people who specifically dislike bisexuals because they're stereotyped as being promiscuous, cheaters, lying about their sexuality bc they're desperate for attention, or are just "confused" and "eventually pick a side." That kind of discrimination doesn't stem from homophobia, it's completely different. Unless you were being sarcastic then my bad

Some of this might come out sounding hostile, but that’s genuinely not my intention at all: 

Im not being sarcastic, though i deleted that other post because the wording was clearly confusing. Prejudice against bisexual people obviously exists within the LGBT community, although I don’t believe it’s as pervasive or serious an issue in the community as lesbophobia or transphobia. That post was specifically referring to another post, in which someone said it was ‘biphobia’ to point out that: “there’s no systematic power structure or actually influential societal movement that keeps bisexual men from dating women”. 

THEY were referencing another post which had pointed that out, and said that in reality the systems of oppression are encouraging men to date women. I was trying to additionally point out that those systems are rooted in homophobia, not ‘biphobia’. As a bi person, I can concretely point to the ways i’ve been systematically and socially hurt because of my sexuality, and none of them have to do with biphobia. They’re the result of a broader hate held by society for gay people. The ‘straight’ half of my sexuality has never come under any scrutiny– therefore, I don’t see the point in making a distinction between ‘biphobia’ and straight up ‘homophobia’ in this context. Hopefully that makes sense. 

And, yes, in a much much much more macroscopic sense i’ve had experience with people who hold prejudices about what it means to be bi. These experiences are almost entirely limited to very niche groups in small corners of the internet. the real life ignorant assholes that i know who might hold beliefs like these have never expressed them to me– because they care a lot more about me being gay than me being ‘bi’. meaning– I’ve never encountered someone who, after being told i was bi, said “wow. you must be confused, you’ll pick a side eventually”. I have encountered many people who said “gay sex is a sin, and you’re going to hell”. I’m not saying that the first type of person doesn’t exist, or that we can only observe one type of prejudice at one time– just that any theoretical ‘biphobia’ people might express still falls under the blanket category of ‘homophobia’. 

Once we start to really differentiate and act like biphobia is a different kind of homophobia instead of a result/subset of it, especially in communities like tumblr, we get bisexual people talking over lesbians, trans folks, etc, we get complex identity politics where people are non-ironically saying “let bisexual boys date women” as if anyone is actually stopping them– essentially, we get bi people acting as if biphobia is a systematic or social problem on par with homophobia or transphobia. “Biphobia”, by your definition, is as far as I can tell entirely just the prejudice that bi people face. And way way way too often, I’ve seen it used as an excuse that we use to force ourselves into discussions or places where we don’t belong, or shut down other people’s voices. And, of course, it carries an innate element of having to pretend any bi people anywhere are in any way oppressed for loving the opposite gender– or saying that an opposite gender relationship between two cis people is somehow ‘queer’ 

Note: Queer is a word that, as a bi dude, i feel really uncomfortable using when describing myself. Partially because of the fact that it’s been used against me as a slur, partially despite that fact, if that makes sense. It has a very very complicated history and complicated connotations that I (a cis bi man) have no right to Reclaim. 

TLDR: I think of biphobia as a very small facet of homophobia, which is a much much broader issue with much more consequential implications. “Biphobia”, under this definition, carries no inherent oppression– just individual prejudice. Thinking about biphobia as if it is a separate form of oppression or equating it to other issues in the LGBT community is shortsighted and dangerous. 

There are other people who can explain this much more sensitively and eloquently than I just did, and I’m probably skimming over many of the arguments that I could be making here out of general ignorance on the topic. If one of my more well-versed mutuals or followers wants to contribute that would be really appreciated. 

