#communities are not a monolith everyone is different and has different experiences and needs

[cripplecharacters]

Does Your Scarred Character Have to Hate Themself?

[large text: Does Your Scarred Character Have to Hate Themself?]

(TLDR: no. literally no.)

A frequent topic that shows up around facial differences is the self-hatred, self-disgust, self-insert-negative-emotion that we must surely experience. I want to ask* writers without FDs - why? Why do you feel about us in such a way that that's the most common way of depicting us?

*- rhetorical question. I promise I know the answers, but I'm not sure if writers do.

It's frankly worrying to me. Is it really that common to assume that disabled people have this internal, never-ending hatred for themselves? The overwhelming majority of us don't. We hate inaccessibility, when people stare, or some symptoms when they get in the way, or how expensive being disabled is, but I find the concept of us being so completely disturbed by our own disabilities extremely strange. It’s “tragedy porn” intersecting “most basic ableism”.

“But trauma!”

[large text: “But trauma!”]

Trauma of what! People with facial differences don't have some sort of default trauma that we come with like it’s a factory setting. We are a group of people with tens of thousands of stories and experiences!

“Trauma of experiencing ableism/disfiguremisia” - that's better, at least this means something. If you're writing a story about this, please get a sensitivity reader with a facial difference. You can assume how we feel all you want, but in my experience these assumptions are often bizarre and unrealistic. Or just end up writing the same “disability so sad” sob story that everyone has seen a billion times. If you want to write about disfiguremisia, you need to understand the nuance and have more than just the basic level knowledge (which 99% of people don’t have either). If you can’t do that, don’t write about it. Simple as that.

“Trauma of the accident” - thankfully, the accident is an event and a facial difference is a disability. If you want to connect these two like they're one and the same, you're almost surely going to demonize disability. People with traumatic spinal cord injuries, acquired amputees, people with TBI, people with acquired facial differences - we participate in our communities, we have hobbies, we date, we play with our dogs. Disability isn't a death sentence. Media who make it feel like it is certainly don't help people who do suddenly become disabled, don't you think?

Here's a post by @blindbeta about blind characters becoming blind through trauma that’s better made than anything I could hope to write here. I heavily recommend giving it a read.

And, I can't stress this enough - most of us didn't have “the accident”, most of us are born like this! "Traumatic scars" isn't the only facial difference that exists, far from it, it's only one of thousands. It's 99% of our representation and "representation". If you want to make a character with FD - please consider that we aren't a monolith. Just like not all physical disabilities are "wheelchair user with paralysis", not all facial differences are "traumatic scar with somehow no nerve damage".

The overrepresentation of it is incredibly telling, and sometimes - or very frequently - feels like the writer doesn’t actually even want to deal with us. They want to use our disability as a way to cheap drama, moral metaphors, tragic backstories. Not to represent us as living people who are much more similar to you than you apparently think.

Now, I do have enough awareness to know that that's a big part of the appeal. “Horrific Thing #2456 happens” and boom, instant drama! Of course, it's a reasonable response that they would hide their disability for years, avoid talking about it in any way, and magically change their personality to be mean and reclusive, or at least be constantly soooo sad about how much it sucks to be disabled, right?

Do I really need to say that having your character becoming disabled be the worst thing ever is ableism 101? We have been talking about this for so long at this point. Writing about the process of adapting to a specific disability is better left to people who have actual experience in it.

To give an example that will hopefully resonate more with Tumblr users, I will use the fact that I'm also gay. It's not perfect by any means but probably much more familiar territory.

Imagine, let's say, a character. He's gay. The story he's in is supposedly progressive, certainly not trying to be homophobic. The character has experienced an incident, maybe an act of aggression or a hate crime, that happened because he’s gay, which was traumatic. Happens IRL, sure. So of course the character starts hating being gay. He talks about how gross and disgusting it is, he never lets anyone know that he could be “one of them”, certainly not take a stance against homophobia. You can't mention him without mentioning the accident, they're seemingly fused together. No gay love, joy, even basic happiness, he would actually choose to be straight in a heartbeat if given the option to and complains that he can't. This is shown as a neutral, obvious thing that a gay man would do, no one comments on it. He stays like this the whole time, unless there’s a plot twist in the last 10 pages where the world is now magically perfect ("we fixed discrimination, yay!"). This is the only LGBT character in the story.

Keep in mind that there are people similar to this in real life, living with extreme internalized homophobia.

Is this, in your opinion, realistic and thoughtful representation? How does it feel when written by a cishet writer, versus a gay writer who is recalling his experiences? Do you think that it's reasonable for the majority of media representation to be like this, or very close to it? How would it affect younger gay people who might already be uncomfortable with being queer? Are gay men the target audience, or are they not even considered as a group of people who read books? Is this helping or damaging the general public's idea of how it is to be gay? Why or why not?

The Masterpiece

[large text: The Masterpiece]

From 13 to 19 of May, we are celebrating Face Equality week (what a coincidence!). It’s important to me in general - and I wish it was more important to abled people, but I digress - especially its theme for this year.

“My Face is a Masterpiece”

Great statement, it represents the community well, I do enjoy how bold it is. Very cool stuff, I love the work our advocates are doing!

But why do I bring this up?

Well, to very non-subtly show that we aren’t a self-hating group of people. We are a community, a community saying “our faces are beautiful, look!”, we are saying “treat us equally, and do it now!”. Our activism isn’t about self-disgust. It’s about fighting your-disgust. 

Why can’t writers keep up? Why are you still stuck decades behind?

Is this the only reason I bring it up?

The Call to Celebration

[large text: The Call to Celebration]

FEI, the org behind organizing it, asks a very simple question (emphasis mine):

“Why do we so often see stories about facial difference as a ‘tragedy’, when they should be about triumph?” “Calling all artists, allies, creatives, galleries.  You can rewrite the story to bring about #FaceEquality and celebrate the unique artistry found in every face. Your participation this #FaceEqualityWeek will help to tell the real story, that there is a masterpiece in every face.”

Here. We are calling for you to stop. Directly from the biggest international advocacy alliance group that's out there. If you create, this is for you.

The last argument to not have your character with a facial difference hate themselves? Because we don’t want this. We are tired and frustrated. For me personally, I’m also offended by this kind of assumption. We aren’t tragedies or cheap entertainment for abled people to pity or be horrified by. We are people, and if you can’t internalize that, you have no reason to write about us.

For once, celebrate us. Happy Face Equality Week!

mod Sasza

[renthony]

Men and women are not different species.

Trans men and trans women are not different species.

Nonbinary people are not a monolith "third gender."

Intersex people exist, and many different intersex variations exist under the umbrella of "intersex." Intersex people are not "biologically trans" or "biologically nonbinary."

Humanity has infinite variance in sex, gender, presentation, and identity. Every single binary has something and someone that falls outside it.

We are stronger when we fight together instead of engaging in pissing contests over who the Truly Most Oppressed is and who in the room has The Most Privilege. Constant discourse over the hierarchies of who has it the worst are not helpful. It pisses everyone off, creates arbitrary division in what are supposed to be safe spaces for queer people, and shuts down productive organizing. If your first thought upon meeting a new queer person is to pick them apart in order to analyze whether you're More Or Less Oppressed than they are, especially if that judgment changes how you treat them, you are not engaging in healthy or good-faith community building. You're just stirring up shit.

Sit down. Shut up. Humble yourself and listen to the experiences of others without instantly trying to categorize them into your personal interpretation of a Queer Oppression Hierarchy. Multiple types of oppression can exist and be fought against without you needing to put them in some sort of ranked tier list, and an individual person can be affected by a form of bigotry even if you think they "don't qualify" for that experience.

Fight your real enemies instead of picking the most convenient nearby targets.

