#i do not know how to explain to you that structural oppression has both personal and impersonal modalities

[secondwhisper]

"Transmasculine people who claim to be adversely affected by sexism are bioessentialists cloaked in progressive language, discrimination on the basis of ""biological sex"" isn't real!"

Oh right, sorry. I forgot that sexism in medical research means that endometriosis, ME/CFS, migraines, post-concussive syndrome, Raynaud's phenomenon, and so many other conditions are only understudied in women. Of course endometriosis For Men™, ME/CFS For Men™, migraines For Men™, post-concussive syndrome For Men™, Raynaud's phenomenon For Men™, etc., are all well-funded fields of research and totally understood. Medical research cares only about the gender of an individual patient, not the association of a condition with people of a certain gender. Patriarchal devaluation of women's health, women's illnesses being treated as fundamentally hysteric, and (peri)cissexist reductions of any individual to the reproductive system(s) they were born with clearly only affect people whose gender is woman, nobody else.

Wilfully ignorant motherfuckers.

[darlingofdots]

What is a romance novel, really?

So far, the response to this post has mostly shown me that a lot of people don't actually know what a romance novel is, and that's okay! I don't expect everyone to know! However, for my own peace of mind, I am going to do my best to explain what we mean when we talk about romance novels, where the genre comes from, and why you should not dismiss the pastel cartoon covers that are taking over the display tables at your nearest chain bookshop. Two disclaimers up front: I've been reading romance novels since I was a teenager, and have dedicated the majority of my academic career to them. I'm currently working on my PhD and have presented/published several papers about the genre; I know what I'm talking about! Secondly, all genres are fake. They're made up. But we use these terms and definitions in order to describe what we see and that's a very important part of science, including literary studies!

The most widely used definition of "romance novel" to this day is from Pamela Regis' 2003 A Natural History of the Romance Novel, in which she states that "A romance novel is a work of prose fiction that tells the story of the courtship and betrothal of one or more [protagonists]."* People also refer to the Romance Writers of America's "a central love story and an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending" and another term you will see a lot is "Happily Ever After/Happy For Now," which posits that the protagonists must be in a committed and happy relationship at the end of the novel in order to count as a romance novel. That's it. That's what a romance novel is.

Of course it's a bit more complex than that; Regis also posited the Eight Essential Elements which describe the progression of the love plot over the course of the book, and there's a similar breakdown from Gwen Hayes in Romancing the Beat that is intended more as writing advice, but both of these are really useful for breaking down how this narrative structure works. My personal favourite part of the Eight Elements is that the romance opens with a definition of the society in which the protagonists exist, which is flawed in a way that oppresses them, and then the protagonists either overcome or fix it in a way that enables them to achieve their HEA. A lot of social commentary can happen this way!

It can also be a bit difficult to pin down what exactly counts as a "central love story" because who decides? A lot of stories have romance arcs in them, including dudebro action movies and noir mystery novels, but you would never argue that the romance is the central plot. A lot of romance novels have external plots like solving a mystery or saving the bakery. A useful question to ask in this case is whether the external plot exists for its own sake or to facilitate the romance: when Lydia runs off with Wickham in Pride & Prejudice, it's so that Lizzie can find out how much Darcy contributed to saving her family from scandal and realise her own feelings for him. The alien abduction in Ice Planet Barbarians happens specifically so the abducted human women can meet and fall in love with the hunky aliens. There are definitely grey areas here! Romance scholars argue about this all the time!

I have a suspicion that a lot of people who responded to the post I linked above are not actually romance readers, which is fine, but it really shows the lack of understanding of what a romance novel is. I have a secondary suspicion that the way we have been talking about books has contributed to this miscategorisation in a lot of people's minds, because especially with queer books we will often specifically point out that this fantasy book is f/f! This dystopian novel has a gay love story! This puts an emphasis on the romance elements that are present in a book when a lot of the time, the romance arc is just flavouring for the adventure/uprising/heist and we are pointing it out only because its queerness makes it stand out against other non-queer titles. It makes sense why we do this, but there is SUCH a difference between "a sci-fi book with an f/f romance arc" and "an f/f sci-fi romance." I could talk for hours about how the romance genre has evolved alongside and often in the same way as fanfiction and how there are codes and tropes that come up again and again that are immediately recognisable to romance readers, even down to phrases and cover design, and how romance is an incredibly versatile and diverse genre that functions in a very specific way because of that evolutionary process. The same way that dedicated fantasy readers can trace the genealogy of a given text's influences ("this writer definitely plays a lot of DnD which has its roots in the popularity of Tolkien, but they're deliberately subverting these tropes to critique the gender essentialism"), romance readers are often very aware of the building blocks and components of their books. These building blocks (that's what tropes are, lego pieces you put together to create a story!) often show up in other genres as well, especially as part of romantic arcs, but that doesn't make every book that features Only One Bed a romance novel, you know?

