#gender colonialism

[miiju86]

Also - THEY show their real colors immediately with the narrative, that women having boundaries and actual spaces, resources and - gasp! - culture for themselves, of themselves automatically has to mean, that they do that because of inferiority to males. What the fuck has it to do with that?! I tell you: NOTHING. It's such a logical fallacy as it is a extremely vile display of their misogynistic, colonialist thinking.

With that statement, they say that they believe in women's inferiority - even intellectually - as well as women being so below everything, that they don't have the right nor a reason(!) to have any sort of own culture. Can't leave 'being a woman' only to these dirty females - they can't even play their role right to live only in relation to male lives and to serve as a surface for males to project and reflect themselves on! How dare women think, they deserve - or even just have! - a life and reality on their own!! Can't deprive "womanhood" of the glory of male-ness!!

That is, what they are actually saying, that is what they actually stand for.

Gender and trans ideology only exists because of & through patriarchy - the roles and "values" of masculinity and femininity are a direct symptom of the lived enforcement of a male-supremacist ideology of female (sexual) colonization.

That's why the notion that only "female" gets constantly erased and forcefully replaced with the man-made concept of femininity, and never "male".

That's why even inside trans-only spaces (which are somehow okay to have) you see nothing but male-supremacy; trans identifying females being at the very bottom of it all in all aspects, treated as the mere pawns they sadly are in that world. Ever noticed, how you never see trans-men shouting in the real world how they are "real men" and at the same time also "more/better men" than actual males? How they so, so often don't even dare to say it even online and rather call themselves only "masc" or "trans-masc" - but never "male"?

Have you ever noticed, how so called TRAs seem to consist of a majority of young ("cis"!) males? And how they almost exclusively attack feminist speeches? Go and see for yourself - in all the video evidence, you only ever see masses of black clothed males. Really masses of them.... what a shame that they have the audacity to claim themselves as leftists or even "black block" - while in reality promoting male-supremacist authoritarianism!

But sadly, male hypocrisy is really nothing new in leftist spaces; not surprised at all.

That's why these trans-women somehow themselves never forget to insist on their "superiority" among women - because they percieve themselves being male(!) as superior. All while they tell everyone else that lived physical reality is in "fact" not real, but their (and only their) personal set of roles somehow is. But hey - how else could you live with yourself upholding male-supremacist colonization without conditioning yourself and others to see women as a totally depersonalized, dehumanized resource at your - and only your - disposal?! You HAVE to see the female as subhuman AND yourself as something else (which clear as day shows their hypocrisy) to even be able to come to a concept as "gender" and "trans".

Otherwise, all real gnc and disphoric people would understand, that their very existence is the ultimate proof, that 'gender' does not exist.

Gender- & Trans-Ideology is nothing but yet another facett of patriarchy. And it's an extremist one. Abolish gender. Abolish patriarchy. Abolish male-supremacist colonization. Abolish social hierarchy, oppression and exploitation.

Abolish gender.

[metalheadsforblacklivesmatter]

Thank you @reaux07 because this came across my FYP because you reposted it.

-fae

[dazedasian]

DON'T STOP TALKNG ABOUT CONGO

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A post shared by Zoya | Let’s Talk Women of Color | Self Love & Social Justice (@lets.talkwoc)

**It’s a privilege** to look forward to the launch of the new iPhone 16, while people in the DRC face modern-day slavery, mistreatment, and abuse as they mine the very minerals that power our cherished phones. Zoya Reebye, founder of Let’s Talk WOC, sheds light on the unimaginable hardships women in the Democratic Republic of the Congo endure in the mines. From being underpaid to facing a rising rate of sexual assault, these women live through a humanitarian crisis the world must not ignore. Even as teenagers, **we can make an impact** by amplifying the voices of those working in the DRC, raising awareness, and holding companies accountable for their actions. 1. **Raise awareness** about the situation in the DRC. The more people know, the more pressure we can put on those responsible. 2. **Be mindful** of your consumer choices. 3. **Do your research.** Investigate the supply chains of companies you buy from, choose refurbished or secondhand electronics, and recycle your devices responsibly. Let’s strive for a world where our technology is not built on exploitation.

[lunaescribe]

The anti-colonial power of Jim! What a gift to have a non-binary Latine rebel.

[rrcraft-and-lore]

In addition to my Monkey Man post from earlier, the always kind & sweet Aparna Verma (author of The Phoenix King, check it out) asked that I do a thread on Hijras, & more of the history around them, South Asia, mythology (because that's my thing), & the positive inclusion of them in Monkey Man which I brought up in my gushing review.

