#harassing people to identify the way you think they should based on behaviors that you have gendered for them is Shitty

[uncle-fruity]

Also, just like... you don't have the answers. You can't tell someone what they're feeling or why they're feeling it. Stop fucking projecting on people your own values, needs, assumptions, priorities, etc. You can give people information about being trans. You can talk about the ways you felt similar before transition. You can ask if they've considered they might be transgender. But you do NOT get to decide that someone is something they have not told you they are. Cis people deviate from gender norms sometimes. You gotta learn to live with the fact that not everyone reacts the same way to everything, and your perception does not necessarily reflect reality.

In short: give people resources if you think they might benefit from them, but do not assume you know them based on your own assumptions about their experience.

where in the everloving fuck does the "oh you shouldn't pressure eggs to transition, let them figure it out in their own time" attitude come from anyway? who the hell is sitting there thinking "damn I wish i had transitioned later, damn if only nobody had told me that this was a thing when they did, damn i'd be doing so much better now if i had a few more years of not understanding this under my belt"? anyway if you try to push that shit you're a police officer

[incorrect-jojolands-quotes]

Hot take but I think what we saw in chapter 13 was necessary.

I don't think a lot of people realize how important it is for Araki to portray what he did, even if it extremely difficult to take in. Let me explain.

Araki has discussed about topics like racial and class disparity through both Steel Ball Run and Jojolion, but JOJOLands is different because the discussions are now very direct. We had Chapter 1 open up with police brutality and Chapter 13 open with intense bullying; both acts were committed by people of higher social standing/power and seemingly White (or white passing) and both are harming a dark-skinned queer individual. Not only that, remember that Hawai'i is an island stolen and colonized by the US and many indigenous individuals who were supposed to live and maintain kapu are being forced to endure housing problems, loss of culture, etc. due to gentrification and exploitation of its lands. 2020 was when we saw global protest towards the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor due to police brutality, which has spread as far as Japan in terms of demonstrations and rallies. Araki has made it clear that he tries to take real world experience into his writing, and this is no different. He is also no stranger to portraying law enforcement throughout his parts without glorifying or downplaying their behavior.

As a mutual of mine (who themselves identify as a black GNC individual based in US) has put it, those who identify or even appear as Black while identifying as trans-femme or women are subjected to some of the worse kinds of oppression possible in America. Queer women of Color are one of the most susceptible to sexual violence-- especially when they are young, and the darkness of their skin really plays into it. This is transmisogynoir; it is a hard pill to swallow and acknowledge, even if it feels excessive, and its a multilayer of oppression that connects a person's racial identity, gender, and sexuality as targets of discrimination. It's the fact that one is POC, a woman, AND queer that makes one a target--- not just one or the other. You can’t turn a blind eye to this because it happen constantly throughout America's history and American society even today, but you can't simply water it down or downplay it. In fact, many victims of transmisogynoir have no choice but to downplay their experiences because of their Black identities or because they appear too dark to be taken seriously; when they, especially if they are Black, try to hold people in power accountable, these individuals are suddenly labeled aggressive, indignant, etc. and they are further discriminated for attempting to speak up. Dragona downplaying the bullying isn't them just trying to avoid further conflict but a reflection of how many who were in similar situations like Dragona are forced to simply forgive and forget the trauma they have to endure. To downplay it ourselves is reinforcing the narrative that individuals like Dragona in real life should remain silent and endure their harassment rather than rightfully protect themselves and others from it.

Another thing to add is that the way Japan portrays and treats the LGBTQ community, particularly the trans community. In Japan, the process to legally change your gender is complicated and requires a lot of steps that include, but not limited to, being diagnosed with gender identity disorder, proving you have no kids/guardianships, and sterilization. This causes a lot of individuals to be forced to quickly transition as a means of getting their gender recognized, which takes away the time to let them explore at their own pace, and this is due to how the process can lead to hindering career and life opportunities that wouldn't be hindered had they already transitioned or stayed closeted. Many Japanese trans individuals unable to go through the process quickly either remain closeted or move away from Japan to transition at their own pace. So, as a result, the trans community and its struggles is not as noticed compared to outside of Japan. Another thing to add is that the trans community in Japanese media is often portrayed as comedic relief or a gag. Oftentimes, the trans character or character who diverts from gender conformity (i.e cross-dressing, acting more flamboyant) is the butt of the jokes. Some thing to note is that, when Dragona was first introduced, a lot of people thought that Araki put Dragona in simply for comedic purposes. I had people joke about how Dragona is just there because they believed Araki is trolling. Not only that, the racial issues that Japan has often results in jokes towards non-Japanese individuals in media, especially if they are of darker skin color.

So, Araki putting Dragona in these difficult situations is also meant to subvert expectations that his Japanese, and possibly Western, audience may be expecting. The expectation was to laugh and toss Dragona aside as a single-dimensional character, but Araki instead forced us to face the trauma through Dragona's experience head-on. We are made aware of Dragona's situation, how real and difficult the struggle is, and we end up emphasizing with it rather than laughing at it. Through this, we get a glimpse into real life experiences of trans POCs without it being downplayed and have it show how Dragona is a fleshed-out character with importance to the series. As some have put it, this chapter proved that Dragona isn't just a side character but arguably a complex individual on the same level of importance as Jodio. I don't think it would have been easy to have the same impact if another approach was taken.

While talking to others who identify as trans and/or GNC about their thoughts on the chapter, I was told by many of them that, while Dragona's experience hits close to home and was hard to digest, they appreciate seeing it being expressed and hope it will help other people understand their struggles. One noted how the introduction of Smooth Operators with the backstory as empowering, seeing the Stand as a symbol of surviving the trauma that comes with trans discrimination. I do find this a bit telling with how many people online who are against Araki's portrayal barely mention what trans/GNC people have said about it.

My main concern, as well as what I see people have rightfully critiqued, is the excessive trauma reinforcing the fetishization and violent voyeurism towards trans individuals; it also reinforces the problematic narrative that dysmorphia can only happen as a result of trauma and the trans experience can only be full of pain. There's also the issue that Dragona's experience also happened while they were under age and their harassment is similar to that of Lucy. It's a common trope in Western media to put marginalized people into these situations while upping the ante simply for clicks and pleasure, and even worse when the character portrayed is a minor. As I reiterate, it is a very uncomfortable chapter to read and I don't find it enjoyable at the slightest. Just because I understand why it is necessary doesn't mean I condone the approach done. I also understand Araki as a Japanese man can only relate and portray a queer American's experience to an extent. But, at the same time, the exposure was necessary because it gives us the awareness and a voice to trans people that is lacking within media even today. We need to be aware and acknowledge what our BIPOC trans community goes through as a means of being better humans--- and especially our younger community members. We need to make our society safer for them so they can thrive and have the respect they deserve. Oftentimes, that starts with how they are portrayed and how their experiences are portrayed. While it is still a journey and not every representation will be perfect, we can't simply toss it aside and bash those who try to show something realistic just because it is uncomfortable.

I only hope that Araki wrote Dragona and these scenes as a result of doing extensive research and reaching out to actual POC queer individuals, particularly transfemmes/women, to understand their experiences and have their blessings to use their words to shape Dragona. I feel like that would show that Araki was serious about discussing these issues through his characters rather than simply using Dragona's traumatic experience it for entertainment. I have higher expectations for Araki now, knowing that it may not be the last time he shows a character experience harassment and possibly have Dragona be harassed again, so I will keep my eyes open for this.

[velvetvexations]

But they still use the n-word, anon. They still use the n-word. Yet you think that years and years ago they were so worried about being "challenged" on grounds of transphobia ("transmisogyny" was not in widespread use at the time) that they felt the need to change their language? Even though they still, to this day, use the n-word.

You're an idiot.

And yes, actually, GNC boys who present in a feminine matter does affect things! You can't seriously pretend that every single depiction of an AMAB person wearing women's clothing could only ever possibly be a trans woman or based on trans women. That's not only ahistorical and erases real people right in front of you, but it also gets fucking racist as hell when you start imposing that view on other countries. Did you know, for instance, that "kathoey", the term "ladyboy" is a translation of, is generally used by people who self-identify as men? Because I'm guessing the answer is "no."

Femboys are and have always been a thing, stop fucking erasing them and appropriating their language just because you desperately want the world to revolve around you.

So many young trans girls are going to come out of this traumatized from the dooming, isolated and potentially trapped in abusive relationships because they'd been indoctrinated into the belief that only other trans women will ever love and support them.

The problem is that it has "fab" in there, so they can't do it like they're trying to do with femboy because it inherently points to "TMEs."

(2/2 ana mardoll) i really dont mind when trans women genuinely criticize specific terrible shit that a trans man has actually done, and mardoll has always been a fucking loser who does all the stereotypical negative shit that people tend to act like trans men do. i just wish people would not act like its standard behavior to be like that and judge us all on the basis of the worst of our community lmao. this is behavior that goes both ways tho, trans men judge trans women like this too. idk lol

The person I've seen most accused of being a ringleader was Neon Yang, who was definitely not that even though they contributed. The one I most remember was the trans woman who said something to the effect of "yeah well it didn't sound like the author was trans so I was completely justified actually" and that drives me up a wall because the transradfem girlies are going to lose their mind when I post the first chapter of Nursed with Kerosine.