Romance is an incredibly versatile and diverse genre and I really highly recommend exploring it for yourself if you haven't. I personally read mostly Regency/Victorian historicals and I've been branching out into specifically f/f contemporaries, and there are so many authors who are using the romance framework to tell beautiful, hard-hitting stories about love and family while grappling with issues of discrimination, disability, mental health, capitalism, you name it. The genre has a very specific image in a lot of people's minds which makes them resistant to it and it's not entirely unjustified, but there is so much more to it than Bridgerton and repackaged Star Wars fanfiction!**

*the original text said "heroines" but Regis later revised this. There is a very good reason for the focus on the heroine in the first couple waves of romance scholarship, but that's a different post!

**neither of these are a bad thing and part of that genealogy that I mentioned earlier.

[fairuzfan]

Tbh this may just be me but my patience for certain people getting mad at being accused of being zionists, and specifically pointing at how they have said that they want Peace and Freedom and it's important to focus on the Humanity of People has become fucking negative (which is all different from when Bibi says he's securing Peace and Freedom as he focuses on the Humanity of Israelis, I guess. Or any time the US has tried it in Pick Your War).

Either explain your material goals or accept that people will get mad at you when you refuse to elaborate on your puddle-deep statements. Politics is material conditions all the way down and the current material conditions are that Palestinians are being massacred by a genocidal state whose heads have repeatedly affirmed that intent!

Badly paraphrasing Kwame Ture here, but any analysis that excludes the oppressor will blame the oppression. The presumption of a need to make Both Sides Understand And Communicate assumes that Palestinians hold significant structural power here and have the ability to come to some theoretical political table—that they are thus doing this, effectively, to themselves, because they don't prioritize Humanity and Peace and Freedom enough. That's what good vibes politics gets you.

(I am so sorry for this being long, I am just, so furious with it, especially after I learned today that an old classmate was hurt by former IOF soldiers w/skunk spray during the Columbia University SJP protest. Just. Goddamn.)

I think you put it into words really well in that there are no material analysis of actual concrete steps theyre providing or stating that Palestinians haven't already said better and more often and they tend to pass it off as their own ideologies rather than... you know... recognizing Palestinians have been fighting this fight for 3-4 generations. Like a guarantee you any discussion you've had we've already had amongst ourselves. So like actively excluding us from those discussions — which is nothing new btw we've always been excluded from them but this time it's easier to push back — is in fact doing harm and refusing us a way to advocate for ourselves.

Truly I've seen it all — there is no way to "peacefully" live under occupation and subjugation for Palestinians. Like no, man that doesn't exist. Even within Israel, Palestinians aren't referred to as "Palestinians" they are referred to as "Arab Israelis" like we cannot even claim ourselves as Palestinians.

You have to acknowledge that at a certain point you yourself are contributing to the dangerous atmosphere by making everything "too complex" to get anything done. I remember there was a talk with Amjad Iraqi (a contributor to al-shabaka who grew up in israel but is palestinian) and another podcaster who is... peak liberal zionist lol but i listened to it cuz amjad was there — that the Podcaster was saying (paraphrasing) "there's an equilibrium of 'freedom' for Palestinians and 'security' for Israelis, and one side pushes the other side further and further away from the center where they could meet so how to you think we reconcile differences" and amjad responds in a way that I admire (paraphrasing) in that he mentions that from the beginning of this equation, zionism has always had the upper hand in that all their demands have been met and self determination for Palestinians have never been recognized (end paraphrase) so it's not equal to say "well we want peace for both Palestinians and israelis so let's block off Palestinians from discussing definitions for these terms" that fundamentally impact them in ways they will never impact nonpalestinians who would BENEFIT from maintaining the status quo.

Within the article from Alma they say "do something vulnerable and ask the other person what their definition of zionism/antizionism is" as if there aren't very transparent people in this world that want "peace" and don't want a ceasefire. Like that's actually the predominant opinion in the world. They straight up say "the only peace in the middle east is if we get rid of hamas so we can't allow a ceasefire" and people run by that definition and say "sorry Palestinians :( we gotta get rid of hamas :( there's nothing we can do about this.... its for peace :("

So I think you're doing far more harm by pretending there's a cognitive difference between zionist and antizionists that theyre just not communicating, which, zionists are very obvious about communicating (which also, it's necessary to boost Palestinians when defining antizionism in this case because when we point out the very real harm of things affecting us we would like a say in how people define the movement meant for our liberation). But the article never said that throughout the entire thing. It just said "maybe you guys have a cognitive dissonance of words" but like.... at this point, if you still ally yourself under the term "zionist" with literally all we have been screaming these past few months then no, I don't think you're necessarily operating in good faith.

And like I don't think tri*utary is a zionist necessarily but they're certainly a zionist sympathizer and like I don't trust them either.

