#ciscritical-not-cisphobic | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

nothorses · 2 years ago

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Hey, I mean, it's been a year- I'm happy to reflect and re-evaluate.

I spent about a month doing research for this post- ranging from internet searches (of all kinds) to interviews (which I posted separately here and here), and the dilemma I ran into was essentially:

Like you noticed, most Baeddel blogs have been taken down. There are actually quite a lot of Baeddel-originated posts left over, but the problem is that they tend to be quippy one-liners that don't spell things out super clearly, and tend to exist more as part of a larger contextual understanding- or are intentionally phrased in such a way as to appear inoffensive at first glance. The other problem is that the other posts are mostly just vague bigotry, without explaining the internal logic.

And the third problem is that enough of these beliefs are accepted at face value today that a lot of folks would see "this is normal" instead of thinking about the underlying reasoning.

So the challenge I was facing was, essentially, the fear that citing sources that didn't spell themselves out would net me backlash from people who needed handholding through it. Which I consider pretty valid, considering the harassment campaign I was dealing with at the time.

The closest thing to a solution I could come up with was to use sources that did spell those beliefs out more explicitly- which did tend to be critical, but which were also consistent enough with each other's claims that I felt there was validity to them- and to encourage people to then look further into compilations of firsthand sources that would make the larger picture clear. (Like these ones: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] which I also linked in the OP.)

In regards to MYC specifically: Her blog has been deleted. There was no possibility of tracking down firsthand sources for everything, and similar to the issues I had with Baeddel posts overall, her posts tended to be quippy one-liners that sounded good on first read and made up a larger picture. My solution to that was similar; lots of secondhand accounts that were more concise/succinct and in keeping with each other, a couple of relevant posts/words from her, plus a link to a relevant tag on her blog that had been archived.

The TERF post was included for this quote:

"And then you have the earliest mtf theorists on tumblr like radtransfem and ciscritical-not-cisphobic – drawn to radical/lesbian feminism – around whom the baeddel group coalesced and their ideology developed, i.e. “radical transfeminism.”"

As it was also discussing MYC and her ideology. Again, regrettable to use shitty people as a source; also happens to be a connection other people have made. And the fact that radical feminists themselves connect Baeddelism to radical feminism does seem significant here.

That said, I could absolutely have included a disclaimer on that, and I didn't. I should have done that. I'm sorry.

I can also recognize where some of these claims come off as transmisogynistic stereotyping; the worst of these are claims that individuals have made in their own posts, which I linked for entirely different reasons.

I don't think MYC was "grooming" cis men, and I have never claimed that. What I did say was that the idea that cis men are "potential trans women" also lead to the belief that trans men are "irredeemable"; we had womanhood handed to us, and we rejected it, and that makes us Worse. This isn't an uncommon idea, and MYC was far from the first person to bring it up; it's extremely common for cis women to feel we've "abandoned womanhood" and try to punish us for it. But it's part of the way she and others view trans men, and that's relevant.

The unfortunate reality of criticizing trans people on the internet is that inevitably, transphobes will hop on board for all the wrong reasons and turn it into a reason to harass trans people. They'll add their bigoted bullshit to the conversation, and then you have to scramble to distance yourself from them while onlookers start to draw conclusions about your Real Intentions. Again, I could have done this better in my post; I'm sorry I didn't.

The "turn me into a girl" site was included because I remember looking into it at the time and feeling it was in line with the claims from the paired post that also linked it, but on second look, I can absolutely see that it's pretty genuine and wholesome. I also had mistakenly interpreted that post to mean that the site was created by MYC & co., but again, I jumped to that conclusion and I can see now that it isn't true. (Honestly I'm not sure why- my guess would be the context I found that link in, but what that was or if it existed is a mystery to me now.) That's my bad- I should have looked more closely.

And like... you got me, I'm not a historian. I'm also not a journalist. I do genuinely apologize for failing to look more closely at that source, and for failing to properly contextualize others. I do genuinely appreciate that you took the time to look through those sources, and I appreciate the feedback from a historical documentation standpoint.

I also don't think it's fair to call the whole thing bullshit, considering the arguments you're using show that you also failed to read and/or comprehend... honestly, a good majority of the post.

