#i can't tell people advocating for a group they belong to

[totisviribus]

As a writer myself, I'm continuously baffled at how JK Rowling wrote Harry Potter. The story is so fundamentally opposed to her hateful views against trans people to the point where it's almost comical. The main character spends seven books fighting for the societal acceptance of a minority group to which he does not belong - it doesn't get any clearer than that. The books have issues, of course (Gringots goblins, Hermione's saga with the elves, etc.), but the overall themes seem to resist everything Rowling stands for. I'm definitely not the first person to point this out, I just can't get over it.

Writing is so personal for a lot of reasons, but the biggest to me is that I believe in the message my writing is trying to send. My book, for example, advocates for having compassion for those with mental health problems, something I strongly believe in. I can write villains or other characters who don't have the same values as me, but I'm not going to spend a decade writing a series where the main messaging is morally opposed to my values. At that point, that would mean that I'm advocating for those values.

If Rowling applied her current worldview to the series today, Harry would likely say that mudbloods detract from his status as a "real" wizard and befriend Malfoy in that moment in the first book before the sorting hat ceremony.

It's difficult to tell whether she's so deluded in her own hatred that she doesn't realize the connection or if her values just changed since she wrote the series. But it's fascinating how the story now lives separately from her in culture, adopted by fans who believe in its themes more than the author does and deeply resent her. Almost like something brilliant was raised from a hateful place, but then taken to a place where it's accepted, belonged and loved. Throw in a half-giant and a squished birthdae cake and that starts to sound like a familiar story.

[cazort]

Leftist, antiracist activists like to criticize the police, but something even scarier than police brutality and corruption has been happening in the community near me.

There is a significant portion of the population in suburban Delaware that harbors both deeply racist views, and anti-police sentiment. These people tend to have far-right views and a deeply punitive mindset; Delaware is a "blue state" and has been relatively progressive about its police policies, moving away from overly punitive policing in recent years.

And some people are irate about it. There are social media posts complaining about out of control crime.

This is woefully out-of-touch with what is actually going on. Delaware had a record low rate of violent crime in 2023, following a brief, temporary surge during the pandemic. Delaware has reduced their prison population too. Statewide total crime has also decreased from 2018 through 2022 as reported by the state, with the largest decrease in drug offenses and a relatively smaller decrease in property crime.

People though have started posting stuff on social media with blurry pictures of people from doorbell cameras, dash cams, and other low-quality cameras. Most of the people in the photos are children or young teenagers. Some of them are employees at work just ringing people's doorbells for presumably valid reasons, such as utility workers, county tax assessers, or delivery people. Occasionally people post photos catching people in the act of a crime, like breaking into a car or damaging property.

A lot of the photos are so blurry it would be hard to definitively ID someone from them, and thus easy to mistake someone's identity. And they're sharing these things on social media and calling for a sort of vigilante justice. And predictably, most of the people being targeted are dark-skinned, which is significant because Delaware is overwhelmingly (65%+) non-hispanic white. It's obvious that these posts are tainted by racism.

When a crime is involved, a lot of people suggest to go to the police, but any time the police are brought up, people start trash talking the police. "The police don't do anything". "Cops are useless." and stuff like that. People are really angry and irate and viciously attack anyone who advocates going to the police.

There is this idea that the police do nothing and the only way to deal with crime is to "take things into your own hands". I don't even know what these people want, because they won't come out and say it, but it's really scary. People are talking about circulating people's pictures, calling them "criminals" and that they need to be "punished". Many of these people, from their other posts, are open about owning guns.

When people talk about defunding the police or abolishing the police, I think it's important to ask the question of what will take their place. As corrupt an institution as the police in the US are, I think it's important to remind ourselves that there can be things worse than the police, and that sometimes, in a power vacuum, whatever institution self-organizes may be worse than the one that existed before.

One of my ancestors was killed by lynching in the south, because he was seen as sympathizing with the Union in the civil war. I also have directly experienced harassment in public for being gender-non-conforming, and also a slew of antisemitic hate comments online targeting me because of my Jewish name, and also sometimes because of my political stances.

I know where this leads and it's not good. People like me (and probably you, reading this) are vulnerable. I belong to multiple groups that would be targeted if vigilante violence became a thing.

I'm white, a US citizen, and relatively well-off. I can't even imagine how much more vulnerable black and other dark-skinned people, immigrants, and poor people would be than myself. But I know they are going to be even more vulnerable.

Take from this what you will. I can tell you what my take is:

We as a society have a deep need to root out both racism and the punitive mindset, and achieving these goals is much more than just moving away from formal policing.

Removing the institution of the police while retaining the racism and the punitive mindset risks devolving into a hellscape of vigilante justice shaped by racism and other biases

In the interim, a functional, even if flawed, police system, with some semblance of respecting due process, is a better status quo than a completely broken or absent police in which vigilante justice (with no due process) takes hold

This is why I am hesitant of rhetoric that universally demonizes the police or calls for immediate or full police abolition. A lot of people see police abolition as a leftist take, but as my recent experience shows, this movement may find an unlikely and unhealthy ally in far-right sentiments, and there is a huge danger in allowing these sentiments to take hold.

When elements of abolition (such as decarceration and decriminalization) take hold, it often strengthens far-right anti-police sentiment, because people start seeing the police as allied to the left, which is ironic because the left often still sees the police as allied to the right.

I haven't seen anyone in police abolition circles talking at all about these occurrences, let alone propose any solutions.

If we want to achieve police abolition, we need a path forward that keeps these unsavory elements under control. And I'm struggling to see that path, which is one thing that makes me think we may need to put the brakes on some of the boldest pushes of the abolition movement.