[redditreceipts]

hello! i wanted to ask a question, this may be personal for you, so feel free to ignore if it is. im a woman, and im in a relationship with an autistic woman, we are both in our early twenties. i know for a fact that we have different views on the gender and trans thing, and so far it hasn't been a problem, but sometimes she says she doesn't understand gender and that she doesn't really know what she is, but she's also doesn't identify as non-binary. sometimes this kinda bothers me, because sometimes it's like she understands and is sure that she's a woman and there isn't anything wrong with that, and sometimes she says stuff like that. you also being autistic, do you maybe have some kind of insight on this, something that can help understand her feelings (both for me and her)? i want her to know that gender literally doesn't matter, but i feel like the way i've explained it in the past doesn't resonate with her or maybe I don't make myself clear hahaha if u could help I'd appreciate it a lot! thanks in advance :)

heyyy :) sorry first of all for the late answer, and say hi from me to your girlfriend!!

First of all, what exactly is it about gender that your girlfriend doesn't understand? I personally think that even before I became a feminist, I did understand gender in the same way I understood ableism for example. What I didn't understand was the enthusiastic participation in gender. Why would people identify as the offensive stereotype patriarchy had prescribed them? It was a mystery to me. Maybe it's the same for your girlfriend?

If I was speaking to my younger self, I would try to explain that most of the apparently arbitrary social norms that neurotypicals put up with are actually not that arbitrary. For example ironing your clothes: it might seem stupid and ridiculous that neurotypicals only want to go out with ironed clothes, because it literally doesn't make any difference in hygiene or anything else whether your clothes are crinkly or not. But the social signifier for ironed clothes is that you show the other neurotypicals around you that you have your life under control to such a degree that you have time and energy for such superfluous activities like ironing your clothing.

Gender is another social construct that seems random on the first glance, but is actually a mechanism to enforce social control towards women. Women are told to be meek, quiet, submissive, subservient, pretty, etc. This has been the case for centuries. But how did women cope with it? The thing for neurotypical people is that to endure the injustices of social structures that they are subjugated under, they have developed a system of justifications not only towards others but towards themselves. This lessens the pain of existence under an oppressive social system. An example is the fact that many members of racial minorities report themselves that they and other members of the same minority are inferior. It may seem stupid on the first glance, but it's actually a mechanism of survival - like a child that gets told that they are stupid, and the child then goes on to tell themselves that yes, they are really stupid and they deserve this treatment. People of all marginalised backgrounds start to grow into the stereotypes that are perpetuated against them, to lessen the pain of being falsely characterised as inferior - if they actually are inferior, there is nothing wrong with their oppression, right? This is the process of internalisation. It's a mechanism of self-preservation. Women, who have been treated as less than for millenia, have mastered this art of internalising the false narrative that is told about them. And that's where identity comes into play. Many women have mastered this art of self-delusion to a degree that they actively identify as the inferior stereotype that men have made up for them. Gender has become so naturalised that an entire movement has formed around the idea that gender is innate, unchanging, literally connected to your soul - and seeing it that way, you kinda get it, right? It's so much less painful to act as if your own dehumanisation is not something imposed, but rather something innate.

But the truth is that it's not. Gender is not something productive, and gender categories have to be abolished. Not feeling like any gender is a human's natural state and the only path to liberation for women is to let go of it. Nobody inherently identifies as any gender, and autistic people are less likely to condition themselves into doing so. Autistic people not feeling like any gender is the sign that gender is not inherent, but rather social. And in the end, that's a good thing, right? Because what else but oppression, violence and pain has gender ever brought upon humanity?

I think that it's also important for you (the person writing this ask) to acknowledge that even though your girlfriend might not identify with any gender stereotypes, it's possible that she doesn't want to be very gender non-conforming. I know that if I'm gender non-conforming, because of that and my autism, I just get treated like a child. People talk to me like I'm severely developmentally stunted, which is why I do try to present myself as more "adult" (as in using make-up, certain clothing items, perfume, etc.) It's not because I like it, but because I kinda don't want to deal with the double discrimination of being autistic and gnc lol

So yeah, I hope this helped you a bit (even though I've been very late in responding - sorry for that again!) I wish you and your girlfriend the best! ❤️

[olderthannetfic]

https://olderthannetfic.tumblr.com/post/738837493190934529/httpsolderthannetfictumblrcompost73871242031#notes Oh it's definitely not. Otherwise I wouldn't be looking for a word for it. That's why I explained what I meant, because I kinda knew that author's voice would probably be wrong.

Interesting to find out more about it though. Heard it thrown around here and there, but was never sure what it actually refers to.

Though I wouldn't even say it's an OOC issue, because it happens in original works too, so technically it could be considered "in character." I have encountered it in both fics and original works, and an additional quirk of that writing is that the character/s will have mindsets that don't match the world they're in, or it will be so over the top that it comes across as an unwanted parody just by the tone of the story.

Weird meme speech, pop culture references, dialogue/monologues that sound like the author just copy-pasted from their twitter/facebook rants, and a lot of that superficial knowledge on topics/issues/problems that is key for all that mouth frothing.