You ask why any of this matters, and funnily enough, there's a whole section dedicated to answering that question in the post: "Why It Matters".

You ask where the source texts are, but you literally quoted the answer:

“Baeddelism” was only one name for a set of beliefs that existed long before the specific term did, and hasn’t gone anywhere since the original Baeddel movement died down." So where are the source texts for this ideology? Where is the Baeddel manifesto? Influential and thus potentially dangerous ideologies have books written and published expounding them, where are the baeddel books?

The "Baeddel" clique was a group of people who shared certain beliefs that had already been popularized (hence the inclusion of MYC, who is known for popularizing a lot of the foundational beliefs). They centralized and amplified those ideas amongst themselves, they gave themselves a name, and then the abuse they enacted turned people off from them and they quietly disbanded. But those people and ideas didn't go away.

The point of this post is not to say "look out of anyone calling themselves a Baeddel"- though people absolutely should. The point is to talk about the ways in which radical feminism has influenced the trans community as a whole, using Baeddelism is a microcosm and example.

You say that radical feminism is inherently incompatible with any kind of trans acceptance, and I agree with you!

I said it in the OP, but Baeddelism was never really about Empowering/Protecting Trans Women or whatever; it was about empowering a specific group of white, "fully transitioned" (or trying to be), binary trans women. The ideology actively hurt trans women. The movement fell because they aggressively defended someone who raped a transfemme.

Baeddels tried to make radical feminism work for trans women, and it fucking didn't. The trans community still tries to make radical feminism work for us; it still fucking doesn't!

Radical feminism believes that womanhood is biological and that misogyny is The Root Of Oppression because of ~biological woman factors~. "Trans-inclusive" radical feminism follows the same tenants, but they drop the bits that make it logically incoherent when trans people are included; worst is the "gender is a choice so you should choose to be a woman" version, but the more popular versions insist that your real gender is always present in you and shapes your life from the beginning (true for some trans people, but not a universal experience).

It doesn't hold up, but like, you're asking for texts and books and manifestos from a loose ideology developed by some would-be academics on the internet. You're saying that this can't exist if it doesn't have formal academic writings, but the point is that this is less of a coherent ideology, and more of an interaction between radical feminism's influence on the queer community as a whole, plain old bigotry, and crab-in-a-bucket mentality. It doesn't need to follow solid internal logic; it just needs to sound good in a 100k note tumblr post & empower some abusive people to keep abusing.

I'm not comparing this to TERFism ("TIRF" isn't even my word). It's not a coherent movement on the scale of radical feminism. I'm outlining a set of common beliefs that already existed and continue to exist, and how they briefly came together even more potently to prove their inevitable harm to others.

I'm asking people to recognize that those ideas still exist, to point them out and talk about them, and to try to prevent that harm from occurring again- either in a Baeddelism 2.0, or just in the way these ideas more passively influence the queer community and trans theory.

Let's Talk About Bæddels: A Comprehensive Retrospective

(This post on Medium)

(@thequeer-quill's video reading)

Disclaimer

This post is not claiming that trans women do not suffer, or do not suffer as much as other groups of trans people. It is not claiming that all trans women are Baeddels (or adjacent), nor is it claiming that trans women oppress anyone else.

Transmisogyny is real, and requires much more acknowledgement than it currently receives. The trans community is very much capable of transmisogyny, and often does enact or enable it; likewise, trans people also often enact and enable transphobia against other parts of the trans community.

If you take only one thing from the following, take this:

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

Setting the Stage for Baeddelism

We can’t talk about Baeddelism without talking about Tumblr user @monetizeyourcat (“Cat”), and the ideology she popularized on the website in the early 2010’s.

Cat was a loud voice with a huge blog in the early days of Tumblr. Most of her popular content was humor-based, but she also championed an ideology that synthesized certain aspects of feminism, transfeminism, and communist ideals. Cat’s ideology is better explained here, and can be further explored here, but this is the foundation:

Manhood is inherently oppressive, and cannot exist outside the context of oppression.

Gender can be, to some extent, a choice.

Because of the above, one’s gender is an ethical choice with ethical consequences.

Being a man is, therefore, ethically harmful and wrong; particularly if you are giving up womanhood in order to be a man.

Being a woman is, therefore, ethically correct; particularly if you are giving up manhood in order to be a woman.