[uncle-fruity]

They'll also say "this group isn't attacked for their identity so they can't be queer" in the same breath as advocating for people to be normal about [whatever queer identity they have]. They don't like being invalidated and bullied and attacked for their identity, and want other people to treat them well, yet they deem the suffering a key part of belonging to the queer community, which is...a bad precedent. (Which they immediately undercut anyway by bullying & invalidating people they decide haven't suffered "enough" to qualify, as OP was describing.)

If the prerequisite to being queer is that you have to suffer at the hands of oppression & bigotry, then that gives people incentive to stop fighting against being oppressed & hurt by bigots as hard. I mean, obviously queer people are still fighting for rights and respect in a big way, but the younger queer folks/paranoid queer folks/insecure queer folks/etc. who think they need to prove themselves to be part of the queer community will find some twisted validity in oppression & bigotry waged against them, which isn't healthy. If that's a key part of being queer, then what are we when everyone is normal about [queer identity] and we've got rights? Are we no longer queer? No longer a community? Where's the logical endpoint to this kind of thinking?

If ANYONE tells you that you aren't queer enough unless you suffer, that person is not your friend nor anyone you need to respect the opinion of. That's some fire and brimstone religious mindset shit, and that's what a huge portion of us are trying to escape. Me? I want all queer folks to be happy with who they are, to live full lives, to love whoever they love however they want to define that love. And I want everyone to know that no one worth hanging out with will grill you for how queer you are or make you prove it. Not only is that a Very Online thing, it's also just like... not anyone's business. And most people who are actually normal about queer folks don't really care beyond potential curiosity about what flavor of queer you're representing. And even then, you ALWAYS have a right to keep it to yourself. No one is owed a detailed explanation of your identities. You don't have to tell anyone any of the specific identities you are unless you want to. Focus on staying alive and living your truth. Focus on finding people who love and support YOU however you identify.

There will always be gatekeepers. I recommend you ignore them. Block them on Tumblr, don't follow their blogs, etc. And if one gets through to you to harass you? Don't respond, delete that anon hate, block them, and continue having a great day knowing they will not be acknowledged. It will become obvious that they aren't the arbiters of queerness, and that you can call yourself whatever you want, actually. Because there will ALSO always be people like me, who are radically accepting and delight in the wide variety of queer identities. All the folks who get left out of the alphabet mashup, who are often represented with a "+" or whose letters are frequently discarded or misrepresented -- y'all are part of my queer family. And I don't want to see you suffer; I want to see you thrive. I want to see you happy and safe.

also, i really find it interesting how people can genuinely go about saying "Well this group isn't attacked for their identity so they can't be queer " while then turning around and. attacking said group. for their identity. and exemplifying classic __-phobic tropes. It's really dumb. You are being the thing that you claim does not exist

[maddie-grove]

What Can You Do?

A really important part of advocating for any cause is sitting down and figuring out what you realistically can contribute. Making decisions on the fly or in the throes of emotion often leads to doing less than you intended (because you didn’t figure out how it would fit into your routine/budget) or more than you can handle (which leads to you needing to put out fires in other parts of your life, which in turn leads to you...doing less than you intended in the long run). Making a plan is its own step and deserves to be recognized as such. Do not worry that you’re wasting time by planning before you act. I’ve made that mistake before in many areas of my life, and it always led to a lot of unnecessary stress and made me less productive sooner rather than later.

The first thing you can do is think about the resources you have. For example:

Money: Can you afford to give $10 or $100 to charity a month? Or are you barely getting by?

Health: Are you pretty strong and healthy? Or do you have physical conditions that would make it particularly risky to catch coronavirus or be thrown in jail without your meds?

Time: Do you have a decent amount of free time? Or are you having to teach your three kids at home while working at the grocery store, and also you’re moving in two weeks?

Emotional Bandwidth: Do you have a pretty good handle on your stress and sadness? Or are you having a particularly hard time with trauma or mental illness or family issues or working in an emotionally demanding job?

Knowledge: Are you pretty familiar with the history of the people you’re trying to help or the problem you’re trying to solve? Or did you just hear the term “systemic racism” last week? 

Experience/Skills: Do you know how to organize a protest or annoy your representative into doing something or invoke your right to a lawyer? Or are you at a loss of how to apply your particular skills to any of this?

Power/Authority: Do you have a job or hold a volunteer position where you’re able to help the people you want to help? Or...not that?

Freedom: Are you free to decide how you expend your resources or express yourself without fear of violence or destitution? Or are you under the thumb of an abusive partner or caregiver?

None of this is to say that only the strongest, most self-actualized millionaires should be expected to help; it’s just that (a) everybody has to work with their actual circumstances and (b) everybody has strengths and weaknesses in what they have to give. 

If you have a little extra money but can’t watch the news or consume a lot of social media without crying yourself to sleep or having a panic attack? Buddy, no one needs you to watch the news that bad. Donate to the NAACP Legal Fund, ask a politically engaged friend what they’re writing their rep about, and get as much help for your anxiety issues as possible--not just so you’ll be a better advocate, but because you’re a human being and you deserve help.

If you work full-time as a nurse or a legal aid attorney or something else emotionally (and maybe physically) taxing where you help vulnerable people? The most important things you can do are almost certainly going to be related to work. Learn as much as you can about how the cause intersects with your work, and advocate for ways to make things better for your clients/patients, as well as your coworkers who don’t have the privileges you do. Then go home and rest. If you can go out and protest after all of that, you have my admiration, but you don’t have to run yourself ragged.