There's also often this weird poorly blended mix between ideas they like and the world, that makes it even more obvious. Like if they write a story where they want to show a the backdrop to be this super oppressive world where everyone has base level education to not have an uprising. Our main lead though, for some reason is the one unique individual with all the knowledge of a modern internet user, and has seen right through everything, but the story never explains why. This is super popular with both further on the edge sides of the political spectrum, and it screams mouth piece to the max and a lack of reflection.

Why does this character know everything when the Government is apparently so effective that no one questions anything? Fuck you, I'm the author and I wanted to show how smart I am and how stupid everyone else is. Here's my facebook/twitter rant!

I know it technically is bad writing, but it's such a specific type of bad writing, and it happens so frequently I would love a simple name for it.

--

Interesting to find out more about it though. Heard it thrown around here and there, but was never sure what it actually refers to.

Re "voice", it's the set of things that make you go "Ah, this sounds like X wrote it", basically. The actual POV might be a specific character, in which case, X is trying to sound like that character, but they still have a particular way of writing that's a little different from other authors trying to write a similar character. It's even more obvious in nonfiction.

Like... on tumblr, I sound like me. Sure, some of it is my actual personality or views, but there's also just the manner in which I write. I could have the same personality but communicate it differently or more poorly. How often do I use big words? How often do I use slang? How many clauses are in my sentences? In my case, I do kind of sound like this out loud too, but that's never a guarantee either. A lot of it is about the writing craft the person has consciously cultivated over time.

I think subject matter can be relevant to voice, like authors who love to describe food in every work or something, but a lot of it has to do with whether the person is funny overall or what kind of sentence structure they tend to go for. It's a broad vibe thing.

(Certainly, horrid PSAs are part of some authors' voices, but you can use the term to describe any general "Sounds like so-and-so" vibe.)

Honestly, the thing where only the protagonist is ~So Special~ that they alone have twitter brain see through the evil government is one of the obnoxious traits readers often brand as a Mary Sue. That's certainly not the term for this whole phenomenon though.

[basedkikuenjoyer]

A Tale of Two Hannya: Art Imitates Life

These are always kind of a trickier beast to write because by design the comparison casts a more negative light on a popular character. But they tend to be well received. Living near the path of peak totality for the big US eclipse, had me wanting to finish this one sitting in my drafts because well...we have both sun & moon themes as well as a dynamic of "upstaging" each other. Which is kinda cool. I really do think, when taken together, Kiku & Yamato give you one of the most interesting dynamics in this massive series despite the two faces almost never appearing together.

Let's step back a little though. Why? Why would our author structure so much of Luffy's story in Wano through the top two new faces for the arc? Almost splitting Luffy's story in half with mirror opposites; humble and helpful followed by flashy yet flawed. Pitting organic bonding against the spotlight. A very straightforward and earnest trans woman foiled by a deliberately inconsistent and ambiguous character falling somewhere you'd call transmasculine. Our Crane Wife and our Dragon's King's Daughter, forget the plot of One Piece for a moment...what's the reflection of our world they mirror?

As gross as it is to compare oneself to Doflamingo, I promise I'm going somewhere with this. And, to be fair I can think of a few specific people who'd make that type of comparison about me. I like to think I use my powers for good, but anyone with them would say that. Touched on it a little with the Otohime side story but over the 2010s I had my little strings in just about every corner of LGBT activism throughout a region that's now a solid gay haven in a conservative state. For the first half of that decade, it was thrust upon me because people saw how solid a representative a young, cute, well-spoken lady would be at diffusing old stereotypes. An MA in Political Science helped too.

Because it's currently Ramadan still, I'd like to share one story I feel was a high watermark and how it rippled in a way that is gonna shape my outlook here. When I noticed there was a shift. One I felt trepidation about aspects of initially and today feel vindicated seeing how Gen Z views their elders. It was Ramadan a fair few years ago now, while part of a board for something I got to know a local Muslim leader and his wife. They were used to inviting other community leaders to join them for Iftar, the fast-breaking meal. They wanted to show their young progressive members they were listening and respectfully invite someone trans, remember these are often very sex-segregated places. Even if there were some livid hardliners most of the women really liked me and you could tell it meant a lot to some of the older teen girls who really wanted to square more progressive beliefs with their faith.

Late 2010s, so if I told you there was backlash in queer circles guess who. More or less entirely people who'd fit that college radfem to transmasc mold. "I'd have gone to the women's side in solidarity and liberated those oppressed women being soo radical." "Don't you think what Rhea did was you know, kinda problematic? If I have to explain to you how it's low-key cultural appropriation I don't even..." "They only picked her because she acts like a little Barbie doll." Yes, that last one is peak feminism. They can call me wicked if they want; at least I was called to serve while they were all just rabble-rousers who decided they were the only morally pure enough ones to be local leaders. That's what this was all about, politics.