Hijra: They are the transgender, eunuch, or intersex people in India who are officially recognized as the third sex throughout most countries in the Indian subcontinent. The trans community and history in India goes back a long way as being documented and officially recognized - far back as 12th century under the Delhi Sultanate in government records, and further back in our stories in Hinduism. The word itself is a Hindi word that's been roughly translated into English as "eunuch" commonly but it's not exactly accurate.

Hijras have been considered the third sex back in our ancient stories, and by 2014 got official recognition to identify as the third gender (neither male or female) legally. Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and India have accepted: eunuch, trans, intersex people & granted them the proper identification options on passports and other government official documents.

But let's get into some of the history surrounding the Hijra community (which for the longest time has been nomadic, and a part of India's long, rich, and sometimes, sadly, troubled history of nomadic tribes/people who have suffered a lot over the ages. Hijras and intersex people are mentioned as far back as in the Kama Sutra, as well as in the early writings of Manu Smriti in the 1st century CE (Common Era), specifically said that a third sex can exist if possessing equal male and female seed.

This concept of balancing male/female energies, seed, and halves is seen in two places in South Asian mythos/culture and connected to the Hijra history.

First, we have Aravan/Iravan (romanized) - who is also the patron deity of the transgender community. He is most commonly seen as a minor/village deity and is depicted in the Indian epic Mahabharata. Aravan is portrayed as having a heroic in the story and his self-sacrifice to the goddess Kali earns him a boon.

He requests to be married before his death. But because he is doomed to die so shortly after marriage, no one wants to marry him.

No one except Krishna, who adopts his female form Mohini (one of the legendary temptresses in mythology I've written about before) and marries him. It is through this union of male, and male presenting as female in the female form of Mohini that the seed of the Hijras is said to begun, and why the transgender community often worships Aravan and, another name for the community is Aravani - of/from Aravan.

But that's not the only place where a gender non conforming divine representation can be seen. Ardhanarishvara is the half female form of lord Shiva, the destroyer god.

Shiva combines with his consort Parvarti and creates a form that represents the balancing/union between male/female energies and physically as a perfectly split down the middle half-male half-female being. This duality in nature has long been part of South Asian culture, spiritual and philosophical beliefs, and it must be noted the sexuality/gender has often been displayed as fluid in South Asian epics and the stories. It's nothing new.

Many celestial or cosmic level beings have expressed this, and defied modern western limiting beliefs on the ideas of these themes/possibilities/forms of existence.

Ardhanarishvara signifies "totality that lies beyond duality", "bi-unity of male and female in God" and "the bisexuality and therefore the non-duality" of the Supreme Being.

Back to the Hijra community.

They have a complex and long history. Throughout time, and as commented on in the movie, Monkey Man, the Hijra community has faced ostracization, but also been incorporated into mainstream society there. During the time of the Dehli Sultanate and then later the Mughal Empire, Hijras actually served in the military and as military commanders in some records, they were also servants for wealthy households, manual laborers, political guardians, and it was seen as wise to put women under the protection of Hijras -- they often specifically served as the bodyguards and overseers of harems. A princess might be appointed a Hijra warrior to guard her.

But by the time of British colonialism, anti-Hijra laws began to come in place folded into laws against the many nomadic tribes of India (also shown in part in Monkey Man with Kid (portrayed by Dev Patel) and his family, who are possibly

one of those nomadic tribes that participated in early theater - sadly by caste often treated horribly and relegated to only the performing arts to make money (this is a guess based on the village play they were performing as no other details were given about his family).

Hijras were criminalized in 1861 by the Indian Penal Code enforced by the British and were labeled specifically as "The Hijra Problem" -- leading to an anti-Hijra campaign across the subcontinent with following laws being enacted: punishing the practices of the Hijra community, and outlawing castration (something many Hijra did to themselves). Though, it should be noted many of the laws were rarely enforced by local Indian officials/officers. But, the British made a point to further the laws against them by later adding the Criminal Tribes Act in 1871, which targeted the Hijra community along with the other nomadic Indian tribes - it subjected them to registration, tracking/monitoring, stripping them of children, and their ability to sequester themselves in their nomadic lifestyle away from the British Colonial Rule.

Today, things have changed and Hijras are being seen once again in a more positive light (though not always and this is something Monkey Man balances by what's happened to the community in a few scenes, and the heroic return/scene with Dev and his warriors). All-hijra communities exist and sort of mirror the western concept of "found families" where they are safe haven/welcoming place trans folks and those identifying as intersex.

These communities also have their own secret language known as Hijra Farsi, which is loosely based on Hindi, but consists of a unique vocabulary of at least 1,000 words.

As noted above, in 2014, the trans community received more legal rights.