[eevachu]

There once was a girl called kate/most think she’s very great/some people are wrong/They’ve been bad for very long/for their standards no person can abate

EDIT: The person who sent this came forward and clarified that this ask was meant to poke fun at anti-Kate trolls, not Kate fans. I misinterpreted it and flew wildly off the rails (as I am oft want to do lol). The person who sent this couldn’t have known the depths to which I have grieved over this issue as of late, so do not fault them for it. They wanted to send me a joke and I took it the wrong way (ah the similarities here to Kate’s comedy). 

I appreciate someone trying to make me laugh. I don’t really appreciate further spreading this drama, but people are entitled to their opinions, so they are also entitled to the consequences of those opinions. I will say, however, I don’t really like comedy that punches down (accidentally or not), because I think many of the people, who, wrongfully justified and misinformed about her or not, are doing it out of a genuine desire to help trans people. I think the puritanical environment that spaces like tumblr create for this type of discussion creates a toxic mindset that looks ridiculous compared to a properly moderated formal debate environment.

I’m keeping the full version under the cut, because they are things that should be said and I am so very tired of seeing people drag her name through the mud based on hearsay. You may use the examples I’ve provided to draw your own conclusions on the matter, as I have drawn mine. I’ve included some footnotes and clarifications. Skip down to the bolded paragraph above the video to avoid the majority of my emotional outburst.

Thank you for sending needless and harmful negativity into my inbox, I really wish you had instead put your time towards a positive goal like volunteering at an animal shelter, working to raise awareness over the plight of indigenous people in Canada or even just telling someone their hair looks nice today. (The thank you was sarcastic, in case that wasn’t clear.) Or hey, maybe you could have just said, “I know you love Kate, but here’s some problematic things she’s done you should be aware of.” Not write a patronizing little ditty. Catch more flies with honey than with open condescension and all that?

Since you seem like one of those sick people that get off to seeing people feel bad and subscribe to tumblr’s toxic black and white morality and witch hunt culture, here is what you accomplished with this ask:

You’ve made me upset, and I’m sure that was your goal. Congrats. I am an adult woman of 25 and I am crying now because of how upset this made me. This is nothing special, I am weepy person, so don’t pat yourself on the back. I tend to care too much and feel too freely; but anon, did you want me to cry? Because here you are. I am crying. Trembling a little too. You getting your rocks off to this? Happy to be of service then.

My being upset has triggered my anxiety over the issue of my admiration of Kate as an openly lesbian comedian versus the occasional problematic content of her comedy. I think about it a lot, because I am a critical person. The anxiety is going to affect me for several days. Right now I’m nauseous. I will now sleep poorly because of it. I will get less work done because of it. I will be in a foul mood for a week, which affects the people around me. I may self-medicate with alcohol or take what I like to call “a gravol nap”. I will lose money because of lost productivity. So you’ve lost me money anon, I’m sure you enjoy that. What is it about suffering that gives you your jollies, anon?

I work freelance, and you’ve interrupted my work day, because I cannot let this stew, so I have to take time out of my day to write out my thoughts as a reply you probably won’t see and take other measures for my own well-being. This really isn’t for you anon, this has been stewing in me for months and this is the last straw.

So here under the cut are my full thoughts on Kate Mc /.Kinnon Berth/ old, they will be rambly as, hey look, I’m dissociating a little (how fun):

Did you know from 2007-2010* Kate played a problematic character called Fitzwillia m that portrayed a dmab character that wanted a vagina? I’m sure you did. Anon, have you actually watched the Fitzwillia m skits? Here’s a link to all of them:

Watched them? Opinions? I want your real opinions on them, not just what the witch-hunters have told you to think. You’re probably a smart person, you can make up your own mind.

They’re in poor taste certainly, but a lot of comedy is. I think in the grand scheme of life, in the grand scheme of all human suffering and portrayals of queer characters, Fitzwillia m isn’t the worst. Certainly not great and certainly transmisogynistic, but like… watch a lot of TV from this time, this is practically progressive.

