#cultural intersection

[ahb-writes]

"The worst thing that can happen to someone who gets famous is that they believe that they deserve it."

Adam Savage Q&A (12 January 2024)

[trans-androgyne]

"Manhood is fundamentally shaped by the patriarchy and cannot be separated from it." What a sad view to have of gender, and one that directly harms trans men and mascs.

Do you realize how close that is to what TERFs believe? I’ve encountered so many of them that go off about how gender is inextricable from patriarchy, only existing to oppress women. That's where the term "gender critical" comes from. They think gender should be abolished entirely instead instead of preserving what brings people comfort and euphoria. They see trans people transitioning as inherently upholding patriarchy, including believing that trans men are just oppressed girls betraying their sisters by trying to move up in the gender hierarchy.

Gender has existed without patriarchy and it will again. I'm sorry to tell you this, but by saying the two are inextricable you are letting colonizers win. My ancestors lived in a matriarchy before being colonized by Spain and inundated with Catholicism--yet we still had gender roles, ones in which women were respected and had power. We certainly were not unique for that.

What happened to "smash the patriarchy"? Please don't just accept that this is the way of the world, that to be a woman means to be a victim and to be a man means to be an oppressor. My masculinity is queer, not gender-conforming. I resist the patriarchy by my very existence, as do other trans men and mascs. If you want to be inclusive and supportive of all trans people, you're going to have to expand your view of gender beyond what the patriarchy has taught you.

[femmefatalevibe]

Femme Fatale Guide: How To Decenter Men In Your Life

Consider the values, goals, and desired lifestyle that feel most authentic to you if social scripts/stigmas didn't apply to you

Take time to become radically honest with your desires as an individual – outside of the perception of men, your family, boss, teachers, peers, etc.

Cultivate a sense of personhood and identity established in your interests, hobbies, skillsets, learning capabilities, creativity, and desire for growth in all aspects of life

Act in your own best interests. Speak up for your needs, and advocate for yourself. Be more "selfish." Don't apologize for what you want and go after it. Act in your own best interests

Become confident in negotiating, assertive communication, and standing on your own two feet. Establish relationships in all aspects that are based on mutual benefit and equitable exchange

Unlearn your self-sacrificing & people-pleasing. Stop shrinking yourself or suppressing your needs to make others feel better or more comfortable

Validate yourself: your needs, desires, goals, dreams, preferences, and opinions. You need to choose yourself every day. Your appeal to others means nothing if you don't like the person you are or are becoming to satisfy the needs or desires of others

Consider the ways you're consciously and subconsciously confining your self-expression and belief system to fit the mold/appease the patriarchy. Actively work to deconstruct this mentality and way of being

Be honest with yourself about how men enrich your life. Not the other way around. Do they fulfill you romantically, sexually, both, or neither? There's no right or wrong answer, except the one that requires you to put on a performance rather than live in alignment with your true self

More resources including book recommendations/creators to follow HERE.

[odinsblog]

🗣️ Pay very close attention!

Please forget, for a moment, that many people live in the intersection of simultaneously being Black + LGBTQ + refugee + Asian. Instead, I am asking you to look at how the Republican culture wars are pitting one identity against the other.

DeSantis has banned any mention of Gay and Trans people, Black Lives Matter, George Floyd, Critical Race Theory, and much more… but now he is mandating Asian American history.

Florida and other Republican controlled legislators around the country are whitewashing and erasing Black history from school history textbooks, while also making Asian history a requirement. ⁉️

Please be just a little bit curious.

You must ask yourself, why?

WHY would an abjectly racist politician ban one culture’s history, but require another’s?

DeSantis is playing Asian people, the “model minority,” against—in his eyes—all of the “less desirable” minorities: Black people, Lgbtq+ people, etc. etc. etc. It’s a classic divide and conquer strategy.

Please see his ploy for what it is. We are all stronger together. Republicans know this. It’s why they’re working so hard to drive wedges between us.

Don’t fall for the okie doke.

[childrensrightsrehumanrights]

Tw for pedophilla and discussions of csa

A likely pedophile tried to follow my blog today. They’ve reblogged another post about children’s rights.