I have to answer them mostly in batches, with a few exceptions, because I get so many.

@ratbastarddotfuck

Imagine if everyone just decided to start saying a PoC who votes Republican is white.

It's going to be difficult for them to ever actually make a callout post for me because they can screenshot my takes but there will never be a single piece of evidence that I've ever harassed anyone and they know it.

It's not just about taking it seriously, but it's extremely repellent just as content and can be severely triggering, which it would have been for me if I hadn't watched it when I was a teenager before The Deeplore Trauma settled into my bones. I don't think I can even get into the later stuff now because of the association.

But fuck me gently with a chainsaw, everything else about it should be immensely cool and it sucks it's not in something that isn't weighed down by that.

Explicitly using dysphoria as a plot point like that is interesting and does sound like good fuel for a transfem headcanon.

No, it isn't, the only thing being discussed is whether he fits the criteria for "TMA" or not, and he does.

Buffalo Bill is not a stereotype of trans women, and in fact I applaud and deeply appreciate the author for making that crystal clear and treating trans people with great respect and sympathy for the time in which it was written, but he became the model for a stereotype of trans women that transphobes have taken and ran with since the day the the movie came out.

[katzkinder]

I have never done this before, swore to myself I never would, but I feel obligated after my initial encounter with tumblr user @nurul-cerise led to a friendship based on lies and culminated in the most painful discovery I could have made, and I want to spare others the kind of hurt that comes with learning someone you thought was your friend is actually a violent queerphobe who wants you and all your friends dead, and only played pretend because she liked the things you wrote and drew, and then has the fucking NERVE to claim that your and others anger is only because you're """islamophobic"""

I apologize for the length, but I will not be putting this under readmore because I believe it is that important.

Cerise is a part of a lot of fandoms with strong LGBTQ presence, and it doesn't sit right with me to ignore that, especially given how american cartoon fandoms like ROTMNT and Ben 10 have a much more saturated number of young and vulnerable viewers.

This is her Instagram account, and her tumblr URL is listed above.

On this account she has made reels featuring videos from Jordan Peterson, a well known anti trans activist who has called being trans a "contagion" and made multiple appearances on the podcast of Joe Rogan, another well known extreme conservative who holds about every bigoted feeling towards a minority you could think of. The third video from him she shared is especially telling because she isn't even american. The only reason she has to share it is to be hateful and cruel.

She also shared this video of Ben Shapiro mocking trans identities in the classic style of “if you identify as x i can identify as y”. In this case, it’s claiming he should be allowed to identify as 60 years old.

This is proof of her supporting and being friends with other homophobes, with the first screenshot including OP being blatantly proud of their hatred. Be warned, the third screenshot is very upsetting.

This last set of screenshots is mostly from her tumblr. She claims to be a "peaceful" non-supporter. We all know that isn't possible, as no such thing exists. You are either helping to protect us or you are helping to murder us.

And even IF that were a possible stance to take, the above reels on instagram, along with this video she shared of a woman burning a rainbow flag, prove that she is lying through her damn, hateful, hypocritical teeth.

When I personally confronted her after a friend found some concerning things on her instagram and shared them with me, initially I only spoke to a few others in a discord server for a very tiny fandom, Servamp, about it, and warned them to stay away for their own safety. I regret not bringing that to tumblr immediately now, because not only did it not prevent people harassing her like I had hoped to (I'm soft, sue me), she has since that incident gotten even more bold in her disgusting behavior. Completely mask off in how much she hates those of us who literally make every single bit of content for these fandoms she claims to "love" so much.

Block her, don't talk to her, get rid of her. Don't tolerate this kind of person in our safe spaces. I don't want all of you to be hurt the way I and others were.

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

man, what even is an anti? anti what? I was busy doing real life in 2014-19 and when I got back everything was different like I entered the twilight zone. I don't understand what's going on and at this point I'm afraid to ask. do I even want to know?

and proship? like... ships? relationships? so anti ships? they're against shipping? is this like a "no slash" situation? I watched an hour long youtube video about it and still it makes no sense to me.

Ok so as I understand it a proshipper is someone who thinks you should ship whatever you want no limits and an anti is someone who thinks that liking bad guys or problematic ships makes you a bad person.

Now obviously I don't think that identifying with either of these labels is useful. I'm an adult with a job and two side hustles and friends and hobbies and a revolving door of men rearranging my guts I don't have the time to be making my whole identity about something like that, even if I do occasionally indulge in fandom drama. I also think that this is one of the few things that I'm a centrist on actually. I don't think you should be a dick to people based purely on their shipping habits or the characters that they like HOWEVER I also don't think that we should allow marginalized groups to be pushed out of fandom because we insist on treating marginalized characters a certain way.

So the person who made an attempt at doxxing an Izzy guy on Twitter was in fact an honest to god anti. I've seen their tweets and their issue was very clearly the enjoyment of villains in general rather than any actual problem with the person they were coming for, or even with Izzy specifically (they mention Jack stans as well as if there were many of those back when it occurred and they mentioned things that dont apply to Izzy or Jack but just general anti talking points iirc) I can't think of an example of an honest to god proshipper off the top of my head I'm sure they exist and are also insane. Most people are not one of these two groups. Most fans just read fic and occasionally have ethical problems with the things they read and respond by closing the fic and maybe making a vague post about it if they're bothered

However some people have started using anti to mean "anyone who dislikes a character" or dumber yet aka how they use it for me "someone who doesn't necessarily dislike a character just has criticisms of specific fan behavior and calls it out when they see it."

But calling me an anti is very plainly absurd. I picked the grossest white man I could find and made him my PFP and let him kiss my favorite character in my header. I have never in my life shied away from problematic ships or from villain enjoyment. I've shat on specific ships that I don't like, even on a moral basis in the past, but I'm also a stridercest girlie because I don't believe in applying moral axiums to Homestuck and I've written multiple Blackhands fics because I enjoy putting Ed in situations I like how he handles them he's very cerebral and dramatic and he enjoys pageantry.

But basically Izzy stans who get in a tizzy about fandom typical Anon harassment have made their entire pr strategy for painting themselves as somehow oppressed pretending everyone who doesn't like them has the same exact views and motives as the Twitter doxxer so they never have to wonder if maybe we're right when we criticise them for painting Ed as a violent abuser or say that insisting so hard that very plainly and obviously homophobic things aren't homophobic is starting to come off like a hit dog hollering.

TL;DR: if you pretend everyone who doesn't like you is an insane puriteen who hates fun, even if that's provably and categorically untrue, you now have an excuse not to listen to them.

[melancholic-fig]

I know this might come off as strange bit it’s very important for young people to know. It seems apologetic but really it’s how you identify abusive behavior behind the “excuses”.

Toxic people and abusers are human. They are not “inherently bad” as in they have the ability to be the most loving and kind people ever - their feelings are actually just as varied and intense as of others. They are also definitely “not good” aka you should not ever buy into the notion of “poor soul that needs saving” and accept bad treatment. You cannot fix it! But abusiveness is completely not correlated to feelings.

Abuse’s main component is entitlement, which is a choice. The abusers feels they deserve something (authority, respect, sex, goods, special treatment), which we all do, and decides they will allow themselves to do anything to get “it”, depersonalizing the abused one in the process. It’s always about power and obtaining what you want.

Basically, someone who sexually harassed someone else - felt like they were entitled to sex AND they allowed themselves to “take it”, disregarding the person completely. Like when your PC stops working or you lose in a videogame and you hit the object to get it to “work again” - you could feel like shit afterwards and even think you didn’t mean it, but if it was someone else’s controller or PC and you had to pay them back or have a fight you wouldn’t have done it. Tehnically, you “allow” yourself to hit the PC because you hope it will make it work, it has no feelings and you don’t think it will break. Or don’t care. Many people hit objects, because they are tools and exist only to give you “an output”, unlike humans. However, Abusers have this thought process towards other human beings, usually from education + lack of introspection + benefits they gain. Mostly the benefits. An abuser considers often their partner’s duty to offer something (sex, money, attention, time, ego boost) and reacts the way they do because they know it gets them what they want. And this is true whatever they say afterwards - because often victims see that their abuser is genuinely sorry. But that’s just the reaction you’d get from breaking your controller and feeling ashamed - it’s still broken no matter how “sorry you are” and if you keep playing video games that annoy you your future controller will be broken again and you’ll be ashamed again and on and on and on…

So, it’s possible and even common, unfortunately, for someone to abuse women and be kind and generous to anyone else and even a true believer in LGBTQ rights and BLM. Politics are values and feelings based, maybe your ideal self image, abusive behavior depends on what you “deserve” and you don’t “get”. Domestic violence is the result of being taught women have “duties”, never examining this thought, getting what you want through abusive means multiple times from women and then doing mental gymnastics to justify it to yourself, and the older you get with this pattern the worse it is.