If you’re a college student, broke and stuck at home with not much to do now that classes have wrapped up? You don’t have to give up eating all protein and produce in order to donate to charity; you can instead take this time to inform yourself and get involved in organizations.

And if you’re truly not able to do anything, because you’re in the middle of a crisis or you’re living with controlling people who will hurt you for even reading the wrong thing? Get away, get safe, get better. Don’t wreck your life to help other people in the short term. At best, you’ll temporarily be in a position where it’s even harder to help others than before. At worst, you’re dead, and never able to help anyone again. Live to help people another day, when you’re stronger and can do more. You deserve a life where you are able to take care of yourself and help others. Everyone does.

Other things to keep in mind:

If you’re unsure whether you’re doing too much or too little, ask another person. I recommend someone who personally knows you and genuinely cares about you, but wouldn’t take your side in a dispute with a third party if you were being a real dick. 

Decide on what you’re going to give and stick to that for a set amount of time. Then you can assess if you are able to do more, or need to scale back.

Don’t worry if other people are doing more than you. If you admire them for what they do and you want to work up to that, that’s wonderful, but your contributions are not worthless just because they’re smaller.

If you’re worried about other people doing less than you (not actively doing harm or not participating because they don’t care or “want to remain neutral,” just doing less than you), channel that energy into helping other people do more. Do some people avoid helping out of bad faith? Of course. Do you always know who those people are and never end up making someone more vulnerable than you feel guilty instead? Nope. Send a petition or one of those streaming videos to your friend you don’t think is that poor, or recommend The Color of Law to your anxious friend whom you privately think should just buck up and get back on Facebook. 

Don’t focus so much on being a good person; focus on doing good things. These can include actions (donating to a mutual aid fund), words (challenging a racist comment), and introspection (reexamining beliefs). The Puritans spent a lot of time wondering whether they were good people, and they actually had some very good ideas about social justice, but they were also mentally exhausted all the time and once accused a one-eyed dude of fathering a one-eyed pig. (Just like in recent Star Wars fandom.) Also, most people, especially people you don’t know very well, put more value on how your actions affect them and those they care about than your overall character. Which is fair.

You can and should listen to people who have activism experience and/or are more marginalized than you are, but no one can be your brains for you. You have to come to an understanding on your own, and that’s okay. 

I’m not a Methodist anymore, but something John Wesley said still resonates with me:

Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can.

This seems like a tall order on the surface, but what I like about it is that it doesn’t tell you how much good you need to do for it to matter. You should try to do more throughout your life, but what you can do always matters. 

[tomakeitbeautifultolive]

Listen, I might be playing the devils advocate, but I don't think Dany's fate in the GoT finale was due to D&D being sexist.I think it was just because D&D can't write for crap.

It’s not about intent.

Allow me to begin by saying that I completely understand the knee-jerk reaction that people have to the term ‘sexism’. It’s very polarizing, and when men read the term, they immediately go on the offensive. That’s not what I want at all. I don’t use the term to alienate or exclude men, I use it because it’s the dictionary definition of what I’m trying to convey:

sex·ism (noun): "prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex.“

That said, allow me to play devil’s advocate here and say that I do not believe the writers intended to have an underlying sexist message. They are more oblivious than they are malicious. It is born of sheer ignorance (lack of knowledge or information) and the privilege to ignore it because, as males, it doesn’t affect them.

Let’s put aside the dozens of articles that came out after the finale calling out the sexism. You guys know me, I like to pull receipts, cite my sources, and throw in some visuals to help aid my point.

For most of the 70+ hours of Game of Thrones, Daenerys actually does not fall victim to these sexist tropes. Honestly, that is what subverted my expectations for seven seasons. That Dany always teetered on the edge of these tired, overused tropes about women, yet she remained steadfast in her ruthless yet good nature, her moral compass was always aligned even if it didn’t match the viewers, and she was a gods-damned hero, straight through to episode four of season eight.

But the demoralizing reality is that Daenerys was hit with trope after trope in the last three episodes. In the final hours of the show, the writers pulled a bait-and-switch, giving us a ‘shocking’ heel-tern whose only foreshadowing was a very bad retcon job full of double standards. And so many fans, such as yourself, justify it. Not because the show foreshadowed it, but because these tropes are so, so ingrained in our brains from decades of media feeding us these narratives that we now expect them.

In the end, Daenerys succumbs to numerous sexist tropes:

'God Save Us From the Queen’ trope

“The Good Kingdom: A lovely, wealthy country ruled by a benevolent king, a wise prince, and a fair princess loved by the populace. But what’s that? There’s a queen? Oh, brother, we’re in trouble.”

Disposable Woman trope

“This character has a familial or romantic relationship with a protagonist, which allows creators to derive heart-wrenching sorrow from her death.”

Evil Infertile Woman trope

“Women are often divided into "breeders” and “the barren,” with the latter coming off as cool and distant at best, and malicious and desperate at worst.“

The Double-Standard Trope

"A double standard occurs when members of two or more groups are treated differently regarding the same thing. Gender is one of the most common causes of double standards.”

Hysterical Woman trope

“This trope characterizes women as less rational, disciplined, and emotionally stable than men, and thus more prone to mood swings, irrational overreactions, and mental illness.”

Woman Scorned trope

“What’s the only type of woman more dangerous than a Mama Bear? A woman who’s been dumped or otherwise done wrong by her significant other. Especially if she’s been hiding some sanity problems.”

Women Are Delicate trope

“Even if women have toughness, competence, strength or stability, it’s less than what their male peers are capable of.”