[hacash]

definitely a ‘queer isn’t a monolith’ moment: I found it odd seeing some comments saying Isaac was being borderline insensitive or offensive by asking Colin questions about being gay and Colin would never ask things like that about straight relationships. because my core friendship group consists of one bi woman, one lesbian, and two straight girls, and literally every question has been asked by everyone: what’s it like to eat out a vagina. what’s it like to suck a cock. what’s it like to be penetrated by a dick; oh, that’s different to how I’ve experienced it with fingers, interesting. how do sexual acts differ when it’s with a man compared to when it’s with a woman. have you found this��is more fun with a man. have you found that better with a woman. how do those tastes differ. how do you experience attraction. what does this term mean. how about this. what about that. 

which obviously you probably wouldn’t do with randomers, but part of a good friendship is knowing what you can talk about and sharing these intimate moments. it’s also clear that Colin’s not offended by any of these questions. and I’ve never liked the idea that ‘don’t make us do the work’ has translated into ‘never ask any questions, ever’: Colin and Isaac are besties and clearly have a lot of catching up to do, and I love that we were shown that healthy, but ultimately still bloke-y, communication between them. 

essentially we were given ‘girl talk’ with two men putting their own spin on it, albeit with a lot less tears and a lot more FIFA. nothing needs to be solved; they’re just two best friends shooting the shit and finding out more about each other.

[mommyclaws]

look as a lesbian I don’t get why it’s so awful to just want lesbian spaces?? We as queer people all have different experiences and we can have smaller spaces while still embracing the whole community.

Lesbians go through different experiences than bi non-men do. That DOES NOT mean “we suffer more” or whatever because I hate the whole oppression olympics shit. We are not attracted to men neither sexually nor romantically, and that’s what makes us oppressed in this heteronormative world. We go through harassment, corrective rape, violence, and conversion “therapy” because we are homosexual. If my dad ever found out I was exclusively attracted to women I would get kicked out. Why is it suddenly so awful and “gatekeepy” to ask us to have our own spaces? We still have sapphic spaces! We even have bi spaces and pan spaces! Heck, I see gay non-women are allowed to have their own spaces!

It’s harmful to be treated as a monolith. I’m not attracted to men, and saying im an “exclusionist” for this is lesbophobic. I’m not evil for being exclusively attracted to non-men. I’m not evil for saying we should have our own spaces while we’d still have sapphic spaces!

Words have meanings, and the lesbian label is important to me, for all of its history and all of my struggles. I’m tired of us all being seen as “big mean lesbians who hate men” so so much. It reeks of misogyny to me.

I am heavily disappointed, and I ask everyone to please understand why bi lesbians are harmful.

I'm disappointed you've missed the point of my post. I was talking about the history of different lesbians and sapphics being excluded and hated in our community through generations. The conversation wasn't about bi lesbians specifically, it was about the butches, transfemmes, Pan/Bi, Aro/Ace, nonbinary, and countless other identities that were or ARE still considered not "valid" members of our community at point or another. I was pointing out how this "Bi Lesbian exclusion" is just a repeat of past mistakes and in the retrospective it is rooted in radfem/terf ideology that claims sapphics have to present and feel a certain way to be accepted. I didn’t say anywhere that being attracted to non-men is evil, I didn’t call anyone a “big mean lesbian”. You’re putting words into my mouth. That entire post was about defending sapphic’s right to attraction and expression.

Lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, non cis women and etc can all be oppressed, harassed, hate crimed, rejected by friends/family and other terrible things for their non heteronormative attraction.

Some people are failing to realize these exclusively “one identity spaces" they feel are being threatened don't actually exist in real life. Sure someone can have like, a "nonbinaries only" discord server or a meet up with friends who are all the the same identity. But a majority of queer spaces in real life? They don't have those rules because theres no way to separate queer identities neatly like that- There isn't a need to. You're going to find bisexuals and pansexuals and nonbinaries and trans people and all sorts of other identities at the same lesbian bar, the same sapphic support group, the same circle of friends.

So what exactly are these "spaces" that every other identity has and lesbians supposedly don't? Maybe ask why bisexuals, pansexuals, etc also being in a sapphic space feels so threatening to some in the first place? They have a right to be there as well. We are a community.

A label can be used and defined as whatever the owner of the label is comfortable with! "Lesbian" has always been an umbrella term. It can be a singular identity or it can describe any sapphic experience or it can do lots of things, labels have always been flexible in this way. Someone using the label differently than another person isn't harmful. It's expression.

[mcytblr-archive]

Early MCYTblr Interviews: umbie

today's interviewee is umbie, who was a member of ebblr from march 2021 onwards. i would like to once again ask everyone to remain impartial and respectful-- this blog is a place for all MCYTblr history, which includes parts of the fandom that were more controversial. that said, let's begin!

Q: Since I realize not everyone knows-- would you mind explaining what exactly ebblr was, to the best of your ability?

A: Ebblr is an abbreviation for Enderbees Tumblr. It existed as a network of undiscoverable blogs where folks shipped and truthed beeduo romantically. It ebs truthing started at the beginning of 2021, late 2020 on plate's blog gayminecraftmen, who you did an interview with, then moved to jason's blog on mcytruth, and later decentralized into a collection of blogs rather than being headed by any one person. It also became a place to discuss mcyt shipping and truthing in general- we didn't ship minors with adults, but things like techza, techbur, benchtrio shipping. character or irl, we didn't discriminate. The core of it was ebs, though.

There was also stuff like neurodiversity and gender truthing. really anything thats gauche to talk about on main.

Q: What was your general experience in MCYTblr? What was your general experience in ebblr specifically?

A: Mcytblr was very... enveloping, is how i'd put it. Easily the strongest hyperfixation i've ever had. It was also pretty frustrating at times. 2021 ebs was the height of the /p era, when the characters were off getting minecraft-married and the outside fandom insisted on them being platonic. We felt crazy. Ebblr started from blogs like mcytruth and gayminecraftmen, but I think the reason it blossomed into its own independent community was because ebblr addressed a need that mainblr, at the time, did not. I think it's facinating how in hindsight the fandom has ever so slowly turned around on the romantic c!beeduo, and now it's just kinda normal.

Being in ebblr was rewarding and enriching, but also very anxiety-inducing. We had pretty strict rules around interaction- keep your blog invisible, no cishets (lol), no nsfw, no outside reblogs. It started about after the first blocklist as a way of avoiding harassment, but developed into a moral thing later on. We existed in a kind of grey area where we understood that what we were doing was weird, but we wanted to be as inobtrusive as possible. In the early days, i made an effort to follow everybody. The community was that close-knit. Whenever a member of Ebblr accidentally reblogged an ebblr post to their mainblog, i would hop onto an alt and message whoever I needed to clean up the leak so none of our posts escaped.

Q: In critblr and dreamlying, there was a culture of "doxxing", or otherwise finding personal information about creators. Was that also true for ebblr?

A: Nope! That's one of the primary differences between critblr, dreamlying, and Ebblr. One of our rules was to keep our posting limited to things the creators released on purpose. That didn't stop us from being invasive, though. We diligently kept records of our "proof." We would obsess over details, and considered anything said on social media, stream, or twitter space fair game, even if better judgment was that they're not things the content creators would want talked about. It wasn't a monolith. A lot of folks didn't truth at all, and only wanted a space to post art or fics of pairings that were unacceptable on main. I also tracked planes during the meetup times, but jury's still out on whether that constitutes doxxing. I also had enough sense not to post about it directly. While most of us were uncomfortable with outright doxxing and distanced ourselves from those who did, we sure could walk the line.

Q: You said in your initial messages that you coined the term "critblr". Could you elaborate on that?

A: Dlying existed before ebblr, but Critblr did not! Critblr started out as a subsect of ebblr.

Critblr was conceived of in a discord server i shared with a couple friends that joined at the same time as me! It was meant to exist as a solution to formalize a growing rift within ebblr. There were blogs that were more involved in things like discussing doxxes and criticizing content creators and mainblr/maintwt opinions, and there were folks who were exclusively interested in shipping and/or truthing. Ebblr was upset with negativity and complaining, and the blogs who would become critblr didn't care for the shipping. It started as a place where you could discuss things you couldn't discuss on main, but people's needs became different. I remember the poll to name it. I suggested and vouched for critblr. Since the server's been since deleted, you're unfortunately just gonna have to take my word for it, but i'm part of the reason it's not called truthblr and I'm proud of that.

