#especially when all of this trans/non-binary stuff is still so new and radical

[allisonreader]

My heart hurts. Not physically, but emotionally. I don't like the news, I tend to avoid actively searching it out, for that exact reason. I ache because as people we just can't seem to get along. Learn to compromise and fully try to understand the other side. It's exhausting to understand why people are against certain things, even when it's the opposite of what I personally believe in.

[randomizepoem]

Yeah sorry this will be long a fuck.

I'll be honest and say I'm guilty of being an ass to people a lot on the internet. It's a bad behaviour I'm trying to correct.

We're reaching a point in this conversation where I don't have much else to contribute: I don't live in the US, I don't know you or your life, I cannot possibly give more specific ideas. More so, I can't really tell you to do stuff I believe is useless in general.

I'm a brazilian non-binary communist, organized in a party. Brazil is a country that had less years in a "democracy" than it spent under various dictatorships, and is one of the countries that most kills trans woman in the world.

This is what I meant at the end there: being trans in Brazil is already dangerous by itself. They'll come for us even if we do nothing wrong, nothing against them, just existing is dangerous enough.

And yet, we live. And yet we fight. In our last congressional elections we elected two trans woman to federal congress. One of them fights like hell for everyone and everything that is important to the minorities and working people of Brazil.

There are absolutely things that can be done under the current system. My party is new, can't participate directly in the municipal elections this year, but we have a set agenda, and by these guidelines we'll support some candidates.

But only the candidates that align with our goals. The goal of revolution? Preferably, but no: the goals of the working class and the oppressed minorities of our country.

Do we believe that's enough? No. We're leninists, we believe that the participation on elections and even in the government itself serves only to expose the system for what it is and whose it's for. We understand that even if we elect a true communist as president, that won't bring the revolution alone - but signals that were very close.

However, I understand that you don't believe a revolution is possible in the US, and is afraid of losing people during one. That fear is not unfounded. It's true: revolutions tend to be violent and the US bourgeoisie won't go down passively. Yes, being a organized communist in the US is a dangerous thing.

Though luck, guys.

Have you noticed how the system reacts to even tame reforms, political programs that don't even aim to change the system, just improve it a bit in favor of poor folks?

Brazilian last dictatorship was in response to a fucking land reform much like the ones the US did. Nothing socialist about it and yet we lived 20+ years under a very brutal regime because of it.

I jumped into this conversation because I see the you guys - and when I say you all, you guys, I'm not taking about you especially, in talking about US leftists and liberals in general - going into the same stupid soft lock that the militants of the Workers Party (PT) here are in right now.

In 2002 Brazil elected Lula as president. You might have heard of him. In the 70's and 80's, during the dictatorship,he was a big radical union guy. A big leadership on general strikes in the heart of Brazilian capitalism. In the 00's, he became very liberal. Progressive, yes, but liberal, in the correct sense of liberalism. His first two terms were great, Brazil became very rich and he lifted a lot of people from poverty.

In 2010, we elected his protegee, Dilma, first woman president of Brazil. During the dictatorship she was a guerrilla warrior. Got arrested and tortured by the regime. In the 10's, she was even more liberal than Lula. She did everything the bankers and political elite wanted and she still suffered a coup d'etat for it.

It was a perfect shit storm: In 2013 the bus fares got raised by 20 cents, prompting a huge movement of protests across the country that quickly got out of control and became a very bland "against everything" protest. Regardless, it plummeted dilma's popularity and she did absolutely nothing about it. By 2016 she was seen as the devil incarnate and got impeached, which in Brazil actually means something, as she immediately got booted out of the presidency.

She did everything the bourgeoisie wanted and got impeached for it.

This was extremely traumatic and we did not recover from it at all as a nation - be it emotionally or economically. Temer, her vice, ruled for two years. In 2018 we had our first "the most important election of our lives": Bolsonaro, a extremely shirt literal fascist got immensely popular by then and absolutely demolished the Workers Party candidate, Haddad, on the second turn of the election.

The Bolsonaro years where absolutely hell. He managed to be actually worse than trump, his idol, as during the pandemic he refused to act in any sensible way. He tried to corrupt even the process of buying vaccines, trying to make Pfizer charge MORE for the vaccines just so he could pocket some of the money. Because of him, over 700.000 Brazilians died due to Covid.

And still, Lula barely beat him in 2022.

Mind you, Lula got arrested in 2018 in a very shady decision by a judge that later became Bolsonaro's ministry of justice. So even with Lula having everything going for him - he was the most popular president ever, 80%+ approval rating, a strong political case for democracy after being unjustly removed from the 2018 race, and going against a literal genocider, Lula still almost lost.

So now, the workers party militants (petistas) became almost the same as the Maga people, absolutely cult like around Lula. Everything Lula does is great, he's our savior, and can do nothing wrong.

To the point where absolutely ANY debate about the past and current failings of his government is quickly derailed and locked up by petistas who absolutely forbid you of criticizing him. It has even become a mantra: you can't criticize Lula or else Bolsonaro will be elected. This behavior already existed during his first terms, but it ramped up to absurdity now. They'll actively cancel you for criticizing him.

And he's doing very shitty! Inflation is under control but prices keep rising. He's trying to privatize our already shitty and overcrowded incarceration system, among other national companies. His gov proposed a ceiling for his own public spending. He makes promises that he legally cannot make real under this spending limitations. Come 2026 he'll lose so fucking hard because no one is happy with him in an already polarized political climate.

And you're not allowed to criticize him.

Does this all ring a bell? It should, Brazilian politics is heavily influenced by US politics, be it with the US interfering here or by us copying the US. Bolsonaro's son even tweeted this: "It happens in there, it will happen here".