Is Kate maybe attached to this character because so many people loved them, approved of this character, and brought this character back for 3 seasons? That sometimes you do bad things because you don’t know they’re bad or that you do, but damn if you don’t need the money? That sometimes you’re ill-informed about something? That to create a character is to send part of yourself out into the world, and you always will love them even when you shouldn’t? That she hasn’t addressed it because to do so would be a PR nightmare for her publicist? That she likely doesn’t know this is even an issue because she’s not on social media? Probably. I’ve made some terrible characters, who did much worse things, who I am lucky to let die on paper stuffed in a folder where no one can see them. She was 22* when she made this character, in a completely different cultural climate than in 2017. Does it make it right that a whole team of people approved this character out into the world? Not to me. However, I don’t have the right to decide anything about the trans-related nature of Fitzwillia m as a cis person, but context is always important to me.When I was looking for a compilation video, I found trans people who genuinely enjoyed this character. I know I love some absolutely problematic gay characters.

Let’s put this into MY context anon, 2010 is when I met my first ever trans person. Ever. I was 18 and in college. I think it took me like… 2 years to figure out what trans actually was in a healthy way that wasn’t tainted by my culturally ingrained transphobia. I didn’t know dick all about social justice or politics or the queer community. I thought I was maybe bisexual. I thought I knew everything. By coincidence, I’m actually going through my blog today and clearing out posts from that time because they’re terrible, because I was terrible. I’ve changed so much from then, I don’t even recognize this person on this very blog. I’m not famous and those words are entirely mine, so I lose nothing by saying I’m wrong for what I said. Kate could lose jobs and colleagues and friends for addressing her past in a similar manner. She worked collaboratively on those works and people will take offence at her backtracking. It’s all very damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Is it right? Probably not, but it’s understandable. She works for Saturday Night Live, a place where they are constantly making things like:

That was made in 2015 and this is very mild. In 2015, I had a more senior coworker make a joke about how a couple we could see in the building across from us were “swapping their gay AIDs blood.” I think that’s a much worse “joke” than anything on SNL. I didn’t tell HR because I was afraid to lose my job, as shitty as it was. She wasn’t exactly in a position of power when these things were made, and she isn’t really in a place to speak out against them now. She’s just now hitting her stride. If I can’t stand up in my own workplace, I can’t fault her for not standing up in hers.

Did she joke about never seeing a penis in an interview? Yes. Did I make the same type of jokes until someone came along to tell me what was wrong with it in a nice way? YEP.**

Does she even know it’s an issue is another thing. She doesn’t use social media, certainly not tumblr. I learned basically all I know about the queer community from tumblr. I have no idea where I’d be without it; probably still making transphobic gold star lesbian jokes.

Anon, I’ve read her receipts. I always do. I know what I’m doing by supporting her is a bit problematic, but so are most of the things I do in my life. I eat meat from factory farms. I have a pedigree dog. I live on unceded First Nation’s land. I benefit from systematic racism. I don’t know what the hell my mutual funds are actually invested in. I’ve made rape jokes and said r*tarded. I was a schoolyard bully redirecting my anger onto other because of my home life. I’ve ruined people’s lives by things I’ve said. I have been a truly godawful person.

Here’s why I still love Kate, if always cautiously and never uncritically: from 2014-2015, I had a mental breakdown, until 2016 I lived in this sort of haze. I remember wanting to die a lot. I remember staring at the subway tracks and thinking, “what if I just jumped?” Do you know what that’s like anon? To constantly want to die? To be in a dead end job, to feel like you’re absolutely worthless? To have a pet die and just think “I deserve this suffering, I’m a failure”?

And then I saw her as Jillian Holtzmann and just… something changed. Something truly changed in my life. She helped me figure out I was a lesbian. She helped me see that out lesbian women could succeed. She got me through that 2016 election where I lost all hope again.

Did she actually do anything? I mean, not really. But she represented something to me and to watch people tear her down is to watch a part of myself be torn down with her. 