Q: This has actually been really clarifying for me; I knew ebblr and critblr were similar and intertwined, but I didn't know the specifics! I suppose, knowing that, what are some things that you remember about critblr in specific?

A: i understood critblr as a sort of anti-mcytblr. whatever opinion was widespread and popular on main, critblr was the place where you could find someone with the opposite opinion. it was a haven of haters, trolls and gossips, and it was really fucking funny. they loved having rivals- back in the summer of 2021, they/we had a "war" with fltwt. (at least in terms of what jason was up to. i have no idea how its developed now.)

honestly a lot more of the ire of critblr was directed at mcyttwt than it was on the ground at mcytblr. (although in 2021 the boundary between critblr and ebblr was still pretty loose and even as an ebblr main i was aware of all this, i'll say critblr for ease of communication)

another note about eb-critblr. it was extremely white. some of the rhetoric bouncing around on critblr at the time was kind of in the vein of "arent these twitter kids so sensitive for being upset with schlatt"

i think i also want to make point about how a lot of the truthing was kinda unserious. sometimes people dont have clips or evidence or info sometimes truthing was just projecting onto a content creator and feeling it in your heart. The instinct to truth, i think, came from a place of wanting to relate to the streamers. See yourself in them, their relationships, and their mental struggles. still, It was soaked in irony- there was this sort of untouchable jester attitude, and the less seriously you took yourself, the better. I think people cared a lot, though, and that ended up being the problem. There was a lot of pressure to be certain, which is fascinating coming from a space built on speculating on incomplete info. im sure other people in ebblr had very different experiences than I.

Q: Would you mind explaining what fltwt was?

A: fltwt came into being in summer 2021, when ranboo got doxxed. jason mcytruth had already stopped caring about ebs by now, so most of his and his associate's energy went into researching, exposing, and clowning them.

you need to understand that they were like. an abberation to us. we had been doing good honest truthing and shipping in our private corner since the new years, and here these twitter chucklefucks were throwing doxxes around and using them to truth with. they were like our evil twin. we hated them so much.

[all names have been redacted for privacy]

the reason my url is glowfr0g in this is because i changed my url after this interaction, but i have screenshots with my url as umbie aswell. we were SERIOUS.

since beeduo stopped hanging out like a week into the summer because of the doxx, the truthing in the community diversified a lot. one of such truthings was Clemtruthing- or transfeminine tommy truthing. fltwt straight up stole this from us, screenshotting and circulating our posts, and now theyre more known for it than we were. the blog mentioned here, [REDACTED], deactivated over this.

i think at one point fltwt was doing a popularity tournament and mcytruth was entered in as a contestant? but what i did here was hardly the only example of eb-critblr butting heads with fltwt. the demographic was largely bored twitter ranboo fans. yknow the "im literally neurodivergent and a minor" meme? that was popularized because of THEM. also that text interaction is dated july 30 2021

fltwt was, partially private i think? but overall not well organized at all and a lot of people on there were attention seeking. i have no idea how much these subtwts were actually invested in ebblr or critblr, for all i know it was extremely one-sided

Q: Was it an interesting experience to be in a niche community that regularly experienced "containment breaches" and blocklists? How did that affect the community's growth?

A: I kinda appointed myself the manager of the containment breaches! I had a whole process. If a mainblr blog reblogged a post, i would contact them on my umbie blog. Since they reblogged it, they were probably a lurker and i could ask them directly to take it down. However, if any of the mainblr blog's mutuals reblogged a post, i would contact them on an alt instead from the perspective of a concerned bystander that just wanted you to know that you had accidentally reblogged one of those posts from those weird shippers. Worked every time. I took pride in it.

There were really only a few blocklists? The first blocklist, what most people would know ebblr from back in the early days, got ebblr so much attention that's how most of the folks within it found out about it (including myself.) There were one or two scares after that, but nothing serious. I only ever got on one, and that one wasn't shared publicly. We still made a big show about having everyone temporarily change urls though. We didn't really want to be well known. Anybody who knew about ebblr understood that it was for the best of both communities if people kept quiet.

Q: How did the "boundaries" discourse affect your community?

A: we danced around with boundaries. Back when we were making fun of main for platonic marriage, a lot of us were loud about the fact that neither of them had called it a platonic marriage until the fans started doing it. We weren't technically breaking any stated boundaries, but i think part of why we were so loud about it is because we knew on some level that it was a cope. When the boundaries were finally stated and the truth that we were being weird all along was unavoidable, it was fucking DEFCON 1. A lot of people left ebblr over it, and a lot of people were like "wait, you didn't know we were breaking boundaries?" The community had boundaries, but they were not the same boundaries as the content creators.

Q: Were you ever involved in any main MCYTblr events?

A: nope. we wanted nothing to do with main mcytblr. We stayed aware, though, and made fun of them whenever things went sour.

Q: Do you think being in ebblr was an overall positive or negative experience?

A: mixed. so mixed. so incredibly mixed. The anxiety of me or my friends getting exposed or discovered kept me up at night. I was constantly conflicted about whether or not i was doing the right thing while also reassuring people that we definitely were. Our proximity to the darkest parts of minecraft fandom means i've seen and learned things that I wish I hadn't. When Beeduo went no contact it was uh. It Was Bad. It Felt Bad. We Felt bad, and I felt partially responsible. it's hard to know if that's true.

At the same time, I've met some of my best friends on there, ones that I keep in contact with to this day! Being on ebblr taught me a lot of critical thinking- I now understand that twitter isnt right about everything always. Being known and liked as Umbie helped me safely built up a sense of identity there that has brought me into the best chapter of my life so far, and experimenting with pronouns was also really really nice. For all the late nights and callout posts and blocklists and moralism and bullshit, i think i will be chasing the high of the vindication that i got when ranboo came out on twitter for the rest of my life.

You can call us a lot of things, but you can't call us incorrect on that front, and as truthers go, that's kinda rare.

[umbie was kind enough to also send me the following image-- this is the "enderbees" flag, seen in the yellow/purple rainbow, as it appeared on Karl Jacobs's stream of 2022 r/place! You can also spot the L'manburg flag, the Snowchester flag, and one more I can't identify.]

[namtanlovesfilm]

Wanted to start this by saying that I usually agree with your opinions (or even when I don't, I can at least see where you're coming from) but that's not the case when it comes to your opinion on Only Friends because I completely disagree and just wanted to add my two cents. You said that it wasn't relatable to the queer community but I'm sorry, the queer community isn't a monolith, there isn't one universal way that every single queer friendship group functions. Just because it wasn't relatable to your experience, it doesn't mean that it wasn't relatable to many other queer people's experiences. For example, one of my friend groups consists of gay men and the stories they've told me (and some of which I witnessed with myself)? Not that far off from OF (aka everyone getting with everyone, behind people's backs as well, and most of them are still on friendly terms now). It's perfectly fine that you didn't personally relate but you can't say no queer person/community did.

I also saw depth to a lot of characters and I could relate to several of them in different ways and everything in the finale made sense to me for those characters. For me it achieved what it set out to do: entertain, while also make me connect/care about some of the characters. It didn't do that for everyone (you included) but please don't claim it's a "bad show" as a general statement just because you didn't get anything out of it because a lot of people did. (My friend who struggles with depression and is currently going through a depressive slump found comfort in seeing Ray progress to a point where he's much happier at the end of the series because it gives her hope that she can get to that point soon too.)