How do we combat this? Brazil has like, 30-50 parties and still since our redemocratization the presidency has always been a dispute between the two giants: PT (workers Party) or PSDB (party of the Brazilian social democracy, in name only).

Well, Bolsonaro wasn't elected by PSDB. In fact, Bolsonaro's election (by the PSL -Social Liberty Party, in name only) actually destroyed PSDB, they're utterly irrelevant now. And still: Bolsonaro hopped to another party in 2022, the PL - Liberal Party (in name only. Yes, it's a different party).

Do you see the pattern? The alt right has this power: they don't need the party, they need the personality. In fact the alt right here is currently in crisis because Bolsonaro was deemed unelectable by the supreme court. Since he cannot run in 2026, they don't have a strong name to go against Lula yet.

Translate it to the US: if trump ran under the Tea Party, do you think he wouldn't be as much of a threat as he is now? Of course he would! He could run independent and still win against Biden.

Now, ask yourself: is Kamala a strong name by herself, or is it because of circumstance? Are you voting for HER, or AGAINST TRUMP? Isn't the reason Biden dropped out the fact that even in this scenario - against the return of fuckin trump - no one wanted to vote for him? It what happened in Brazil: even against Bolsonaro, no one wanted to vote for Haddad. Even against Trump, not enough people wanted to vote for Hilary. Even against Bolsonaro AFTER Covid, half the Brazilians didn't want to vote for lula. And our vote is mandatory.

Kamala has better chances than Biden did, but are you sure that she will have a organic support? In this political climate, where the teens just spent months protesting for Palestine,and her first response for the protest against Netanyahu's visit was to condemn the protestors? Like, if we spend some time on YouTube and Google we can find some pretty shitty thing she said as a vice president. Like her anti immigrant stance, her pro incarceration stance, har tip tapping around Palestine, etc.

Do you think that acting like she has good politics will work? Will "brat Harris" work? Is "the first black woman president of the US" really a win? Do you believe she will stop Israel?

To me and to a lot of people, the answer is no.

And so they won't vote for her, nor for trump. They will either vote third party or not at all. Because it's 2024 and we're all tired of the same old politician lies, we're tired of the "lesser evil" scare, we're tired of "the president has no real power".

Well, if Haris doesn't have the power to do good, why would Trump have the power to do evil?

You're at the end of the line for the democrats. They can't keep their bullshit anymore, and the fascists are only getting more powerful. It's time to ditch the Dems and bring up something new. As Gramsci said once: the old is dying and the new is struggling to be born. In this interregnum, we find morbid symptoms.

Biden and Harris are the left's morbid symptoms.

*this is the most important thing to understand*

Electing Harris is better then electing trump, but won't solve anything. Won't solve Palestine and won't solve trans and reproductive rights. It's not Trump alone attacking you and it won't be Harris who'll defend you; only you and your comrades can defend yourselves.

Sorry for the log ass post

You motherfuckers yes I hate Kamala too but when she is announced to be the Democratic candidate we are all going to shoot fireworks and go to the goddamn polls

[writterings]

Hi I appreciate this is a personal question so if you’re not comfortable answering there is absolutely no pressure to, but how did you know you were a trans guy and not a butch lesbian? Because I’m having a bit of an identity crisis atm and I’m finding it hard to find resources etc to help me. I hope you’re having a pleasant day/evening/night

well first i figured out that i wasn't a lesbian to begin with. i genuinely was attracted to men, but i didn't really acknowledge that aspect of myself because loving women felt more radical to me and, tbh, i was also afraid of men at that point in my life for trauma reasons. also i had been raised catholic and so loving girls when i was a girl was just so liberating to me and felt so good. but i was still attracted to men and getting a crush on a dude helped me first realize i wasn't a lesbian. this is obviously just my experience, of course, and isn't universal.

and of course, there can be GNC/butch bi women - but this next part is what really cinched it to me.

when i had a crush on that guy i mentioned, he actually had assumed i was a trans guy/non-binary but trans masc leaning. and he was gay, so he was only attracted to me if i was a man/man-aligned. we didn't know each other that well so there was so there was a lot of miscommunication on each of our parts about my gender and his sexuality. but him seeing me as a guy and me liking that he was attracted to me as a guy -- well, just opened up a whole new world of gender euphoria. i had never conceptualized myself as a guy before and having someone else view me as such without me telling them explicitly how i wanted to be viewed?? that was gender euphoria to the max. again, not everyone's experience, but that was mine.

after that, i started experimenting more. changed my identity to "nb trans masc bisexual" or smth along those lines. it probably switched per week and i probably even went back to butch lesbian at times just because it felt right. (this guy and i never dated, and i wasn't dating anyone else at the time so i had a bit more freedom in switch my labels without people being like "if you're a lesbian why are you dating a guy??") eventually my mom "accused" me of being a trans guy (she wasn't accepting at first but now is very supportive) and pointed out all the obvious "facts" towards it and i was like "oh fuck i guess i'm a trans guy, huh"

("facts" here being stereotypes and the assumption that just because an AFAB person dresses masculine that they're trans, but that's besides the point)

but even after that, i still struggled with whether i was actually a butch lesbian/bi woman or a trans man. this is mainly because in my relative case, being a butch lesbian would have been easier as my parents at the time would have preferred me being GNC & gay but cis (or nb but not open about it), instead of outright trans. (again this is in my relative case, and is not a statement that reflects everyone's reality nor how systemic oppression works)

right now i'm happy as a trans man and i think this is the label that describes my experiences the best and it's the label i prefer. i'll probably die with this label, though the one for my sexuality often changes.

