#feminism is the radical notion that men are people

[girlongirlactionatadistance]

I’ve been trying to come up with an inoffensive way to say that I think part of the difference in cultures between my former and current workplaces is due to the staff of the former being mostly men, and the latter being mostly women, but. Anyway.

I used to work for a company that did construction takeoffs and estimates. It was fun at times because I got to apply some things I’m studying in school and there was a strong problem solving component. Literally one woman in my whole office tho. In a senior position, so not with zero influence, but still.

Now I work as a unit clerk in a NICU. Other than attending docs, there are like five men total on staff, but on a given night I’ll be one of two or three actually scheduled.

Some of my own values have actually changed working this job, and not in ways that I think could be chalked up to general differences between the medical field and the construction industry.

For example, to make an almost inordinately broad statement, the women I now work with value making things nice. Value being the operative word. It’s not a waste of time or effort to them to make anything more pleasant or comfortable. I was literally raised - not even subtextually conditioned, like explicitly taught - to think caring about stuff like this was frivolous. And the more serious the situation, the more frivolous. Running to silliness, naïveté, and poor judgment in the limit. Converging towards possibly dangerous.

Yeah, that is actually all backwards.

It turns out healthcare is kind of a uniquely optimal setting for proving principles like that. The way things really work is, the more serious the situation, the more impact any slight kindness or conscientiousness, any little improvement that can be made, will have. It becomes huge. It’s clearly evident in outcomes for patients and in the way the unit functions.

It took me a while to learn this. It annoyed me at first. Then one day someone borrowed my desk and filled my pen jar up with new pens before leaving. I realized being annoyed was gaining me nothing. I was just scoffing internally at the “woman’s touch” all over the unit while benefitting from it in ways that were in some cases literally right in front of me.

Actually come to think of it, and idk what this means, but I think the first person who was probably trying to teach me about this “making things nice” principle was a man. Someone I consider my most influential climbing mentor in fact. In his late 60’s this guy lead me and a couple others up the emmons glacier on mt rainier. It was my first climb on a glaciated peak and it’s funny in retrospect how much I underestimated it. So, this guy baked us all cookies. Each of us got a bag of the crispiest, laciest, most delicate oatmeal cookies I’ve ever had. “Bring a treat on every climb,” he told us, “or you’re going too light and too fast.” I can’t explain how good those cookies were after a day of hopelessly strenuous climbing, looking forward to a freeze dried dinner and a night on a crowded, dirty spit of crumbly rock. Or how much easier everything seemed with the uptick in morale.

So what is my point? I think it’s that misogyny is bad for you. Maybe not for your demographic, but for you on the scale of little actions that you probably have not been taught to appreciate can make things way harder or way easier for you. Or for somebody else. Don’t give women shit for doing the stuff they do to make things nicer for everybody. Society literally conditions them that way and then teaches us that it’s just ~girl stuff~ and men should be too tough to care. Do you know how much better my old office would have run if we’d been more oriented towards picking up each other’s slack when it was needed? Towards anticipating that need? Sports metaphors. I could make sports metaphors about this.

Then again maybe it’s bad on the demographic scale, too. It’s not like my female-dominated workplace is utopia, it just has some things men’s spaces often don’t. To put my male feminist hat back on, I think the misogynist desire to control and pigeon-hole women into this role of sole-emotional-laborer arises because men obvs do need the kind of support that goes around in women’s spaces. We’re just not up for doing those things for each other. We don’t believe that we’d be better off if we were more like women.

[trans-androgyne]

Radical feminism cannot ever be trans-inclusive.

Why do I keep saying this? Because I have increasingly been seeing transmasc and transfem folks weaponize radical feminist ideas against each other and I am tired of it.

(TL;DR at the end, I know this is lengthy.)

So, what is radical feminism and how does it differ from other kinds of feminism? It’s the idea that patriarchy is the primary root oppression from which all other oppression spawns. It holds that the two primary classes are men/males and women/females, and that men are responsible for creating and maintaining all oppression, with women playing a more passive, secondary role. We're off to a bad start already; this is an inherently racist framework that absolves privileged women of their role in creating and upholding oppression, as the idea is that if women ran the world oppression would not exist. Intersectional feminism, on the other hand, understands the way many forms of oppression are rooted in racism, and that all systems of oppression are interconnected without having one singular root.

The way it functions and its prescribed remedies rely on the idea of a sisterhood--all women/females are connected with each other against men/males. The common belief is that males as the more powerful* class will always try to oppress women unless women band together against them and intervene. Men are framed as the enemy to be fought, not potential allies to be recruited into feminism.

Many of us have an idea of traditional cis radical feminism and how that leads to TERFism. But how does it function in the trans community? For radical feminism to work, a "sister" class oppressed by misogyny and an enemy class causing it must be identified. Radfem trans women will say that their identity as women means they experience the worst misogyny--trans men and mascs just get the weaker "misdirected" version, and in fact have a motive to uphold misogyny due to their identification with manhood*. Trans men are the enemy class that oppresses trans women. Radfem trans men will say that people afab are the real class that experiences the worst misogyny due to their ability to give birth*--while trans women and fems as people amab* are more aligned with cis men due to having received male privilege and been "socialized male" in addition to not having the same reproductive capabilities*. Trans women are the enemy class that oppresses trans men.

Both of these notions rely on painting groups of trans people as having access to patriarchal power they do not. They downplay the way misogyny functions in the lives of the perceived patriarchal class of trans people. It inherently ignores the real experiences of trans people and paints some of them as an enemy class; it cannot ever be truly inclusive of all trans people. Intersectional transfeminism would take into account the way misogyny functions in the oppression of all trans people, and analyze the material conditions of trans folks to reveal that no group of them is granted access to patriarchal power and cis male privilege. It means banding together as a unified trans community and understanding where our experiences are shared, as well as accounting for the way other systems of oppression critically shape the lives of trans people of color, disabled trans people, intersex trans people, and other groups.

*There are a lot of assumptions present in this analysis like the assumed agabs and reproductive abilities of trans men and women; these are not my beliefs but the oversimplifications espoused by the radfems I'm describing.

TL;DR: Radical feminism requires identifying one class as the patriarchal oppressors and the other as the oppressed victims. In the "trans-inclusive" version, this means downplaying the experiences with misogyny of either trans men and mascs or trans women and fems. It identifies either transmisogyny or "afabmisogyny" as the real root of all oppression, ignoring the voices and experiences of the most marginalized trans people. Truly inclusive transfeminism would unite all trans people against the patriarchy instead of falsely implicating us in it.