Is Only Friends a brilliant, amazing, showstopping, incredible show? No. But it's not bad, far from it. It certainly has its flaws but the sudden hate it's getting is not warranted imo.

hi, first of all, it's fine to disagree lol, though it's always a bit jarring to me when people feel the need to let me know they disagree with me bc clearly we simply have a different taste & opinion. when I share my opinion about a show, I do it on my blog but never go on others' blogs to either defend a show I liked or trash a show I didn't like, but anyways. I have NEVER, EVER said that the queer community is a monolith & that all queer representation needs to be relatable to ME. in fact, a lot of my favorite queer media are HIGHLY UN-relatable to me lol. I never implied that only friends' flaws comes from it being unrelatable or unrealistic? in fact I believe it to be realistic since it's made by queer men & has recurring topics that p'jojo especially has used in previous shows of his, especially since the story of only friends is inspired by real-life events. in fact I said that I WISH they'd have leaned into the queer community aspect of it even more bc it was the one point in which this show differentiates itself from friend zone, so yeah. don't really know where you got that notion from. secondly, like it or not, I can claim any shows I've watched are bad in my opinion. once again, media is subjective & I did not like only friends so for me it IS a bad show. is it the worst? no. did I HATE it? no. did I have a good time in front of it? also no. also from a writing standpoint I'm sorry it IS objectively bad and FAILED at what it set out to do, especially considering the show itself doesn't seem to know what it set out to do in the first place. moreover, sudden hate? I've been criticizing only friends since it started airing lol, I'm not jumping on any bandwagon, and in fact it's more so the fandom that's catching up to the fact that this show is not very good. now, I'm genuinely glad that this show helped you & your friend and that you liked it! that's great, of COURSE this show is gonna have its fans, and in fact it has a lot of them! however it seems to me as if you've taken my (justified) criticism of the show to heart for a reason that only you fully know, and I hope you can investigate why that is. I truly value you as a long time follower of mine & I hope you can agree to disagree with me on that one even though I must admit this ask seems a bit jarring & personal to me. wish you all the best :)

xxx

[danpuff-ao3]

Fiction Works 1/2: Different Strokes for Different Folks

(Part 2 will be: Storytelling, Not Teaching/Preaching)

This has been on my mind lately with my fic Wasted for Love, which has brought me back to writing and posting The Best Kept Secrets in 2019 and 2020. Also, a recent bookmark comment on a fic called White Lies & Silver Bells.

What sort of boggles my mind is that even in this day and age, the concept that "everyone is different" is still so hard to grasp.

Right off the bat, I feel the need to clarify that I understand there are portrayals in fiction that can be troublesome, and sensitivity readers are a boon. However, even here there seems to be too firm a hold on what "should be." This does not take into account that everyone is different.

People accept this in a vague sort of way. "Dave likes football, and Carrie likes soccer." This goes beyond people having different favorite colors, or different skin tones. We are all born with different bodies, different genes. We are all born into different circumstances, and are raised differently. We are all molded into different people, and have different preferences, and choose different life paths.

What people also fail to take into account is: the world is a big, crazy place. All sorts of things are possible. How probable they are is another question, but "probable" matters less than "possible."

Recently, a YouTuber I'm subscribed to, Evie Lupine, posted a video about her experiences with polyamory. I've not yet watched it, but I know bits and pieces she's shared in the past about polyamory. After, on Twitter, she expressed what a mistake this was, which led to discussion in the comments about gatekeeping in the poly community.

Even I know, horribly monogamous person that I am, that there are all sorts of ways to be poly. (Maybe this is my early exposure to the internet and different people across the world, but I digress.) It's sad to me that people even in groups often scrutinized and judged can turn on each other, and claim there is a "right way" to be.

No person is a monolith. No poly person can speak on behalf of all poly people. No gay person can speak on behalf of all gay people. No disabled person can speak on behalf of all disabled people. Etcetera.

Specifically in my fic The Best Kept Secrets, both Harry and Severus identify as straight, and are each other's "exception." I knew this would be a sticking point for some people, and perhaps it was a blessing the fic didn't garner the engagement I'd originally (foolishly) hoped for. I only remember getting one comment on this point, where the person implied it was silly that Harry and Severus thought this and needed to accept they were gay/bi.

In real life I am friends with a gay man who had this experience. He fell in love with a woman, and while it didn't work out with them, he still maintains his gayness, and I dare anyone to try to tell him he's "bi, actually." He doesn't refute the experience he has. He maintains he'd fallen in love with her, but that he is and always has been gay.

We would all do well to remember that the human experience is vast and fluid. There are so many ways of being, and anyone might fall anywhere on a scale. Or what anyone might encounter or experience in life. It isn't up to you to decide what is real or not for someone else. And though Harry and Severus are fictional characters, it rubbed me the wrong way that someone would question how they personally identify. Identity belongs to the individual and is not up for debate. You don't have to personally understand each way of being to accept it.

In Wasted for Love, Harry is in a relationship with Ron and Hermione. My goal with this story is not to teach people about polyamory, or to definitively say "this is the way to do it." If anything, the opposite should be true. I'm never writing to teach lessons, I'm writing to tell stories. My stories are meant to showcase human experience. They are meant to convey emotion, and all the dirty and gritty aspects of people. I write stories about people going through rough times, and making the wrong choices.

One of my biggest fears with Wasted for Love is that people will look at it the wrong way. That it will be treated as a right or wrong way, when that's not the point. The point is to show you Harry's journey. What he feels and thinks and how his story unfolds. It is a story about human people who go through life without a handbook. They are people who live their lives based on their own choices, made backed by their own histories and knowledge and preferences.

(On that note, while I do have several poly friends, I did chat with a handful of fandom people specifically, since my IRL poly friends won't be the ones reading my fic. There was no unanimous consensus, but I'm pretty set on my path regardless. At the end of the day, I have my principles and I must abide them.)

There are all sorts of way to live one's life. All sorts of ways one might be. And to me, the worst you can do is to be so married to your own experience that you downplay or invalidate someone else's.

There are so many different connections to gender. Transpeople with body dysmorphia, and those without. People who have pronouns, or express gender in different ways. So many ways to "mix and match", so to speak. My nonbinary friend who uses she/her pronouns, but also likes being called "king" and "cowboy." People with different feelings towards their bodies, or gender expectation and expression. All unique.

There are so many ways of being asexual. A whole spectrum of asexuality! Those who are sex-repulsed, and some sex-favorable. Those who are also aromantic, and those who long for romance.

On that note: the difference between sexual attraction and sexual activity. The differences between sexual attraction and activity and even libido. Allosexual people with low libidos, and asexual people with high libidos! There's sexual attraction, and romantic attraction, and sensual attraction, and aesthetic attraction!

There are all sorts of ways to have relationships. Monogamous, or polyamorous. Romantic partners who are highly sexual, and those who are celibate. Friends with benefits. Queer platonic relationships. Marrying your best friend and sleeping with your longterm boyfriend. Who cares? If everyone is a consenting adult, who cares what your life looks like, as long as you're all content?

Perhaps this is a real world application as well as a fictional one, but it always grates on me when it comes to fiction. The world, the REAL world, is ripe with possibility, and fiction is a way to play with and expand upon that possibility. And seeing people's narrow-mindedness creep into a fictional space is such a disheartening thing.

There are all sorts of people in this world living all sorts of lives. How unique each person and their experience is is a great and beautiful thing! You miss out on so much by not reaching out to others and opening up and listening to them and learning from them.

Your way is not the only way. And what a sad world it would be if it was.

[genderkoolaid]

Honestly, I was not expecting that kind of a response, thank you. And yeah, I guess I am just kinda hurting, when I was a small little trans boy in a small little Christian town, online trans spaces were the only place I could go and so many of them were filled with transfems putting down transmascs. And I guess it’s just kinda like, after you see enough of that shit you just kinda give up on having an ally in that group. Because yeah one or two isn’t bad, but when it’s constant like it is in a lot of Reddit/twitter spaces which was where my trans ass was, seeing people saying we should all just band together and forget our differences, idk, it just kinda hits me as naive. Obviously this isn’t to put down transfems, no group is a monolith, there’s just a very vocal minority of transfems who I had my first experiences with and it was like, okay, what the fuck am I trying to do allying with these ppl. Idk, it still seems a little bit fantastical to all band together. Plus pretty much (especially white) transfem I’ve met believes they are in some way more oppressed for being trans even if they acknowledge trans men “kinda face oppression too”, idk, it just seems like lumping us all together is like putting us in a get along tshirt and not realizing that some ppl don’t want to be around ppl who have historically hurt them a lot. Idk.