SO basically i just said all this to kinda give you an idea of how fucky gender can be, especially with the added equation of figuring out your sexuality. as a society, we often associate loving women with being a man, and loving men with being a woman, so we always have to deconstruct these internalized aspects of ourselves whenever figuring something out like this. or, at least, that's how i feel about it as i only realized i was a man when another man i wanted to love recognized me as one, shattering the internalized idea (that i wasn't even aware of) i had that if i loved a man, that it made me a woman. so, basically, if you're struggling then i recommend analyzing your sexuality a bit too and your concepts of how love/sex relates to gender for you.

also, if i'm honest, a good way start to determining your gender is just finding out what label is the easiest for you to exist in. i identified as a butch lesbian for a long time because it was the easiest for me to identify as, and because it felt better than anything i knew before. when i realized i wasn't a butch lesbian, and even after i realized i was a trans guy, i still didn't give people a label if they asked me. it wasn't their business and i was ultimately unsure. it was easier that way to identify unaligned or as another gender, despite how it wasn't reflective of how i actually felt. and that's a valid experience in itself!

but after you are finally to a point in which you don't have to care about "easy" over "happiness" then i recommend trying to discover what gender/label makes you the happiest. being a trans man has been hard and the opposite of easy, especially in the early years when it came to my parents and me acknowledging my gender dysphoria, but it is what makes me the happiest. being a butch lesbian was a great experience for me, and i have a lot of love for that version of myself. however, being a man is a whole other level for me - to the point where every moment ISN'T euphoric. it's just normal, it's just right, it's just who i am. i no longer get excited when being gendered or seen as a man - just because it's normal. the happiness of it is just now a regular part of my life. whereas when i was a a butch lesbian, i was constantly aware of how happy my presentation made me feel - or how unhappy i was still being seen as a woman.

at the end of the day, you don't need a label unless you want one. you're allowed to just exist however you are. you can even use multiple labels, mess with typical ones, or even make stuff up. there's no rules to this shit.

anyways, again, these are all just my experiences and my life. my advice may not be applicable towards you, but i still hope there was something you could glean out of it. good luck on everything!

[dmitri-smerdyakov]

The Fantastic Beasts Franchise and JK Rowling

Alright, so...hi everyone.

I don’t know how many people follow this blog anymore because my main blog of operation is now @alwaysahiccupandastrid - I still try to keep this blog relatively active though, just because it was my original blog, I’ve had it since I was 13, and I have so many memories attached to it.

I’m aware that a lot of the people who follow me, especially since late 2016, do so because a) I was a loud and proud Fantastic Beasts fan, b) I wrote some Newtina and Jakweenie fic, and c)...I don’t know. I literally don’t know why people bother following me anywhere because I don’t feel like I have a lot to say. But, anyway, many people probably follow me due to Fantastic Beasts and my posts/fanfics within the fandom.

Those who follow my active blog will already know my feelings and thoughts, but because of the fact many things about this blog - me, the posts for the last four-ish years, the url itself - are Beasts related, I felt it was necessary to come and write an actual post here instead of just reblogging things and calling it a day. I’ve always been very outspoken online, but I’ve been avoiding a certain topic of conversation on this blog for years now, and I’m finally in a place where we can discuss it.

I am, of course, talking about the hot topic that is JK Rowling.

Back in the days between FBAWTFT and FBTCOG, I was a very outspoken defender of JK Rowling and her decision to defend Johnny Depp’s inclusion in the films. Now, this is something I still stand by to this day, and due to the evidence that has since come out, I’m even more steadfast in the opinion that keeping Depp was a great decision. I am fully in support of him and the way he’s currently battling against his abuser. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about right now. As I was saying, back in the day, I was outspoken about the opinion that “we don’t know the full story” etc., and as a result I received very colourful anon messages. Now, to my knowledge, none of these were about JKR being a TERF/transphone, but I think it’s important to mention that at the time I scoffed at the idea she could be one. I openly admit that I didn’t listen to what other people - including actual trans individuals - were saying about JKR and her transphobia because I frankly didn’t want to admit it. I didn’t want to admit that the person who wrote something that saved my life could be so hateful and a bad person - that, and at the time I passed it all off as “wokeness out of control”.

It is now 2020. Up until last Saturday night, I was still in support of JK Rowling - I didn’t agree with some of the stuff she had said, but I was trying to be positive and have hope by telling myself that she didn’t mean to be transphobic, that she just didn’t know what she was doing was wrong, even though the evidence clearly showed otherwise (I.e. her liking transphobic / radfem tweets). I said to my followers on my Beasts page that instead of cancelling people outright, we should be attempting to educate them instead, and if they choose not to learn then fine. And, being 100% obvious, I didn’t want to admit it because I frankly already was feeling annoyed at two different Beasts cast members for different reasons: Ezra Miller (for choking a girl) and Dan Fogler (for his tweet about BLM - admittedly that was probably him being well intentioned but not saying it right). So yeah, I didn’t want to cancel another member of the Beasts “family”.

I had JKR’s tweets on notifications, and for the most part over the last few weeks, it was all about the Ickabog. However, on Saturday night I noticed that she had suddenly tweeted something completely different, and I looked at it. Given that I had adamantly defended her and said “freedom of speech” for so long, it’s telling that my first thought upon seeing her tweet was literally “for fuck sake, Jo, why”.

I won’t post her tweets here but to sum that first tweet up, it was her being annoyed over the term “people who menstruate” being used in an article instead of “woman”, and mockingly saying “there used to be a word for that” before pretending she didn’t know the word. She knew that tweeting it would start arguments and anger, and yet she still made the decision to do so. Her follow up tweets frankly dug the hole deeper; she tried to defend herself by saying, to sum it up, “I have a butch lesbian friend who agrees with me” “I just care about women’s rights!” And “IF trans people were marginalised I’d march with you!” (“If”, of course, being the real kicker here because what do you mean IF. They ARE. Every DAY.)