[transmutationisms]

can you elaborate some on how the formulation of comphet sucks? i’m not super familiar with it & i trust your thoughts

well i am just some guy blogging also you can read the essay here if you're interested.

there is a clear streak of sexual conservatism that runs through the text (eg, the equation of bdsm with violence & 'vanilla' sex with a 'natural' & intrinsically 'feminine' sexuality that is being stifled; the failure to contextualise sex work as work; the attempt to differentiate gay men from lesbians on the grounds that gay men have too much casual sex & large age gaps in their relationships...) & these are not just local issues because they're all connected to the fact that rich is fundamentally uninterested in questioning gender (that is, the construction of womanhood itself) the way she is in questioning heterosexuality.

her formulation therefore always falls back on the notion of a shared biological basis for a 'female' existence, one that is continually violated & encroached upon by the male violence that oppresses it. to understand 'compulsory heterosexuality' in light of a concept of gender as biological, transhistorical, & inescapable thus becomes a call to reclaim a kind of mythologised prelapsarian 'female–female' relationship that is being artificially suppressed & oppressed under conditions of patriarchy. the question rich raises as animating the paper is: would women choose heterosexuality if they were not constrained into it? but never is this category 'women' historicised or problematised in the same way (glibly we might ask: would people choose womanhood, or indeed manhood, if we were not constrained into them...?); for rich the sexes simply exist; the question lies only in the correct relations between & within them.

i don't really find her idea of a 'lesbian continuum' is particularly useful & i think it elides discussion of the material factors that enforce heterosexuality with a more idealist, psychologised discourse about the comparative emotional 'valuation' of basically any interpersonal relationship. but that move away from material analysis also just characterises the whole essay, really, because again, rich takes as a point of departure the presumption of the reality & primacy of the sexgender binary whilst trying to analyse the artificiality of heterosexuality alone. really this is just business as usual in terms of talking out both sides of your mouth for radical feminism though, & indeed for any feminism reliant on essentialisms at its core.

[vexingwoman]

What do you think of the argument that gender is a social construct, and materially exists in our society, and that therefore trans people identify with gender not sex? Like the whole contra points argument that abolition is the goal, but in the meantime, transitioning (as long as bio sex is acknowledged) is fine because you're identifying with the gender construct that you feel most comfortable with? The whole idea feels wrong to me, but I can't really articulate why yet. You're always very very good at explaining things so I thought I'd ask.

No radical feminist disagrees with the notion that gender is socially constructed. You couldn’t be a gender abolitionist, which is a core tenant of radical feminism, if you thought otherwise.

However, it is viscerally obvious that most gender ideologues, even those who call themselves gender abolitionists, don't actually seek to eradicate gender in any meaningful way. In fact, instead of dismantling gender, they are actively reinforcing and essentializing it.

As you have likely noticed, gender is extremely precious to gender ideologues. They hardly recognize it as an oppressive system created to enforce female subjugation and male domination. Instead, they view gender in the exact manner everyone else views fashion—that is, as a fun, harmless vector for self-expression and identity.

Therefore, their end-goal isn’t a society where gender is actually eradicated from existence. It’s more accurate to say their end-goal is a society in which an ever-increasing number of gendered categories still exist, and you have unrestrained freedom to hop into whatever category you desire. Here is some commentary from gender ideologues abut gender abolition:

The essence of their view is: keep gender, it’s an important aspect of our identities, but abandon gender norms and gender roles.

Now why does this view feel so wrong, so nonsensical, so contradictory? Because it relies on the notion that there is any distinction between ‘gender’ and ‘gender norms and roles’ at all. The construct of gender is defined as the social norms and roles attributed to women and men. To keep gender, by mere definition, is to keep gender norms and roles:

With this in mind, one can only conclude that the end-goal of gender ideolgues is a society where “woman” is nebulously defined through feminine norms and roles that anyone can embody, and whether you are female is entirely unrelated.

And, inversely, the end-goal of radical feminists is a society where “woman” is strictly defined through the female sex, and whether you embody feminine norms and roles is entirely unrelated.

In other words, where gender ideologues acknowledge the feminine stereotypes attributed to the female sex class, they seek to retain the stereotypes and discard the sex. But where radical feminists acknowledge the feminine stereotypes attributed to the female sex class, they seek to discard the stereotypes and retain the sex. It’s glaringly obvious which of these views is in accordance to gender abolition and which to gender reinforcement.

[defining-trans]

I’m confused - do you think radfems are just as bad as TERFs?

In my opinion, there is no meaningful distinction between radical feminists and trans exclusionary radical feminism.

I believe that all radical feminism is inherently trans exclusionary—radical feminism that is wholeheartedly accepting of trans women is hostile towards trans men and vice versa, and radical feminism that claims to be accepting of both is hostile towards nonbinary people.

Radical feminism is an ideology built on the premise that women must have spaces where they can segregate themselves from men for their own safety and well-being. The only difference distinguishing offshoots of radfem ideology is how they define ‘men’—aka, who is part of the group they aim to exclude from their safe spaces.

Some include trans women in their definition of men, others trans men. Those who claim to include both still don’t entertain the notion that men of color and otherwise marginalized men can suffer under the patriarchy without reaping the same benefits as their privileged counterparts as long as they’re cis.

So no, I’m not a fan of any type of radical feminism, no matter how inclusive some claim to be.

[solisaureus]

I feel like a lot of people on this website know that they're supposed to hate terfs but can't recognize actual terf ideology. i see people saying fuck terfs and then uncritically reblogging terf logic later. So here's a bit of a primer on terf ideology because it isn't just people going around saying "trans women aren't women," it's a lot more insidious than that.

Obvious/well-known terf beliefs (these are just general transphobia):

The idea that trans women aren't real women, that being trans isn't a legitimate identity

Gender bioessentialism -- essentially, anyone with a penis is a man, and anyone with a vagina is a woman. Some terfs try to bring up chromosomes (XX=woman, XY=man) but they don't know what the hell they're talking about.

Maligning trans people as sexual perverts, groomers, pedophiles, and predators

Less obviously hateful terf beliefs, which sometimes reel in people who are sympathetic to the radical feminism aspect:

the notion that arguing for trans rights detracts from rights for cis women, particularly medical and reproductive rights, as well as trans inclusivity in sports

Suggesting that trans men are victims of internalized misogyny and only identify that way because of the patriarchy. Or alternatively, that former cis lesbians or cis gays transition to trans men or trans women because of internalized homophobia.

The idea that trans women experienced "male socialization" and therefore have male privilege

Wanting to protect The Children from being confused by "trans ideology" and preyed upon by trans people or people pretending to be trans

Truscum/transmed logic -- that the only valid trans people are those whose intense gender dysphoria needs to be corrected by surgery and hormone treatments

obscure terf beliefs that i see people who claim to be trans-friendly uncritically supporting:

Keeping men out of women's spaces -- not all trans women/amab nonbinary people are out, and some trans men pass as cis. if a trans person needs to come out as trans to have access to your space, it is a trans-exclusive space.

Judging women, particularly bi women, for dating men or bringing their boyfriends to queer functions. See above point

Suggesting that all men are predators because of some inherent violence in their biology

lamenting "the loss" when figures who were previously cis lesbians come out as trans men

Cis lesbians saying they would never be with a trans woman -- everyone is welcome to their sexual preferences, but saying this contributes to the transphobic belief that trans women are repulsive, deceitful, and are always trying to have sex with cis people.

Anything insinuating that motherhood is the pinnacle of womanhood

If any of these points made you feel targeted, you are at risk of falling susceptible to terf ideology.