So yeah, I fully believe Neil Gaiman thinks of himself as a progressive and has the ability to be gentle and introspective just like his characters. He knows what good things are. Thing is, he felt entitled to women’s bodies and gave himself permission to use them - and got away with it for so many years he forgot him wanting sex doesn’t transform women in sex dispensers.

With truly all the love and empathy in my heart: crying daily over the sexual assault allegations against Gaiman isn’t healthy. I’ve seen multiple people –especially fans of GO – saying this since they came out, and it’s really fucking concerning me.

I wonder if it has to do with the insidious ideas that 1) people are either Bad or Good, 2) Bad people can only do Bad things, and 3) liking Bad things or Bad people makes you Bad.

None of these things are true.

People are mixed up and incredibly complicated. Someone can be an incredible artist/friend/chef/ally against racism/drag queen and still be predatory/homophobic/antisemitic/never tips their wait staff. People do things that harm others in big and small ways all the time. You do too. I promise.

(Also the idea of anyone, even people who do genuinely insurmountable harm, becoming somehow less than human is an inherently fascist ideology)

The fact that you (yes, you!!) do harmful things doesn’t immediately make you Bad. There are certainly things that someone might do that causes more harm (say, assault) versus less, but that doesn’t somehow infect all the things they’ve done in the past with their Badness. Gaiman helped write Good Omens. There’s no way now to say “I was wrong and this book was Bad all along” or even “oh, all the parts I like were written by Pratchett, the Bad parts must have been Gaiman.” You didn’t miss an inherent evil by liking the book in the past. It doesn’t make you Bad for liking it now.

(It also doesn’t mean that people associated with Gaiman, like David Tennant, are also Tainted by inherent Badness. Gaiman isn’t, Tennant isn’t, you aren’t. Saying otherwise is also a slippery slope argument into dehumanization and fascist ideas)

By all means: if it feels right, stop giving Gaiman your money. Stop tagging him in your Azi/Crowley fanart. But do this as a way to disentangle yourself from parasocial relationships that are actively causing you grief and to vote with your wallet, not because unlinking yourself from Bad Art and Bad People will somehow absolve you and make you Good again. If you already have a copy of Good Omens or Sandman, whether you reread it is between you and your gods. Interacting with a text you find important doesn’t make you Bad or Good. It’s just reading. What you do with the stories is what matters (ironically, that’s the message of a lot of both Gaiman and Pratchett’s work).

Maybe take a peek at Good Omens and re familiarize yourself with its other core message: People are not Bad or Good. People do bad and good things.

Then maybe drink a cup of tea. You need to rehydrate.

[fleshrenderturbine]

I guess my actual final thought will be that uh

This isnt as serious as some serial abuser running around hurting people, but he has a track record of being a self victimizing manipulator to gain sympathy in past circles that can see future partners and friends being hurt by.

All I wanted to do is remind him that people know what he is doing even if he seems fine identifying with loads of lies with this new crowd he’s around. I’m going to be honest but he doesn’t even know *me* that well so he probably thinks of the wrong set of people when wondering about who this is.

Had I approached privately itd be swept under the rug but in this harsher method of speaking out, at least more people will become wary. Yea I probably took a jab at some crap that doesn’t ultimately matter in light of this but, I guess that’s my own disgust at actively enduring a lot of the stuff you guys are attracted to in my own abusive past, and at least it should be recognized that not everyone’s going to like that stuff. (I mean duh, but don’t double down to “write Mel’s legs getting chopped off out of spite”) - that I did see bcs someone pointed it out to me specifically and that’s just weird to me as a response more than “omg how could you”

He also likely scammed you of donation money as well just to buy whatever himself indulgences. People aren’t vocal openly about it but it’s very obvious you just went to spend the money on indulgent stuff. I had multiple people dm about this.

On the note of “self righteousness” also, he isn’t even innocent of this and has incited harassment against someone else in the past, going off of said lies that ultimately did more damage to the situation. He apologized for it at the time, after being caught at it but now I see he’s actually still lying about how the situation actually went despite apologizing in the past for said lies like (???)

M has done some fucked up shit too but by you playing self-righteous victim and taking away from the reality of the situation to look better than him, a minor that was actually abused was semi glossed over, and in that nature about lying about specific details to fuel harassment he became more of a danger to others, because why take criticism seriously if you’re going to be harassed about flat out lies just as well?

That to me, is dangerous. And the hypocrisy I talk about and want to reiterate on. Don’t speak about being left alone when you’re still representing and identifying with the same behavior you were criticized about way back. I’m not “digging up old stuff” if it seems to be active

@snuffk1t (didn’t plan to ping as the wording is in 3rd person anyways, but whatever)

After a ton of ripping into you so to speak I will end this off on a semi positive note that; I think ultimately you should learn to be real with yourself and grow with your focus based on improvement rather than continued self-victimization, I speak so harshly against it because I literally used to do the same and I live much better now. I know you might play this off in public if you respond to this but I know that you know what I’m talking about and I just hope you deeply internalize this message.

[deviantartdramahub]

9 notes

Okie, about time I talk about this biggie.

So first things first, I'll be responsible and admit some mistakes, It turns out Tam was only identifying as NB for pride month. Idk and I don't think he knows what they really are yet, but still, don't try to dictate him DADramaNow, as they now know and understand after I explained it to him. However, they told me in chat that he wants to use both he/him, and they/them pronouns, so actually respect those this time unlike this bullshit here -> 1 note (Just bc you put their correct at the time pronouns in parenthesis next to his at the time dead pronouns, doesn't make you any less in the wrong, you moronic cop-out.)

Also I acknowledge that they probably shouldn't use Google Translate as the only way to speak other languages, and should get actual knowledge from his parents. But don't think it gives you an excuse to attack them, alright?

Tam is still a great friend of mine who I care about deeply. And if I ever have to, I'll protect him.

Anyways let's get into the parts where YOU'RE in the wrong!! :)

So for the first reason about Club, oh I created a whole post here that proves you attacking him is just ableism!! :D

-> https://www.tumblr.com/deviantartdramahub/728512331840143360/so-dadramanow-youre-not-just-attacking-club?source=share

And yeah he's just trying to talk to people. He doesn't pressure them at all. "It is NOT Club’s job, nor is is he even qualified to teach other people, ESPECIALLY young minors about changing diapers of disabled people." He doesn't pretend to be a professional, he's just informing others in a fun way. You don't have to have a degree on something to be knowledgeable about it. And as a guy with autism and obviously knows what it's like, he's a good source of it. "Not to mention that his Eduard character is 9 years old and uses baby talk." He doesn't do "baby talk", he's just mostly non verbal. Ooh, making fun of non-verbal autistic people are we?? Thanks for more proof this is just ableism <3

"If you knew even the bit slightest thing about people with disabilities" Lol that's rich, I myself have autism, you twit. "Honestly, would you want a grown adult 20+ asking/saying to you a young teenaged woman things such as “Would like a widdle cookie, sweetie pie?” or “Let’s go upsiy daisy, boo boo!” or “Do you have to go potty, honey bear?” ? No, you wouldn’t, because it’s weird and makes you uncomfortable." Yeah, I DO in fact hate it, so how about your whole ass group stops talking down to me, thanks?? "If you knew anything, or even cared to do as much research as you do defending Club, you would know that not all grooming is sexual in nature!"

...

"you would know that not all grooming is sexual in nature!" ...

Okay, so I agree with that statement on it's own but...IS CLUB'S THING A SEXUAL FETISH OR NOT??! If you're going to harass and make up slander about people, AT LEAST KEEP YOUR GODDAMN STORIES STRAIGHT!!! This itself is huge proof these guys are full of shit and the whole Club drama is based on lies.

"Do you recall Tam drawing his teenaged persona KISSING Eduard who is age 9?" Not to throw my friend Tam under the bus of course sense he learned and matured since then and now knows better, but...HOW THE HELL IS THAT CLUB'S FAULT??! HE DIDN'T WANT THAT! "Plus, it he’s so innocent, why do comments, journals, and accounts of being victims from multiple users such these exist" Bc those are people just like you who want to cause rumor-spreading and trouble.

Now for the second one with my transphobic claim. Here's the quote I want to talk about in that section: "Tam is being silly, because that’s what kids do, and as the older one between the two of you, YOU should be educating him, not supporting bad behavior." Excuse me, but didn't you get pissed bc Club encourages older siblings to help out a little bit? And now you're over here straight up trying to force me to be a caretaker of my fucking friend. Same with this quote in the third section -> "This is an insult to his people, and AGAIN, YOU SHOULD BE EDUCATING TAM INSTEAD OF ENCOURAGING THIS BEHAVIOR!" I'm a 15 year old teenage girl, DADramaNow, NOT A FUCKING TEACHER! I'd be happy to teach my friend things but you can't yell at Club for educating and encouraging people to help others, then turn around and yell at me for not mothering my fucking friend.