Since then, JKR has written an essay on her website defending herself and her opinions, and yes, I read it. I read it a few times, in fact. At first, I felt my anger simmer and felt I had been too hasty to make anti JKR jokes, that I was wrong...but then I read it again properly and realised that what she had written was a piece that turned herself into the victim, and that despite putting on the appearance of her saying she supports trans people, including the phrases “I support trans people” and “of course trans women are real women”, she still spewed much transphobic vitriol and hate. She cited no sources for any of her proclamations or statements about statistics, implied that trans men transition to escape their “womanhood”, that trans women are men in dresses, that trans women are dangerous to “real” women (aka cis women) and shouldn’t be allowed into women’s changing rooms or toilets. There was also the autism comment, and the implication of autistic girls somehow not being able to make decisions or whatever.

I’m going to get straight to the point: I don’t support JK Rowling or her radical feminism.

As someone who is a proud feminist (libfem?), I can honestly say that never have I felt threatened or like I was being silenced by the inclusion of trans women in feminist spaces or conversation. Never. In my second year at sixth form, I was in charge of the LGBTQ+ club until a new leader with better leadership skills could step in, and - put simply - that year, the club was made almost entirely of first year transgender students. Even though I had called myself a trans ally for years, I realised there was a lot I didn’t know, and I learnt quite a lot from these students. I continue to still learn today. They were some of the nicest and most intelligent people I got the chance to meet, and I can truly say that at no point was I ever worried to be in a room alone with a trans woman, nor was I concerned about which bathroom they went in - bathrooms are bathrooms. Speaking of bathrooms...when I was at uni during a particularly tense rehearsal a few weeks before our final show last year, a guy in our group made me cry and I ran to the women’s bathroom to escape. Not only did the other girls come to comfort me, but you know what? The guy came in and apologised profusely to me. Did any of us girls give a shit about having a guy in our toilet? Absolutely not. It’s a fucking toilet. And, on that note, I was never worried about a trans woman or even a cis man attacking me in the toilets. You know who DID attack me in the toilets regularly? Other cisgender women.

As a feminist, I fully support trans women and am not threatened by the inclusion of trans women in women’s spaces or in women’s rights discussions. While I agree that cis women and trans women inevitably go through different struggles, at the end of the day, we all identify as women and are women. I think that if your feminism is so threatened by the existence of trans women - TERFs, RadFems, JKR, looking at you - then your feminism is flimsy and not feminism at all.

As a woman, I find it highly offensive that JKR and many RadFems focus so much of womanhood and feminism on an involuntary biological function that, frankly, many of us would rather do without. Yeah, I’m talking about periods - no matter how proud I am to be a woman, I still fucking hate periods and would get rid of mine if I could without erasing my chance of having kids someday. I can hear the RadFems accusing me of “internalised woman hatred” for saying I hate my periods, but you know what, they suck and they hurt and fuck them. The fact that JKR (also the the radfem movement) reduced “women” to just people who menstruate and can have children, and vice versa, is incredibly offensive and misogynistic. For a start, trans men menstruate, intersex people can, non binary can etc. Next, not even ALL cis women have periods - women who are menopausal, young women who haven’t started puberty yet (some do start very late), some women don’t have regular cycles, some women have medical problems that affect their cycle, some women are on birth control that can stop their cycles. So the idea of women being defined as “those who menstruate” is offensive not only to trans/intersex/non binary individuals but also to cis ones too.

As I write this, I’m a 22 year old woman who is still learning and changing every day, and one of the things that I’ve found myself thinking about recently - especially since we’re in lockdown and we have nothing BUT time to think - is about myself and my identity as a woman. What prompted this was when I saw Greta Gerwig’s adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s beloved book, “Little Women”, which I’ve since read, for my birthday back in January, and I left the cinema feeling exalted and powerful with my own identity as a woman. (I’ll be returning to LW in a bit)

After some thinking, I’ve realised some things. For me, my identity as a woman is not just because once a month my uterus decides to shed; I do not identify as a woman just because I have certain physical features. I am not a particularly feminine person either, and I’m what some may call a “tomboy” (a phrase I actually don’t mind but I know a lot of people do for understandable reasons since it’s a phrase designed to differentiate people who don’t conform to society’s expectations etc) because I prefer video games and more geeky stuff to shopping or dressing up or make up.

For me, there is no one way a person has to be or appear in order to identify as a woman. Women are beautiful, complex human beings; we are not defined by our genitalia, by an involuntary biological process. Women are strong, intelligent, and interesting people - no two are the same. For example, some decide to raise families, some choose to pursue a career, some do both - all of these are valid and none are more “feminist” or “womanly” than the others, because it’s our as women. I guarantee that if you lined up every single woman in the world - cis AND trans - no two would be the exact same.

I mentioned “Little Women” earlier, and as I was pondering over what makes me identify as a “woman”, I thought a lot about a certain quote from the 2019 film that has stayed with me since it was first said in the release of the trailer. It’s spoken by Jo March to her mother, and I’ve started to understand what for me makes me a woman.

For me, being a woman is all of this: having minds, hearts, souls, ambition, talent, and being beautiful each in our own ways. Women are capable of love and empathy, capable of desire, capable of the most complex and human feelings and emotions, and coming out the stronger for it.

Sex is one thing; gender identity is another.