[ftmtftm]

I need young radfems to understand that the goal of the majority of Feminist organizing is to understand and take down Patriarchal control. Not just reform, but actively take down. That is not solely a Radical Feminist goal. You are being actively lied to if someone is telling you otherwise. The only difference is a lot of other Feminist organizing recognizes that Patriarchy is only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to discussions on systemic power and violence, rather than the whole picture - which is how Radical Feminism often treats it.

A Radical Feminist lense places the weight and power of Patriarchy inherently on manhood or "maleness" as a concept - rather than actually examining the root causes of our modern Patriarchal society. Radical Feminism doesn't actually examine or question why manhood or "maleness" is actually considered something to be valued or where that notion comes from - it just treats it as a fact of our world, which is so limited in scope because fails to address why the world is currently the way it is.

Radical Feminism doesn't question what kinds of manhood are actually given structural power and what kinds of manhood are punished by the Patriarchy itself. Radical Feminism homogenizes manhood/"maleness" into a big scary boogy man that only exists as a tool of subjugation without considering the ways in which Patriarchy actively subjugates men who deviate from its ideal vision of manhood.

Do you really think the world is so black and white? Do you really think that the socially constructed power structure of Patriarchy is so innate to society that the responsibility for it also falls on your fellow victims of it? Have you, for instance, considered the works of international feminists who discuss the material reality of the fact that Patriarchy is an agent of Colonialism? Have you considered that Patriarchy as we know it stems from world conquest and that for hundreds of years other societies existed outside of Patriarchal influence and control?

Are you so naïve that you cannot conceptualize your own liberation alongside the liberation other victims of systemic violence and oppression? Where is your sense of solidarity with people who have lost their cultures because Colonialist politics were forced into their lives, subsequently enacting Patriarchal control over their societies? Have you considered the fact that scorched earth politics only serve put you in the position of dominance in the same way as any other Colonialist, rather than actually meaningfully liberating anyone from dominance and subjugation.

I understand that it is incredibly easy to view the world simplistically. It is easy to view systems of oppression as separate concepts with one or two that you believe should take priority. It is easy to create a victim complex for yourself when your political theory is constantly telling you how victimized by the world you are. It is easy to internalize this in a way that makes you uncaring towards other causes that might seem unrelated to your own at first, but in reality are intrinsically connected to your own cause.

The world is so messy. These systems work all together and you are not immune from being agents enacting other forms of systemic violence. That is not a moral failure on your part for existing in ways the systems of our world prioritizes without your consent - just like it is not a moral failure of the average man for simply existing as a man in a world that prioritizes him without his consent.

To seek liberation from the Patriarchy without also seeking liberation from Colonialism, from White Supremacy, from Capitalism, etc. etc. in solidarity with other victims of those systems and to also seek that liberation from those systems without recognizing the active role of women in maintaining them is to do absolutely nothing politically meaningful beyond the selfish power seeking yourselves.

There are so many other kinds of Feminists and Feminist theories out there that don't rely on putting womanhood in a constant state of self victimization. That actually address the ways in which Patriarchy acts in tandem with many systems to disrupt the lives of anyone who doesn't conform to it. I promise you Radical Feminism will not give you the liberation you are seeking and there are other avenues for Feminist thought beyond just "Radical Feminism VS """meaningless liberal reform"""".

Anyone who tells you there are only two options for Feminist theorizing - especially if they are creating a "we're right and everyone else is wrong" binary - is a grifter and a liar who wants to take advantage of your pain for their own goals. They do not truly care about you or your liberation, they care about gaining power for themself.

[rerinko]

On the History of the Term Compulsory Heterosexuality

The history of the term compet started in a 1980 essay written by feminist lesbian author Adrienne Rich entitled “Compulsory Heterosexuality and the Lesbian experience”. In this essay I believe she lays out a lot of amazing points and really puts in the groundwork for the term compulsory heterosexuality. It has been over 40 years since her original essay was written and while I think a lot of points still stand the time, some I have a hard time agreeing with.

One of the main contentions I have with Adrienne Rich’s is how she frames lesbianism. I do agree that lesbianism is inherently anti patriarchy because we are the only sexuality to not center men in any way. To some extent I can understand the argument that lesbianism is inherently political. The same way I believe my existence as a Jewish is also a political statement. After thousands of years of genocide we then Jewish people are still here. The same can be said about any group that has experienced genocide. But I don't identify as Jewish as a political statement. I AM Jewish and that is the political stamens. She also believes we shouldn't use the term “lesbianism” as a stigmatized clinical term. Nevertheless I disagree with the notion that you can also identify as a lesbian as a political statement. As of late there have been many movements to decenter men. The main one coming to mind as of late is the 4B movement. The 4B movement started in Korea and the 4Bs are the 4 things they agree to never do with men. Bi or 비 means no in this context.

비섹스 Biseksu - No sex with men

비출산 Bichulsan - No having kids with men

비연애 Biyeonae - No dating men

비혼 Bihon - No marrying men

You can choose not to center men in your life while still being straight or bisexual. My identity as a lesbian and my lack of attraction to men exists outside of the patriarchy. I find it really demeaning and belittling to the lesbian experience to say people who are attracted to men can choose to be a lesbian or adopt that title because of lifestyle choices they made. This idea of the lesbian continuum where every woman experiences or that lesbianism is an extension of feminism I can't agree with. I feel like we do all share a sisterhood as a result of being victims of the patriarchy but I don't believe that is lesbianism or the correct term to refer to that. She says that people can exist on the lesbian continuum without wanting to ever touch another woman’s genitals and I don't believe that's what being a lesbian is. Straight and bisexual women do exist and what good is there in erasing their identities?

I also hate the idea that heterosexuality isn't natural. Obviously the idea that everyone is naturally heterosexual is wrong but the same way being gay is natural being straight is natural. Wanting connection and a community, romantic connection even sex is natural. I feel like this unintentionally feeds into shaming women about their sexuality and slut shaming. I agree that heterosexuality Isn't inherent to all women but it is of some and that’s okay. As a lesbian I feel proud when I see women talking about how much they love or are attracted to men sexually. For so long women were expected to be pure, to never think about things like sex and now we're finally at a stage where women are accepting their sexualities even if they are straight. At the same time I'm proud of any straight women who takes part in movements like 4B who chooses to actively decenter men in their life but that doesn't make them a lesbian. Women's sexuality has always been about men. They're supposed to be sexual when they're told and pure when they're told. Women choosing to take their sexuality into their own hands and doing what they actually want to do no matter what that is, is progress.

The 4B movement is not perfect, it is riddled with TERFS (Trans exclusionary radical feminist). I think a lot of feminist movements are inherently flawed because they focus on one subset of people. Intersectional feminism is amazing because it gives space to every single intersection of identities. As I've gotten older I've realized that I think a lot of people need to realize that not everything is for them and not everything is about them. I am an Ashkenazi Jewish lesbian. I can only relate to people who share those same traits and most people who do share one trait with me don't share all of them. You are not going to relate to everyone's experience or oppression but you can still hold space for them and let them speak. You are not going to relate to everyone's feelings or what they want to do in life but you can still respect them.