It makes sense that when you hear transunity your first thought is of the people who have hurt you the most, and that must have been traumatizing. The online community in general tends to emphasize the most divisive opinions & also tends to be dominated by the more privileged and sheltered people in the community, which is why many people find that people they meet in physical spaces tend to have much more diverse and open opinions. When that's the dominant way you experience the community, it definitely leaves you feeling like community is doomed to fail. This (both intra-community violence in general and transandrophobia specifically) has been allowed to fester in trans spaces for far too long. I get how while you logically know its a small minority your view of trans solidarity has been stained by that & that can be really hard to change, especially when that kind of thing is still a problem in the community.

If you want my opinion: taking care of your own mental health, especially as it relates to gender, and exposing yourself to transfems & other trans people who are openly supportive of transmasc activism, is vital. Running this blog I've found a lot of transfems who support the conversation around transandrophobia, including people who are extremely supportive and vocal about it. When you see people like that more and more, you start to focus on the ways we can help each other more than the ways we harm each other. I see other trans people talking about transandrophobia and transunity and it affirms to me how they are people who take this seriously and want to build a safer community for everyone. cipheramnesia is a pretty big transfem blogger who's been vocally supportive of transmasc activism discussing transandrophobia, and the reason I got into this discussion in the first place was through seeing a trans woman talk about it and insist that it wasn't inherently transmisogynistic and that transmascs do deserve to be heard about the details of our oppression. I may have never made this blog at all if it weren't for transfems being vocal allies of transmasc activism.

I've also seen a lot of trans people with awful, divisive, and bigoted takes; I know those come from people who are also hurting, who are lashing out at people they have biases against because it lets them feel some kind of control and release. Its tempting to step back and leave the whole thing behind- and if that's what you need to do for your mental health and safety, that is your right. But to me, the hardest and most important thing about activism is acknowledging how real change has to come from opening up and making connections and risking pain and rejection for the sake of transformation.

Transunity is, fundamentally, about taking that risk because we know its the only way we can unwork the thing that keeps all of us oppressed, the only thing that truly and consistently benefits from the infighting. Transunity is a direct response to the behavior you describe, created by trans people from multiple different groups. Its still very, very young as a movement but the more it grows, hopefully, the more people who will be vocal about the issues in our community and how open discussion and active solidarity are vital to our liberation. There may always be discourse and assholes lashing out, but there will also always be people putting in the work and showing compassion, so those people will find each other and work for the betterment of everyone, including those trying to tear each other apart.

Like I said, its also important to take care of your mental health. Alienation from your community is traumatizing (as plenty of aspec people can tell you), and that leaves you with defense mechanisms meant to keep you safe that can be hard to get rid of. I think transmasc-focused spaces can be really, really helpful in healing that kind of trauma and help you feel much more stable and supported in your transness & as a person, which in turn makes you more willing to take that risk and open up for a chance at solidarity and community. A lot of times, you need to take care of yourself and get in a good place before you can really engage in community activism, so I don't blame you at all for being wary of transunity when you are obviously still hurting. Healing is fucked up and messy and its alright to have complex emotions about people and things while you are dealing with that pain. Like I said, at the end of the day I wish you the best, and I hope you find yourself a community that supports you like you deserve.

[fels-fantasy-hoard]

One of my friends and players just brought something up to me that I think is a discussion that should be had and that is:

Should white people make ocs that are poc in ttrpgs

She sent me two ticktocks here and here where two poc talk about how it makes them uncomfortable when white people play as poc in ttrpgs and she was freaking out because her oc from the last 3-4 years in our campaign is mix raced. My friend is also mix raced but white passing and she was afraid she was offending people.

So, I just wanna give my perspective from observing this same discussion in other writing communities - because it is essentially the same discussion of whether or not white people can write poc in novels, video game, movies, etc because it all comes down to aesthetic appropriation.

Now, if any poc would like to add their own thoughts and experiences with this please do, your voices are much more important than mine - a white person - so I'm going to put my thoughts under a cut. I'm basically going to talk about my own observations within the fantasy genre as a whole when it comes to ethnicity and race and the patterns I've seen and how that translates into the ttrpg medium. Cheers :D

So, the main problem I've seen brought up when white people try to be inclusive by adding poc in their stories is that their inclusion stops at aesthetics. A poc is still written with the mindset of a white person. Changing the ethnicity of a character changes nothing about them and - many times - their ethnicity isn't even clear. They are south Asian but of which country? Which region? South Asians are an incredibly diverse ethnic group just like Afrians or Central/South Americans. If you can swap the ethnicity of a character without changing anything about them, then you aren't actually making good representation, you are doing the bare minimum of preventing an all white cast. It's 2023, we should hold ourselves and each other to higher standards.

Now, when it comes to fantasy stories, there is a bit of a problem. The worlds within fantasy settings become so much smaller because humans often share the setting with nonhumans such as elves, dwarves, gnomes, etc. This means humans are often turned into a european monolith - or something very close to it - while other real world ethnicities are shoved onto fantasy lineages (often times still flavors of european).

I dont think I need to point out why this is a problem. Humans continue using the aesthetics of nonwhite ethnicities but completely divorced of their culture and context. This is the definition of appropriation. I can think of dozens of fantasy stories from various mediums where there would be no change if a poc was white because their ethnicity has no impact on their characterization - as seen with various video game characters who's skin becomes lighter and lighter through every installment or has dark skinned concept art and a light skinned final product.

You want your fantasy setting to be a mixing pot of cultures and ethnicities? Ok, look at the US and how all of these different cultures remain intact even after generations. Yes, there is a level of assimilation but even fourth gen Mexican immigrants are still influenced their culture. Mix raced people have their own unique struggles and cultural experiences. Every country in the world has their own unique mixing pot of cultures and ethnicities. No country is a monolith as that would require committing cultural and/or ethnic genocide to everyone who does not fit the predestined mold.

A setting can have a mixing pot of cultures without racism or prejudice. You can have a human civilization that isn't a monolith. Don't be afraid to research different cultures to represent them with respect. Not only will it make your setting feel more immersive, it will give you a deeper understanding and respect for people irl.

It's always boggled my mind when people say irl race doesn't matter in fantasy then immediately turn around with fantasy racism like... seriously? The beauty of humanity is how diverse our cultures are and yet you'd rather dismiss this beauty over using the violence of prejudice and racism as cheap conflict in your story.

If you actually want to be inclusive in your fantasy stories, do research. Talk to poc of the ethnicity you are trying to represent.

If you are a player wanting to make an oc that is a different ethnicity than you - consider why? Does the character's physical appearance actually matter to their story? Are you willing to put in the work to represent this character's culture and respect the irl culture and people you are drawing from? Is this even your story to tell? If your answer to any of these questions is no, then maybe you should rethink some things.

I don't have the answer on whether or not white people should be allowed to make their oc a person of color but I think this question is indicative of a much larger problem within the fantasy genre of aesthetic appropriation and surface level representation of poc. I don't have any answers - other than put more effort into representing different ethnicities and cultures which its whole own can of worms- but its a conversation that should be had.

I would love to hear other people's thoughts and feel free to correct me or add your own experiences with this. I want to learn so I can write better representation in my stories and understand different perspectives better. Cheers :D

[classicjdiesandgoestohell]

Extremely Unnecessarily Long Disjointed Ramble About My Identity

ive never felt happy with my queer identity at all. i know you dont need labels but being labeless wasnt freeing either, it never felt any better.. not any worse, but just the same feeling of ambivalence to my own existence.

one thing i never see discussed is the influence of community in how you describe yourself. this is so obvious, we talk about this with peer pressure and other personality traits, but its heavily affected my queer identity too. my sexuality has always been kinda fuzzy, ive been bouncing between being bi and lesbian and gay since the beginning of time, but between those 3 groups the appeal of the lesbian community was always so much higher. i liked the sense of closeness i never experienced in my trans/gay/bi identity, i liked how more trans inclusive it felt, my lesbian friends were always much more proud of their identities than other people, i liked the freedom of not being at all shackled to men. But i dont really know if lesbian fits my sexuality. no fucking clue. i just know socially id rather be a lesbian in social circles than anything else. i feel like an imposter almost. when i identify as bi i dont feel like an imposter, but im always really unhappy with the choice and feel like it doesnt accurately represent me at all. i dont feel like i relate to other bi people.