You may recognize some of the ideas here as a version of Radical Feminism: namely, the idea that manhood/men are inherently oppressive, and that womanhood/women are inherently victims.

All Cat had to do was map Radical Feminism onto the trans community. If manhood is Bad, and men are Bad, then trans men who reject womanhood in favor of becoming men are Bad. If womanhood is Good, and women are Good, then trans women who reject manhood in favor of womanhood are The Best. Which, of course, would also explain why society hates them more than any other trans person (something taken for granted by Cat and many others at the time).

This foundation was built upwards into a more complicated system of beliefs: cis men were viewed as “potential trans women”, people who did not yet know whether they were trans, had not made that choice, and could, conceivably, still choose to be women. As such, cis men were often seen as “better” than trans men. Trans men were encouraged to detransition, men in general were encouraged to reject their manhood in favor of womanhood, and “sissification” became a hallmark “joke” that the community forming around Cat latched onto.

The “gender is a choice” part of this ideology is a bit hard for most trans people to swallow, and Cat herself did not entirely ascribe to the idea that gender was always a choice. Still, even if men were intrinsically and inherently men, and even if they couldn’t simply choose not to be men the way she had, the idea remained that the so-called “ethical consequences” of being a man, and the harm this did to The Collective, vastly outweighed the personal harm suffered by “remaining” or “becoming” a woman. It was, in short, more ethical to suffer dysphoria in pursuit of womanhood than it was to accept one’s manhood.

It’s unclear whether Cat ever identified as a Baeddel, and she certainly didn’t begin the movement herself. She was definitely close to it, though, and many attest that her ideology constituted the building blocks of the Baeddelism movement.

Establishing an Ideology

The first post on Baeddelism was by Tumblr user @unobject, on October 2nd, 2013, and liked by @lezzyharpy, also one of the original Baeddels:

(Credit to @AcesArosandEnbies)

This post first provided the name and defining ideology of the Baeddel movement. The conclusion drawn from the post was, essentially, that because the root of the word “bad” was “baeddel”, and because “baeddel” referred to intersex people and “womanish men”, this old English slur was proof that transmisogyny was the worst form of bigotry; and even, perhaps, the root of all bigotry. (It’s worth noting that this etymology is likely inaccurate and ahistorical, along with problematic in several other ways.)

While @unobject was the first person to make this connection, @autogynephile (“Eve”) eventually became, in essence, the figurehead of the movement. Of the other Baeddels, some of them were explicitly aware and supportive of the ideology behind Baeddelism, some of them were young or newly-out trans women seduced by the personalities involved, and some of them were tangential enough to the movement that they didn’t really even know what it was. Baeddelism was a sort of trend, for a time, and many participants wore the name without entirely knowing what it meant.

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

That said…

The Belief System

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

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

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

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

Men are inherently oppressors, and women are inherently oppressed.

Trans women are inherently victims.

Because only AMAB people can experience transmisogyny, they are inherently more oppressed than AFAB people.

“AFAB Privilege”: The idea that within the queer and/or trans community, AFAB people receive unique privilege and positions of power that AMAB people do not.

There is no “transphobia” separate from “transmisogyny”. All transphobia stems from transmisogyny first, and transphobia as it impacts non-transfeminine trans people is incidental at most.

It’s important to note that these ideas were not all as universal as the first two, and different individual Baeddels held them to different extents.

Trans Lesbian Separatism

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

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

Trans Men

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

Trans men are not oppressed, nor marginalized at all.

Trans men do not experience transmisogyny.

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

Trans men have access to male privilege.

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

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

Trans men actively “choose” manhood even when presented with the “option” of womanhood.

Trans men oppress cis women.

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

Trans men become aggressive and violent when they go on testosterone HRT.

Nonbinary People

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

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

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

Intersex People

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

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

Trans Women

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

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

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

Inside the Movement

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

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

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

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

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

When Bæddels Took Them: An interview and reflection on the Bæddelism movement

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brushes with Bæddels: Recalling the Bæddel movement

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

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

The Downfall of Baeddelism

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

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

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

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

Various reasons were given for this:

The victim must be lying

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

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

Trans women are incapable of sexually abusing anyone.