Specifically: In April 2014, Justice K. S. Radhakrishnan declared transgender to be the third gender in Indian law in National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India.

Hijras, Eunuchs, apart from binary gender, be treated as "third gender" for the purpose of safeguarding their rights under Part III of our Constitution and the laws made by the Parliament and the State Legislature. Transgender persons' right to decide their self-identified gender is also upheld and the Centre and State Governments are directed to grant legal recognition of their gender identity such as male, female or as third gender.

I've included some screenshots of (some, not all, and certainly not the only/definitive reads) books people can check out about SOME of the history. Not all again. This goes back ages and even our celestial beings/creatures have/do display gender non conforming ways.

There are also films that touch on Hijra history and life. But in regards to Monkey Man, which is what started this thread particularly and being asked to comment - it is a film that positively portrayed India's third sex and normalized it in its depiction. Kid the protagonist encounters a found family of Hijras at one point in the story (no spoilers for plot) and his interactions/acceptance, living with them is just normal. There's no explaining, justifying, anything to/for the audience. It simply is. And, it's a beautiful arc of the story of Kid finding himself in their care/company.

[miiju86]

At this point it's just full mask-off - what they really wanna say is "this is feminism shit! You are talking here about women's rights and liberation, can't have that you b*tch!!". Really, "SpEwInG rAdFeM ShIt!!". Just say you're anti-feminist, for it is what you are!

After millennia of "trad" genderism and porn- and rape culture we are now with the "help" of trans/gender ideology at the point where male-supremacists are trying to - once more - fully colonize and silence us. The goal being female (sexual) colonization and exploitation, female erasure and total male supremacy and androcentrism.

Fuck these male supremacists. Fuck these pro authoritarian colonizers and anti-feminists. Shame on them. Because at this level none of them can still claim to "not have known". None of them.

it's radical feminist shit to say men in positions of power frequently abuse women

[communistkenobi]

the more I read about contemporary homophobic laws globally the more it becomes apparent that there is basically a 1:1 direct relationship between whether a country was under historic British rule and how many anti-sodomy laws they currently have on the books. like I knew this in a general sense but not the staggering degree to which this was the case. and I know this probably isn’t really shocking especially given how insanely anti-trans the UK is right now but it’s kind of insane to see just how much homophobia is a comprehensively global export of the British

[cry-ptidd]

Karaba la sorcière

[butchshevik]

no but really the focus on pronouns Determining Actual Gender And Having Unique Social Roles in lgbt spaces is absolutely bizarre and beyond any form of basic material analysis of gender it exists in the real world. like speaking from experience you can literally be a stone butch lesbian who goes out of ur way to exclusively dress in traditionally masculine clothes, who uses a masculine name, who intentionally and explicitly plays a complex and deeply nonconforming gender role as both social performance art and for personal fulfilment, and then get lumped in by other lgbt people in the category of "she/her type" (and, more broadly, if you use she/her and are afab, you inevitably get labeled as 'cis' regardless of your actual gender performance as interpreted by the world writ large) just because you dont care enough about pronouns to determine and enforce the use of any others for yourself

[nando161mando]

Gender and Class

[opencommunion]

"My analysis challenges a number of ideas, some mentioned above, common in many Western feminist writings:

Gender categories are universal and timeless and have been present in every society at all times. This idea is often expressed in a biblical tone, as if to suggest that 'in the beginning there was gender.'

Gender is a fundamental organizing principle in all societies and is therefore always salient. In any given society, gender is everywhere.

There is an essential, universal category 'woman' that is characterized by the social uniformity of its members.

The subordination of women is a universal.

The category 'woman' is precultural, fixed in historical time and cultural space in antithesis to another fixed category—'man.'

... Merely by analyzing a particular society with gender constructs, scholars create gender categories. To put this another way: by writing about any society through a gendered perspective, scholars necessarily write gender into that society. Gender, like beauty, is often in the eye of the beholder. The idea that in dealing with gender constructs one necessarily contributes to their creation is apparent in Judith Lorber's claim that 'the prime paradox of gender is that in order to dismantle the institution, you must first make it very visible.' In actuality, the process of making gender visible is also a process of creating gender. Thus, scholarship is implicated in the process of gender-formation."

Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí, The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses (1997) ~

"Feminist anthropologists of racialized peoples in the Americas tend not to think about the concept of gender when they use the term as a classificatory instrument, they take its meaning for granted. This, I claim, is an example of a colonial methodology. Though the claim that gender, the concept, applies universally is not explicitly stated, it is implied. In both group and conference conversations I have heard the claim that 'gender is everywhere,' meaning, technically, that sexual difference is socialized everywhere. The claim, implied or explicit, is that all societies organize dimorphic sexuality, reproductive sexuality, in terms of dichotomous roles that are hierarchically arranged and normatively enforced. That is, gender is the normative social conceptualization of sex, the biological fact of the matter. ... The critique of the binary has not been accompanied by an unveiling of the relation between colonization, race, and gender, nor by an analysis of gender as a colonial introduction of control of the humanity of the colonized, nor by an understanding that gender obscures rather than uncovers the organization of life among the colonized. The critique has favored thinking of more sexes and genders than two, yet it has not abandoned the universality of gender arrangements. ... Understanding the group with gender on one’s mind, one would see gender everywhere, imposing an order of relations uncritically as if coloniality had been completely successful both in erasing other meanings and people had totally assimilated, or as if they had always had the socio-political-economic structure that constitutes and is constituted by what Butler calls the gender norm inscribed in the organization of their relations. Thus, the claim 'There is gender everywhere' is false ... since for a colonized, non-Western people to have their socio-political-economic relations regulated by gender would mean that the conceptual and structural framework of their society fits the conceptual and structural framework of colonial or neocolonial and imperialist societies. ... Why does anyone want to insist on finding gender among all the peoples of our planet? What is good about the concept that we would want to keep it at the center of our 'liberation'?" María Lugones, "Gender and Universality in Colonial Methodology," in Decolonial Feminism in Abya Yala: Caribbean, Meso, and South American Contributions and Challenges (2022)

[communistkenobi]

also I know I’m strolling in seven years late to Horizon’s representation problems but I feel like these games are an instructive example in how the liberal imagination understands “good representation.” the game seems to take a lot of care in demonstrating (what the developers understand to be) a fully post-racial society by way of universal racial integration - every society or ‘tribe’ or group of people you encounter is almost uniformly racially diverse. Being generous, I think this is an attempt to avoid any possible racist implications in the fanciful costumes and outfits that Horizon is known for; there is a lot of focus in representing the different people of Horizon’s world through what they wear. You can immediately tell an Oseram from a Carja, not by their racial makeup, but by their clothing. This means that, if you meet a particularly ‘savage people’ (a term characters in the game use semi-frequently) who wear ‘exotic clothing’ and face-paint, the diverse racial makeup of the group prevents (or is intended to prevent) a racist conclusion about that group. 

Likewise, the game presents a world free from systemic homophobic prejudice - Aloy is notably gay, but also her asking people about their partners, or assuming other people around her are gay, generally passes without comment. Horizon is presenting a fully ‘integrated’ social world, one whose conflicts are not meant to map onto ‘modern-day’ racism and homophobia.

But the underlying logic and structure of racism and homophobia (and binaristic, oppositional gender) are left intact. Humanity in Horizon is still presented as fundamentally separate from nature, moving overtop of it, extracting what they need from it, but never part of it as such. And this construction of nature as separate from “man” is not problematised, “man” just gets universalised into “human,” and “human” gets universalised into a non-racial category. This is completely side-stepping the history of this construction of nature as a white supremacist, colonial, capitalist construction, an understanding of nature as something colonial Europe is meant to hold dominion over through the dehumanisation of non-white, non-European people, converting them into non-human labourers and pests who live atop the land Europe is attempting to colonise and enclose. “Nature” in the modern western understanding is a fundamentally racial concept; nature is a ‘scientific, rational, biological’ container meant to house everything non-human about the world, an object to be studied and exploited by the one true subject of history, Mankind - and who is considered part of mankind is a question of whether you belong to the white European ruling class.

I think Aloy in particular represents this problem well - her access to and understanding of pre-apocalypse technology makes her universally suspicious and dismissive of any religious or ‘spiritual’ beliefs she encounters in other groups, frequently getting into reddit-atheist-adjacent quibbles with the ‘unenlightened,’ ‘primitive’ people of the world about the fact that the machines that harvest food for them and take care of the land are not gods, silly, they’re just machines! Her only real counterpart in terms of technological understanding is Sylens (a Black man), who is an antagonist. Like despite the game’s attempts at neutralising race as a coherent category, it is kind of unavoidable to notice that the protagonist is a white woman who’s only equal is a Black man engaging in constant deception for his own benefit lol

And Aloy’s anti-religious sentiments are deeply funny, because the game’s narrative itself has a theological relationship to technology - humans destroyed the world with technology, yes, but salvation of humanity is only possible through technology, specifically a globe-spanning technological system meant to be an environmental steward to the planet, repairing the damage caused by previous technological catastrophes and human wars. Human beings themselves are insufficient to the task of taking care of the planet, and “nature” itself is incapable of self-governance or regulation. And the way this technological system is made to function properly again is, hilariously, unlocked through the genetic code of a white woman, a perfect clone of the technological system’s original creator. the solution to Horizon’s central conflict and threat is, ultimately, a white saviour 