I won’t dissect every single thing JKR wrote in her essay, but I will just say this: her comments regarding autistic girls are extremely tone deaf and she does not speak for those with autism. I’m going to be honest and admit something here I haven’t before: I have not been diagnosed with autism or aspergers but I AM currently on the waiting list to see someone who COULD diagnose me. Apparently I show signs of a potential diagnosis, so...we’ll have to see. But I have friends who are autistic, and they’re disgusted by JKR trying to use them to support her TERF arguments. Autistic and other neurodivergent people are absolutely capable of making decisions and are NOT people who need to be babied or have their hands held, to be told who they are. It’s incredibly ableist of JK Rowling frankly.

I would also like to point out... I’ve seen people saying “but she doesn’t hate autistic people, Newt is autistic!!!” - yes, but JKR didn’t write him as autistic. Eddie Redmayne chose to play Newt as autistic - JK Rowling didn’t do shit.

It’s also time that I acknowledge that both Potter and Beasts inevitably hold JKR’s problematic views, and that by denying her ownership of her work, we’re not holding her accountable for the horrible things she’s done. This includes - but is not limited to -:

Anti-Semitic stereotypes in the goblins

Lycanthropy being used as a metaphor for AIDS - an illness that is heavily associated to the gay community, and also there was the panic of the AIDs crisis in the 90s where much misinformation and homophobia was generated and spread because of it.

Adding further to the lycanthropy point, one of the infected individuals - Greyback - is stated to have a sick preference for infecting children. Not only are werewolves tied to harmful gay/AIDs stereotypes, but also to the disgusting and frankly wrong notion that gay people are pedophiles.

The only Asian character is called Cho Chang. Cho Chang. That’s two steps away from outright just calling her “Ching Chong”. It’s not a name an actual Asian person would have.

The Goldstein sisters are probably distantly related to Anthony Goldstein, who JKR confirmed (on Twitter of course) is Jewish, meaning that Tina and Queenie are most likely Jewish too (and Goldstein is a Jewish surname). However, despite the fact that the first FBaWTFT is set DURING Hanukkah in 1926, there’s zero signs of them celebrating or observing it. Maybe that’s more on set design than anything else, but come on - if I, a fanfic writer, can do some research, JK/the crew of a major movie can too!

Adding on from that, gotta love how one of the JEWISH main characters then decides to join the Wizarding world equivalent of Hitler. I already had problems with Queenie’s characterisation in CoG, but that’s the icing on the cake.

POC/Black characters - in both series but since I’m a Beasts blog... Seraphina Picquery, a Black female president serving a term during a MAJOR wizarding world crisis, is severely reduced to have only 3 lines in CoG. Nagini’s only purpose is to be the only friend of Credence, a white man, before he joins Wizard Hitler and abandons her; she’s also an Asian character who we know one day permanently becomes a SNAKE, and who goes on to actually have a piece of Voldemort’s soul inside of her?? And some do see her as his slave, though you could argue that she’s actually the only being that he holds any love or respect for. Leta Lestrange is a half-black woman who is killed/literally sacrifices herself for TWO WHITE MEN, and who’s death was literally confirmed to have been added in last minute.

Also, the whole Lestrange storyline was fucking nasty: white Lestrange Sr imperius-ed a black woman (Yusuf Kama’s mother), raped her, and she then died in childbirth. I’m sorry, what the fuck??

In Harry Potter, Seamus is a terrible stereotype of an Irish person - he likes to blow things up. Look up the IRA and their bombings. Fucking Irish stereotype. As someone with Irish grandparents and who is proud of their Irish heritage, this really pisses me off.

Let’s not forget the whole Native American cultural appropriation. That truly speaks for itself.

So here is where I speak candidly to everyone who follows me and/or sees this post. While Beasts is no longer my No. 1 fandom these days, it and Potter still hold a huge piece of my heart. I have 5 wizarding world tattoos, so much merchandise, and I can safely say that being a fan of both series has shaped me as a person. Both of those series helped me get through the darkest days of my life, including bullying at school, my Nan passing away, and my mental health struggles.

This is why what’s happened has impacted me so much and broken my heart. For me, it feels like it’s tainted now because of Jo and her views. I know that we should separate the art from the artist, but when her views are so clearly woven into the very fabric of the Wizarding world, it’s a huge problem.

Here’s another part of the dilemma - I do not wish for the Beasts films to be cancelled. I’m well aware that the *cough* people who dislike me will say I’m trying to be negative, trying to boycott the series blah blah blah, but that’s truly the last thing I want. I still love the story, the characters, the soundtrack, and I want to know how it ends, if only for my own piece of mind. It’s also important to add that by boycotting Beasts, it’s also harming the hard working thousands of others who worked on the films: the cast, the crew, the extras, the musicians, etc., not to mention the fans who actually are invested in the series and have taken solace in it. It’s not fair for them to all suffer over the actions of one TERF.

This is one of my biggest worries, however: the Fantastic Beasts films do NOT have a good reputation as it is. The second film was boycotted by some due to Depp, and now there’s talk of people boycotting number 3 because of JK Rowling. Lots of people already talk hatred about it, and this will only fire that hatred up even more.

There’s also talk of Eddie Redmayne potentially being kicked from the franchise due to a “leak” that he doesn’t want to work with JKR anymore, but this could be sensationalist news reporting. But if it came down to it, I can honestly say that I would rather continue to have Eddie play Newt than keep JKR as a writer. Eddie has done more for Newt than even JKR has, and if he goes, then that will be the last straw for me within the fandom. That will be when I take a sharp exit out, sell my FB merch and have my tattoos covered.