Why do I still love Kate, even if only as an idea, not an actual person? Because her saving my life outweighs the blights in her career. Because I give people the benefit of the doubt that they don’t mean harm, because they aren’t aware of the underlying social issues they are dealing with. Because I do not minimize the harmful way that ra// dical fe /.minists are recruiting young lesbians into the T /.ERF community by calling anyone who creates transphobic/transmisogynistic content TE /.RFs. Because I do not idolize, I admire. Because her job is to make people laugh and I truly don’t think she wants to hurt anyone by doing so. Because people are complicated and good intentioned people can do bad things. Because I want to believe she’s a good person under everything.

Because I am willing to forgive other people for things I have done myself if they seem the sort to be open to learning.

If all else is still unforgivable to you anon, I leave you with this: there’s a part in the movie Julie & Julia, where the main character Julie finds out that the Julia Child, this woman she has idolized and who’s cookbook inspired her to change her life, doesn’t like her work. She is devastated. And her husband says that there’s two Julia’s: the real one, and the one in Julie’s head, who she sees as her savior. The Julia Child in her head is the one that really matters.

Let me have the Kate in my head.

In conclusion: anon, I wish you all the best, just very very far away from me.

Notes:

* I was wrong about the original dates that this aired, BGSS aired from 2007-2010, not 2008-2010, which means season 1 was likely shot in 2006 with Kate was 22-23 when she created Fitzwilli am. I was pretty stupid at 22.

** I am actually really angry about being misled by this quote, because I had never watched the full interview, which you can see here:

The interview was filmed in 2007, 10 years ago when Kate was 23, she’s 33 now. 10 YEARS. I know I don’t want to be compared to 15 year old me, or really even 23 year old me. Like I really don’t want to be out here “making excuses” but you have to think critically about the context of the things she’s said and how blowing them out of proportion is harmful to people who are actively trying to harm the trans community. Sure, she’s buying into the gold-star rhetoric for a laugh (because it’s a funny joke straight people in my life STILL make to me and so that’s what most young lesbians think is what you do), but she immediately says after “I don’t think [penises] are gross, I think they’re fun! Fun to play with.” That’s not a typical transmisogynist lesbian dialogue (they usually say penises are disgusting). Which yes, equates genitals with gender, but like… I remember in this time period of my life I was doing the same thing. Not out of malice, but because I didn’t know any trans/genderqueer/nonbinary people, I didn’t even know trans men were a thing! In the same interview she says she’s more 98.5% lesbian, it’s very clear that she’s not sure about these things.

You can tell this interview is more an open dialogue between friends trying to have an honest conversation about sexuality in a time that information about sexuality and gender was much harder to obtain. 2007 is long before it became standard for people to qualify that genitals didn’t equate gender. And it’s definitely still not comedy’s standard, and I get what it’s like to constantly be bombarded with cissexist rhetoric that sometimes you just give in to make it easy.

So in real conclusion: I personally think, from my standpoint as a cis lesbian of 25, that tumblr needs to forgive and needs to draw their own conclusions by watching these examples, not repeat this cycle of screaming examples at people without linking those examples. Let people draw their own conclusions and be open to being wrong about something. I was wrong about the entire catalyst for this post, and I am so deeply sorry about it, and will be more careful in the future.

And for the love of god tumblr, stop holding people to such high standards when you probably wouldn’t meet those standards yourself if you were in that same person’s position.

[magix-blog]

trans women r allowed to h8 trans men tho...

but. the thing is. the only reason poc are allowed to say they hate white people and not the other way around is because white people all participate in systematic oppression. all of ‘em. if it wasn’t like this it would be racism. 

the same way mentally ill/disabled people can say they hate nuerotypicals/able-bodied people, same way trans people can say they hate cis people. this is all because of systematic oppression. 

but. trans people hating other trans people isn’t too good. 

trans men don’t systematically tear down trans women. why? because trans men are trans, and cis people don’t like seeing trans people in power. trans men aren’t any more wealthy than trans women, more likely to get a job due to just who you are (a transphobe won’t hire a trans person at all), and aren’t purposely putting down laws to make it harder for trans women.