If you ask me personally about the current state of trans movements? It kinda comes down to that. Most Milennials, trans women, men, & even nonbinary folk, tend to use the community as a temporary safe haven but acceptance has come far enough it tends to stay temporary. Gender is but one aspect of our identity, the hugbox and group chats about pronouns only really feel like they're giving you something for so long. The holdout? In my experience that tends to be trans men or transmasc enbies who took a half-step before coming out in the relative privilege of radical feminist spaces offering a little space within. I don't have a whole lot of animosity towards these guys...it just feels like sometimes it becomes all of our problem when that radfem space pumped you full of a distorted vision of "male privilege" and you feel jilted you didn't get that by waking up one day and saying you are now man.

Was Eiichiro Oda going for all that? Fuck no. I was a longtime leader of a local movement, he's a cis author on the outside looking in. Better way these two make sense is more an author being aware enough (Japan had a similar trajectory over the last decade) these two serve well as standins for the extremes of what a teen today sees about this transgender community. Okama type caricatures just don't work anymore. Transmasc nearing 30 who feels like they don't even know what they want? Playing word games that feel like you never stopped and thought how they'd sound to other people? Chasing an idealized version of masculinity? It's not exactly an uncommon sentiment. It's a side-effect of finally getting that long sought visibility...scrutiny goes hand in hand.

It's a Tale of Two Hannya because it's weaving in the story of one community experiencing a Tale of Two Movements. Two movements that are at times diametrically opposed (foes). That's where the upstaging or "eclipse" aspect comes in. The way beats for one influence the other even without trying. Why Yamato's the one trying to find a place and Kiku's already dealing with average pressures of being a woman. Regardless of how you feel about that personally, you have to at least acknowledge this is the general impression teens today seem to have. Hypothetically, you could get the same effect between a more clear-cut trans man and someone kinda like Kamatari.

Ultimately, Wano is about who we are vs the roles we play. We see other places where themes of just saying you fill a role doesn't mean you are. I've said Yamato's a gentle critique of the extreme "you are what you say your are" side of trans movements. I understand why people would want to see things that way, but gender is a social phenomenon. For the record, I do think it low-key radiates dude energy to not care about shit like cannonballing tits out into the main bath, no one should have to act a certain way and all that. But it's a good pair for demonstrating where we're at in general. The emotions they evoke out of readers are a good reflection of where young men are kinda at on all this trans stuff. And both are still portrayed as cool, friendly people. But I do see where it's coming from when Oda shifts that classic immaturity element from Kiku more to Yamato.

[is-the-fire-real]

judío por elección (part 3)

(part 1. part 2. part 2.5.)

"I think," I told my wife the other day, "we're gonna have to use the mikvehs for women."

They made a face--a nose-wrinkly sneer, equal parts anger and tired.

"It's about what I expected," I said.

"Yeah," they said, "but still."

One of the reasons my wife and I chose to convert at this moment is because we want children, and we're about to take that step. As adults, we have both been far too smart for church. They were mainstream Protestant, I was Mormon. They stopped attending. I got my baptism revoked (a real thing that really happened, I have the paperwork and everything).

The one community we've had for the past couple of decades has been the LGBTQ community. We both assumed that queers meant it when they talked about protecting queer and trans children, as well as the children of queers and transes. So we ignored all the microaggressions, hints, signs and omens that we weren't welcome. We told people how impossible it was for us to have kids. They'd cluck their tongues and offer sympathy and support, but only so long as our problems were structured in a way they cared about. In a way that theoretically reflected their own oppression.

Our tales of how we couldn't adopt, do IVF, or "simply" have unprotected sex with a total stranger who wanted no parental rights were restructured as being about institutional homo/transphobia. A cautionary tale. Proof that the listener's antinatalism was justified, for see what befalls those foolish fags who actually, ew!, WANT to breed!

"You guys are dinks! That must be nice," said an asexual friend of mine. She had to explain to me what dink meant. I was privately appalled that someone who knew for a fact we desperately wanted children would talk about how great it was that we were double income... no kids.

No kids.

There's nothing you can tell me about human reproduction that I haven't thought of. My wife and I have put more thought into this than any hundred couples you can name. We have both done therapy, research, and soulful self-examination in the name of Not Passing On The Trauma. I was girled as a child, and so I know all the work necessary for being a parent. We've tested each other for years with "What if the kid's a jock? What if they really like Marvel movies? What if they want to go to church?" kind of questions, and all of the answers we give amount to something like this:

Parentage is the only relationship where the other person in the relationship is supposed to move away from you. Always, they're moving away, and that's how you know you've done it right. The child begins inside someone's body, and they end up their own human person, and that's as it should be. If you perceive being a parent as having a relationship with a really cool person, then you're going to have a good relationship with them. If you want an adorable creature to pour all your unmet needs into, get a fish tank.