To add, the Fantastic Beasts scripts are...not great. Or, at least, what we saw on-screen wasn’t. Maybe that’s David Yates being the literal worst (fuck you, Yates, you suck) and cutting all the parts with strong female characters, but I honestly don’t think that JKR can write screenplays well at all. I think she’s clearly better at writing books, and that’s fine - books obviously allow for more time to explore characters and story/plot arcs etc, and film scripts offer way less of those chances. I don’t think screenplays allow her to write what she needs to in order to tell the story she wants to, hence why CoG was kind of a hot mess. So maybe it’s just that she’s not suited for screenplays and should stick to books.

Honestly, I kind of just wish that WB would hire another person to finish writing the Fantastic Beasts movies - obviously they’d have to keep JKR on board to tell them the actual plot, but get someone who can actually write screenplays and not be problematic to write them.

By now I’ve gone on long enough that I’ve forgotten my original intent while writing this, so I’ll try to sum up and end now. In short, I am extremely disappointed in JK Rowling and do not support her or her views any longer.

I don’t know how any of you guys are feeling but I would be interested to hear other people’s thoughts, especially other Fantastic Beasts fans. I want to also add that, as always, my DMs and inbox are always open - if not here, then always at @alwaysahiccupandastrid where I’m more active nowadays.

Finally, you guys don’t need me - a white cis woman - to tell you this but you’re all valid and magical and fuck JK Rowling. Her characters would all be ashamed of her, and the characters we grew up with would not stand for the bigotry and vile hatred she spreads under the guise of “��protecting women””. Several of the amazing actors from Potter and Beasts have spoken out against her and her tweets: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Bonnie Wright, Katie Leung, Chris Rankin, Eddie Redmayne. Some have been...less inspiring (Tom Felton, Evanna Lynch, looking at you two 👀)

I’m sending love to everyone right now. I wish I could say something more useful but I’ve spoken enough - I’ve made my opinion clear. I love you all, please stay safe.

[analytickle-lezdom-in-space]

Welp, here we are

Tumblr is doing the thing.  It’s hard to say exactly what the thing is because tumblr is poorly executing it and poorly communicating it as always, but suffice to say, unless the decision gets reversed, we’re not gonna be able to do nsfw on this site anymore.  What will this mean?  Will be there a mass exodus?  Seems to be already.  WIll the site survive or will it lose all its userbase and sink forever?  It remains to be seen.  I certainly suspect there’ll always be at least a few users clinging to it to the bitter end.  

But maybe more important, what will I do?  *Shrug* I dunno, really.  Might leave entirely eventually, although probably not right away. This site can be stressful as hell at the best of times.  Plus, fewer TERFs.  Might find another site if a viable alternative really emerges, I’ll certainly try a few of the supposed alternatives out and see if I like where it’s going.  At the very least could be a supplement for tumblr.  I think that’s probably a good way to look at it honestly because a lot of people aren’t gonna wanna leave tumblr easy but no one is saying you have to leave tumblr to try out other sites.  You can keep your options open, try some different platforms, that way you have a safety net if things get cray-cray and also it provides more impetus for tumblr to actually make positive change for once because they know we’ve found other options and need them less and they can’t push us as far anymore without us jumping ship.  

I’ll definitely stay for at least a little while, focus more on text posts and advice stuff, still including kink, but minus any actual porn.  Probably will also focus more on fandom stuff and photography.  Might make an entirely sfw sideblog eventually and if so I’ll let mutuals i trust know about it.  

I guess if I do stick around long term, it’ll be for this:  When I started on tumblr, it was mostly just because I wanted to share stuff that I thought was cool. But I also wanted to use it as an outlet for parts of myself I had a hard time being open about, my queerness, my thoughts on social issues, kink, my polyamorous relationships, romance.   And over time I began to find that my experiences were ones that a lot of people didn’t really even seem to exist?  There was a lot of misunderstandings about transgender and nonbinary people, oftentimes from other trans/nonbinary people and a lot of people consciously talking about the world in these very exact and narrow ways that didn’t fit the realities of my situation and as i began to see that a lot of other people were also being excluded by these narrow definitions I decided that even if I didn’t wanna actively wade into tumblr discourse and argue with or call out people, I did want to actually talk about my experiences, do my best to raise up and signal boost the experiences of other marginalized and ignored people without speaking on their behalf, and just create a space for people to learn and have their preconceptions challenged.  

Because, I don’t really fit into a lot of the boxes people tend to put on our experiences even in social justice circles in a lot of ways.  I am a transgender woman, assigned male at birth. I don’t experience body dysphoria.  I am a lesbian.  I am a nonbinary woman, my identity does not exist within the gender binary.  I am GNC, butch in particular, and don’t perform femininity.  I have a beard, for God’s sake.  And I didn’t even change my name at first, and I’m still probably gonna keep my birth name as a middle name because I like my new name more but my old name still represents a part of my existence and I didn’t change genders and my old pre-transition self wasn’t me pretending to be someone I wasn’t, I just hadn’t fully learned who I was yet.  Every trans person’s experience is different, but the ones commonly presented as “the default trans experience” never represented me in a lot of ways, even among other trans lesbians. 