The Woman Wearing the Queenly Mask trope

“They don’t want a young woman, or they don’t want any woman, or they just don’t want this particular woman on the throne.”

Tropes in and of themselves are not bad, but very outdated tropes that are associated with the emotional or mental ‘fragility’ of women are. Why? Because they reinforce deep-seated and subconscious stereotypes of women that audiences hold.

“It’s just a show/book! Who cares!”

People have been turning to art (including literature) for years for meaning, for philosophical guidance. Most people in my own country turn to one book to both find and justify their morality (the bible).

“Literature offers not just a window into the culture of diverse regions, but also the society, the politics; it’s the only place where we can keep track of ideas.”―Reza Aslan

It’s not just a show. The art and media we consume helps shape who we are, for better or worse. When men refuse to consider the consequence of their sexist narratives simply because it doesn’t affect their own lives, it inadvertently causes harm for others who don’t share their privilege.

And it’s not just Daenerys. She’s just the figurehead.

There was a great article from BBC about how much women actually speak on Game of Thrones:

I can already hear the counter-argument brewing…

“So what? There are more male characters!”

Yeah. There are. And that’s a problem, too.

Of the top-grossing 1,200 films from 2007 to 2018, 28% of films were led or co-led by women. Meanwhile, around 49.6 percent of the world’s population is female.

By featuring so few women and by giving women who are featured 20% of the airtime to speak their minds, the writers are unintentionally devaluing the speech and opinions of women. This inspires the audience to devalue women in a subconscious way.

Whether or not it intended to, Game of Thrones and its shocking 'heel-turn’ has very troubling sexist and political implications (amongst other things).

Go ahead, tell me I’m wrong. Tell me I’m blowing this way out of proportion.

Tell me it’s just a show or a book and every single fan knows how to separate fiction from reality (they don’t, go look at Maisie William’s Instagram comments following her season eight sex scene for proof of that). Meanwhile, here in actual reality, we see things like this:

@thescarletgarden1990 informs me that over in Italy, political figures are using Game of Thrones advertising in their campaigns, too:

Translation: “Invaded by masses of Others? Not Today. Immediate naval block, let’s defend our borders.”

What makes it worse is that, at least Donald Trump, identifies with House Stark. Or, those who rule the northerners. The people who showed their blatant racism toward the only two black named characters. And the writers never bothered to critique the problematic behavior, instead, rewarding their people with independence and driving those pesky evil foreigners ’back where they belong’.

I’ve barely had time to scroll my dash and I’ve already seen a troubling amount of harassment towards Dany fans via anon asks (including myself, though I just block the IP and delete but I wish I’d saved them for proof).

Why? Because the ending justifies their personal narrative, this bad writing confirms their worldview. Meanwhile, on the other side of the spectrum, the same thing is happening in reverse in response to the takedown of a figure like Daenerys Targaryen:

“Khaleesi’s heel turn is particularly troubling for fans who might have felt a true sense of connection to her character following her epic story arc, which has seen Dany escape some awful circumstances to literally walk through fire, free the slaves, bring Dragons to the north and help rally the troops to defeat the Night King. She has basically been Abraham Lincoln, Hercules and Winston Churchill combined into one person riding a dragon.” (x)

The point here is that the show is doing its audience of 19,300,000 viewers a great disservice by succumbing to very outdated tropes and double standards, and sending troubling messages as a result. For instance, a woman can do countless heroic or selfless things, but you should never trust her! She needs to be tempered. Women cannot wield power responsibly. There are endless messages you can take away from this ending and the dialogue that led us to the show’s conclusion (my personal favorite being ‘Cocks are important’).

And the fans who want to say 'you’re overreacting’ to everyone who speaks up against it are only aiding in this ongoing legacy of 85% male writers who get to tell our stories, poorly, and reap all the rewards.

Sure, all of this could be solely the result of ‘just bad writing’…

Nevertheless, it is what it is.

[korrasera]

idk what's going on between you and that exclusionist, but your x=y argument is only wasting both of you guys' time, and you can't tack a "history of a group" as a point against a person from a group that is far from homogenous and fairly recent. "History" is subjective by default and the same (false) argument could be used against inclusionists regarding their haste to sometimes include kinksters/m*ps in lgbt+ and the homophobia some have.

Well, it's a good thing that the history of exclusionism isn't necessary to point out how wrong exclusionism is, isn't it?

Or, to put that another way, going through the history of exclusionism is simply a way to give context to the current debate, not to prove anything in terms of argument.

As an example of what I'm talking about, consider groups that are widely considered socially destructive, like the alt-right. They aren't the children of nazis, they aren't the result of a long standing nazi community, but they're still ultimately built around a core of fascism and are invoking the same exact arguments in a different way. We can use the past to give context to their actions, by noting the way they behave in the same fashion as other groups that ran on fascist ideology, including the nazis themselves. But when it comes to actually pointing out how wrong they are? We don't need to look to the past, it's entirely possible to judge their actions as malfeasant in the here and now by talking about things that the alt-right have actually done.

Furthermore, the same can't be said about inclusion. There's no inclusionist community, there are just people who don't agree with exclusionism, some of whom will explicitly refer to themselves as inclusionists. And in trying to paint calls for inclusion in the light that you have, you're engaging in equivocating, arguing that inclusionists are probably just as bad as exclusionists but in a different way.