A key flaw I find in a lot of radical feminist movements is they care too much about things people do that have no direct impact on them. How does a trans woman existing affect a cis woman negatively in any way? Another extension of this is the discussions I see around plastic surgery. Why are we so quick to blame women for trying to fit in and live in a society that can be so harsh? So many women will victim shame other women in the guise of feminism. If a woman chooses to be a stay at home Mom logically we can understand no decision can be made in a bubble outside of patriarchy but we can still respect her decision if that’s what makes her happy. Choice feminism is not being freed from the patriarchy nor am I trying to say it's good but shaming women for making choices that don't negatively impact anyone else isn't any better. Shaming women for trying to survive in a society that wants us perfect or dead is counterproductive. I got into an argument with someone on TikTok and they were saying that by shaving our bodies we're trying to resemble children and therefore it's appealing to pedophiles. In addition it's imposed by the patriarchy and we wouldn't do it without societal pressure. Before I tackle the parts about patriarchy I want to talk about the pedophilic aspect. First of all I find it weird to say that people who are attracted to grown women are pedophilic because they're shaved. Pedophiles aren't attracted to adult women and adult women don't instantly look like children because they shave their vulva. Women like Belle Delphine who do actively try to appeal to pedophiles don't just shave their vulva. They wear children's clothes, diapers, wear fake braces, suck on teethers and make baby noises. You should never conflate that with a grown woman shaving. I am autistic and since I started growing body hair I have compulsively shaved. I have very very bad sensory issues and the feeling of my body hair rubbing on fabrics, even me rubbing my legs together and feeling body hair makes me literally shiver. When I brought this up to her she responded with a few points. The first was “why did sensory issues not exist 50 years ago.” I explained that 50 years ago many people did not know the vocabulary to properly explain their experience. The idea that women can even have autism has only recently been accepted. She also asked me why the hair I had sensory issues only applied to the hair below my eyes. It doesn't apply to hair just below my eyes. I can't have bangs because I don't like the feeling and I'm currently in the process of growing them out. Sometimes I style bangs for pictures or videos but so quickly I usually pin my bangs back and put my hair up in a clip. If I wear a hood I have to always put my hair up because I don't like how hair under clothing feels. That’s actually the reason why I usually never wear hoods or hats. Her response to this was to tell me to get help. I say this all to make the point that your experience is not everyone else's. Just because you've never heard of something before doesn't mean it doesn't exist and it doesn't happen.

I hate this idea that “because it hurts my feelings it's bad” not everything is about you. If someone loses weight it's not because they hate all fat people. If someone gets a nose job it's not because they think all people with a nose similar to theirs are ugly. Most insecurities are personal and when they make these choices they aren't thinking about other people and what they look like, they're thinking about themselves only. If you see someone change something about themselves and you get mad at it it's probably because you have an insecurity of your own you need to work on. This also applies to people who bully people. If you go out of your way to bully someone for being fat and ugly you're probably projecting how you feel onto them. Secure people don't feel the need to belittle people who probably already have a hard time in society.

Women are so diverse and have such a diverse set of experiences yet one we all have is the impact

of the patriarchy. Yet some women will shame other women for actually being impacted by the patriarchy. Shaming people because they don't live the exact same lifestyle you do is just so wrong. To move forward and dismantle the patriarchy we need to target the men and sometimes the women who actively perpetuate and keep the patriarchy alive. The woman who took ozempic isn't your enemy, it's the men who told her she needed to be skinny to be attractive. 40 years after “Compulsory Heterosexuality and the Lesbian Experience” was published a lot of issues brought up in the essay are still sadly prominently issues. Sexual violence, forced marriges, discrimination against women in job fields, access to birth control and abortion and how they get judged based on their looks and there's only one way to be a woman and only one way to dress and present yourself as a woman. I find it very sad how in 40 years people pretend there has been so much progress but in reality nothing has changed. I also agree with the fact that compulsory heterosexuality is only something women (people raised as women) can experience due to the fact throughout history women have to have a husband to get anywhere or be anyone. I think a lot of gay men will conflate compulsory heterosexuality with adapting to live in a just heteronormative society but in fact it's about adapting to live in a heteronormative and misogynistic patriarchal society which Adrienne Rich explained really well. Men have freedom, women only have the freedom men give them. Women have been consistently limited by who they marry. Because the heteronormative society is also a misogynistic society where women are second class to men. Saying compulsory heterosexuality is a lesbian only experience isn't to undermine the experience of gay men but to highlight the experience of lesbian women.

[stillarandom-radfem]

There's something that I want to say, and I'm trying to work out the right way to phrase it right now.

Libfems. They are so... idk. Is wishy-washy the right term to use? They're sort of silly. They are so adamant about the notion of "smashing the patriarchy" but it's all just lip service, and it's not even necessarily because all of them are intrinsically bad or anti-woman. For some of them, idk, a few, their hearts may actually be in the right place, but the actions (or rather, lack thereof) that they take to get there are misguided and will never grant them their desired result. And I want to elaborate on why I think that is. It's because you can not fight against a social institution (in this case, patriarchy) without first having a clear understanding of what it is, why it exists, how it operates, and what it's goals are. In other words, you have to know your enemy in order to fight it effectively.

Libfems don't. Their version of feminism lacks a solid sense of analysis. They don't know who the patriarchy consists of (jealous, controlling, entitlement-minded men acting collectively against women in their own self-interest). They don't understand why it exists (the male phenomenon of womb envy exists at the heart of patriarchy; men wish to control the biological function of life-giving which only women possess, and to do that, they must first control and subordinate women). They don't grasp how patriarchy operates (by controlling the legal, financial, and social norms and institutions that govern every patriarchal society on the planet, and forcing them to operate in men's favor rather than women's, and also by using violence against women in order to keep us in line). And they don't know what patriarchy's goals are (complete and utter control, subordination, and enslavement of women to men). They don't know that men are the enemy, that hurting and controlling us is their goal, not some unfortunate accident. They don't realize that the system is working as it's intended to (by men), that it isn't a fluke or a flaw. They mistakenly assume that men are like us, that they are truly decent people underneath it all, and not that they are being cruel on purpose. They see men show compassion and kindness and empathy for other men, and falsely believe that they would do so for women, too, if we could just show them the way. But, they couldn't be more wrong, and the fact that men do show such kindness and caring for other men tells us that they know what that looks like, that their horrible treatment of women is a choice on their part, and a very deliberate one at that.

Sucking up to men, doing their bidding, and pleading for kindness from them will never eliminate patriarchy; only full liberation from them can accomplish that. But libfems, still blithely unaware that men are the enemy at all, dont grasp this. So, they keep doing the opposite, thinking that, if they can prove themselves to be "cool" girls who will submit to men's desires and even convince themselves that they are their own, then men might maybe listen to them about rape culture or abortion rights or something. Baby steps, they tell themselves. Slow progress is still progress. They don't realize that control over women's reproductive capacities is at the heart of patriarchal societies the world over, or the role violence against women and girls has in maintaining men's hierarchal dominance over women, and thus, said reproductive capacities. This is why liberal feminism is so ineffective, so man-centric, so wishy-washy. This is why it will always play directly into the patriarchy's hands. It's why all of the major changes made to benefit women over the past century or so have been made by radical feminists, not liberal feminists. It isn't even that libfems are entirely evil or misogynistic (although, make no mistake, their behavior is definitely frustrating to see). It's because, in order to fight your enemy, you must first know your enemy. In order to destroy the patriarchy, you must first have some sort of feminist analysis and framework to work within.