trans women experience misogyny/transmisogyny/transphobia/fetishization/ect and are murdered everywhere just for being trans, and it’s absolutely disgusting. but the thing is, this oppression is not based off what trans men are doing to trans women, it’s cis people. trans men are fighting their own battle and trans women are fighting their own separate battle. we’re not supposed to be against eachother. 

trans men experience their own type of transphobia, but so do trans women. that was part of the reason the lgbt community exists, so we can feel safe. if trans women are hating trans men it tears our community apart. same way if gay/lesbian folk hate bi people, or bi people hate trans people, or lesbian folk hate gay folk/gay folk hate lesbian folk, ect. it de-unifies us & isn’t healthy for our community. 

(and i’m poc so i can make this comparison) a somewhat-similar example is, saying that trans women can hate trans men because they do not experience the same type of oppression, is like saying a black person can say they hate eastern asian people because black folk’s stereotypes are more violent/evil than a eastern asian person’s. it just. it’s not good.

trans folk are a minority group. i’m sure someone saying “i hate black men/gay men/mentally ill men” sounds Sketchy Asf. which is why people saying they hate trans men is also Not Too Gucci. So uh please just…. stick with the white cishets mayhaps?

i, personally, don’t care if u say u hate men, just like, in general. cuz a lot of men are very bad people. but lately i’ve seen people on my dashboard specifically saying they hate trans men because of what happened with nina (yaxawa). it’s very disheartening. especially, if you’re cis. 

now: here’s this. i’m not saying trans men can’t do the malicious/terrible shit that cis men can do, we can do bad shit too. it’s just that most of us… aren’t?

tl;dr: hating a trans person for their gender makes you transphobic, no trans person should be hating another trans person for their gender.

if you’d like to correct me at all on anything i said at all, please do so. i’d like to know if anything i said was incorrect or you’d like to state an opposing argument. i wanna learn.

[high-val-you]

Dove Commercial w Trans Mom

If you would like to feel outrage please look at the comments on this beautiful video reposted by a YouTube channel called the “Tea Partier”. Such as “Dove should not be celebrating mental illness.“ and “A B S O L U T E L Y D E G E N E R A T E“. I love this commercial. It warms my heart to see representation and have LGBTQ people represented as people. The amount of hate I see to the trans mother is heartbreaking. People saying it’s propaganda. Propaganda is information (sometimes misleading information) used to promote a political ideology. And in a way this is propaganda, I think there are a lot of good people at Dove who believe in representation, diversity, and inclusion as well as validating the experience of people who feel marginalized. I also think this is a good marketing strategy and ultimately if this wasn’t selling soap to young liberals then this commercial wouldn’t have been produced. It’s a form of pandering, but pandering to a community that hasn’t had a voice or representation and telling them that they’re valid is a powerful and positive thing.

On the side of those who view this as hurtful propaganda it’s the idea that this commercial is promoting something unnatural and wrong. A person born as a man raising his child as a woman is a menace to society, sick in the head, and going to spread his sickness to his child. It sees the commercial as promoting mental illness in order to appeal to SJWs and consistent with a theme of liberal media twisting the minds of young people and creating trans, genderqueer, and other equally abhorrent mental illnesses by normalizing them. Liberal media is making LGBTQ “cool” and infecting our children with dangerous beliefs. Our kids are going to “explore” by fucking everything in sight with no good Christian restraint or discipline. Being LGBTQ is the epitome of sodomy and unnatural wrongness and it’s a disgrace that it’s normalized here next to legitimate forms of mothering. Perhaps even said to be equal to obviously much better and more stable form of mothering. It comes with the assumption that the only way to raise a child is by a cis straight male married to a cis straight female. The child must be raised in a two parent household and the parents can NOT get divorced.