Child sexual abuse is one of the children’s rights issues that is most pressing. Child marriage and other forms of child abuse are still legal in many places and people are trying to normalise it again in places where people have fought for better rights for children.

It is a choice to want to sexually abuse a child and to promote the idea that is is okay. Don’t let rape culture tell you that these people can’t help themselves, they are making the choice to abuse an innocent person.

Children cannot consent.

If we in children’s rights spaces don’t protect children and we allow people like this to get into the community and groom vulnerable children we will have done worse then just fail as activists we will have been complicit in harming children.

Call this out. Block and report this person and anyone else who tries to get access to children.

Anything that’s says “paraphile, radqueer,” and definitely “pro contact” is a danger. The term “crophile” tipped me off to check their blog.

Like how intersectional feminist spaces need to be on the look out for terfs, children’s rights activists need to be aware of sexual predators trying to infiltrate our spaces.

[whereserpentswalk]

Reminder that you should not be comparing two groups to see whose "more oppressed". I don't care how obvious you think the difference is. It inherently involves saying a certain group's struggles "aren't that bad" when you make arguments in those debates. It's a race to the bottom. Interactionality is about how everyone's experience with oppression under capitalism is different, it's not a linear scale.

Every single argument about who has it worse involves dismissing the oppression of the group you think had it better. You ultimately end up defending one side's oppression the momment you engage in one of these debates.

[jesncin]

I read up on Spirit World to learn more about Xanthe and naturally I was curious with how Johnstantine was written. The story is,,,on the spectrum of "alright" to "okay" for me. I'm of the same opinion of most Hellblazer readers who think "oh that's neat, I wish Constantine was in it though" (it's quippy DC!Constantine, not much to write home about). But I'm also in a unique position when reading this comic. I consider myself a Vertigo Hellblazer purist for the most part but I can't deny the appeal Spirit World has for someone like me.

As much as I love and enjoy reading through og Hellblazer, there is a level of inaccessibility for someone like me reading it. Sometimes I take long breaks from reading Hellblazer because I get frankly fed up with outdated racist moments or arcs. Maybe Johnstantine says or does something racist that puts me in a bad mood from reading. So a story that says "John Constantine hangs out with a new Chinese nonbinary hero" is very appealing for someone like me.

I was hoping to feel catharsis reading Spirit World, seeing so much of my identities in a story and John Constantine interacting with it. But it didn't meet my expectations. I don't think DC!Constantine could give me that. If I'm honest, Constantine really didn't need to be in this story. For the record, this isn't me wanting Vertigo!Constantine to be racist to Xanthe or anything, of course I don't want that. I was hoping for more human moments of recognition. Especially queer solidarity. It felt very surface level for me. Maybe I can do something about that.

Can't outdo the art though ARE YOU KIDDING ME HOLY COW

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

Yes, let's talk about "your" pronouns for a moment, because I have some thoughts on the matter...

What's that? Oh, silly me. By "let's talk about," what you actually mean is "unquestioningly comply with my demands."

Be that as it may, "we" - which is to say, "I" - am going to talk about it regardless.

Let's analyze this for a moment.

She gives the game away right up front: blue heart is for boys, pink heart is for girls. This ideology is based on stereotypes. If you still doubt this, I don't know what else to show you to convince you.

Secondly, her "gender" isn't a profound knowledge of personal identity, because it changes faster than the weather. I'm not even sure it's her personality, because anyone whose personality changes that rapidly and that wildly has some kind of severe disorder. What she's calling "gender" seems to be nothing but her mood.

Thirdly, and I keep having to repeat this, if your "gender" requires others to participate, then it's not a "deeply personal sense of self." Just like your faith cannot be "a personal relationship with Jesus" if everybody else has to pray or refrain from pointing out the flaws in the bible. "Gender is a social construct" means that your "gender" only "exists" to the extent people play along. People are sick of being bullied into pretending for narcissists.

More importantly, you don't get to make others participate and then deny them any say or input. You can't give people an obligation with no authority, because if you think you can, then others can give you an obligation with no authority.