For example, your claim that inclusionists tried to include kinksters in the LGBTQ+ community. That's just straight up false. The reason that there's a connection between the two is because going back to the 50s and the 60s in the US, society treated kink and LGBTQ+ as being the same and attacked both groups in similar ways. Both communities found common safety with one another and so there was a lot of overlap between them. In the time since, due to the shift in cultural acceptance of both and the evolution of our language surrounding these kinds of things, more distance has grown between the two, but historically speaking the association was there because we found mutual safety with one another. It has nothing to do with the idea that some people pushed to include kink in the LGBTQ+ community as being analagous to sexual orientation.

In other words, yes, there are people who say loudly that kink belongs in the LGBTQ+ community, but describing them as representative of either inclusionism or either community is ahistorical.

And the discussion around MAPs is even simpler than that. I've never seen a trend of inclusionists arguing for the inclusion of MAPs and the only people I've seen advocating that were people calling themselves explicitly pro-MAP.

Back to the main point I needed to make though. Inclusionism doesn't require a community. Exclusionism is.

Exclusionism is, unsurprisingly, exclusionary. Exclusionists, like TERFs and truscum, identify themselves as such and support the ideology as a whole. By comparison, supporting inclusion is something people just tend to do when they aren't swayed by an authoritarian ideology like exclusionism. In the absence of authoritarian ideology, inclusionism is the natural conclusion.

When you tell most people that something they're doing is harmful or hurts someone, they will stop, apologize, and attempt to repair the situation. When you tell an authoritarian that they're hurting people, they tell you, "Good, they deserve to suffer."

That's really all it comes down to. In my case, my illustration of the history of exclusionism is simply a way to provide context to the ongoing discussion by pointing out that before aces, exclusionists targeted bisexual people, and before that trans people. And if you don't think that history is relevant to what's going on today, well, there's a reason that those of us who aren't exclusionists keep pointing out how exclusionist arguments seem to borrow heavily from TERFs and other authoritarian ideologies.

[caparrucia]

Bias check: I'm queer, non-white and non-American.

I'm gonna be honest with you, I personally don't want to be friends with someone who doesn't instinctively react to "that thing you said/did was bigoted" with "fuck, sorry" as the opening and "I won't do it again" as the closing.

I can't not associate with people who fail that filter, because I live in a society that actively seeks to do harm to people like me, and that means a bunch of people have deeply bigoted and often unexplored and unexamined biases that they've never been confronted about.

A lot of the time there's the issue of safety: not only can I not call people out for their bigotry at work, it is entirely possible I will put my life in real, visceral, physical danger if I try.

And that sucks!

But friendship is something else entirely. And I personally don't think bigotry targeting groups you don't belong to is exempt from it. Because friendship is a personal choice. Friendship can't be coercive the way family and work and many "real world" spaces are. You didn't choose your family and in a lot of cases, you didn't choose your job and you can't afford to be picky about it. A lot of people didn't choose where they live either. They just have to make do.

But friendship is always a choice.

And you just kinda have to make peace with it, that at a certain point, tolerating your friend's bigotry becomes your own.

They're your friend and you love them, and they just happen to be really bigoted in a very specific way. I'm not advocating for dropping every friend who ever said anything problematic, that's purity culture shit. But there's a difference between "someone said something really ignorant once and I didn't feel comfortable bringing it up" and "someone said something really ignorant once and then shrugged it off and refused to acknowledge it when pointed out."

At a certain point, and that point is very personal and varies from person to person, you gotta realize that you're becoming complicit in their bigotry. I personally don't enjoy that dynamic and will distance myself from that kind of person, gently or briskly depending on how aggressive they get when I point out it's super not cool to make jokes at the expense of minorities. It doesn't mean you shun them forever and you deny them personhood and call them names. It doesn't mean you can't still like them.

But I at least can't never really trust them enough to call them friends afterwards.

Because, you know, I can't help wondering if they're telling their friends jokes about me and people like me, when I'm not there.

I'll say this much:

A lot of people who've gone through really awful friendship experiences, usually involving abuse or betrayal, tend to hard-correct their expectations and over-value "loyalty" above everything else.

And while there's nothing inherently wrong with setting your own standards for what a friendship is, you should know that standard is very attractive to serial abusers and financial grifters.

If you do not feel comfortable calling out a friend for bad behavior, that person is in fact not your friend.

Let me repeat that:

If you do not feel comfortable calling out a friend for bad behavior, that person is in fact not your friend.

If you think any kind of calling out: gentle prodding, pointing out a mistake, correcting a misconception or asking them to stop perpetuating any level of bigotry... if you think any of that is inherently an attack, you might have found yourself in the thrall of a narcissist abuser.

Because here's the thing, friends want friends to be better. Friends want friends to be comfortable and happy and not in pain. For someone to be their friend, they need to care about you and your well-being at least much as they expect you to care about theirs. If you're not at liberty of point out when they've hurt you or when they've done you harm? That person is not your friend.

And I know that can be devastating to discover. I understand that sometimes we're in the orbit of very charismatic people and it's disappointing and a little scary when they do something that's wrong - say something they might not realize is racist or homophobic or just plain factually wrong - and there's that moment of panic of, "oh god, am I really going to be That Guy?" But if they're really your friend, if you do care about them, you should have faith in them.

If they're your friend, you should be able to reach out in private and point out the problem, and the reaction shouldn't be inherently aggression and outrage for you daring to speak up. Because if they're your friend, they will be sorry and upset and possibly horrified, that they hurt you. They will ask how to correct and make amends and they will speak with you about how to go about it. Because you not being hurt will be far more important to them, than appearing to always be right.

Just... think about it. Think about your friendships. It's always heartbreaking to realize you care about someone a lot more than they care about you, but it's important to acknowledge it, because that's the only way you can avoid being blindsided.