And so the appropriative elements of Horizon - calling the Nora ‘braves,’ the abstracting of hundreds of north american Indigenous cultures into mere aesthetics and symbols, the invocation of words like savage and primitive, and so on - are not surface-level problematic elements of an otherwise anti-racist game, they are indicative of a liberal anti-racist imaginary, a place where we’re all equal human beings whose main problem are vague sectarian grudges, without looking at or dealing with any of the underlying ideological frameworks that produced race or gender in the first place.

So I think Horizon is, despite attempts to imagine a post-racist world, nonetheless very limited in how it represents this post-racial world because it understands racism as prejudice against particular phenotypic characteristics, not an underlying logic that renders “nature” and “human” as fundamentally racial concepts in history

[prairiedeath]

ON TRANSMISOGYNY AND GENDER COLONIALISM • 1/?

So many leftist spaces have long been gentrified and full of fake-ally cis people, whether it's chauvinistic, plain old misogynistic cis men, or crypto-terfs & trans-misogynistic cis women who may never publicly say "trans women aren't women" but will always treat us with less respect and trust than they would cis women, even many times like predatory men. More often than not, this micro-aggression goes completely unnoticed by cis allies, but the longer a trans woman is out, the more we notice it, the more we realize that in order for us to assimilate, we have to walk on eggshells and make more space for everyone else (despite being given the least space by anyone else) so that we aren't blacklisted and ostracized undeservingly.

Expanding on that, this phenomenon is pervasive in almost any space that claims to be feminist, whether that's explicitly a women's space (in which case the micro-aggressions from cis women are usually even worse), or any other kind of space. It's like a plague in DIY scenes, as an example. It's understandable why trans women want to assimilate and we should take no blame for that, all we usually want is to survive. We ask only for a ceasefire but we never get one. We want to love and to be loved by our communities the way any community should love one another. But our goal should have never been to assimilate. We should never have wanted to accept the bare minimum from cis society. We should all want the space for ourselves, as we all deserve, to live a long life, to have dreams, to want love, to want sex, to be angry, to make mistakes which we grow and learn from, cis people are given more space for all of these very human experiences than trans people and that is a definitive form of dehumanization. For trans women, and trans people in general, to assimilate into cis society, to demand nothing more than tolerance, is in the same vein as a cis woman being forced into submission by the patriarchy; weaponized promises. Transmisogynistic micro-aggressions, and the proceeding witch hunts against trans women, are the perpetuation of gendered violence, the violent enforcement of toxic gender roles, and even further, **𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑐𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑚**

cis women participating in this gendered violence is just another case of members of one marginalized group supporting the marginalization of another in order to alleviate their own misery- it's downright wicked. Cis women know what it's like to be the target of constant, ceaseless gendered violence, and yet many jump on the opportunity to dish it out against someone even more marginalized than them. This is why radfeminism is a toothless, watered down form of "feminism", this is why radfeminism is anything but radical. You will not solve the issue of gendered violence against women by dishing it out on people who are raped and murdered by men at a higher rate than anyone else in the world, even cis women.

trans and marxist feminism both demand that trans people, especially transfems, are given the same space to react with hostility to our oppressors as the left would give any other colonized group. And the sad fact is that even most left wing spaces in the west, even what should be spaces of our own, have failed to give trans women the room to react to gender colonizers or to even live our lives to the fullest. transphobia is so much more than bathroom bills and "don't say gay" (though those are absolutely battlegrounds for trans rights), it is also microaggressions, alienation, dehumanization and witch hunts.

These are all things I've had to learn on my own. Nobody ever warned me I would face these specific cryptic forms of discrimination and violence; because so many of us are stuck in a cycle of catering to cis society, while cis society gaslights us about it, that none of the trans women I knew back when I came out 7-8 years ago quite had the language to describe these experiences to me. Every day that passes the urge grows for me to find the words myself. I learn the hard way every day that trans liberation will never come from toothless cries for acceptance, it will only ever come when we turn the barrels of our guns to the gender colonizers.

[paloma-ascends-into-hellfire]

so sick of north america and europe’s superiority complex over being “so queer friendly 🩷💕💞💓💗🌸🌺🌷🪷!”

latin america, north america, south and east asia, and africa all had non european ideas of gender and sexuality. my good friend colonization force fed homophobia and the gender binary down their throats. and now they wonder why gay marriage is illegal in these countries? it’s because of you girlie, you are the problem.