[jewishfem]

by siding with fascist rhetoric to suit your hatred of trans people

I do not side with fascist rhetoric.

According to Wikipedia, fascism is a “far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and race,” and none applies to who I'm siding with.

far-right: radical feminism, which is what I ascribe to the most (though not completely) is a leftist movement in the way they oppose conservative notions about the female sex, which unfortunately have recently been re-adopted by many leftist circles.

authoritarian: the group which I, according to your view, belong to encourages listening and reading things written by the other sides; silencing women is unacceptable in theory and is criticized when practiced. It doesn't silence males either, it simply doesn't include them.

Ultranationalist: radical feminism views nationalism (and by this, also ultranationalism) in a very critical and negative way. It does so imperialism and militarism as well.

Dictatorial leader: there are no dictatorial leaders to radical feminism, neither does gender critique have such leaders.

Centralized autocracy: there is no regime to gender critique and radical feminism. Can you name an autocrat?

Militaristism: as said before, radical feminism condemns the militaries in the world, not only as opposition to nationalism, but also because of the misogyny in these organizations and bodies, the fact that soldiers not rarely rape women of the enemy side and even among the ranks. Abolition of the military is not a central part of radical feminism, but it definitely is critiques regardless.

Suppression of opposition: this is pure projection. Doctors and other professionals who dare rejecting the ideas of the trans/gender movement (be it hrt or surgeries) are threatened with losing their jobs. Women like jkr who merely stated sex is real was bombarded with violent, disgusting, and absolutely vile threats and messages. Every disagreement with trans/gender claims are referred to as transphobic. Meanwhile gender critical people and radical feminists learn from critique of their work and respond rather than silence.

Belief in natural social hierarchy: gender critique and radical feminism go exactly against that and claim the social hierarchy between men and women is extremely unnatural. Many radfems and gender critics also see other social class hierarchies as unnatural, though that activism is not within the bounds of either gender critique nor feminism (women's liberation), but rather other ideologies like marxism and the likes.

subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and race: radical feminism and gender critique do not belong to any state nor race, these are merely ideologies and movements inspired by these ideas. They view racism as a separate form of oppression which intersects with feminism, but also believe that feminist struggle is not about liberation of or the erasing of race, because it's focused, as said before on women and girls' liberation.

I highly recommend you read through blogs such as @radicallyaligned which, in my opinion, is the bestsource for learning about radical feminism and gender critique.

You'll realize we do not hate trans people as a whole, we hate individuals like Dana Rivers, Eli Erlick, and Stacie-Marie Laughton among very many others fetishists, pedophiles, and other perverts. We hate those spewing rape threatsband idolization of it. Here are some articles (last reblog has working links afaik), plus of course, these:

Rape:

Sexual harassment idolization:

Silencing:

Misc:

As said, if you want to learn more about gender critique and radical feminism, check out the blog i mentioned. If you wish to learn more about what we hate about the gender ideology, aside from prominent males there having been accused or charged with sexual and other violent crimes, just ask. I didn't want to include all the HRT studies and the likes so this answer doesn't get too long. I know you don't send these asks bona fide, but i don't mind having a debate over that.

[haggishlyhagging]

Many heterosexual feminists, including radical feminists, have been angered both by analyses of heterosexuality as an institution and by lesbian feminism per se. Some heterosexual feminists immediately responded defensively to Atkinson and the lesbian feminists.

In her article, "Lesbianism and Feminism," published not long after "The Woman-Identified Woman," radical feminist writer Anne Koedt wrote that lesbian feminist critiques "lend support to the notion that it does matter what the sex of your partner may be...it is oppressive for that very question even to be asked."

There was considerable anger over the idea that feminists were presuming to judge one another's sex lives.

Koedt wrote:

If you are a feminist who is not sleeping with a woman you may risk hearing any of the following accusations: 'You're oppressing me if you don't sleep with women'; 'You're not a radical feminist if you don't sleep with women'; or 'You don't love women if you don't sleep with them.' I have even seen a woman's argument about an entirely different aspect of feminism be dismissed by some lesbians because she was not having sexual relations with women... There is an outrageous thing going on here strictly in terms of pressuring women about their personal lives.

Probably no critique of heterosexuality, however politely worded (of course, they weren't all politely worded) would have been acceptable to most 1970s heterosexual radical feminists.

In a 1971 interview, Simone de Beauvoir expressed her reaction to some radical and lesbian feminists' rejection of all sexual relations with men and to the idea that "every fuck is a rape."

Is it true that all sexual relations between a man and a woman are necessarily oppressive? Instead of refusing such relations, could one not work at them so that they are not oppressive? I'm shocked when people tell me that intercourse is rape, basically one is adopting male myths. That would mean that the male sex organ really is a sword, a weapon. It is a question of inventing new, non-oppressive sexual relations.

In her 1972 book All Said and Done, Beauvoir defended the vaginal orgasm and criticized feminists who rejected it as entirely a myth.

...The clitoris is intimately connected with the vagina, and it may be that this is the connection which makes the vaginal orgasm possible. However, coition with penetration of the vagina does provide pleasure of an undeniably specific kind, and this is the form that many women find the fullest and most satisfying. Laboratory experiments that isolate the internal sensitivity of the vagina as a whole from its reactions as a whole prove nothing. Copulation is not an intercourse between two sets of genital organs, nor yet between two bodies, but between two persons, and the orgasm is in the highest sense of the word a psychosomatic phenomenon.

(Apparently by a "psychosomatic phenomenon," Beauvoir means a phenomenon connecting mind and body).

To Redstockings, a heterosexual radical feminist group, whatever women did should be accepted as a legitimate and rational survival strategy. To criticize what women did was to be anti-woman.

-Carol Anne Douglas, Love and Politics: Radical Feminist and Lesbian Theories

[kiefbowl]

https://www.tumblr.com/imanes/181546472260/httpswwwtumblrcomdashboardblogluckystrabis?source=share

would you analyze this queen

>bc that one post about attachment to womanhood is still hurting people’s feelings, let’s keep talking about it.

There is a link they have at the top of this post that doesn't work for me, but otherwise I'm not sure what post they're talking about. So that might have some missing context. I also want to point out that you sent me a reblog of the op, and the reblog is dated 2018, so this is more than 5 years ago written.

>radical feminist notions of gender socialization correctly frame it as a traumatizing process.

Now there are two ways of interpreting this: 1. they are actually talking about radical feminists or 2. they are talking vaguely about the women online who may or may not call themselves either radical feminists, radfem, or terfs who might say any number of things.