with my transness.. for 3 years i ID'd as a binary trans man. it never felt quite right, i felt like i didnt try hard enough to be a man, there were too many things i held onto from living as a girl that i didnt know if id ever want to let go. i switched to thinking of myself as nonbinary transmasc, not really at all connected to feminity but not strictly calling myself a man. this was alright but i always felt the indecisiveness of sometimes wanting to be a man and sometimes wanting to be free from it all together, it didnt feel good either. right now ive abandoned any notions of gender, just that im not a Girl, and whether that means im feminine or masculine or androgynous it doesnt matter. this is maybe the worst ive ever felt about my gender and has affirmed to me i probably am at least transmasc, if not completely a trans Man.

ive always rlly felt the shame of being transmasc. i feel like i betrayed womanhood or whatever even though i didnt fit into that either. i was an ugly obvious outlier in any space i tried to be a girl. i think id rather be a girl, i see the appeal of it so much more. i feel stupid for not wanting to be a girl when i enjoy the experience so much more. even though i Know identity is not something you choose, even though i Know every single person has a different thing thats right for them, it feels so much more justified to me to want to be a girl - whether you have to transition that way or were just born into it - than to want anything to do with masculinity. i dont know.

i have some internalized hatred to work out but it sucks when i see people reinforcing it. terfs call testosterone evil and talk about trans men betraying womanhood. transmascs frequently say stupid shit online (transmisogny, as well as generally being insanely discourse minded), and i know im not the monolith, im not the whole group, but it makes me feel stupid for wanting to be grouped with those people. this definitely ties into my completely unrelated issue of feeling personally responsible for shit that i didnt do, for people pleasing all the time and my desire to be liked by literally everyone. And then also in my head i go Ahhhh youre dividing people into arbitrary categories again... Youre deciding certain archetypes of transmasc suck even when you dont know the person personally and then i feel disappointed in myself again for being so generalizing. especially when i understand how they got to those conclusions or have thought them myself at some point.

now 90% of my friends are trans girls and its changed my perception of community again. i feel like transmascs dont have the same sense of closeness like that, or maybe we do, and i just dont feel it since i dont engage with my own community much anymore. maybe as an outsider i percieve more solidarity than actually exists (although between my friends & social media discourse im not at all unaware of infighting). maybe i just feel left out or lost wherever i go i guess. maybe it is just a me issue.

to add onto the i dont engage with my own community bit, i remember when i used to follow many transmasc artists and all their ocs and such were transmasc too. i strayed away from this for a few reasons. i remember some discourse in 2022 about how trans male artists get so much more attention online and how no one supports trans womens art, and i felt bad almost for engaging with my own community. i know that other peoples communities are not a threat to my own, and ive always supported trans womens art too, but i felt bad about the 1 single time i ever felt connected to other trans men. i felt bad consuming all this male content, and consequently stopped. that was also around the same time my sexuality shifted from feeling like a gay or bi man, to being a nonbinary lesbian, so i felt disconnected from a lot of gay transmasculine art as well.

a lot of my issue with identity is discourse and its so stupid man. i know its stupid to say out loud but constantly being surrounded by it gets to my head sometimes. it feels especially stupid as someone who doesnt even rlly engage with it, instead i just read thread after thread reply after reply and feel Bad with no outlet. i remember over the years seeing posts about how people drawing transmasc surgery scars felt empty and meaningless, because it didnt attempt to represent any other part of the transmasculine experience and i felt bad for enjoying that symbol. i loved seeing top scars in art and on people and then i felt weird about it, even though logically i know the importance of those things is not diminished by random people online saying its Hollow.

it always feels like discourse tries to pit trans men and women against eachother and it sucks. (with obvious exceptions, sometimes trans men really are ignorant & talking over or erasing transmisogny). ive never once with my transfem friends felt like i was at odds against them. learning other peoples experiences is extremely important to me, and ive often found we have very similar experiences too, even on stuff i wouldnt expect to have parallels for. it sucks that i literally go outside and touch grass everyday and interact with Real Queer People, and yet still the discourse worms infest themselves into my brain...

being completely unlabeled and being free is fine in a box, until im forced to adhere back to reality by the fact i live with other people. i can think of my own actions as genderless or etc in my own bubble, maybe even with friends, but when i go back into the world and am crammed and perceived into places i dont want to be, i feel bad again. maybe i havent experienced the true joys of being labeless when i still care about peoples perception of me. its hard not to when its your everyday at school and work.

[cum-villain]

me has a question

how do you assure and confirm a person with bpd that you are not abandoning them. you are just busy and have a lot going on of your own?

i just want them to be secure in the fact that i love them and never in a billion years, for anything, ever even think about leaving them. but idk how.

well, first i'll disclaim that since people with bpd (pwbpd) arent a monolith, what i may say may be absolute garbage advice for you. i'm just saying this from the perspective of a guy with bpd, and everyone experiences it differently. hell, in the dsm-5, diagnosis requires having 5 out of 9 possible symptoms, so two people with bpd can only share one of those traits and still both have bpd. so, yeah.

but with all that aside, i think just plain communication is usually the best thing. just explain you get busy, still love this person, and that it has nothing to do with them, its only your own busy schedule. this can lead to a couple responses: acceptance you're busy, which is ideal, or possible anger or betrayal you didnt make time for them.

in that case, try and reassure the person that you still love them, and maybe make a plan together to see if its possible for you to be less busy in the future. if there is no possible plan, that person will see that you dont have a choice to be busy. if there is a plan, that person will see you're making an effort to be with them. and regardless of whether it works out, the fact that you spent time together to figure out how to make things work is helpful in its own right. of course, i dont know how busy you are or if you have the time to even do that, but if its at all possible to have that time, i highly suggest this.

also, with bpd, even if you're told "hey im busy but still love you" on day one, by day 4 you may start thinking "hey what if that was just a lie so they can spend time doing other things and abandon me." so, try to remind the person you love them daily, even if its just sending a cute cat and hearts meme. may not work depending on the severity of the person's bpd, but getting sent a cute meme thats only barely consoles you is far better then radio silence.

all in all, its about reminding the person that you love them, and trying your best to not leave them alone for too long without a clear reason they can see. bpd is a bitch, so even if the person logically understands how busy you are, emotionally they still may need the other things i mentioned. the main thing is that its really great you're trying to help this person with their bpd, just knowing you're doing your best to help them fight their bpd will probably be helpful.

and, obviously, don't try and talk about big plans when the person is splitting. but im pretty sure thats obvious. just thought i'd say it anyway lol.

[transportationunknown]

urban planning and the african american community: in the shadows (manning thomas & ritzdorf, 1998)

Chapter 15: coming together: unified diversity for social action (manning thomas)

why did i read this chapter: Interested in how racial justice and equity planning has been integrated into curriculum and organizations. This chapter leans more towards how it shows up in planning schools, but does provide a good amount of information on how it manifested in organizational theory and corporate research

multiculturalism: a term that typically includes race, ethnicity, gender, and nationality—has emerged in planning education, but with little clarity, cohesion, or purpose p. 259

cites a study where 32 planning faculty citied planning for multicultural diversity in the metropolis as a needed skill 

manning thomas argues that the integration, and even the definition of such, is applied unevenly  

at the time of publication (1998), women in planning was just beginning to be acknowledged. minority representation in planning programs, as faculty and students, had stagnated. intl students were critiquing the right way/the “western” way and wished for reciprocal teaching that emphasized commonality and global linkages p. 259

nonplanning literature on diversity

“Relevant guidance comes from both the organizational literature, which focuses on the workplace, and the educational literature, which addresses the classroom” p. 261 (SECOND CHAPTER)

lit on multicultural orgs (large and growing)

largely based on corporate experience, clarifies the positive results of diversity n the workplace and suggests stages of growth in that process. Roosevelt Thomas identifies three stages:

affirmative action 

‘valuing differences’ 

‘managing diversity’

(modifies the core culture of the org so that it works fro everyone and increases workplace productivity)

Cox & multicultural organization promotes in three stages p.261-62

monolithic minority 

plural organizations (more heterogenous, but still rely on assimilation) 

multicultural organizations (characterized by diverse workers, inclusion of minorities in networks and social activities, absence of prejudice and discrimination, and low levels of intergroup conflict)

Wurster, race and planning

By the early 1990s, however, the volume of literature on issues of planning and race appeared to diminish 

however there was an increase of gender and planning 

Part of the weakness in dialogue about the relationship between race and planning education relates to the stagnation in numbers of minority planning faculty and to the decline in the number of planning programs at historically Black institutions p. 266

[witch-king-of-angstmar]

It's such a ridiculous notion that if we don't fit society's expectations, then people think we must be bad or wrong, and never that maybe these expectations are flawed. I wasn't diagnosed until I was in my 30s, so pretty much up until then I beat myself up believing I mean lazy and useless.