It ultimately comes from a place of wanting the best for children and not understanding that the best a parent can offer doesn’t necessarily come from the parent’s gender, or the number of parents. There are good parents where it’s a standard nuclear family. There are also broken marriages staying together for the kids where the parents’ emotional hurt is taken out on the children. If the trans mom was forced to fill the role of the stereotypical father then she wouldn’t be as good of a parent than when she is a trans mother at peace with herself and giving her all for her children. Also, just because she has had sex with a penis with another woman does not invalidate her identity as a woman, gender is more fluid than that.

I will admit, it may be harder for a single mother to raise a child because she may not have as much access to resources, or two income streams. She also will deal with the struggle of trying to be a professional with a child, because she must be a professional in order to support them. She may have harder choices to make than the average two parent household, but there will be hard choices for every parent no matter the situation. And I’ll admit the child of an LGBTQ couple might face different difficulties than a child of a traditional nuclear family, if only because of hateful people who don’t know how to react, but that shouldn’t invalidate someone’s aspirations to be a parent and raise a child to be strong and choose love. Sometimes parents fail. Sometimes LGBTQ parents will fail. That doesn’t make them invalid. Their kids are only as disadvantaged as those who cannot accept them force them to be.

I would also like to address the idea that LGBTQ leanings are a fad that is infecting the youth. As evidenced by the growing LGBTQ community that didn’t seem to exist when these right leaning peoples were growing up in the 70s. Yes there was free love, but that was on the fringes of society, the aids epidemic was a righteous smite by God on the Gays, and LGBTQ leanings were classified as mental illness by the DSM. This is the glory age of America, this is the time when we, the white rural middle class, were at our height and had the most wholesome American experience. This is the time we want to go back to when we say make America great again, the times of our youth when everything seemed pretty good, we had values that we stuck to, and we believed in God and hard work.

This doesn’t recognize that the same time in American history was characterized by systematic oppression of LGBTQ youth. People who were pushed to the edges of society and forced to live in hiding. People who asked, pleaded, for representation and acceptance for what they could not control about themselves. The LGBTQ “lifestyle choice” was a response to not having anywhere to go in mainstream media and therefore turning to the fringes of society and new identities that fit with their orientation and gender more fully. LGBTQ had to recreate and redefine themselves because the mainstream didn’t allow for them to exist. These are real people with hard lives that had to hide themselves and face a lot of discrimination. They didn’t have the internet then to recognize that they were not alone, so many remained isolated and went along with the moralistic stature of the general populace. They tried to do what everyone else was doing. Truth is, LGBTQ people have always existed and it’s not a trend or a choice. The only choice in the matter is “do I come out?”. And in the past the answer was usually “no”. The rise of gay culture is the rise of the fringes of society coming together, and it’s hard to recognize them as people when they’re so historically underrepresented and have never really been shown to be people, only demons tearing at the fabric of society.

And now gay culture is seeing a commercialization similar to the commercialization of black culture. It’s become “cool” to be fringe, to be gay. These people who were real victims are having their victimization exploited to sell art and used in commercials to move product. Just like it was cool to dress like and imitate the aesthetic of gangsters who were rapping about the violence and oppression of poverty and discrimination. It’s become cool to imitate the oppressed and marginalized LGBTQ community, that developed its own fringe aesthetic simply to stay alive and have an outlet in their American past. The fringes of society are being brought into the forefront in a way that exploits this group, while also promoting them. The popularization of PRIDE simultaneously lifts up and illuminates a community that has spent so long in the shadows, as well as selling an aesthetic that many young gays don’t respect the history of.

Overall I think this commercial is step in the right direction. It celebrates all types of mothers as people with equal opportunity to be good parents, or to be bad. It highlights the ability and possibility of different definitions of motherhood that affirms the humanity of the trans population. It does all of this while pandering to a neoliberal audience and utilizing a fringe community to sell soap, as well as angering a confused and scared right wing. It’s a good commercial.