LMAO AND THEN WE HAVE THE 4TH SECTION, WHICH IS LITERALLY JUST "Honestly speaking, you are only saying this because you are scared of Tri doxxing and harassing you like she did before. Tri is well known for doxxing, grooming, harassing others who disagree with her and Club, hacking accounts, defending Club’s grooming, and you know it." And no, you using her correct pronouns doesn't take you off the hook.

I absolutely just fucking love how they didn't even try to justify themselves in that one, and just resorted to threats but used two other people for the threats so they can pathetically escape looking like the bad guy. Honey please if you're gonna go down that route, at least grow some balls and spew threats of what YOU'LL do, instead of constantly throwing people under the bus as you cower in fear of the consequences of your actions. Grow up for the love of God.

And it's also funny how you tell me to learn to read when I told you to do the same thing when you ignored my proof and continued saying I wanted to date a FULL GROWN MAN.

Anyways sorry for this long one Tri, but it was necessary.

That’s alright. Basically what I said in the reply here. As I mention often, one can tell things are getting cliquey by people betraying what they say. You’re right, it’s not like Tam or Club are breaking any rules, that and Tam can identify how he wants. There is no such thing as a fake identity no matter how it alternates.

[blindbeta]

Myths That Harm Blind People

MYTH: All “real” blind people are totally blind and only those “real” people can use canes.

TRUTH: Most blind people have some residual vision in one eye or both. In fact, less than 15% of blind people lack vision and light perception. ANY of these people are allowed to use canes, especially for crossing the street. Canes help with safety and allow others (drivers) to identify blind people. Even if these people have some vision, the cane lets people know “oh that person can’t see well or at all so I shouldn’t expect them to get out of the way or to see me approaching”. When crossing the street, a person with a cane will hold their cane out in the street for drivers to see. They will use their hearing or what vision they have to ascertain if there is a car approaching. Usually the car will stop, allowing the blind person to cross.

CONSEQUENCES OF BELIEVING THE MYTH: -You harass people who don’t “look” blind. -You believe blind people who look both ways before crossing the street, moving around you, or move toward/away from bright lights are “faking”. -You yell at, hit, and sometimes break the canes of those blind people you decided are faking based on your limited understanding of blindness. You make them explain themselves when they shouldn’t need to. -You make ignorant posts online about these ideas, spreading them around. -You make people afraid to use their canes when they need to.

MYTH: Blind people don’t use phones/computers

TRUTH: All phones and computers have accessibility features. This includes VoiceOver or large text. Some people simply hold the phone close to their face. Being able to use a phone does not mean anyone is “faking”. This shows how assumptions based on ignorance lead to other, more harmful assumptions.

CONSEQUENCES OF BELIEVING THE MYTH: -You accuse people using canes and phones of “faking” with zero understanding of the consequences. -You use this as an excuse to harass, yell at, and bully blind people for “faking”, both on the street and online. -You assume blind people don’t use social media which makes you think you: are free to make ignorant ignorant jokes, post pictures of blind people using phones, and ignore blind people online when they say something bothers them because “what? Blind people don’t use the internet”. -You post inaccessible content - no image descriptions or audio description for videos, etc

MYTH: Blind people have superior hearing

TRUTH: Blind people do not have superior hearing. They just rely on their hearing more.

CONSEQUENCES OF BELIEVING THE MYTH: This one is just annoying. It makes sighted people feel better or like blind people have something they don’t. It also gives them an excuse to assume blind people would have no problem crossing the street because they can just use their superior hearing.

MYTH: Blind people cannot read

TRUTH: Blind people CAN read. Look up Braille, accessibility in phones and computers, audio books, etc. Similarly: Blind people only read Braille.

CONSEQUENCES OF BELIEVING THE MYTH: This is something people like to say as a joke, but a surprising amount of people mean it. Many people know about Braille (and compare it to sign languages for some reason, but that’s another rant), and will often use these myths to exclude blind people from online spaces.

I made this because these myths are prevalent even in supposed progressive spaces. People will talk about ableism and in the same breath, make one of these assumptions. While it is frustrating that no one bothers to do the research, it is only assumptions and not well-meaning questions that hurt the blind community. Questions allow a person to respond; assumptions do not.

These assumptions have nothing to do with being a bad person, hating the blind community, etc. Therefore, they can apply to anyone. I would like for everyone to explore how they have interacted with or spread these myths and simply change their behaviors. In this instance, your intent only matters so much. It is your behavior that creates change and makes things easier for that blind person you pass tomorrow. Not harassing them, not accusing them of faking, will make their lives 100% easier.

I started this blog so that writers could include blind characters in their stories, thus easing some of the pressure of navigating confusing online myths that slip into otherwise meaningful research. In addition to including blind people in our fiction (either as characters or acknowledging them as consumers by ensuring accessibility), we should make things easier in real life by taking down these myths and correcting those who believe them. Even if we come across as harsh or humorless by doing so. And if you are someone who still wants to believe these things, ask yourself why you are so committed to “helping” blind people in ways they have expressed does not in fact help them at all. Thanks for reading!

[that-stone-butch]

What's a febfem? I tried searching the tag but got too many conflicting and/or incomprehensible posts to be able to make sense of it

hey, so going into this topic in-depth is going to involve a discussion of TERFs, transphobia, and transmisogynistic subject matter in general and specific. so, you know, heads-up on what is going to be a very unpleasant topic.

as is often the case with portmanteaus, there's some differing ways people spell things out. some people use 'febfem' to mean Female-Exclusive Bisexual FEMinist, but the majory of what i see is specifically a portmanteau of Female-Exclusive Bisexual FEMale. however, there's going to be some significant overlap between the two which i will bring up later on.

the general premise of Female-Exclusive Bisexual Females is, just that, bisexual women who, while identifying as bisexual, make the conscious decision to be exclusively into women, exclusively date women, etc. right off the bat, the practical conflation between the gendered terminology 'woman' and the sex-binary-dependant terminology 'female' in a space is, well, troubling to hear as a trans person. very frequently trans individuals might choose to use sex-binary-dependant terminology to describe *their own experiences* but the use of sex-binary-dependant terminology to label entire groups and/or others is...a red flag.

additionally, it's important to note that almost always the impetus for someone going 'female-exclusive' is as the result of mistreatment, often including sexual misconduct, perpetrated by men. i do not in any way wish to diminish the reality of these experiences. gendered violence, especially sexual violence, is a real and pervasive issue. no part of what i have to say on this topic should be construed as disregarding the severity of survivors' experiences.

however, it's important to look critically at the status of febfem as what at first appears to be a relatively innocuous premise (provided that you don't look too closely at the emphasis on gender essentialism. spoiler alert! gender essentialism is a huge component of this whole phenomenon :/). as we all know, personal sexual boundaries are fine and ought to be relatively inoffensive in a vacuum.

very frequently, when coupled with gender essentialism, the concept of sexual boundaries is politically weaponized. we've been over this a shitzillion times with TERFs acting irate that transgender lesbians....exist at all, frequently framing the passive existence of transgender lesbians as an attack (frequently throwing around the word 'rape,' 'rapist,' etc) on their personal sexual boundaries. by rhetorically coupling the concept of trans people existing with the concept of violating personal sexual boundaries, it becomes difficult to deal with this flavor of TERF rhetoric because you must first disentangle the concepts before you can argue with them (you shouldn't by the way, just block them and move on) people who have no interest in disentangling these disparate concepts will see a defense of trans people, especially trans women, as an attack on TERFs and lesbian sexuality as a whole, and are further radicalized against what they see to be a threat. this rhetoric validates the unfortunately widespread willingness to read trans people (especially trans women) in the worst faith interpretation possible.

(this phenomenon can be seen with Peak Trans rhetoric, which frames the moment a TERF became anti-trans as a result of trans people being icky and indefensible, making the impetus for being trans-exclusionary The Fault Of Trans People Actually, and further validating transphobic people's willingness to read anything trans people do or say with the worst possible intentions; validating what is widespread transphobia by blaming the victim of transphobia. it's wild just what will be used as peaktrans 'fuel;' one time a pretty mild post i made about frustration over how difficult it is for LGBTQ+ couples to adopt, made it onto a peaktrans compilation blog, because apparently if i, a trans person, have anything to say about wanting kids one day, it must be because i am Gross and Icky and a threat to Real Women lmao. honestly it's embarrassing and shitty behavior and if you need a compilation of literally any straws you can grasp at to prove a group of people deserves pervasive harassment, legal disenfranchisement, and physical harm, you're a hate group plain and simple)

now, you might be saying to yourself, 'wow, the topic of TERFs came up, why is that?' and it's because, dollars to donuts, you look at a febfem blog and you're going to find TERFs, reblogs/content from TERFs, and TERF rhetoric.

as it turns out, the group of people with a vested interest in defining all 'males' as having an essential gender, alligning that essentialism with a built-in moral negative, and basing their *political advocacy* on the premise of politicizing personal sexual boundaries, are often self-proclaimed TERFs/radfems. well if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, even straight-up says it's a duck sometimes, it's a fucking duck.

seriously, you don't have to scroll down far on most febfem blogs before you see shit about 'genderqueer identity taking away our butches' and 'can't a woman be masculine AND proudly feeeeeeeeeeemale for once?' like it's textbook.

now i will say again, since tumblr is NOT a hub of reading comprehension, that personal sexual boundaries are not a moral negative, nor are they transphobic. shit, i should hope that as a stone butch, you understand that i do not think personal sexual boundaries are inherently bad. but the politicization of personal sexual boundaries, and the use of personal sexual boundaries to define and condemn others, is a different matter entirely.

there may be people hopping onto the notes of this post, my inbox, etc. bringing up evidence of febfems who have nothing negative to say about trans people, never publicly making claims about trans people, etc. but that's a fucking deflection. gender-essentialism is baked into 'febfem' as a concept, and there's no deflecting that. ask a febfem what their definition of 'male' is, and who that includes. you're going to find transmisogyny.