And there's also nothing wrong with caring more about someone who doesn't really care about you, per se. You just have to be aware that's how it is, and set your own expectations. Knowing is always infinitely more comforting than living with the anxiety of not being sure where you stand, with the people you love.

And if you're in the other side of this conversation, if you're in a position where you see friendship as merely ego-stroking and any kind of challenge to your worldview as an inherent betrayal... maybe take a moment to think about it? Sycophants are really comfy, but they're not really friends. Imagine what it'd be like, if you could actually connect with people, make genuine bonds and actually form two-way relationships, instead of perpetually isolating yourself up in your pedestal of untouchable, unquestionable obedience. Just... food for thought.

[batch83]

Well done, you!

An LSE Journey Essay

Looking deep into ourselves to find our real motivation can be hard especially when everything around us have been going by in a blur. Our true purpose, should we ever find it early, tend to get lost somewhere between making a living, paying the bills, raising kids and running a hundred different errands. Before you know it, you're well into your middle age and wondering where did the last 10 years go. It is in this age that I started to question what my endgame is.  

I was born in the North to Ilocano parents, raised in Metro Manila and educated in both private and government institutions.  I majored in Architecture but majority of my work is in another discipline.  For the past 13+ years in Singapore, I worked, and mostly enjoyed, working in Civil Engineering specifically in Geotech where we do a lot of underground works for tunnels and transport structures.  Such a badass feeling for a female to actually do this in a predominantly male field! I left the Philippines not because there was a pressing need to provide. On the contrary, I have a stable but boring job in the city. I was surprised when I got the call from a foreign headhunter that, at the prospect of new adventures and since there's nothing to lose (they paid for all the expenses anyway), I relented and went along to see where'd I'd end up. Fortunately, fate has been good. 

Being a migrant worker for most of my youth can be quite unsettling.  I have all the time in the world in a new environment full of possibilities, earning a decent disposable income and not saddled with pressing responsibilities. When you're new in a foreign land, the allure of all things shiny are very tempting. It's these times that I went on a spree, a moderate one by standard, but to an Ilocano it's a spree nonetheless.  Year in and out, I accumulated stuff that I liked and like to share with my family. But as my belongings grew and lugging them from one rental house to the next becomes harder, I thought "there must be more to gain in living here than this".  

Enter social media.

I spent numerous hours scrolling, clicking and just wasting time away but it's an upside that I saw an A-LSE sponsored seminar on one of the shared posts. At this point I'm already indoctrinated in the concept of financial management by another OFW (also an admirable Fin-Lit and Social Enterprise advocate) and seeing the A-LSE program page with all the bright faces of the students, my curiosity was piqued. What is this group that makes people come together and learn new stuff to improve themselves? The FOMO (fear of missing out) is strong and I had to join in on the fun. I finally got in a year after putting my name down on the waiting list.

 And so, the grind begins.

 The program started with self-introspection -- who are you, what makes you get up in the morning, what's your mission -- its wading at the rubbish and finding the bits that radiate sunshine. It's the equivalent of doing the Marie-Kondo in your life and removing the clutter.

As a parent, my goal is to give my child the tools and opportunities that will enable him to achieve good things in life. Not great, but good. I can only lead him to the starting line, I will leave it up to him to finish it in ways he sees fit.  Of course, to be able to do that I will need the financial capacity to provide for his primary needs but also to be there emotionally to support and guide him in his decisions. My goal is to show him the dignity in working and the joy of doing good, to impart the values I've learned from my parents, to have fun and appreciate the arts.

As a sibling, my goal to help them finish their tertiary education has been fulfilled. My siblings are now enjoying their chosen professions and has now embarked on new pursuits to ascend to the next level. Next is to help them map out their financial plans for the future -- that's a tactic to make them financially independent and not borrow money from me.

As a daughter, my goal is to see my parents enjoy the latter years of their lives and to help them come into terms that they need to step back and let their children take on the responsibilities on managing their estate.

As a person, my goal to become an instrument of change in however small way I can manage. Running for public office seems the easiest route but as I have no death wish and plan to live a longer-ish life, that's a no-go for me.

My goal is to achieve financial independence in the next decade, to establish my own enterprise, have enough to sustain my health coverage and retirement in the later years and leave a worthy legacy to my family. Lastly, I want to travel every year or every other year to places that are culturally rich and ‘gram worthy.

The 10 sessions have brought immense knowledge and insight about the core competencies of the LSE program. Journals have been written to provide a deeper insight for each session.

For Leadership, I find Tina Liamson's lecture on Migration & Principles of Leadership enlightening. The most fascinating has got to be from Dr. Juan Kanapi's Appreciative Inquiry. This is the first time I've heard of it and it's quite difficult to grasp the idea and can be easily confused with positivity. But at the end, It shows that if practiced AI is not just mind tricks but a powerful tool in realising your full potential.

The best lectures for Financial Literacy are the split sessions of Vince Rapisura and Edwin Salonga. (Edwin's lecture is about Social Entrepreneur but I remembered a lot more on his lecture about Finances, hence…) Who knew studying finance concepts could be this good? And most definitely not boring! I now have a deeper understanding about managing my finances better and learning that my current insurance is shit, which I really need to rectify soon. I can't tell you enough how the things I've learned from these wonder duos are gold. Call me by any other name (read: biased), but Ed's lecture is my most favourite of the lot.

The Social Entrepreneurship sessions have the most gravitas for these lectures carry the main core of the program. They're not all boring, mind you, but can be a bit challenging. The lectures on this series provided many useful tips for future entrepreneurial endeavors and is a big help in formulating our business plan. Other insights for the SE series can be read here and here.