Generally speaking, the idea that radical feminists talk explicitly about "gender socialization as a traumatizing process" is a little wonky. This isn't a tenet of radical feminism specifically as I understand it. Gender socialization has garnered a lot more discussion relatively recently in more explicit terms by public self identifying radical feminists because of the concerns of transgender ideas, sometimes even developing in response to ideas set forth by transgender activists. I don't think many radical feminists would hold tight to the idea that gender socialization is traumatic to men, since men are socialized to benefit from the sex hierarchy. If it's traumatic to anyone, it's women, though the idea that being socialized into womanhood is always and totally a traumatic experience just feels a little...rote. Not truly grasping the entirety of what socialization is. But to be clear, I don't think a lot of feminists go about making this point first and foremost, but rather talk about specific ways gender socialization is traumatic to women and girls (which is in service to argue the larger point that the sex hierarchy is real and that women are a marginalized class). I doubt op is truly interested in engaging with those ideas meaningfully, despite calling radical feminists "correct" about it.

The other interpretation is, well, "I read some tumblr posts that said this." I'm sure you have. Me, too. Some really intelligent women are on tumblr and they make a lot of intelligent posts about gender and gender socialization. I also know that when you have a little insular pocket online in any community, it's easy for those people to mimic what they say to each other unthinkingly. This is not a moral judgement on my part, and I don't think it's exclusive to feminists...it's inclusive to everybody (finally something that is!! the weak human psychology!! lol). My only point is, if you want to go find someone saying things that will make you mad, you can go do that online because you can find at least one person saying the exact thing you want them to say, so you can respond to it. It becomes an outrage machine, despite not really reflecting what a group truly believes, or what most people believe, or what is meaningfully understood. I only say this to suggest perhaps this post is one of those posts that is responding to a general sentiment they have vaguely seen and not meaningfully tried to understand and have reinforced by reading posts that are just sort of nothing burger but have the right words strung together in the precise way to make op cringe or whatever.

The point is, if you want to understand what someone is saying to truly understand it, you have to ask them. So if someone posts "gender socialization is traumatic" with not much else context, that's already such a vague sentiment it would behoove you to be intellectually curious enough to ask them "what do you mean? can you expand on this so I understand it?" And if you're someone who wants to be understood, it would behoooooove you to welcome the opportunity.

If you were to ask me if I think "gender socialization is traumatic" I would say "It depends on what you mean." So we're already hitting a wall to understanding each other. Anyway...

>a contradiction arises, in that case, when they assign positive moral traits to female socialization

This is another example where I'm not going to say this doesn't happen, but this is not an understanding within radical feminism. That doesn't mean a radical feminist couldn't believe this, it just means that the texts that support radical feminist ideas are not interested in sanctifying being a woman as some de facto morality. That is a ridiculous claim and proves that op is not interested in engaging with radical feminist texts as serious scholarly works. In defense of op, they are probably young and have never had their analytical skills challenged outside of, say, high school class. It does lead me to believe this person is responding only to vaguely feminist ideas they've seen in posts that have made them mad without trying to meaningfully understand them. So, +1 to me for guessing that :)

>(and femininity by extension)

Even more factually wrong than the statement above. op cannot understand when feminists discuss womanhood, that it is not an interchangeable word with femininity. Because in op's mind, femininity is innate, whether they realize they believe that or not is no matter.

>because, much like society in general, they believe that an ideally traumatized woman is able to access moral high grounds that other people cannot.

Truly offensive and in fact betrays that this is what op believes. op believes in a connection between morality and suffering. Why do I know that? Because they interpret this from ideas that have nothing to do with morality. If someone says "women are oppressed" they have not made a moral statement about women. If anything, they've made a moral statement about men. If you read "women are oppressed" and you read "women are moral" you have made that connection.

This is also a good time to point out that if this was something they were writing for school, they would need to then support their claim with sourced quotes. It's convenient that this is tumblr where they aren't compelled to do this. Who said this? When did they say this? How many of them said this? Did they say this explicitly? Are you extrapolating? What was the context? Where was it said?

But the true interesting part is "society in general." It's so fun to see in action MRA points infiltrating supposedly quote unquote liberal/leftist gender ideas...how does society in general demonstrate seeing the traumatized woman as the most moral person? Outside of your favorite genre tv scenes you're able to recontexualize to your heart's content. When a woman kills her abuser, how likely is she to serve more time than he would have if he had been sentenced to abusing her? QUICKLY!

>“i was socialized female” becomes an admission of guaranteed prosociality, a set of traits that are only ever harmful because they are at risk of exploitation via external forces.

Even if I didn't just argue that this point is moot because the previous points are not true or supported by evidence...hwuh?? What are they saying. Does this even follow from what they've said so far. "prosocial" is a word I had to look up, and it's a psychology word meaning "intended to help or benefit another person or group." They haven't talked about this at all. Also, prosociality is not really a form of the word, "prosocial behavior" is a phrase used.

So, to rephrase: "I was socialized female" becomes an acknowledgment (by feminists) that prosocial behavior is guaranteed, a set of traits that do not causes harm but are at risk of exploitation which would then cause the traits to be harmful [editor's note: to whom?].

Again...what? (I also cut the "via external forces" because how are you at risk of exploitation via internal forces lmao).

Even if I was to do a good faith read of this, it would be like "when feminists argue that women are socialized female, they are saying that women are socialized into prosocial behaviors." Which, yeah okay...but what of it? Prosocial behaviors are good therefore women are morally good because of femininity? This is just not a thing feminists really say.

>this is why many radical feminists view trans men as safer & more politically enlightened than trans women

The religiosity of op is apparent all the way through. The talk of morality, "politically enlightened"....etc etc. Feminists aren't really interested in who is more politically "enlightened." Trans men aren't included in feminism because of how safe they are or even how politically enlightened (whatever the fuck that means) they are...it's just that they're female. They could be the nastiest most awful person in the world and they're still included. Like come on now, did someone go to bible camp when they were younger? I think someone went to bible camp when they were younger. (It wasn't me)

>- because of their proximity (imagined or otherwise) to femaleness, to daintiness, to softness and benevolence.

boring sentence

>“male socialization” is synonymous with antisociality, and becomes lobbied at trans women as a whole when individual trans women do things that radical feminists deem “unwomanly,” from having controversial political opinions to committing violent crime.

Feminists don't care about womanly-ness. I know op thinks we do, and specifically "radical feminists" because that's who they said (I haff to laff), because they see the argument that feminists have that "woman are female, and women are socialized into femininity" as saying "women are feminine, which includes being female", but anyway...let's talk about how they include in "unwomanly" committing violent crimes???!!!???!! whuahauhahah???? Is it perhaps not more sane to think that women are concerned about violent crimes men commit because of the harm they cause not that they aren't feminine behaviors???? A deeply unserious post I am regretting writing 1K about it.

>the gender socialization model becomes a way to moralize sex assignment by prescriptively linking particular experiences of trauma to particular personality outcomes.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, it's a way to describe OPPRESSION BASED ON THE AXIS OF SEX!!!! AND HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MORALITY OF BEING BORN FEMALE!!!! TRAUMA IS A SIGN OF MISTREATMENT HELLO??????