IDK I just don't get it. It makes me so angry. NTs are allowed to just exist. Why can't we? Why do people see someone struggling and their first response is to blame and shame them? Since when has that ever worked? It's not that they're trying harder or that they're better or worse, it's that the world is structured to work for them so they can meet the bare minimum with comparatively less effort. So why are ND people held to this ridiculous standard where we have to be freaking geniuses in order to be considered worthy of help?

I'm saying this as someone who was a gifted kid when I was young but who crashed and burned and now struggles to read and can't hold down a job. The very symptoms of ND struggle, like being forgetful or needing to stim when overwhelmed, are the very things people use at work or school to paint us as broken and therefore less than. This is bullshit. Like yes, the experience of a gifted kid struggling invisibly and someone struggling visibly will necessarily be different, but the kid who gets straight A's and gets a bullshit gold star for reading quietly is not somehow more worthy than the kid who shakes their legs and gets a bullshit demerit and bullshit public shaming because they can't finish the bullshit worksheet. They shouldn't be pitted against each other as The Right Way To Be ND/The Wrong Way To Be ND! One's struggles go undetected because they push through. One gets penalized and is never given the chances that others get. The system failed them both in differently horrible ways. But both are valid! Both are deserving of help! As NDs, we aren't a monolith, and we can't always understand directly what each other's experiences are when we don't have their limitations, but it's not a competition. We can hold space for us all to exist. And also like. What if we had accommodations to everyone, NT or ND, without people needing to run the gauntlet of Proving You're Suffering Enough But Not So Much That People Don't Believe You, so those who need them can use them, and those who don't don't, and everyone can just exist without the shame?

Getting treated with basic human dignity and getting support to survive in life should never be conditional on high performance or proving you're a "good person" to authority figures. You shouldn't have to burn yourself to permanent damage in exchange for not being trampled on. You are not a bad person because everyone who was supposed to help you failed you instead. Getting help from your family and community before a situation becomes dire is a reasonable expectation, not a luxury!

And if the people who failed to help us are bothered by these concepts, then it was never about helping us in the first place.

making a separate post but like. i don’t think some of y’all understand how genuinely traumatizing it is to have undiagnosed (or even diagnosed) adhd and go through school as the lazy stupid kid. i’ll tell you a little bit about what school looked like for me.

when i was in second grade, my teacher used to drag my desk up to the front of the class in the middle of lessons if i tapped my pencil or bounced my knee. she wouldn’t let me talk to any of my friends, and wouldn’t let me read my books when i was done with my assignments and was waiting for everyone else to finish. she would berate me in front of the whole class until i cried. her treatment of me got so bad my parents had to pull me out of school.

when i was in fifth grade, my teacher gave out “assignment alerts”, bright orange pieces of paper that indicated you’d forgotten to turn in an assignment. i was given dozens of these papers, and they started to build up, so it was harder to hide them. she would give these out in front of everyone in the middle of class, and she always made sure that when it came to me everyone knew i had the most. she would mock me in front of my classmates for my inability to keep up with homework and said that because my test scores were good it was because i was just lazy and didn’t care.

when i was in seventh grade, my teachers made me come up to the front of the class at the beginning and end of the period so they could inspect my assignment book and sign it, in view of the rest of my classmates, and announce whether or not i’d done my homework. when i inevitably forgot about assignments, they would berate me in front of the class.

when i was in high school, i wasn’t allowed to try to test into higher level classes because my teachers had decided that even though i did well on tests and papers, i wasn’t intelligent enough to take them because i couldn’t keep track of my assignments and deadlines. I was told over and over again that i was just lazy, and anytime i tried to explain what i later learned were symptoms of adhd i was berated and told i was making excuses.

when i was in college, i failed two classes my first year because i couldn’t keep up with the deadlines. the day before my second year, my best friend died, and i stopped going to classes. my teachers didn’t connect the dots because they assumed based on the previous year that i was just lazy and didn’t care about school. i failed several classes that year and never got the mental health assistance i needed, and my reputation at the school was pretty much shot. one teacher even went out of his way to try and fail me because he didn’t believe i deserved a degree. he tried to claim i’d plagiarized one of my papers to put a mark on my transcript. luckily he didn’t or i may have had to drop out. i had to do an extra year to make up for all the classes i’d failed, and barely graduated.

i did end up dropping out of my attempted masters degree (the only school that would take me with such a low gpa, and the only school that offered no scholarships or assistantships) because all of the teachers refused to give me any sort of accommodations, noting my bad grades from undergrad. i was given no patience or grace, my disability was not respected, and i had to drop out.

these experiences (which are just a handful of many) were so traumatic that they gave me diagnosed ptsd. i’m almost 30 and i’m still in therapy learning to cope with the horrifying levels of self hatred, anxiety, and dysfunction that my academic experiences gave me. i’m still learning how to even begin to function and take care of myself after i was told for so long by people who were supposed to help and support me that i didn’t deserve to succeed.

i fully understand how stressful it is to mask your neurodivergence in order to succeed, and how that can affect your mental health. i understand the high levels of anxiety and dysfunction in former gifted kids. i get that, and i respect it. but i’m honestly so tired of ppl trying to say there’s no difference in that experience vs. mine. that someone who had a 4.0 all through high school and college and got a good job is just as materially affected as someone who couldn’t just push through, who couldn’t make it through higher education, who couldn’t graduate high school, who can’t hold a job at all.

these experiences are all valid but they are DIFFERENT. and when the only people i ever hear about when talking about adhd are the former gifted kids, it makes me feel so incredibly alone. and maybe if there were a greater variety of voices and experiences that were showcased, people like me wouldn’t feel so isolated and self-critical. maybe we’d realize that we deserve grace and kindness too, even if we didn’t get to be the gifted kids.

[qqueenofhades]

I frankly think the people who blame the Democrats for everything while refusing to hold the Republicans accountable while acting out their holier than thou shtick operate on the mentality of a bully because they're truthfully terrified cowards at heart.

They subconsciously think that the Republicans are this scary monolith that they can't hope to truly defeat, but have built their identity around being "superior to the lesser leftists and fascists" so utterly that they can't admit their inadequacy and fear. So instead, like a bully, they take out their frustrations on someone they see as an easier target to sooth their egos. Kicking down rather than punching across the aisle at the actual enemy.

I feel like there are a lot of contributing factors to this mindset. One is the era of social media clout, wherein you have to perform the most Progressive views (whether that is actually the case is, uh, up for debate) and therefore take more and more extreme positions, or risk looking like you're not sufficiently socially aware and therefore in danger of being Cancelled. Two, the structure of social media itself, which is absolutely terrible for having complex debates and mostly just ends up with two sides yelling polarized opinions at each other from each side of a chasm, and feeling more justified in their own position the more they attack the other. Three, the return of conservative evangelical purity culture, now clothed in so-called "leftist" language, where all opinions have to conform to traditional black-and-white-morality and any weakness or grey area needs to be expunged for fear of heresy. Four, the fact that it's much easier to lecture people online, safely anonymous and from the comfort of your own home, rather than to get out in the community, do the work, and engage with real people whose views and experiences will differ from your own. As you say, they've built their entire moral identity on being superior to the "establishment," who in their simplistic analysis is anyone associated with any mainstream political party, whether Democrat or Republican. That's where we get the whole "both parties are the same" rhetoric, since that's the only criteria they use. It's not Edgy, Smart, and Counterculture enough to be a "normie," so they have to separate themselves from it.