[shaaknaa]

There's seems to be an awful lot of Kant in OP's take, despite it looking like Machiavelli.

The bare bones version of Kantian Ethics is that there are certain Bad actions and certain Good actions. If you make rules based on these then Good things are always good and Bad things are always bad. This is boiled down, but then we're going by his memes (technical definition) not actually discussing him directly.

The first idea is that harrassment is Bad. And yeah. That's fine. No one is arguing this point and pretending they are is kinda disingenuous. I'll even include "mass harrassment is bad" under this point because also, yeah.

Now, is harrassment *always* bad? This is actually a big question. Getting harassed sucks. It also makes them reevaluate their behavior. I'm personally in the camp of "it's better to try and explain why their behavior is bad clearly and concisely," because if you punish someone without explaining the underlying principles you don't actually solve the problem. They'll just repeat the mistake. Again.

Is mass harrassment always bad? Ya'know. I might actually go with yes. Technically it depends on your opinion on mob justice. Basically, I don't trust a mob to properly identify when a crime has been committed, be proportional to said crime, or to stop when the perpetrator has changed their ways. And that's in cases where mass harrassment achieves a goal and doesn't just make them double-down. Best to just not participate in that mess.

Now, if mass harrassment it bad, surely deliberately inciting it is also bad. Well... define deliberately. Because I had a huge argument in the YouTube comments section where the dictionary definition literally ended in a draw. It can mean doing something specifically to get specific effects... or to knowingly do something despite said effects. Those aren't the same. In this case there's a big difference between "we should go harrass that guy" and "fuck, the only way to get the result I want is going to result in harrassment. I'll do my best to mitigate it but damn." Those are *not* equivalent.

And now we get to consequences. I find it very telling that the only consequences mentioned are the harrassment when Hbomb looked at everything Somerton was doing and determined the most moral course of action was to *nuke his career.* Now, call me crazy but think rent money is more important than social media presence. Despite that, Hbomb *and Todd* decided to vigilante this shit. These people generally avoid that shit. Seeing a Pop Song Reviewer drop a fact checking video was insane. Why would these people do this?

Because Somerton was causing real and lasting harm. Usually when there's a call out it's bullshit, but in this case... yeah. He needed to be called out because there was no other way to make him stop harming the community. Multiple communities, really, but mostly the Queer Community.

And Hbomb/Todd did a great job doing a real call out. They kept it to his actual actions. There was no "and he likes Killing Stalking" bullshit. Just straight up "Here's what he's done wrong. Here's undeniable proof."

Now, I'm not going to rehash the entire 5 hr+ 2hr videos. The fact that they were dense with evidence is mind boggling. So. What he did and why it caused harm:

Serial Plagarism. Even if you ignore cover-up warp, Plagarism hurts the people you steal from emotionally and monetarily, while also obfuscating sources. This discourages promising new upstarts, limits intellectual inquiry, and hurts people's careers. In creative spaces this is *mean,* in intellectual spaces it's antithetical to its core ethics. In an intellectually creative space like YouTube video essays it's all of the above.

Furthermore, he was *good* at plagarism. He used other people's good words to lull his audience into a false sense of security, so by the time he starts feeding them misinformation they trust him. Which means... it increases misinformation. Which, in a community where it's hard to find our history is particularly heinous.

Furthermore, and most importantly for this conversation, JAMES SOMERTON INCITED MASS HARRASSMENT CAMPAIGNS. He knows they're a hazard of fame, and by his own morals, he thinks mass harrassment is sometimes justified. That doesn't make it good, but it does make me less sympathetic.

With this in mind, is the Queer Community better off if James Somerton finds a new career? Yeah. Was the only way to do that 7 hours of call outs? Maybe. Does Somerton deserve harrasment on top of losing his career? Probably not. Did Hbomb and Todd do everything they could to try and get an appropriate public reaction? Yes.

Anyway OP, if you want to make an argument about whether a disclaimer is enough to assuage guilt... maybe don't use the guy getting a taste of his own medicine as the example.

My hot take about the James Somerton situation is that at this point, attaching a "don't harass them tho" disclaimer to your callout post doesn't mean anything and is actively disingenuous. Everyone ought to know by now that if you have a large platform and publicly post a list of someone's misdeeds, they're going to get mass harassed about it even if you tell people not to, so if you actually cared about not getting them harassed, you wouldn't make the callout post in the first place.

[dirk-has-rabies]

Gender variance and it's link with neurodivergency

Okay so this is it going to be another long one

All quotes will be sourced with a link to the scientific journal I took it from

Okay Tumblr, let's talk gender (I know, your favorite topic) my preface on why this topic matters to me is: I'm autistic ( diagnosed moderate to severe autism) I'm nonbinary trans ( in a way that most non-autistic people don't understand and actually look down on)  and I went to college for gender study ( Mostly for intersex studies but a lot of my research was around non-binary and trans identities) I will be using the term autism as pants when I have experience with however when ADHD is part of the study I will use ND which stands for neurodivergent and yes this is going to be about xenogenders and neopronouns.

autism can affect gender the same way autism can affect literally every part of an identity. a big thing about having autism is the fact that it completely can change how you view personhood and time and object permanence and gender and literally all types of socially constructed ideas. let me also say hear that just because Society creates and enforces an idea does it mean that it doesn't exist to all people it just me that there is no nature law saying that it's real and the “rules” for these ideas can change and delete and create as time and Society evolves and changes.  gender is one of those constructs.

Now I'll take it by you reading this you know what transgender people are  (if you don't understand what a trans person is send me an ask and I'll type you up a pretty little essay lmao,  or Google it but that's a scary thought sense literally any Source or website can come up on Google including biased websites so be careful I guess LOL) anyway to be super basic trans people are anyone who doesn't identify as the gender they were assigned at Birth (yes that includes non-binary people I could do a whole nother essay about that shit how y'all keep spreading trying to separate non-binary people from the trans umbrella)  some people don't like to use the label and that is totally fine by the way.

now autistic people to view the world in a way differently than allistic (neurotypical) ppl do.  we don't take everything people teach us at 100% fact and we tend to question everything and demand proof and evidence for things before we can set it as a fact in our brains. This leads to why a lot of autistic people are atheist (although a lot of religions and this is not bashing on religious people at all I am actually a Jewish convert)  this questioning leads to a lot of social constructs being ignored or not understood At All by a lot of autistic people and personally I think that's a good thing.  allistics take everything their parents and teachers and schools teach them as fact until someone else says something and then they pick which ones to believe. autistic people study and research and learn about a topic before forming an opinion and while this may lead to them studying and believing very biased material and spitting it out as fact it can also lead them to try and Discover it is real by themselves.

because of this autistic people are more question their gender or not fall in a binary way at all as the concept of gender makes no sense to a lot of us. “ if gender is a construct then autistic people who are less aware of social norms are less likely to develop a typical gender identity”

no really look: “ children and teens with autism spectrum disorder ASD or Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder ADHD  are much more likely to express a wish to be the opposite sex compared with their typical developing peers” That was posted in 2014. we have been saying this stuff forever but no one wants to listen. the thing is gender variance (being not cisgender or at least questioning it)  has always been closely hand-in-hand with autistic and ADHD people I'm even the doctor who did that study understood right away that it all made sense the whole time: “ Dr. Strang said they were initially surprised to find an overrepresentation of gender variance among children with ADHD. However, they later realized that prior studies have shown increased levels of disruptive behavior and other behavioral problems among young people with gender variance”  SEE YOURE NOT WEIRD YOURE JUST YOU AND YOURE NOT ALONE IN THIS!!