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

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

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

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

(@lezzyharpy was one of the original Baeddels, and one of the first people to like the first “Baeddel” post by @unobject).

This was not the only instance of abuse by people associated with Baeddelism.

Elle posted their statement on August 4th, 2014; between that time and September of the same year, another user by the name of Quinn posted about her own experiences with abuse at the hands of @monetizeyourcat. Cat’s roommates in Seattle posted about their experiences with Cat shortly after Quinn did. Both parties alleged that Cat had been a manipulative and abusive roommate, friend, and partner.

Cat first attempted to argue the accusations, then later admitted that they were true and left the site. Her blog still contains her parting message. It has been pointed out that this is not necessarily an action taken in good faith and desire for growth.

The reception of her abuse allegations followed a similar pattern to Eve’s: people who ascribed to her ideology, Baeddels included, believed that Cat was not and could not have been abusive, as a trans woman. Others ignored warnings about her past and potential future actions, citing transmisogyny as the reason she must have been accused at all.

It has also been pointed out that Cat’s ideology (and, relatedly, Baeddel ideology) was extremely conducive to abuse- if not entirely constructed in order to allow abuse.

Why It Matters, and Why Baeddelism Never Really Fell

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

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

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

Baeddelism never actually went away.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Learn the Signs & Prevent the Harm

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

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

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

Act on dogwhistles. Call them what they are.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Red Flags to watch out for:

Using, or interacting with people who use, “Baeddel” as any form of self-description.

Downplaying the harm original Baeddels did: calling them “misled”, their actions “mistakes”, etc. without acknowledging the specific issues.

Obfuscating, ignoring, or erasing the abuse and rape allegations against members of the Baeddel movement.

Obfuscating, ignoring, or erasing the harm done to other transfemmes by Baeddels.

Dismissing, erasing, punishing/ostracizing, disavowing, or treating with suspicion transfeminine people who do not agree with Baeddel or radfem ideology. Insisting all or most transfemmes agree with Baeddel or radfem ideas.

Claiming TERFs only target, harm, or have ill will for trans women/transfemmes. Using “TWERF” or “TWEF” instead of “TERF”.

Claiming transmasculine people should not have any say in conversations about misogyny, transphobia, and/or TERFs.

Talking about “AFAB Privilege”, or otherwise implying that AFAB people share any qualities aside from being assigned female at birth.

Referring to trans people by AGAB, TME/TMA distinction, or even transfemme/transmasc frequently or exclusively; actively erasing or not allowing room for nonbinary and intersex experiences that do not fall within those binaries.

Implying men- cis or trans- would be better if they were made into women instead.

Implying attraction to men, or being a man, is somehow a “curse” or a “burden”, or otherwise unfortunate.

Implying a fear of men, including trauma-induced phobias, should never be healed from or sought treatment for. Implying men, cis or trans, cannot also experience trauma around men.

Treating trans men or transmasculine people as “acceptable targets” in any way; for harassment, for abuse, for misgendering, for inducing dysphoria, etc.

Implying transmasc dysphoria is “toxic masculinity”

Characterizing transmascs as hysterical, whiny, delusional, crazy, or otherwise using feminine stereotypes.

Implying it is femininity, specifically, that is targeted by the patriarchy; that feminine people are targeted more than masculine people, etc.

Using “listen to transfemmes” to silence other groups of trans people, and otherwise implying transfemmes are a monolith who happen to agree with you.

In general: espousing the ideas, fundamental or otherwise, that defined the Baeddel movement. (including TIRF and radical feminist ideology)

This list is not comprehensive, nor is any one thing on this list 100% certain to indicate that someone is a Baeddel- or if they are, that they are necessarily dangerous. It’s important to keep in mind how many people are groomed into this movement and abused within it; some of those who espouse Baeddel rhetoric may themselves be victimized by others.

But until we recognize these ideas for what they are and where they’ve come from, history can only repeat itself.

Educate Yourself and Others

It would take a long, long time and a lot more space to detail all of the damage done, the people hurt, and the dangers of continuing to allow these ideas to be perpetuated. Instead, I have compiled some resources and references.

I urge you to check these out, bookmark them for later, or whatever else works for you! (They’re also all much, much shorter reads than this has been.)

@baeddel-txt and @rejectedbaeddeldiscourse, two blogs dedicated to documenting various posts and beliefs held by original Baeddels.