At this point, you have to wonder if they're also doubling down, as people tend to do psychologically when their most treasured beliefs are challenged, since the alternative would be to actually reckon with the fact that they helped this happen. They don't want to take any responsibility for that; they just want to blame everyone else for not meeting their standards (which, of course, it's impossible to do). Because they spend all their time criticizing the Democrats and treating the Republicans as essentially irrelevant, they have no other framework to respond to this current crisis: it has to be the Democrats' fault SOMEHOW.

Besides, even if the Democrats had passed an actual law to codify Roe, the lawsuits that challenged it could still have been brought! The Supreme Court had the opportunity to overturn the Affordable Care Act (and very nearly did) before backing out at the last moment, and that was actual legislation that was formally passed by Congress, not just a judicial precedent! Making Roe into law would not be a magic bullet! It could still be challenged in the courts and eventually overturned by this same ultra-extremist, hard-right SC. They literally have that power. So again: even if the Democrats had made the law, the Republicans could still have successfully sued and undone it. But that's how this whole "the Democrats haven't given ME a pony and thus are worse than the Republicans!!" so-called "logic" works. It calls itself progressive, but it is generally deeply selfish. It shows woeful unawareness of how the American federal government works and relies on the mistaken belief that if the Democrats Really Cared, they could have done it by now. Because you know, Bernie Sanders makes it sound so easy on Twitter.

In short, this kind of thinking is immature, zero-sum, reflects binary ideological categories that map very poorly onto actual reality, doesn't even offer a solution aside from "I like to blame everyone else who isn't as morally Good as me," and is spread by people who generally don't do anything at all to help in the real world. So really, they have a lot of nerve, but that's the bubble in which they operate. We can only hope they eventually figure out how to get the hell out of it.

[drtanner]

According to a number of surveys, the majority of the UK public is in favour of trans rights, it may surprise you to hear! The bullshit you see on social media isn't reflected in real life, it turns out, because sock puppet Twitter accounts can't make YouGov profiles or go to the ballot box; TERFs are merely a very vocal minority who know they're on the losing side, and are taking advantage of the current culture war that our government is participating in alongside the mainstream media to make themselves heard before their ideology goes the way of homophobia, racism and misogyny, which were all likewise viewed as acceptable bigotries in the past.

However, those same surveys did find that a lot of cis folks in the UK are also worried about getting things wrong when they talk to trans people or are afraid that they'll get yelled at if they make mistakes or say the wrong thing! That's a shame! If this sounds like you, I hope I can dispel at least some of your anxiety with a quick primer to get you started, and I'll begin by letting you know that this idea that trans people are all vicious, screeching bullies waiting to leap on any well-meaning mistake that a curious cis person makes is a purposeful mischaracterisation that's been sold to you by transphobes. You're not gonna get yelled at for making a genuine misstep, I promise.

(Most of us are far too frightened of being ostracised or murdered to yell at people who openly insult us, let alone your innocent mistake.)

That said, if you want to be an ally, here are the basics. ( b ._.)b

Not every trans person is obliged to educate you. If you have questions, ask folks if they're willing to answer questions, and be ready to accept "NO" for an answer. We're tired, and we know you have Google. There are whole communities of trans people on the internet who are there specifically to answer questions if you're really pressed. r/asktransgender is a great place to start.

Don't ask us questions about our genitals. Again, if you want to know what trans folks' junk can look like, Google is right there. You don't need to know what my junk, personally, specifically, looks like unless you are a) my doctor or b) my sexual partner. You wouldn't want me asking about your genitals, right? That'd be weird! And the fact that our genitals might be something other than what you may normally expect doesn't make it any less so! (Obviously if someone tells you they don't mind talking about their personal, specific junk, that's different. Just don't ask about it straight out of the gate, please. Be polite. Let them bring it up.)

Everyone has different boundaries. Some topics might be easy for one trans person to talk about but difficult for another. If we tell you we don't want to answer specific questions or discuss specific topics or that the discussion is over, respect it. Don't be a dick.

Every trans person's experiences are different! What's true for one or a few or even most of the trans folks you talk to is highly unlikely to be true for all of us. Everyone navigates transness in their own way and has different viewpoints and perspectives. We're not a monolith and you shouldn't treat us like one.

We literally just want to live with dignity like everybody else. That is literally it, that's all we want, we just want to be treated with the same respect and compassion as every other human being on this planet deserves. You shouldn't take it as a personal attack if we ask you, for example, to use inclusive language, e.g., "pregnant person" instead of "pregnant woman", in order to make a little room for us in the world. We're not taking anything away from you or anybody else; our inclusive language includes you too, after all. 💜

And that's it! Five very easy things to remember, that's all. Keep these things in mind and you'll be hard pressed to offend anyone so badly that they snap at you. Be considerate and respectful and I promise you'll be fine. Go forth and educate yourself! I'm rooting for you! 💜

[colorisbyshe]

I feel like in a lot of circles including irl, identifying as ace is the cost of entry for discussions about things like a complicated or painful relationship to sex and rape culture. I used to identify as ace because I needed to pay that entry fee and hey I fit their very loose definition. But I stopped being comfortable with the infantilization (esp being autistic) that goes with the label and it's so frustrating to be locked out of those essential conversations now because people think I have a "normative" relationship to sex when I'm literally traumatized and stone. The current state of how people talk about asexuality is so counterproductive.

I don't know if it's a cost of entry thing so much as it is... an easier way out and also a part of a larger obsession with Facets of Who I Am Have Now Become Meaningful Public Identity.

I'll explain what I mean on both fronts.

It's an easier way out because asexual is no longer a neutral term, it is an empowering term. To acknowledge that you are ace is to empower yourself, reclaim your struggles, and exist defiantly against "normative" sexual desire, whatever that may be.

It means it is an inherent part of who you are, not something you can change or work on. Instead of having to reflect inward and address any possible trauma, internalized homophobia/transphobia/racism/etc, or sex shaming attitudes you have grown up with, you can just go, "I'm ace, the only difficulties I face are from outsiders who are aphobic, not my own experiences, beliefs, and traumas."

No more internal work is required. And then to say "Actually, I'm just on Zoloft and my libido is dead" or "Actually, I am just recovering from abuse" or "Actually, I just have very different sexual boundaries than is expected of me and maybe do not like penetrative acts done to myself," somehow becomes an affront of the community.

Nuance isn't allowed, just hegemony. Asexuality has become a broad, broad term (essentially meaningless) to encompass a lot of experiences... many of which contradict each other... and to vocalize that contradiction is to be aphobic. Everyone is stepping on each other's toes rather than admit that maybe, just maybe, they aren't actually sharing the same umbrella and don't belong under the same term.

Now as to what I mean by "Facets of Who I am Have Now Become Meaningful Public Identity."

I think there has been a weird shift to make EVERY part of you an indicator of your social standing. You don't have kinks, you are a Kinkster in the Kink Community. You didn't go through sexual abuse, you are a Survivor. You don't lack sexual attraction or only feel sexual attraction once in a while, you are In The Ace Community.

As people of color, LGBT people, disabled people, and other oppressed groups have gotten more mainstream recognition to talk about their oppression and represent their experiences, a lot of people see that sense of community and try to recreate it.

Everything is a community. Everything is a social strata. Everything is a part of an oppressor/oppressed dynamic.

You can't just have interests or nuances or hobbies. You have a Community that is supposedly monolithic and representative of a collaborative interest.

Fuck, it's even done to fandom where everything becomes a fucking sports team. It's not "I like this band," it's "I'm part of Fandom Name."

People have to list everything out like every part of their identity belongs on the census.

Because they saw marginalized people as communities get holidays or media rep or whatever and failed to see them as political coalitions against oppression. They just saw them as fan clubs or sports teams fighting for entertainment.

It's a larger social problem where everything needs a label and needs to be socially meaningful.

It's the same shit that gets people listing out their every mental diagnosis or kink in their bio. Like... nothing can be personal and everything is a status symbol.