 And it really doesn’t stop there, I have ADHD, and BPD, and might be on the autism spectrum.  On a smaller, less social justice related scale my sex life isn’t especially “normal” either.  My trans identity doesn’t mean being submissive or playing along with traditional femininity and certainly doesn’t involve any backwards ass sissy kink nonsense. I am dominant, in and out of the bedroom.  I am the full spectrum kind of dominant, but not really into pain.  I’m a gentle femdom type but not into men despite 90% of gfd content on this site being male sub focused.  I like tickling, one of the more fringe but not actually very out there or extreme kinks that the rest of kinky tumblr keeps at an arm’s length for some reason.   I can occasionally bottom/submit in bedroom situations but that doesn’t make me less of a domme.  I am polyamorous and have a wide variety of different relationships with different people but they aren’t less special or intimate because of it.  I am a deeply religious protestant christian despite how openly sexual and queer I am.  I am a sex positive feminist but I want to protect the rights of people NOT to be sexual and promote sexual safety too, not just wild celebrations of sex without any consideration of who might get hurt.  I am an nsfw blogger but I try to make my space as friendly to ace people and easy to block the nsfw parts as possible and those things share space with random dragon age memes and music and my thoughts on animal welfare issues.  In ways from the minor to the major, I’ve always felt on here like I am kinda the standard bearer on a lot of issues, the only really prominent blogger in some of these communities representing for some of these backgrounds.  And there are others that don;t get much voice that I will never be part of being an able bodied white Christian perisex, allosexual/alloromantic, non-male-attracted person.  And I want to use my platform to listen to those people as well.  My therapist gave me a good piece of advice when she taught me that I can’t argue away the narrow minded and all I can do is just stand there and go “Whether or not you want to acknowledge me, here I am.”   And that’s what tumblr is for me.  A place to be the most radical thing it’s possible for someone like me to be:  me.  A place where I can make my existence and my experiences and the things I’ve learned known and other people can listen and learn, and where I can try to do the same with other people.  And  Ithink that’s valuable.  So I may just decide to leave yet depending on how frustrating tumblr decides to make things, but I am not leaving in the immediate future.  

I am investigating other possible ways to do what I am doing though, and make sure all of y’all can still talk to me if I get deleted or leave, so: 

I have kik, discord, skype, fetlife, whatsapp, and instagram, and I might invest in a snapchat at some point, plus i have email.  If y’all wanna talk to me, ask me about the possibility of chatting on one of those platforms

I’m looking into stuff like Ello or Pillowfort or Mastodon so stay tuned for my thoughts on those 

And I will keep on here in the immediate future at the very least.  We’ll see where I go from here.  I’ll try to keep y’all in the know.  Wishing you all happy trails wherever you go!  

[marcoshassanlevy]

fore the inception of Los Crudos in 1991, U.S. punk and hardcore already had a handful of Latinx figures involved in the genre’s biggest bands. Artists in The Bags, Black Flag, Descendents, Adolescents, Suicidal Tendencies, Agnostic Front, and so many others made their mark on the scene, yet they rarely confronted their unique life experience in the U.S., instead focusing on general themes of alienation and social unrest. Los Crudos, on the other hand, composed lyrics explicitly about their experience as people of color and immigrants.

Los Crudos played a radical take on hardcore punk – one of austere musicality, maximum speed, and overdriven guitar tones. Vocalist Martin Sorrondeguy spewed concerns of an immigrant in the United States almost exclusively in Spanish (in the spirit of true rebellion, their sole English track was titled “That’s Right We’re That Spic Band��). Their impact shook punk far and wide, and not only for those who spoke Spanish – they influenced non-white and non-binary folks across the scene. The band toured relentlessly throughout the decade, creating connections with groups like Spitboy and even touring south of the border. When Los Crudos hit Mexico, mobs showed up and bum rushed the venues to get inside.

After Los Crudos broke up, Martin formed Limp Wrist, an equally radical band both musically and thematically. Limp Wrist embraced Sorrondeguy and the other members’ queerness to challenge heteronormativity in the punk scene. Again, LGBTQ punks were no strangers to the scene at the time, with political bands like The Dicks, Big Boys, and MDC singing about queerness in the 80s. The movement formalized under the term “queercore,” with bands like Fifth Column, Pansy Division, and Team Dresch. Limp Wrist made their music harder and faster without sacrificing any part of their identities.

Ever the punk lifer, Martin Crudo (as he’s known to fans far and wide) has also been documenting punk through his photography, which he has exhibited internationally. He published a collection called Get Shot! in 2012, and has been invited to talk about the intersection of punk, Latinidad, and LGBTQ identity at various universities.

On September 30, Sorrondeguy hosted the launch of Desafinados, a 9-day event that celebrates all things Crudos as well as the Latinx punk scenes in the Chicago neighborhoods of Pilsen and Little Village. Along with performances, Desafinados will feature talks, lectures, readings, and art exhibits from Latinx punk icons like Alice Bag, Michelle Gonzales, David Zamora Casas, Dorian Wood, Gerardo Villarreal, Cristy C. Road, and many others. We sat down with Sorrondeguy to get his perspective on the event and reflect on the 25th anniversary of Los Crudos.

Organizing a retrospective required Martin to revisit his past, and Los Crudos’ reunion has certainly made the identity of the band clear. The crew decided to reunite in 2013, after learning that a friend – who is a trans woman and played in peer bands in the 90s – had been diagnosed with cancer. “On the spot, I called all the members of Los Crudos and everybody said, ‘Yes, let’s do it.’ It felt right under the condition that it had to be done Crudos-style. It had to be done in a way that felt authentic and comfortable.”

“That’s the true spirit of punk, to challenge within it. We need the rule breakers.”

Martin is not one to dwell on the past, and though reuniting a group he first started when he was young might come off as pure nostalgia, he says it made as much sense in 2016 as it did in the early 90s. “The thing about the lyrics that we wrote 25 years ago is that they are completely relevant today,” he explains. “For me it’s not hard to scream these lyrics and still feel very strongly about them. It’s all still happening. The U.S. is very anti-Latinx and the world is very anti-immigrant, and that also includes us.”

Because those lyrics remain relevant, Sorrodneguy continues to be vocal about underscoring Latinxs’ pivotal role in punk history. He’s brought his expertise on the scene to academic settings, but is reluctant to fully support roundtables on the genre at universities – for justifiable reasons. “I still go to basement shows and I’m still pissed off [laughs]. I never left that. I don’t do many lectures in universities. I see that they invite a lot of scholars who study punk but often they don’t invite punks [laughs]…If I get invited, I’m glad and honored and I do my best to give a true sort of representation of what punk is. I also don’t have a problem with challenging these ‘punk scholars’ because I think sometimes they’re wrong and need to be challenged before it gets written down in their books,” he avers.