5% autistic people who did the study were trans or questioning. it was also equal between the Sexes fun fact. that may not seem like a lot till you realize that the national average is only .7% that's literally over 700% higher than the national average. That's so many! and that's just in America.

 in Holland there was a study in 2010 “ nearly 8% of the more than 200 Children and adolescents referred to a clinic for gender dysphoria also came up positive on a assessment for ASD” they weren't even testing for ADHD so the numbers could be even higher!

now I want to talk about a  certain section of the trans umbrella that a lot of autistic people fall under called the non-binary umbrella. non-binary means anything that isn't just male or just female. it is not one third gender and non-binary doesn't mean that you don't have a gender. just clearing that up since cis people keep spreading that. non-binary is an umbrella term for any of the infinite genders you could use or create. now this is where I'm going to lose a bunch of you and that's okay because you don't have to understand our brains or emotions To respect us as real people. not many allistics can understand how we see and think and relate to things and that's okay you don't have to understand everything but just reading about this could be so much closer to respecting us for Who We Are from you've ever been and that's better than being against us just for existing.

now you might have heard of my Mutual Lars who was harassed  by transmeds for using the term Autigender (I was going to link them but if it gets traction I don't want them to get any hate)  since a lot of people roll their eyes at that  and treated them disgustingly for using a term that 100% applied correctly.  Autigender  is described as " a neurogender which can only be understood in the context of being autistic or when one's autism greatly affects one's gender or how one experiences gender. Autigender is not autism as a gender, but rather is a gender that is so heavily influenced by autism that one's autism and one's experience of gender cannot be unlinked.” Now tell me that doesn't sound a lot like this entire essay I've been working on with full sources…..

xenogenders and neopronouns are a big argument point on whether or not people “believe” in non binary genders but a big part of those genders is that they originated from ND communities and are ways that we can try to describe what gender means us in a way that cis or even allistic trans people just can't comprehend or ever understand. Same with MOGAI genders or sexualities. A lot of these are created as a way to somehow describe an indescribable relationship with gender that is so personal you really cant explain it to anyone who isnt literally the same as you.

Even in studies done with trans autistic people a large amount of them dont even fall on a yes or no of having a gender at all and fall in some weird inbetween where you KINDA have a gender but its not a gender in the sense that others say it is but its also too much of a gender so say youre agender. And this is the kind of stuff that confuses allistic trans people and makes them think nonbinary genders are making stuff up for attention, which isnt true at all we just cant explain what it feels like to BE a trans autistic person to anyone who doesnt ALREADY know how it feels.

In this study out of the ppl questioned almost HALF of the autistic trans individuals had a “Sense of identity revolving around interests” meaning their gender and identity was more based off what they liked rather than boy or girl. That makes ppl with stuff like vampgender or pupgender make a lot more sense now doesnt it? We see that even in the study: “My sense of identity is fluid, just as my sense of gender is fluid […] The only constant identity that runs through my life as a thread is ‘dancer.’ This is more important to me than gender, name or any other identifying features… even more important than mother. I wouldn't admit that in the NT world as when I have, I have been corrected (after all Mother is supposed to be my primary identification, right?!) but I feel that I can admit that here. (Taylor)” and an agreement from another saying “Mine is Artist. Thank you, Taylor. (Jessie)” now dont you think if they grew up with terms like artistgender or dancergender they would just YOINK those up right away????

In fact “An absence of a sense of gender or being unsure of how their gender should “feel” was another common report” because as ive said before in this post AUTISTIC PEOPLE DONT SEE GENDER THE WAY ALLISTIC PEOPLE SEE IT. therefore we wont use the same terms or have the same identities nor could we explain it to anyone who doesnt already understand or question the same way! Participants even offered up quotes such as “As a child and even now, I don't ‘feel’ like a gender, I feel like myself and for the most part I am constantly trying to figure out what that means for me (Betty)” and also “I don't feel like a particular gender I'm not even sure what a gender should feel like (Helen)”

Now i know this isnt going to change everyones minds on this stuff but i can only hope that it at least helped people feel like theyre not broken and not alone in their feelings about this. You dont have to follow allistic rules. You dont have to stop searching inside for who you really wanna be. And you dont have to pick or choose terms forever because just as you grow and evolve so may your terms. Its okay to not know what or who you are and its okay to identify as nonhuman things or as your interests because what you love and what you do is a big part of who you are and shapes you everyday. Its not a bad thing! Just please everyone, treat ppl with respect and if you dont understand something that doesnt make it bad or wrong it just means its not for you. And thats okay.

[thedreadvampy]

Please stop describing aroace as not wanting or seeking out a romantic/sexual relationship. The terms describe attraction, not behavior, and this is something that has been discussed and explained to exhaustion by aroace communities. I have personally also pursued relationships because I thought I wanted that kind of relationship, and too many people try to say that means I’m not really aroace. I have aroace friends who are in sexual and/or romantic relationships.

I’m not angry at you, I know you don’t intend to cause harm, and I generally agree with your thoughts on how Martin is characterized, but I am so, so tired of people who aren’t aroace telling us who we are, how we feel, and how we behave. There are so many easily-accessible resources and explanations about asexuality and aromanticism with respect to relationships, and I urge you do some research if you feel the need to define us.

I don’t mind if you don’t reply to this. It’s the sort of conversation I would rather have privately, but I’ve seen and experienced too much harassment targeting asexual identities to feel safe going off anon.

No I'm not going to stop doing that because my feeling on this is based specifically on conversations raised by and led by my aroace friends and loved ones. as in this is a frustration that a lot of people in my life who are aroace have repeatedly expressed - that there's no space to express clearly and unambiguously that you're Not Wanting Sex And Relationships because the linguistic space is slipping for that. and they've talked a lot specifically about how that's led to them feeling more pressured to push themselves into sex or relationships, or having to constantly explain and defend their space even within aspec communities. and that's a problem. not that people who want or might want sex and romance but consider themselves broadly asexual or aromatic exist, but that with the semantic drift around aroace, there's not really a term which unambiguously expresses that that's not something they do want.

Action is not the same as desire - having had or wanted a relationship doesn't mean anything for whether you're "actually" aro or ace, any more than having dated men in the past means you're not "actually" a lesbian. comphet is a hell of a situation. I'm not splitting hairs about attraction vs behaviour - I'm talking about desire versus lack of desire.

Yes, fine, good, you can act for a lot of reasons, only some of which are genuinely held desire (trust me I know this). I'm not debating that. I'm saying that the space that's shrunk away in contemporary aspec language is a term which unambiguously means "a person who does not have a desire to have sex or relationships."

In this example, Martin spends much of the story expressing desire for a monogamous romantic relationship and nothing in his story arc, his actions, his dialogue or his fears seem to imply that that's motivated by anything other than a genuinely held desire to have a relationship with a man he is into. He's not aroace in the same way he's not a trans lesbian like. yes he could be being led by common drivers - compulsory sexuality, the desire for emotional closeness, the confusion of working out which feeling's what, only knowing how to navigate relationships through a certain lens, etc - and yes he absolutely could be either of those things, but ultimately there's nothing in the text to support that conclusion as is. He is not written as aroace, and in terms of material questions like 'what assumptions do people make about you and what's a justified assumption to make' the two things that matter when it comes to "X is/is not [identity]" are:

what do they outwardly identify as

how do they behave and what desires do they experience and express

like you are absolutely right that it's shitty for people to try and tell you you're not aroace if you are. people know their own identities best. I'm talking about group terminology that's sufficiently materialist to make sense.

like when someone says they're aroace what are appropriate assumptions to make? that this is someone who doesn't want sex or romantic relationships in and of itself, surely? that sex and romance are either low priority or actively not wanted? that they're not likely to be open to attempts to initiate sex or romance, and that their rejection of that isn't personal? that they may prefer long-term to not have a partner and that not having a partner isn't a source of great pain and loneliness and doesn't indicate an unmet need?

like that's what the term means. a term boundaries a set of basic assumptions. that doesn't mean nobody in that group can then turn around and say 'actually I am sad I don't have a partner' or 'actually I think I do want to try a relationship with you' or 'actually it's very validating when people flirt with me'.

similarly like an assumption it's reasonable to make about bisexual people, and an assumption that's embedded in the term, is 'is interested in sex or romance with people of multiple genders.' that doesn't mean I can't be bisexual and also have a complex relationship to what if any sexual or romantic desires I have and why. but it means that if I'm talking about bisexual people, I'm expecting you to join me in the assumption that yes we're talking about People Who Experience Multiple Gender Attraction. sexuality is messy and complicated let's not get it twisted. saying 'this is what the word means' doesn't remove the existence of complex experiences of self and of desire. but what the implied meaning of a word is matters and people were and are acting as if the implied meaning of 'aroace' has nothing to do with inherent desire for sex and romance which seems to me to leave a pretty substantial communication gap.