And you don't get to make others responsible for your mental wellbeing, to carry the burden you cannot or will not, and then get angry when they don't meet your standards or decline the obligation at all. You are responsible for you. Trying to make other people responsible for your emotions or mental state is psychotic. Xians insist that humans - and particularly children - are responsible for keeping their god happy, evidently because he cannot do it himself. You're just as much of an immature psychopath. We are not responsible for keeping you from bursting like a fragile soap bubble.

You can have a personal, unquestionable conviction, or you can have a matter of public interest and discussion. As soon as you insist others participate, you forfeit the right to cordon your beliefs off from scrutiny. If you want your beliefs to go unmolested, then keep them to yourself.

If it's nobody else's business, don't make it other people's business. You can't claim your "gender" is nobody else's business, nobody else gets a say, and then insist it is their business to comply with these demands and prop the whole delusion up.

Private concern or public interest. Choose one.

Fourthly, anyone who comes up with rules like this is a sociopath who is trying to control, manipulate and trap others. Since third-person pronouns are used primarily when someone is not present, when referring to an individual when talking to others, this is a form of authoritarian thought-control. You do not get to dictate how others must see you or think of you. They get to decide for themselves what they think of you, regardless of whether or not you like it, and it's none of your business. And if your sense of self is so flimsy that you must coerce them to conform their view of you to your own view of yourself, then you have bigger problems than "your" pronouns.

When she walks into room, people stiffen because they have to talk like idiots around her - and that's part of the appeal. She wants to be "misgendered," because who is she if she's not a marginalized victim and the center of attention? That's the trick: either you comply, and she wins, or you refuse, and she gets to pretend to be a victim and she wins. Nobody's obliged to pay attention to these insane, imaginary rules, much less play along. When she's already gamed it to win no matter what, the only way for you to win is to retain your integrity and self-respect and tell the truth.

And finally, you do not have pronouns. The pronouns belong to the language, in this case, English. The English language has pronouns for you. You don't have your own pronouns any more than you have your own conjugations or your own adjectives. Other languages, such as German, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Chinese and Japanese, have their own structures, and they're not for you to "fix" with your stupid activism.

And yes, languages change. They evolve through common usage and common acceptance, not through narcissists performing blunt-force creationism enforced with emotional manipulation and vilification.

She's an average, unremarkable girl who's found a socially acceptable way to control other people and pretend to be interesting.

My adjectives are amazing/brilliant/impressive.

Misadjectiving is hate. #BeKind

P.S. I miss the days when pink, green or blue dyed hair was a sign of rebellion and uniqueness, rather than a predictable trope and red flag that warns the world about all your views and opinions before you ever open your mouth. #MakeDyedHairCoolAgain

[sharptoothed-gaze]

Aw!!! Llulah named the turtle áak! (Which is apparently turtle in Mayan)

[idontmindifuforgetme]

Every single person on the admissions committees for my dream med schools will roll their eyes when I say I want to become a doctor bc I love science and also love the humanity of it all……… but it’s literally the truth

[dilfdyke]

whatever gender shit armand has going on in the books is fascinating and i hope the show finds some way of incorporating it even though show armand is kind of too old for a lot of it to apply

[trans-androgyne]

Okay so I've been puzzling over the nonsensical "saying that trans men have different experiences than cis men is misgendering" talking point for a while and I think I've finally figured out a reason it even exists.

I think a LOT of the queer community has replaced the way they conceptualize gender as, instead of being based on sex, with being based on being a victim or a perpetrator.

So within this new dichotomy (not actually new it's how patriarchy has defined its two genders forever but with the "trans inclusive" change of not also being based on sex), of women being victims and men being perpetrators, it's easy to fold trans women into that because, well, they are victims.

But trans men are victims too. But under this dichotomy, men can't be victims, especially not for their gender. So... "saying that trans men suffer, especially in ways cis men don't, is misgendering" becomes a thing people actually believe...

It's just very. Hm. How instead of letting gender be defined as an internal sense of identity like we've been FIGHTING for a lot of people would rather just very slightly change the patriarchal definitions no matter WHO it hurts.