Identity is crucial to the style of punk Martin has been playing since he first started his career. “Sometimes people get into punk because they like fast, aggressive music,” he says. But for Latinx punks, the genre encompasses more than teen rebellion. “For Latinxs in punk, living in the U.S. is different than angry suburban white youth…In the lyrics, you find [that] some of those songs are against Mom and Dad, and it’s like ‘I don’t have problems with my mom and dad.’ [laughs] We were living in different realities. We weren’t living in the suburbs and then came to the city. We grew up in the city in gang-infested neighborhoods, [with] corruption and all this stuff. We came from aggressive and violent areas and upbringings as young Latinxs,” he describes.

So Sorrondeguy set out to address that reality with Los Crudos, writing songs about his experience as a child of Uruguayan immigrants. “There was a dictatorship and most American punks would go ‘What? What are you talking about?’ It was one thing to write a song about El Salvador from a U.S. perspective – and that was cool, I think there were some great bands who did good stuff – but when you have people coming from certain places and have dealt with these ugly realities and they go writing songs, then it’s a little different. It got to a point where we needed to write our own songs about these things that were important to us.”

“I like punk too and I like to suck dick and I don’t give a fuck if you don’t like it.”

Ever since Los Crudos first started, there has been a huge movement of Latinx punk and hardcore in the U.S., as well as bigger exposure and scene unity between bands from Mexico, Central and South America, and Spain. As a sort of godfather to so many things happening right now, from Downtown Boys to Latino Punk Fest in New York, I ask him what he thinks of the proliferation of Latinx punk. “I think it’s cool. When you talk about Latinxs in punk, there are so many, and not all of them sing about identity. I think that’s what’s differentiating when you say ‘Latinx punk’ instead of just regular punk, because it’s sort of a statement. You’re putting a stamp on yourself which is good, but you have to be careful because some kids might go, ‘This is just for us.’ And I’ve never been into that mentality. I’ve always been into making connections with people who weren’t from where we’re from. Los Crudos spread out to so many communities and different people because we weren’t about isolating ourselves.”

“I fear the formula, you know?” Sorrondeguy continues. “Like, ‘Oh, I’m a Latinx in a band so I need to speak about politics and identity,’ and I don’t think you have to. If that’s not you, don’t do it.” Sorrondeguy favors authenticity and artistry over performative politics. “I want to see some totally freaky queer person doing something that has nothing to do with queerness as political…I’m curious about what people bring to punk or take or give to punk. I get bored easily when bands do the same thing over and over and over. I think kids are afraid to take risks, to look different from their peers and their scenes. When they step outside of their peers and scenes, te critican, but si te están criticando, maybe you’re doing something fucking cool, you know? [laughs] I said to people in the past who have interviewed me that I don’t believe all bands should tell me all their politics, after which they tell me, ‘But that’s what you do!’ Yeah, that’s what I do and what I have done, I don’t expect everybody to follow in my footsteps.”

Martin Sorrondeguy at University of Pennsylvania in March 2015. Photo by David Ensminger

Queerness has been a big part of Martin’s music, most notably in his work with Limp Wrist. Since LGBTQ communities have gained more visibility in both the underground and the mainstream, we wondered how Sorrondeguy saw things develop in the punk scene. “Over the years, there has been a much larger presence of queer punk and people coming out or being more visible. I’ve seen that there’s a lot more trans kids that are part of the scene and I think that’s amazing. You wouldn’t see that sort of thing in a hardcore punk setting 15 or 20 years ago. People were so afraid because punk and hardcore had a very macho exterior, and to a certain degree I get it, because you have to fight a lot, to be always ready to battle. Because you were a weirdo y la gente te veía raro and they would fuck with you. You’re fighting to create your own space within punk, to say, ‘I like punk too and I like to suck dick – that’s who I am – and I don’t give a fuck if you don’t like it.’ That’s the true spirit of punk, to challenge within it, especially once it became more codified and [adopted] more rules. We need the rule breakers.”

Martin sees the future of punk in empathy and positivity, as tools to counterbalance oppressive forces facing POC communities. “I fear that this younger generation will have this sentiment of defeat. One of the things I talked about [at a recent festival] was, ‘No matter what they do if they gentrify us out of our neighborhoods, or that this clown Trump is saying these horrible things about your community, your families, your people and who you are – no matter what, we will always survive; we’re not going anywhere.'”

Sorrondeguy is quick to emphasize that political progress comes from experimentation, rather than division and aggression. “[Right now] in politics, if you don’t think exactly like other people think and you don’t say exactly what they want you to say, they just insult you and call you a sellout. It’s almost like there’s a wave of fascism within the left. ‘Oh my god, you don’t think like me! You’re an asshole!’ That’s a really fucked up mentality to have. It’s bizarre; there’s no room for subtleties or mistakes or room for people to experiment, explore, and learn.”

The Desafinados festival is a culmination of Los Crudos and their peers’ longtime efforts to uplift Latinxs in punk history. “[The exhibition] is a history of how punk started happening in our neighborhood. It starts with the first show that occurred in 1987 and then the beginning of Los Crudos and all the other bands that came afterwards. We also invited artists from our neighborhood who were always supportive of our bands and used to come see us…it’s kinda of like a community.” Twenty-five years after Los Crudos’ inception, the project keeps the flame alive in this trying political climate, and celebrates the band’s continuing legacy.