as I said in the tags - is there a more unambiguous word for 'people who are explicitly uninterested in romance and sex' than aroace? what is it? what is the word that's meant to go there? because THAT IS AN IMPORTANT THING TO BE ABLE TO EXPRESS UNAMBIGUOUSLY. and it doesn't mean I'm looking for a word that means 'has never for any reason pursued or experienced romance or sex' which I feel is how you're characterising what I'm saying (and I get that this is a triggering topic with a lot of baggage for a lot of people so I absolutely get why you're reacting as if that's what I'm saying). nor does it mean I'm looking for a word that means '100% gold star virgin who's never dated or had a sexy thought.' it means I'm looking for a word that means 'is uninterested in sex and romance' to describe a reason why somebody might choose to not have relationships, or to not have sex, or might have no sexual or romantic history through choice. key word might. but the fact is every time somebody uses aroace as a descriptor of 'reasons why people may choose not to have relationships' people end up 'correcting' them to say 'some aroace people have relationships' which is. kind of irrelevant to the point. some lesbians are married to men (comphet, changing sense of self, marriages of convenience, lavender marriages etc) but when I say 'she doesn't want to date him because she's a lesbian' we understand what the common understanding of lesbian is.

ultimately idk how to end this post. my point in the original post wasn't 'nobody who's aroace has experience of sex or relationships' but 'aroaceness is a reasonable reason why someone might not have had sex or relationships' and my point in the tags you're objecting to isn't 'aroace as a term should only include people who would never consent to sex or relationships,' it's 'a lack of inherent wish for sex and relationships used to be what we understood aroaceness to imply; now that no longer seems to be the implication and that leaves a gap where a lot of people, aroace and otherwise, struggle to express that experience'

[obae-me]

What do you think of Diavolosthots? As a disabled trans man, I am so disappointed in her. If you don't know, she basically misgendered 2 people on purpose and gave an 2 sentence "apology" that essentially said, "I have trans friends so I'm not transphobic". She also aggressively insult's people who don't share the same opinions as her. Furthermore, she does little to no research on disabilities and badly portrays them. I suggest looking through the Diavolosthot hashtag for more info though.

I just want to preface that I personally don’t condone harassment, I think calling out someone on their behavior is important, but I don’t like confrontation and being angry and hateful just makes me feel gross, I don’t want anyone to send hate or threats to her, but I don’t ask that any of you simply forget and forgive her…because I don’t think I do.

I am fully well aware of the Diavolosthots situation, it may or may not be the aforementioned “event” I briefly discussed that led to my coming out as non-binary.

I followed her blog when I first joined the Obey Me fandom, but quickly unfollowed due to something about the way she wrote not settling quite right with me. It seems on the surface like it’s very supportive, but when you start to notice that most of the headcanons about sexuality/mental illness/nurodivergancy/gender can be summed up to “no one cares, it doesn’t matter” then we start to run into a problem.

I don’t know Chey personally, I’ve never even talked to her, she probably doesn’t know I even exist, so I won’t ever know who she is truly. However, overall it appears she just seems like someone who’s deeply angry and very ignorant. At least, I hope it’s simply ignorance. I just really hope that she learns from this and becomes a better person. But unfortunately based on her apology-which only included the misgendering issue and not even the ableist and blatant acephobic issues that she’s had before-it seems doubtful that she’ll change.

Maybe I’m being a bit too nice since I was almost in her shoes once. Not too long ago I was very in the dark about anything having to do with the LGBTQ+ community, and my internalized homophobia was so bad that even if I read a man having feelings for another man I’d be physically ill (Thanks religion). These past five years or so have been a drastic adventure for me. I left the church I was raised in, made several LGBTQ+ friends, and they eventually helped me learn to realize and accept that I am a non-binary bisexual. It was a lot of work and took a lot of time to get to where I am, and it’s sad to see someone who says she wants to be an ally and to be open-minded do little to no research and put little to no effort into understanding the several communities she writes for.

I have no idea if it’s simply society’s conditioning that is inflicting this dismissive and angry gut response from her, or if she’s aware of it all. Either way, it needs to end and change if she ever wants us to believe her apologies are genuine.

What I do know is that who you are and who you identify as is unbelievably important, and the people who truly matter will care about it, because it should be cared about, not swept under the rug of indifference.

We are not the same, and that’s okay, the things that make us different should be recognized and accepted, because that’s what we’ve been fighting for, that’s the respect we desire, to be seen as who we are and loved for it, not to be painted the same as everyone else, not to be shrugged away.

[seewetter]

"In this community, the common viewpoints are as follows:

- Transmisogyny is the penultimate form of oppression, all other oppression either stems from or pales in comparison to it"

Yeah that's not a point of view I've ever encountered. I doubt it will catch on. Perhaps grass touching may help?

"- Transandrophobia is a word that is inherently transmisogynistic"

That gets dragged out of the woodwork every time transmasc people try to describe their own life struggles. I've been on Tumblr since 2011. I've seen them do this when transmascs called their own marginalization "isomisogyny". If people can't ever accept the idea that trans guys have unique negative trans guy experiences when they call it isomisogyny, it's time to give up listening to those people and just do your own thing. Perhaps mock them a little bit for policing your necessary language.

"- Transmascs only face garden-variety transphobia and are privileged by identifying into masculinity"

Yeah, I see that opinion on my dashboard too.

I mean technically, a lot of transmascs do report that people at the workplace treated them better once they presented more male. One trans guy even told a story that Republicans commended him for adopting "the better sex" after telling him they didn't fully approve of his decision to transition.

But obviously transfem-only discourse allows for no sincere engagement with what transmasc people face or what their lives are like. Transfem-only discourse makes it impossible for people to get any idea about how to help transmasc people and presents the liberation of transfems (who have pretty unique problems) as the liberation of all trans people (even though the other part of the community has a in many ways very separate set of problems, not that there isn't common ground).

"- TMA/TME in theory describe who is and is not systemically targeted by transmisogyny, but in practice TMA is used as a synonym for transfems and TME is used to mean transgender individuals who are considered "AFAB". Rarely, TME includes cis women. Very rarely, TME includes cis men. A number of people argue that cis men are in fact TMA because they Could Become Trans Women." Yeah, that last sentence sounds like a TERF psyop. (Wow we use a lot of all caps here, lol.)

Anyway, all the other things you mention in the above excerpt are opinions I've encountered in the wild.

Although I also encounter transmascs who make generalizations about transfems based on a single Twitter user who said a thing that they don't like. Like one transfem went to the supermarket, overheard a conversation between two people and pictured them as transfem people in the making (probably out of loneliness) and shared this fantasy (without identifying the people) online. And then you get a thread with a hundred transmasc people drawing all kinds of wild conclusions about all transfems because they felt she crossed a line. And all of them had zero self-awareness that transmascs also say stuff like that.

What I'm saying is: I agree that tme and tma can be abused. I don't really think this means those terms should get ditched, just expanded.

"Aside from the viewpoints in this community, however, behavior is also important to note. So some notes on behavior common in this community:

- Trans men, transmascs, and anyone who speaks up in defense of them are told, both by people who identify as TMA and people who identify as TME, that wanting a specific word to talk about their issues is transmisogynistic and a show of male privilege (and in the case of transfems, that they are not real transfems)."

Yeah, it's transfem-only discourse all the way babeeeey.

"- Any attempts at discussion in good faith are shut down immediately. People attempting to truly discuss in good faith are met with hostility, mocking, and often hate-filled harassment, moreso the less obsequious they are with their disagreements."

Sure, but keep in mind that the person I'm responding to casually said that "No one is TME". That's not the path toward good faith discussion, because that gives off "I am only here to dismiss YOUR life experiences" vibes.

"- We can understand this as more a semantics argument than a literal one. In this community, 'Man' and 'Woman' are seen as direct opposites. 'Trans Man' and 'Trans Woman' are also seen as direct opposites, rather than as two sides of the same binary coin. If Trans Women have one experience, then Trans Men must either have the same experience (due to being Trans) or one directly opposite (due to being Man), depending on what the argument is. This extends out to transfems and transmascs. "Transandrophobia" as a word is "implying that misandry is real, because it uses the same formula as Transmisogyny, which is Trans(phobia) + Misogyny"."

I don't know how we would explain the existence of entire hate forums like "r/femaledatingstrategies" if misandry wasn't real. That forum is right-wing funded, but it still attracts real people who on the daily say dehumanizing crap about men.

Just because women structurally have less power in society, doesn't mean that men can't be targets of hateful ideologies aimed at men or victims of organized anti-male harassment campaigns.

I personally don't believe that right-wingers are good human rights advocates towards anybody. So having the language to describe what happens when people have their lives ruined for who they are matters.

"- We can divorce Velvet's paragraph about TAA/TAE being unusable because no one will read it in good faith from the statement "No one is TME". These are not a direct comparison. TAA/TAE is unusable because it will not be read in good faith, much as TMA/TME can only be used because it so often is read in good faith (in this community). No one is TME because no one is exempt from any sort of oppression- this doesn't mean people can't face challenges unique to their demographic, but any systemic oppression will dig its roots into everyone alive within that system, and it affects everyone and everything within that system. Similarly, no one is transandrophobia-exempt."

But that's not what Velvet communicated. What you are describing is what the anon ask communicated "no one is 100%" exempt from transmisogyny. But Velvet responded with the one-liner "No one is TME". Yeah, no one is TME just like no one is immune from being misgendered. But the word "transmisogyny-exempt", in normal conversation, refers to people who aren't the intended targets of transmisogyny. Just as misgendering isn't "cisgender people's discourse" because cis people experience it, but not to a relevant extent.