Here's a fun tip when analyzing the work of someone: if they start talking about the moralizing within an argument that is not about morality, they are in fact the moralizing one and do not know what they're talking about. Go ahead and disregard whatever they're saying, they don't do their homework and will never seriously try to understand anyone without bringing up morality.

>it is no longer a theoretical framework meant to honestly and meticulously analyze how children become gendered subjects.

weird online speak, why do people talk like this. how "children become gendered subjects"....okay. Well they become gendered subjects, you weirdo, by gender socialization...they thing you pointed out "radical feminists" were correct about as being traumatic? also why meticulously. again the religiosity...we must suffer through the virtue of hard work by being meticulous. I would guess that when this was written op was 16 years old, had definitely been to bible camp once, and had their own laptop that their parents didn't monitor, and are deeply afraid of being a bad person more than anything in the world (but only as judged by their peers).

>it is now used to reproduce the very gender roles that proponents of the framework claim to be against.

10 second fart noise this conclusion is not supported by your own argument. In this essay, I will talk about how women are always nice and that means feminists think women are always good. In conclusion: feminists meanie weanie actually. Yeah okay buddy.

[spiderfreedom]

I love radical feminists trying to find what the 'root' of misogyny and patriarchy is, like compared to other types of feminism that seem to not really think about it much. But I do think too many radical feminists focus on finding "the one thing" in history, like if we can just defeat that one thing, then we can undo the logic of oppression and liberate women.

I don't think there's just one thing that led to misogyny. I think it's a complicated inheritance:

a) our primate heritage. Chimpanzees, orangutans, and gorillas are species where male sexual coercion of females is common. Also intra-species violence. Bonobos are an exception, and we do share ancestry with them, but we also share ancestry with chimpanzees. If the common ancestor of humans was male-dominated, then that means it's possible early humans replicated male-dominated societies and continued justifying them.

b) sexual dimorphism. Women's stake in reproduction is huge compared to men's. Pregnancy, childbirth, lactation, the weakness of the human child for years. This stake makes women much more vulnerable to violence, even before we take men's increased physical strength into account. That women are not as strong as men on average is the cherry on the cake - women cannot physically fight men on even ground, so women can't even physically defend themselves. Violence and rape are therefore difficult to guard against.

c) Culture/society. The notion that female bodies and female sexuality are 'impure' is disturbingly common cross-culturally. Even in societies where women occupy positions of leadership, there are often menstruation taboos, or women are only able to occupy certain positions post-menopause. Patrilineal societies are highly invested in controlling reproduction because lineage comes through the father. Societies where upper body strength is more necessary to provide food result in men being more economically productive than women. And so on and so on - our values and systems reinforce ideas of female impurity/danger, control of women, and devalue women's labor.

But while this is interesting to think about, it's worth noting that systems of oppression are not logical. They are not built on a chain of reasoning that will "fall apart" if a link is removed. Oppressive ideologies can survive very well through compartmentalization. Remove one link, and people will simply say that that link was never that important anyway, or begin focusing on a different link. Focusing on the idea of "the one thing" that led to patriarchy is useful for tracing women's history, and for noticing when patriarchy is intensifying, but it is not useful if you think that society will change once we change some idea.

For example, say we finally get rid of the fear men have of 'girly' things. Does this mean the floodgates will open and the story of misogyny is over? Not at all. Because the following can happen: men start believing they are "better" at these girly things than women are. Women and men giving more attention to men performing femininity than women performing femininity. Women continuing to be underpaid. Female gender non-conformity viewed as increasingly bad. This world might be more welcome to gender non-conforming men, but it would not actually be much better to women, because the link "men should not touch feminine things" is replaced with "men are better than women at everything, including feminine things." These ideologies are modular, not monolithic. They do not have "single points of failure." This is not Star Wars.

Moreover, these grand systems tend to be too abstract to meaningfully fight. How do we fight our primate inheritance or sexual dimorphism? Gene therapy? Total female separatism? Culture? How do we implement this on a global level?

It's more effective to zoom in and pay attention to, for example, a country or an ethnic group. "What are the issues preventing Indian women from participating in the labor force and making as much money as men" is an answerable question with policy and cultural solutions. "How do we fight the logic of patriarchy" is not. I really recommend zooming in until you can come up with actual actions that can be taken.

This is not to disparage histories of patriarchy. On the contrary, I think they are useful for answering questions like "how does one group (men) obtain so much power over another (women), and why has this form of society been so 'sticky' over time? If patriarchy used to be an effective way of organizing society, have the material conditions changed so that patriarchy is not as effective as it used to be?" We also see male dominance increasing in our own times as well, and it's good to have indicators of backlashes against women's rights and stories of how to effectively fight backlash.

The thing to worry about is finding one cause, and thinking that destroying that cause will change everything. There is no one cause. Oppression is not a philosophical argument. It is a post hoc rationalization for the distribution of power in the status quo. The fight against male dominance needs to happen on multiple fronts.

[otyget45]

Feminism is the Radical, insane, deluded notion that women are people.

Men and women are Not equal, you cunts are beneath us,and Therefore Not people. 😈🍷

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

The New Pride | Andrew Doyle & Peter Boghossian

“Is the trans movement anti-gay?” In honor of Pride Month, Peter Boghossian begins this conversation with an investigation into the increasing rejection of trans ideology by the LGB (without the T) community. Peter’s guest is Andrew Doyle, acclaimed author, comedian, and host of Free Speech Nation on GB News. Here’s an important piece of information to better understand this conversation: Andrew is gay. Andrew explains the impact the trans movement has inflicted on gay people over the last several years, including the rise of abusive language toward gays he “hasn’t seen since the ‘80s." Lesbians are labelled “sexual racists” or “transphobes” if they reject trans women as partners. (The same is true for gay men rejecting trans men—that is, women—but the abuse is not as pervasive.) Peter and Andrew discuss the incoherence of gender ideology, the nature of sexual attraction, how predators manipulate gender self-ID, and the sterilization of gay youth. Also discussed: Bad woke art, sensitivity readers, primary education, censorship, standpoint epistemology, critical thinking, the long history of human fantasy and folly, and more. Andrew Doyle is a journalist, playwright, satirist, and comedian. He is the creator of Titania McGrath, “a radical intersectionalist poet committed to feminism, social justice and armed peaceful protest.” He is the host of Free Speech Nation and an unabashed lover of art and literature.

--

Peter Boghossian: Is the trans movement anti-gay?

Andrew Doyle: In its current manifestation, yes. So, not trans people are anti-gay, but the predominant cheerleaders of trans activism in its most extreme form are most definitely anti-gay. Because the movement at present -- and it wasn't always this way, only over the past five, six years -- is now completely underpinned by the notion of gender identity ideology.

The concept of gender identity is a difficult one because no one ever defines it, least of all the activists themselves. The best we can come to is a kind of feeling, a kind of sense, of who you are and a sense of an authentic self.