Another blog’s tag for Baeddel history.

Baeddel.net, another archive of Baeddelism.

@AcesArosEnbies thread, and @gothmyths thread, on Baeddelism.

@quinndolyn’s recount of Baeddelism.

My own post on the origins of the Baeddel movement.

My own post including posts from Baeddels (and others) as recently as 2018.

An archive of assorted Baeddel posts.

#baeddelism

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autolenaphilia · 2 years ago

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I'm happy that you were able to take my criticism, and take responsibility and apologize for instances where you agree that you made mistakes.

And you have a point, an ideology doesn't need to have books published to be a real thing.

I still think you abdicate responsibility in significant ways.

The reasoning you give for not linking to the baeddel posts as sources for your post on them is "they tend to be quippy one-liners that don't spell things out super clearly, and tend to exist more as part of a larger contextual understanding- or are intentionally phrased in such a way as to appear inoffensive at first glance. The other problem is that the other posts are mostly just vague bigotry, without explaining the internal logic."

That does present a problem for analyzing an ideology. You have to not just link, but also quote and analyze those posts, re-contextualize them show how they express an underlying ideology underneath the surface and why it's bad. Do that second glance at them, if they look okay at first glance. It's hard work to be sure. But I think you still have the responsibility to your readers to do that work before you write a post like this. You need to do that work to back up your claims and arguments, for other people to take them seriously. Dismissing it as "handholding" is an abdication of responsibility.

And honestly, from what you are saying you don't even need to do tumblr archaeology to find posts expressing that material online. You are claiming the beliefs the baeddels had are still common. The "ideas didn't go away", it's "a set of common beliefs that already existed and continue to exist", they have 100k note tumblr posts. So you don't need to go on deleted blogs to find posts that express this ideology, you can just look at posts that are popular now. And that might even be more effective than something many people would view as ancient tumblr drama (not saying that was all the harm the baeddels caused, but many people would view it that way).

And again, I think you are insufficiently critical of these bad sources I talked about. Like these posts are spreading essentially queer recruitment/trans grooming propaganda, and have no sources themselves. That makes them not just biased, but bigoted sources, and thus utterly unreliable. If they are transmisogynistic, I don't think they are good sources about what a trans woman believes. And that's true even if that trans woman is a bad person.

You can't just "contextualize" them and still use them as factual sources. Whatever you might agree with them about, their claims about MYC's ideology are used to build an accusation of grooming vulnerable cis men into becoming trans women. That is another way they are "consistent enough with each other's claims."

And the reason I associated "their bigoted bullshit" (as you so aptly put it) with you is because you linked to them, and you are still defending their value as sources. The way you properly distance yourself from them is not by a toothless "contextualization" in which you still use them as sources of fact, but by not linking to them to back your argument. Bigots lie, especially about the people they hate, they are not trustworthy.

You justify using the terf post with how "the fact that radical feminists themselves connect Baeddelism to radical feminism does seem significant here." But again, bigots lie. Radfems believe that they are the one true feminism, and all other feminisms are but pale reflections of their ideas. I've seen them claim trans people's posts on gender abolitionism are plagiarisms of gender critical ideas. So let's look at that quote you said was the reason you linked to the terf post again.

"the earliest mtf theorists on tumblr like radtransfem and ciscritical-not-cisphobic – drawn to radical/lesbian feminism "

Let's check this quote, because Radtransfem's blogs are still up, both here on tumblr and on wordpress, and she has a uselul FAQ regarding her connection to radfem ideology: "I am not a radical feminist, and my feminism is not radical feminism. It’s not radical feminism done trans, but transfeminism done radical (and before you get clever, no, the “radical” does not mean the same thing in those two phrases)."

So yeah, terfs claim radtransfem is a radfem, but she explicitly does not. I suppose this is a question of who do you see as more trustworthy. I trust the trans woman herself about what she believes, even if I have my disagreements with her. Of course, you can claim that radtransfem is a secret radfem. But I think it's a more believable claim if you analyze her writings to find the radfem ideology, not trusting the word of a random terf blog.

And that gets us nearly back to my original point. When you are saying person x believes y, You should source that claim back to what person x actually said, not what person z says they believe.