"So when facing a community of people who wholeheartedly believe"

My point is that "facing" that community is pointless. The community you are talking about is simply throwing transmascs under the bus to have some kind of, any kind of trans rights discourse at all that is sensitive to the validity of trans gender identities (usually don't use that term "gender identity" because gender modality is more useful, but I'm trying to explain this in a general sense).

Transfem-only discourse exists to avoid outcomes like: transmasc-only discourse, where the true intersection of misogyny and transphobia is assumed to be transandrophobia and TERFs have easy pickings convincing everyone that trans women are *not really* women and *don't really* experience misogyny, but merely homophobia. And the outcome that both transmascs and transfems are served at the same time-- would be really nice, but obviously then right-wing groups have easy pickings because the idea that transmascs and transfems have problems of equal value implies that something is fundamentally wrong with how people conceive of the kyriarchy (or whatever the kids call it, the oppressive stack or whatever).

"Velvet chooses to use her words to make a point, so that people on the fringes of this community can see how circular their logic is, how their arguments don't make sense or hold up."

This isn't really a political battle that can be won by having good arguments.

I have excellent arguments that disprove the existence of god -- doesn't really work on people who want to believe. I can prove that human-made climate change exists without using inaccessible science! It does me no good.

The political field changes when people create a new reality, a new set of circumstances. They simply assert what they believe, act friendly toward others, organize and make sure they can robustly explain their points. Outsiders see that and simply jump on for the ride.

One-liners like "No one is TME" don't prove circular logic, they're one-liners. Maybe Velvet is reaching out to a demographic that knows what TME means but has their minds blown by "No one is TME". I don't know. But to me, as an outsider, it just felt like a troll's attempt at replacing one set of concerns with another.

"This can help some who are not totally taken in by the community to question some of their own burgeoning beliefs, and it provides a show of allyship to trans men and transmascs currently struggling in the thick of having their experiences and realities mocked and belittled."

I don't know enough & will take your word for it.

To me it seemed like it cultivates transmascs that think their cause is more real, more superior and who disregard conversations about transmisogyny entirely. It actually reminded me of how feminism became a dirty word in MRA circles. That's not me calling anyone here an MRA, just noting a similar rhetoric. Don't see why that similar rhetoric wouldn't have similar outcomes.

"Sometimes that takes the form of 'poking the bear'. I don't think that's what this answer in particular was- again, it was an argument of semantics,"

A one-liner is not an argument of semantics.

"addressing a community that often relies on semantics to tell other trans people that they aren't allowed their own language, or that their language isn't good enough. But sometimes, yes, poking the bear happens."

Velvet literally described the urge to "piss people off" on purpose. That's taking joy in poking the bear.

"No, it's probably not going to accomplish much other than providing cathartic relief for the one doing the poking."

No, it was a semantic argument to win over outsiders in the community *playful snort*.

"Given that 'the bear' is already awake and doing active damage, though, I don't think the poking is the thing to focus on here."

Two things:

Poking does become relevant when it makes you seem like the aggressor to outsiders that are new to the conversation

The bear isn't your main problem. It got chased into the forest by TERFs and by an unholy alliance between progressives and politicians not willing to fund societal improvement, just "minority issues". The bear is forced to choose between (1) the torches of TERFs that will burn you and the bear down (2) the torches of politicians that will burn the forest the moment it becomes inconvenient and (3) you, who are holding a torch not because you're burning the forest, but because the panicked bear mauled your friends and you feel it has become your enemy.

A simple kyriarchic narrative allows politicians to only spend money on the "intersections" of marginalizations. Provide free language learning to immigrants to Sweden? Sure, but only if they have ADHD. Provide social security in South Africa? Sure, but only if they have AIDS.

This results in South Africans injecting infected needles to give themselves AIDS to receive government support.

In the trans community, it leads to people reinforcing that transmisogyny is far more relevant that transandrophobia. Because the alternative is (1) that tme / transmisogyny is not a uniquely transfem problem, that there are no uniquely transfem problems so funding should go to transmascs (2) once funding goes to transmascs, transandrophobia becomes theoretically conceptualized as the intersection of misogyny and transphobia, which then implies that gender identity (gender modality) is not a relevant struggle (3) once that happens, transphobia itself becomes de-emphasized, getting rolled into homophobia or whatever (4) community resources for trans people disappear, as if by magic, because we now have to reinvent a rhetoric that highlights our higher rates of vulnerability.

And as mentioned before, if we try to argue that both issues (transandrophobia & transmisogyny) matter equally, we reinforce the idea that the victims of the kyriarchy aren't easily determinable. Which means that targets for funding aren't easily determinable.

So fighting the bear makes no sense, unless currently being directly attacked by it. Keep your distance and focus on the fire.

Maybe we can't directly turn off the flames right now, but it matters more to transmasc people to connect with them over their problems, than to "heroically" fight a community that brushes those problems under the rug. And if you can address transmisogyny at the same time? People will eventually catch on that you are the most reasonable person in the room and we can all figure out what to do about the flames together.

"Finally, we are building a strong case for transandrophobia. And Velvet isn't saying that transmisogyny doesn't exist, much less building a case against it."

Great. "No one is TME" sounds like casting aspersions on transmisogyny though and that is all I'm pointing out.

"I hope this was able to do that and provide some context, and if not, I hope I at least approached it in a way to make it sufficiently clear that I'm in no way trying to be rude or aggressive or to discount your perception of the conversation as someone who it seems isn't in these particular trenches (which is a good thing, mind you, and doesn't mean you aren't in more reasonable trenches just down the road)."

Thanks for taking care in the conversation. I appreciate it. :)

"cis men are tme" - I think I have some problems with this idea but I'm not sure they make sense. I don't think cis men as a whole are 100% tme bc. I went to an extremely conservative religious high school. In places like that, being anything close to feminine as a man, even if you were 100% cishet, was absolutely unacceptable. Like you would be bullied by your peers and staff for just. DARING to use a pink pen in class. If that isn't a form of transmisogyny that affects cis men, idk what is.

No one is TME.

[meandmybigmouth]

LMAO! BELOW ARE THE THINGS TO WATCH FOR IN AN UNFIT POLITICAL CANDIDATE! FITS A REPUBLICAN TO A TEE!  Name-calling — In a classic case, one politician won an election when he alleged that his opponent “once matriculated” and that his opponent’s wife was a “thespian.” In addition to ignorant or absurd rumors, inflammatory statements that distort truth can be just as damaging. A candidate might, for example, call an opponent’s behavior “wishy-washy” or “two-faced” when it should more accurately be described as flexible or responsive. Don’t be side-tracked, either, by attacks on a candidate based on family, ethnicity, gender, race, or personal characteristics that don’t make a difference in performance. Rumor-mongering — Watch for the unsubstantiated statement or innuendo. Have you ever heard quotes like these in a political campaign? “Although everyone says my opponent is a crook, I have no personal knowledge of any wrongdoing.” “I’ve heard that Jones is soft on communism.” “I can’t speak for Riley or Baker, but I would never have awarded such a low-cost loan to an out-of-state builder.” Legal, perhaps, but dirty campaigning. Such dark hints can sway an election, if voters are unwary, long before a fair-campaign investigation or a slander suit can put a stop to them. Loaded statements — “I oppose wasteful spending” doesn’t say much, and it implies the candidate’s opponent favors it. If a candidate gets away with an empty claim like that, he or she may never have to account for identifying which expenses are necessary and which are just fat. The loaded question has the same effect. Asking, “Where was my opponent when the chips were down about expanding employment insurance?” without mentioning that the bill never came to the floor for a vote is an easy way to distort the facts. Guilt by association — Look carefully at criticism of a candidate based on that candidate’s supporters: “We all know Smith is backed by big-money interest” or “the union has Jones in its pocket.” Every candidate needs support from a wide range of people and groups who may not represent the candidate’s view on all the issues. Judge the candidate’s own words and deeds. Catchwords — Beware of empty phrases such as “law and order” or “The American Way,” which are designed to trigger a knee-jerk, emotional reaction without saying much. If a term defies definition or leaves out great chunks of real life, be on your guard. Try to translate such “buzz-words” into what the candidate is really trying to say. Baiting — Politics is a tough game. But badgering and intimidation are unfair campaign tactics. Think twice about a candidate who tries to make an opponent look weak or out of control by harassment until she or he flies off the handle or says something rash. Spot Phony Issues Passing the blame — When one candidate accuses another candidate or party of being the cause of a major problem such as unemployment or inflation, check it out. The incumbent or the party in power is often accused of causing all the woes of the world. Was the candidate really in a position to solve the problem? What other factors were at work? Has there been time to tackle the problem? Promising the sky — There are promises that one in an elective office can fulfill and problems that are beyond the reach of political solutions. Public officials can accomplish realistic goals, but voters shouldn’t expect miracles and candidates shouldn’t promise them. When you hear nothing but “promises, promises,” consider how realistic those promises really are.