(Alsp worth mentioning that trans women are very easily also thrown into the "perpetrator" pile if they step out of line at All so this fucked up dichotomy doesn't help anyone except the cishet white perisex (plus other axis of privilege) women who are the least likely to be thrown into the perpetrator pile. Despite being the group of women with the most access to power and therefore the most opportunities and support to Be a perpetrator and hurt others...)

This is an excellent analysis, thank you for sharing it with me. This behavior of theirs falls into the traps of cultural feminism and oppositional sexism. I hope people will start listening to each other and learning to understand the complexity of trans and intersex experiences with gender, gendered oppression, privilege, and power.

[femmefatalevibe]

Essential Feminist Texts Booklist

The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir

A Vindication of The Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft

Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center by Bell Hooks

Feminism is For Everybody: Passionate Politics by Bell Hooks

The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution by  Shulamith Firestone 

Sexual Politics by Kate Millett

Full Frontal Feminism by Jessica Valenti

Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

The Creation of Patriarchy by Gerda Lerner 

Yes Means Yes!: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape by Jessica Valenti

Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez 

Bad Feminist by Roxanne Gay

The Color Purple by Alice Walker

Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall

Men Explain Things To Me by Rebecca Solnit

The Female Gaze: Essential Movies Made by Women by Alicia Malone

Girlhood by Melissa Febos

The Story of Art Without Men by Katy Hessel

Is This Normal?: Judgment-Free Straight Talk about Your Body by  Dr. Jolene Brighten

Come As You Are: Revised and Updated: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life by Emily Nagoski, Ph.D

The Menopause Manifesto: Own Your Health with Facts and Feminism by Dr. Jennifer Gunter

The Pain Gap: How Sexism and Racism in Healthcare Kill Women by Anushay Hossain 

Unwell Women: Misdiagnosis and Myth in a Man-Made World by Elinor Cleghorn 

The Turnaway Study: The Cost of Denying Women Access to Abortion by Diana Greene Foster, Ph.D

Regretting Motherhood: A Study by Orna Donath

[sol-insidious]

Luke weilding both his green lightsaber and the darksaber is my favorite thing in the world actually.

Close-ups below:

✨slay✨

[queerbrownvegan]

Critical Ecology with Dr. Suzanne Pierre

One of the most important acts we must take as environmentalists is reckoning with the history of slavery and racism within the environmental movement. How can history inform our approach to examining and studying land use within ecosystems? I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Suzanne Pierre from Critical Ecology Lab to discuss subjects often ignored in academic and environmental spaces. When I was studying environmental science, I remember one professor talking about how environmental degradation was done towards the environment via industrialization, but what it failed to illustrate was who were forced to work in horrific conditions, being deprived of access to economic justice but also security and safety. This is why we need to acknowledge America's racist history and how the benefits of green spaces we see today were not merely found but formed on the foundation of oppression and exploitation. If you are interested in learning more, please consider watching the full video below. This episode covers many important subjects, and it will help inform our understanding of how to talk about these historical injustices.

[not-gray-politics]

I find it fascinating how many people can acknowledge on some level that the bmi is bad, outdated, inaccurate, wasn't made for individual use, and isn't even useful on a broader scale... but will still use terminology that comes directly from it and won't bat an eye at the fact that it's still in doctors' offices. So, just a reminder for folks who don't know:

"Obese" and "Overweight" are both terms that come directly from the BMI, and are both inaccurate and harmful.

The BMI itself was invented by a eugenicist who believed that all people should strive for the population average of his time period and only conducted research on white men. Women, poc, disabled people, and many other demographics were intentionally left out. It provides no meaningful information on the health or wellbeing of those who use it, but simply stacks them up to an outdated population average. Nothing more, nothing less. Using the terminology that comes from it is reductive and does damage to the scientific community. It has done irreversible damage to marginalized people and the culture as a whole, and is often used to dismiss the health concerns of fat patients. This can and has lead to many people's deaths and is an issue that should not be taken lightly. It has also been used to insult and dehumanize fat people for generations and could be considered a slur under those contexts. Stop using eugenicist language. Be mindful and be kind.