At every journal writing, I try to reflect on what I've learned and think of ways to apply them in my daily life.  Most often I find things and events that need to be tweaked or heavily redesigned in order for it to be aligned with my future goals. Most pressing of these are the consolidation of my assets and liabilities, and making a clear plan on mapping out my finances that will include my son's future education.  The next point is to work on myself and how I carry myself as a leader starting at home. What better place to practice than to apply these learning in the household first? Hopefully, I will be able to improve my inability to forge meaningful connections to people by the time I have to build my own enterprise. I am not aspiring to be Miss Friendship, I'm ok with Miss Effective Boss or even Miss Influencer-For-The-Greater-Good. Tall order, I know, but we're allowed to dream and dreaming is free.

Joining the program made me realise the answer to my question, "So what happens now?" 

During my first few years as a migrant worker, my goal is to save so I can buy gadgets to connect me home. After having a mobile phone, a laptop and the ability to call home any time, ano na? As I enter my 14th year of being a migrant, I've somewhat been able to achieve the things I hoped for. Not the millions of dollars in bank account **fingers crossed**, but a comfortable life. But that restlessness persists. Learning that there are available avenues to pursue these in the Philippines is a big help in making me step into the right direction closer to the things I wanted to become. Programs like these give hope.  With that, I realise that there is more I can do back home than where I am currently at. I have the knowledge; I can share it -- starting with a small group of like-minded people who are willing to help themselves. Acquiring and sharing knowledge is free so I may as well start with that. 

All the sessions have been audio recorded and kept in a cloud that I shared with family members. Many of the things Dr. Kanapi said are the things I so want to say to my father. Sharing it is just a click away, let him hear it straight from the board-certified horse's mouth.  

I also plan to lead the residents in our small sitio towards a better understanding of financial management which can be instrumental in their livelihood. These people have been known in the family for decades. They have worked alongside our grandparents in tilling the land and their children continues to do so. While there have been advancements in their lives, I believe there is more to be done -- better education for their children/grandchildren, opening bank accounts, accessing government programs, using tech etc. I am excited to share with them the different concepts we have learned in the program, and also a good training ground for me to improve my leadership skills.

I highly commend the A-LSE program for striving to make the Filipino Migrant Workers' quest for relevancy and better lives. Much appreciation to A-LSE founding Team and the current secretariat who makes it run smoothly. The past month has been very trying but everyone has been great in providing feedback and extending their hands.  For that, a big Salute! to everyone -- for the team and the speakers who traverse the globe every year. 

As a program alumnus, I will most definitely uphold the values of the LSE in the best way that I possibly can. Sadly, my physical involvement with the LSE will not extend to the volunteer work for the next batch as  I have made plans for the next year that will make it impossible to fulfill my duties on the site . However, I am willing to extend my skill/expertise in whatever way I can as long as it is done remotely. 

Thank you, A-LSE.

Congratulations, Batch 83!

2019 will be remembered as the year I turned another leaf over.

[colorisbyshe]

I'm so confused now. I used to agree that aces weren't LGBT because of how you feel about sex doesn't change who you are attracted to. But with so many people insisting ace is LGBT I decided to go along with it because I mainly want to be nice and make others feel comfortable in their identity and every ace person I've ever met has been some flavor of LGBT also. Why can't we just let cishet aces be respected for being ace without fussing over what specific community they belong in.

“Why can’t LGBT people just stop having boundaries towards their oppressors and just live and let live?”

“Why can’t LGBT people just let their oppressors into the only spaces where they feel safe?”

“Why do you value LGBT safety over cishet feelings?”

There’s nothing nice or kind about telling LGBT people that they must forfeit their feelings of comfort, their safe spaces, and their resources to their oppressors. There is nothing respectful about shitting on the legacy of previous generations of LGBT people who lived and DIED for the cause. There is nothing progressive or positive about LGBT people pandering to cishets yet again in the hopes that they won’t defund us or kill us.

The Pulse Shooting is what cishets in our safe spaces looks like. The Daily Beast article from cishet man exposing gay men in the Olympics through grindr is what cishets in our safe spaces looks like. Want more regular, run of the mill instances of cishets in our safe spaces? Here’s an entire tag for it.

Don’t be cruel and don’t be hateful by forcing LGBT people to accommodate the very people who oppress us. Do better and be better than that.

Want to support aces anyways? Advocate for a separate but allied ace community. Advocate for a less toxic ace community. Advocate for a space that treats LGBT aces as well as it treats cishet aces.

But don’t put the onus on a group of people still being discriminated against and assaulted and murdered.

[castrateurfate]

i am an amab enby person who grew up surrounded by cis-men and has spent the last three years of my life trying my best to unlearn all the bullshit forcefed to me.

the society we live in is explicitly patriarchal. the world around us is built for to uphold the egos of powerful men.

cis men are taught from birth how they can be arrogant souless people. how to be manipulators and how everybody will pitty them no matter what. cis-men are taught from birth until the day they die that, explicitly or not, the world belongs to them. that they go through-out life with next to no repurcussions. "boys will be boys" was the common excuse i always heard. and im sick and tired of pwople down right denying the bullshit that cis-men are indoctrinated into from birth and how it makes most of them have shit for brains or are sleeper psychopaths ready to attack after just one bad day.

not saying you can't be attracted to cis-men, just being explicitly open about the fact that they are taught from birth to be the worst people imaginable.

don't pretend the patriarchy and toxic masculinity just suddenly stop existing just because you have a boyfriend.

cis men are broken fickle creatures with bombs inside their brains and egos to match.

this behaviour is taught, it's not inherent or genetic. and people need to stop playing devils advocate and be more open about the fact that cis-men have life easy because everything in our society has to reflect their needs. society is made by and for heterosexual cisgendered white men and nobody else. stop defending them like a damn pick-me.