Anyway. In the last year, my wife and I have started letting folks know we are taking serious steps to have a child. I'm not getting specific on the details online, because my child will deserve to have their privacy and I don't want to divulge their journey as though it's mine.

But slowly, one by one, as they were told of this intent, all the queer and trans folks we know withdrew from our social circle.

"I'll just pick up a trans kid from the adoption agency if I want one." "I've always thought of fostering queer kids." "Why can't you just custom-build a child genetically with IVF?" "Won't you be angry if the child isn't really, y'know, YOURS?"

As though having a child is a matter of indulging my own selfish whims. As though any fostering or adoption agency has ever been open and happy to let queer or trans folks walk right in and customize who they're willing to foster or adopt. These reactions are, to be frank, cruel and brutal, and they center what should be good news on the recipient's own anger at their own parents. I don't mind providing you support, but it's fucked up how my sharing good news keeps turning into other people demanding support.

It leaves my wife and I feeling like maybe this whole Friendship and Community thing is actually one-way.

"Maybe you keep running into people who are toxic or self-centered," one might suggest, "and that's not the whole community!" And... sure, that's possible. It's possible that the dozens of queer and trans folks I've met are not representative of the community to which they belong. But it's also possible that this hypothetical one is demanding that I offer compassion and understanding to folks who completely refuse to offer it in return, who will argue that expecting them to be compassionate or kind makes relationships "transactional" and something-something capitalist pigs.

The only people we've met who were queers and who were also enthusiastic for us to have children are, like us, rural folks who are not exactly Part Of The Community. They don't go to clubs or surf the internet--there's no signal at their house, and anyway, they're too tired after breaking their backs doing farm labor (or being disabled) to drive for two hours to drink with strangers.

Anyhow. This response has thrown a lot of things in relief for me. I don't want to be around people who despise my child in advance, or me for having them, and I don't care if those who despise me are right or left, cishet or in the community. I don't have time for people who hate me.

I want my child to feel welcome among a community, a group who will embrace them and teach them and make them feel like they're a part of a greater story than one I can tell them by myself.

When we told A we would have to skip a Jewish community event because we were getting IVF, he called us almost in tears. He was happy. He talked about how a community without children is dead. He reassured us that while our children won't be born Jewish, given when we'll get dunked, they will be as soon as possible. That our children will be adored and taught to be sephardim from the beginning. And he insisted that he would pay for the bris, if the child needs one.

This guy I've known less than six months did more to make us feel welcome and safe than folks I've known for decades.

But. But.

The Spanish Jewish community has not recovered from the expulsion in 1492. Then, it's estimated that despite multiple massacres wrought by both Muslims and Christians, the Jewish population was at 100,000. Nowadays, it's somewhere between 13,000 to 50,000, depending on how you count. Accordingly, there are, to my knowledge, three mikvehs in the entirety of Spain.

The one we will have to use is operated by an Orthodox community. I am still pre-everything and my wife does not think medical transition will help them. Hence my telling my wife we'll have to use the women's mikveh. And I've come to slowly realize that in all likelihood no one will give me a bris or a substitute shedding of blood.

And... well. I get it. I'm coming into someone else's house. I need to follow their rules. I am not in a position to shop around. It's not like there's a surfeit of choice for either of us.

So I tell myself this is necessary as a sacrifice for the child. And I tell myself I won't ever tell them about this.

But it would be nice if there were a community where I could tell somebody.

[aronarchy]

person on twitter:

You shouldn’t put your kids’ private info (including details of their personal lives) or faces/pictures online until they both are old enough to be fully informed about all of the risks of being online and, while being informed of those risks, consent to you doing that. 😁

Once you put your kids online, you can never fully take that stuff offline. If they grow up and decide that anything you chose to share about them isn’t something they want to be publicly available for literally everyone on the planet, they have no choice. You took it from them.

We say “the internet is forever” for a reason. Even if you delete all the posts, you can never fully erase them. All the time that the posts were up doesn’t just disappear, either, so it’s already affected them. No other permanently life-altering decision is treated so casually.

Kids have a right to privacy and autonomy. If you care about them you will protect that right, even when it’s boring or inconvenient to do so.

As for sharing anonymized info about your kids online without their fully informed consent: it isn’t actually anonymous if too many details are shared, if not enough details are altered, or if you aren’t fully anonymized yourself. Also, anonymous stuff can still hurt your kid.

Even if it’s anonymous, if you find out someone publicly posted online about a very sensitive private issue like a mental health crisis or an embarrassing experience, you probably would feel pretty violated. Kids, like you, are people, and have feelings.

There are certain things which are anonymous and innocuous enough that it’s probably fine, like “I made my kid a grilled cheese today and he dropped it on the couch” probably won’t do any damage, but you don’t realize just how immensely careful you must be about that stuff.

Things which to you seem like innocent funny stories might be really hurtful to your kid if you share without permission. If you’re sharing online, you can never take it back—if that hurts your kid, it hurts them for life. Every time you post about them, remember that.