Helen Joyce in her book "Trans: When Ideology Meets Reality," describes it as something akin to a sexed soul, which actually is very close to what certain trans activists have described it as. So, because it's not really pinned down definitionally, what we get, the most useful way of thinking about it is is that sense of self within, which is gendered. And whenever you try to get people to define it, they will say things like "I am a woman because I feel like a woman," which leads to a subsequent question, "but what is a woman," and then it's "whoever defines themselves as a woman," so we're in the realm of identity politics.

But gender identity ideology effectively is about ensuring that gender, as in the concepts of masculinity and femininity and stereotypical behaviors of what it means to be male and female, that those things are prioritized over biological sex.

And you even have, of course, activists again on the extreme side, who now pushed for the idea that not only is gender socially constructed, as in boys wear blue and girls wear pink - well there's nothing innate about that, is there - so there are certain modes of behavior that men and women have that are certainly socially constructed, there are others that are rooted in biology. But there's a great deal that is to do with social constructs.

But some activists will now say that even biological sex itself is a social construct. There's no really authentic way -- they've been saying that for many decades by the way, you've had voices in academia saying that for a long long time, even when I was at University, so there's nothing new about that; it's not true and it's never been true -- but it's now taken hold in society as though it is.

Peter: So, two things. One throwaway: one of the fake papers that Jim and I wrote, we titled it "Pre-epistemic Transgenderism." Since gender is a social construct and sex is a social construct -- this is so the argument goes -- no one ever truly knows their gender until after they've transitioned right, if we just remove the genitals from everybody, or if we just allow them to -- I can't remember what age it was -- you know at 12, they would transition, then they would know if that was a good thing or not. Yeah, pre-epistemic transgenderism.

[..]

So, what is anti-gay?

Andrew: Right, so that's the -- you asked whether it was anti-gay and I didn't really explain that.

So, the reason why it's anti-gay is because gay rights were secured through the recognition that there were always in any given society and culture a minority of individuals who are innately attracted to members of their own sex.

The debate about how that develops within individuals, that's a bigger debate and it's nothing to do with this. The fact is that there are a minority of people who are instinctively, innately attracted to members of their own sex. And that gay rights were secured by getting people to understand that.

Now you have groups like Stonewall, who's the UK's foremost LGBT charity, redefining the word homosexual to mean "same gender attracted."

That's not what it means. It's not homogendered, it's homosexual. It's people being attracted -- so a gay man isn't attracted to someone who identifies as a man they're attracted to men. Similarly, lesbians are attracted...

Peter: So, I just need to disambiguate. They're attracted to, and I'm trying to think about -- there's just no other way to say this without being vulgar. So, I'll put it on myself -- heterosexual is attracted to a natal woman or a person with a vagina.

Andrew: Right.

Peter: A gay person is attracted to a man that is in a natal, a biological -- someone born biologically male with a penis.

Andrew: Quite. But you see, extreme trans activists will twist that and say well, why are you obsessed with genitals, and they will then say that genital preferences are transphobic. But of course, you're not solely attracted to genitals. That is of course a part of the whole, part of everything that you are attracted to.

The idea that you're attracted to how someone perceives themselves doesn't make any sense whatsoever in terms of sexual attraction.

And it gets worse than that. Because Stonewall not only redefine the term, but then you have the CEO of Stonewall, Nancy Kelley, comparing lesbians who don't want to date people with penises, comparing them to "sexual racists," saying that if you're writing off whole groups of people, a whole demographic out of your dating pool, you want to examine your prejudice and you want to examine where that bigotry came from.

But a lesbian writing off men from a dating pool isn't bigotry, it's homosexuality. So it's very, very serious when effectively the whole precept of of homosexual rights has been drawn away, taken away.

And you've even got trans activists now who talk about how lesbians who don't want to sleep with someone who identifies as a woman but has a penis, that they are suffering from some kind of trauma. That's the phrase they use. They say this is an example of trauma.

And of course that's -- I mean the WHO perceived homosexuality to be a mental disorder as late as 1990. That's what they used to say to gay people, you're suffering from some kind of trauma , you're suffering some from some kind of mental illness. You're a gay boy so all you need to do is find the right girl. Or vice versa. And that's exactly what trans activists are saying.

Now there was a website called Woke Homophobia which collected thousands and thousands and thousands of screenshots of trans activists attacking gay people. The website has since been deleted, which is a shame that no one archived it, because people don't believe this. But there are, it's not just one or two people on Twitter. There are thousands of these people using the kind of language that I haven't seen since the 80s about gay people, talking about faggots, about how AIDS was a good thing, gay people should die.

I did a tweet the other day which was, it was a monologue that I did on my show about the pride flag. [..] And I put out a thing about how pride no longer represents gay people.

I got attacked from both the right and the left, or at least people who identify as right and left, I should qualify. I got attacked by outright right-wing reactionary homophobes calling me a sodomite, you know, saying that it is degraded you know, degeneracy is the word they like to use they also use. Like to spell the word "return" with a V instead of a u to invoke in Roman numerals this idea of this Grand Roman tradition. Believe me, if they went back to Rome they might not like it. But anyway, so those idiots you know you just block and move on.

And then similarly, I was being attacked by gender ideologues who identify as being on the left. Their responses were slightly worse because I had two of them saying I should kill myself, calling me a cis gay, saying cis gays like this should kill themselves, and another one called me a faggot, and that was coming from someone who says they're left wing.

Now that -- I've never heard that kind of language, not since I was a small child. It's sort of been out of our society for about 15 years that kind of stuff. But now that kind of virulent homophobia is coming from trans activists.

Peter: So, why are they calling you, what, why are they, why?

Andrew: Because they fundamentally believe that to be gay is transphobic. They don't say it that way, but what they are saying is that if you are writing off -- if I as a male and writing off women who identify as men okay then I am transphobic.

[numetalkids]

Literally thee shittiest, most thoughtless take ever. How has this person not realized that whenever a female character in popular media exhibits physical strength, power or capability, she is also ALWAYS feminine and beautified? Such a depiction is in no way new or radical, it is literally the norm. The idea that you can be both strong and feminine seems to actually blow some people's minds so much that they never even consider the possibility of a female character rejecting femininity or at least not prioritizing it over/alongside skill, strength, power.

This notion that "she can be strong and still be a girl" is so fucking old and lame like. Duh. What you're saying is that girls can be strong and capable. Congrats on figuring that out. But what you're also saying is that strong girls need to be visibly feminine because they still need to be differentiable from strong boys/men.

I also did not like Nobara's dispute with Momo where she essentially said what this post is repeating. Momo had a point in saying that capable women are also always expected to be desirable and then Nobara went "well, I like being pretty", like okay, good for you, but please speak for yourself only? Lol. That whole moment felt so preachy and forced, Gege probably felt like he re-invented feminism when he wrote that.

And "she knows when it's right for her to have someone help her"??? GIRL???? Since when is women depending on men a new, subversive idea? Personally, I liked the element of companionship that existed in that moment between her and Yūji, but why point out these moments rather than those in which SHE is powerful and at the center? Gege is giving us hardly anything with these female characters and people are entirely content with that.