ALSO

tell me, when exactly did all cis-men suddenly become trans? five minutes ago? because the last time i checked, the 'T' in TERF stood for 'Transgender' amd NOT 'cis-men'.

Do you speel it like "Tcis-men Exclusionary Radical Feminism" or what?

Stop defending your blind support for all cis-men as if they were a marginalised group by weaponising words like "homophobe" and "TERF" because frankly, it seems you don't understand the definition of them.

Stop supporting the oppressors.

Cis-men will bring death to this world. Stop acting like they're all innocent smol beans.

Fuck cis-men and fuck all those that worship them.

tired of the “sorry you like men lol” mindset. do not feel sorry for me. i don’t feel sorry for myself. i’m having the time of my fucking life rn

[libulanns]

Hello! I hope you don't mind me responding publicly for transparency's sake. I bolded things for the sake of clarity/making the post easier to read/the main points easier to find.

From my POV, gender doesn't exist bc it's not a tangible thing and is only loosely based on the human body. Identity is also not a tangible thing based on immutable physical characteristics. In that sense, neither are "real." (In my understanding) To be Nb is to not identify with gender, so to me that's like saying, "I am [imaginary thing] because I am not [imaginary thing]."  We use terms/labels to categorize people into groups with shared experiences. Given that, Nb is not a useful term because to me, it describes all human beings, because I don't believe we are innately defined or constrained by gender, because gender doesn't exist. Ofc there's definitely universal human experiences, but if they apply to all of humanity, they can't really be considered a group with shared experiences in the same way that say, Americans have shared experiences that differ from Canadians, or people with the same major at a university have shared experiences that distinguish them and their lived experiences while in school and in their future careers from others. What you identify with does not concern me and is yours to choose. If we do not use the same terms/belong to the same group, and if it doesn't pertain to the physical world/reality, it doesn't concern others. So while I don't believe Nb is a useful term that should be used to apply to people, if you personally believe in and choose to apply that to yourself, that is not my business. I'm not telling you are not anything that is intangible/has no basis in reality/the physical world, bc again, it has no definition and therefore no constraints.  That said, sex is not an identity. Sex is an immutable physical characteristic with a set definition and with real constraints; human beings are either male (XY) or female (XX). Sex is a useful categorization of humans because everyone is either male or female, and male and female bodies have different health concerns and needs. Females are also oppressed due to their sex, which is a pressing societal issue that must be addressed in order to be alleviated.  As far as trans "identities" go, it is an issue for me as an advocate of radical feminism to see males state that they are female. For one, this necessitates treating sex, an immutable physical characteristic, as an identity, which is intangible and thus endlessly malleable. This makes it nearly impossible to advocate for feminism/the liberation of females from sex-based oppression, because it also necessitates pinpointing identity as the cause of that oppression, rather than having a female body. Additionally, it would mean that females simply need to identify out of their oppression in order to be liberated, which is completely untrue (Gender non-conforming women are still oppressed on the basis of their sex; including infants who do not understand the concept of identity but still suffer from, for example, female infanticide) and makes female liberation impossible, and thus is anti-feminist.  Further, I am female and have a female body. It is my business if males, who have male bodies, are stating that they are female, because female is a real thing/is not an identity, and cannot be treated as such. So again, whereas Nb is an identity with no physical basis and no set definition or constraints, male/female (sex) absolutely is not an identity, it does have a concrete physical basis, and I belong to the group of humans that have female bodies and shared experiences due to that. It is my place to state simply males are not females and that female is not an identity. It is crucial to my liberation from sex-based oppression (misogyny). 

In short, from my perspective, it's not my place to tell you anything about your identity, but if you have a female body, you are female. And I would in fact say you are a girl if so, because a girl is a female child, and a woman is a female adult. 

I would only believe it is important to tell you you are not Nb if that identity was harmful to your body. As a feminist, it’s important to me that females protect and preserve their bodies. If your identity as Nb, or any identity for that matter, was a threat to your bodily integrity, it would concern me as a feminist. To illustrate, if being Nb caused you to develop gender dysphoria/feel hostile toward your body and lead you to make decisions that would harm it, then I would feel it necessary to tell you your identity was harming you and implore you to stop hurting your female body. 

This is why I believe counteracting trans activism is very important; while I do not know specifically about Nb identities, I do know certainly that females identifying as male is extremely harmful to them because it fuels to the development of or perpetuates preexisting gender dysphoria, and gender dysphoria leads females to harm their bodies via sex reassignment surgery and hormone therapy, both of which increase the risk of cancer, can cause sterilization, and have been found to not alleviate gender dysphoria in many cases but to actually worsen it and other mental conditions such as depression, thus also increasing the risk of self-harm, suicide, and other forms of self-destructive behavior. 

I hope all of that makes sense and is relevant to your questions.

Ok, I hereby want to invite any terf, radfem and/or gender critical person to come into my dms and tell me why I'm not nonbinary.

Like, I want you to explain to me why I'm just a girl and not trans*. I will be open minded and answer any questions you have about me. Ask me anything you need to know to tell me this, I have no limits.

Seriously, I wanna know why I, from your perspective, am not nonbinary but a girl.

Please come talk to me.