.

there are probably some exceptions and nuance to this but I really think that posting your children online without their consent, whether it be private stories about what they said or did or pictures/video, is a major example of patriarchal youth oppression and dehumanization 🧵

when you think about what parents are posting private details about what kids, it’s usually the disabled kids who have their privacy violated the most, particularly autistic ones

I know so many stories of those kids growing up to be traumatized and horrified as teens/adults

you’ve also probably seen the transphobic/TERF abusive parents who share extremely sensitive and private information about their trans kids without those kids’ consent, often to make public transphobic attacks against them and to reinforce their own oppressive power

I remember one post went viral on here a while back of a 15 year old trans teenager making a reddit post explaining about their TERF mother’s transphobic posts about them, apologizing for the trans kids their mother has hurt and discussing how much it had hurt them to experience.

they mentioned specifically that their internet use was being monitored and so they didn’t have much time to write the post—they did not even have the autonomy to speak about the abuse they endured publicly, to fight back. posting about them was an abuse tactic for their mother.

so, also, was internet surveillance. the oppression of youth is structured so the youth are always being monitored, surveilled—and they are given the least awareness of the world around them possible, caged in to the oppressive environment. this is hugely exemplified online.

the most marginalized kids are made into a dehumanized online spectacle by parents. almost always, when private or sensitive info about a kid goes online without their consent, it’s “look how disabled/queer/weird this creature is, look how good of a person I am for tolerating it”

or, sometimes it’s not even as polite as that, and it’s more like “do not believe my child or people like them when they tell you anything, believe me and people like us, the people who oppress them”

there is a great investment in discrediting the voices of marginalized youth

again, there are probably exceptions to this, but not as many as people probably think—even if it’s not harmful, informed consent should be required from a child before permanently putting their info or face onto the internet, an irreversible and potentially dangerous thing

the reason it’s so hard to talk about this is that the vast majority of people agree with the patriarchal oppression of children, even if they think they don’t—they laugh at the idea of children having rights and autonomy, of needing their consent to do something to them

[kinetic-elaboration]

April 2: The Expanse 1x08

I don’t think this was my favorite episode of the show, although I will give it credit for getting interesting toward the end and finishing on a high note. The whole first half was just wandering around the ship, though, which I’m sure was supposed to be mysterious and suspenseful and a little horrific, and I did want it to be, but which struggled to hold my attention. I kept zoning out because I couldn’t really see anything and didn’t know what I was looking at. Also, I feel like this show could really benefit from a ‘last time on’ style recap. The art of the recap has definitely been lost in the age of streaming but like not everyone binges everything all the time. And even if I were binging this, there are details from episodes 1 and 2 that are now coming up again in episode 8 and like… how am I supposed to keep track of all of that?

Anyway. I’m really starting to enjoy the energy Alex brings to the crew. He has the vibe of the tech guy in the heist: he’s not breaking into the bank but he’s out in the inconspicuous van with his super computer and his headset, mic’d into everyone’s ear, saying things like ‘there you go beautiful’ to a lock he’s picking remotely through the use of binary code. And I’m into it. That’s not really the role I thought he was going to have but here we are. Almost makes you wonder if Dr. Feelgood would have become less annoying with time, but here we are.

I do really love Eros and the thought and detail that goes into these sets. It’s another way-way-out-there space station but it feels totally different from Ceres. Like, not just Ceres but worse. It has a different mood, different color scheme, and I definitely got that ‘jewel of the Belt fallen into disrepair’ vibe I think they were going for. The hotel was sort of 70s, the people were sort of all giving ‘secretly in the Mob’ vibes. The shoot out felt like anther genre sticking its head in all of a sudden, like 70s exploitation flick, but not in a bad way. The thuggish security felt oppressive, and notably different from Star Helix, even before Miller’s friend started explaining more about them, right from the landing of the craft. We’ve been teased for a while that this a Really Bad Place and I feel like it’s living up to its reputation.

It’s of course exciting that the different threads of the narrative are coming together: that we’re seeing Miller and the Rocinante crew in the same place, and finding out that they are both looking for the same person. The thing is that I don’t remember enough details to really know what I’m watching here. I can see the structure of threads coming together but I can’t get any more specific than that. They’re after the same McGuffin, but… why again? Absolutely no idea what Fred Johnson wants with Julie or if we’re supposed to understand them as working together or not. I get that the Thing at stake, the thing on the level above Julie, what she was maybe searching for or maybe using/transporting or maybe trying to destroy and definitely killed by, is some sort of weapon, probably bioweapon, and it likes light or warmth or something. But who created it, who has it, who knows about it, who wants it, and how it relates to the reign of terror that’s been following Holden and friends around this whole time is like complete question marks for me right now. It’s like I’m reading a story in a language I’m not quite fluent in: I can get a lot of the big picture and get a general sense of things, but I lack a lot of vocabulary. The noun did verb with the noun to the noun.

Julie is still very mysterious and confusing to me, and I hope that in the next couple episodes we find out more about her. She seems more mystery than person a lot of the time. I’d like to get real answers so she can feel more like a human and less like an object or plot device. But—I hope I’m not sounding mean or harsh because I am still basically just along for the ride and having a good time on it—I feel optimistic that I will.

[starberrywander]

I am once again talking about the patriarchy and feminism. I want to explain why I think my approach to feminism is so incompatible with the approach of radfems, and why they frustrate me so much. I think the best place to start is with describing my view of the patriarchy. 

(Warning: this post is going to be very long)

At the core of our culture and society is a strong emphasis on power. Being strong and able to command your reality is seen as the highest priority. I don’t know where this value came from, but having a society where being in control is a core value leads to a lot of corrupt and destructive behavior. This value is at the core of colonialism and imperialism, which is about controlling as much land and as many people as possible. The bigger the nation you lead/defend (control) the more honor, respect, and status you receive. The better off in society you are. 

But how can you control the world if you can’t control your own country? This society values power so much that it is taken as a given that a leader has to have control over their people. The leader has to do whatever it takes to ensure their country is operating as a single cohesive unit, which by extension means that anyone getting in the way of the goals of the country (the leader) must be punished. 

But people want to do their own thing. They don’t wanna just follow commands, they are their own people and they want to make their own decisions. So when faced with this conflict of interest and outnumbered, how do you gain the control to command these people who don’t respect your authority? The answer is violence. It has always been violence. Combined with strategy, a violent force can withhold resources and destroy essential items to weaken the people who don’t want to follow them. They can beat the people into submission. But if you just leave them alone after that they will begin to rebuild and go back to being independent. So in order for “order” (meaning the whole area as a cohesive unit working for the same goal) to be maintained you have to design systems, both physical and social, to prevent people from having too much control over their own lives. You have to ensure that external controls and force are respected and effective in order to keep people in a line on the narrow path that is society’s road to power. Power must grow. Opposition must be suppressed or else it will decrease overall power. The people must be dominated in order for the country to use their labor for its (state and/or military) benefit. 

This type of power hungry mindset of external control rather than internal control (personal autonomy) is present throughout all forms of oppression. Ideas like racism, sexism, and ableism all stem from this same core. They effect different people and in different ways, but they are all expressions of the same domination culture that formed the foundation of the society we live in. Weakening the domination over one group weakens the system of control as a whole. The more people who escape their oppressions and begin fighting against the domination structure the less the structure can control people in general. All oppressions are connected by the fact that they have the same core oppressor, and the more oppressed people who are liberated and made able to fight against the oppressor (which is the core idea of domination and control as a part of society, not any individual person or group) the closer they will get to destroying the oppressor altogether. Destroying one group’s oppressor destroys all groups’ oppressors because they are one in the same. That is the key idea behind intersectionality; all oppressions are connected because they have the same oppressor. You cannot fully liberate one group unless you liberate all groups by destroying the oppressor.

So this is where feminism comes in. Feminism was formed as a retaliation against the oppression of women. It noted the imbalance of power between men and women and set out to correct it. There have been many different types of feminism, many aiming for equality and some aiming for revenge. And feminists have made a ton of progress. They have changed legislation to give women the same legal rights as men (at least on paper, the application is often debated). They have changed culture to make women’s freedom feel more acceptable to people. They have achieved great things. 

But the oppression hasn’t ended. Even in cases when there isn’t any legislation that is legally targeting women, women still face discrimination and oppressions from the social sphere. Harassment, objectification, stereotypes. All sorts of disrespect and violence and things that men just don’t face in the same way. The solution for some people is to try to control the social sphere. To punish behaviors that harm women. To create more legislation to punish discrimination against women and enforce equality. And these attempts have led some people to think that feminism is just trying to reverse the roles of oppression because, “you wanted to be the same under the system, and now that you are you’re trying to gain more power? When will it ever be enough for you?! You’re just gonna start oppressing men!” And though that argument usually comes from a place of misogyny at some level, its not entirely unreasonable to be concerned about the direction of this kind of legislation. Like, if you put laws in place to punish discriminatory behaviors and enforce equality yes you will likely reduce the amount those behaviors occur but at what cost? Are you really going to end the patriarchy just by hiding its symptoms? What if people just get pissed that their freedoms are being encroached on and patriarchal actors use that to radicalize people into fighting against feminism and reversing all of our progress? Its not like we haven’t seen traces of that already in right wing demonization of feminism. And even if they don’t, who is to say people will even follow the laws? People break laws and find loopholes all the time. 

The problem with this approach, even if it can end inequality between men and women, is that it doesn’t end the system of control and domination. It requires constant maintenance to keep that balance and if you let your guard down it is far too easy for the culture of power to lead to a new form of sex based oppression. Whether the patriarchy reinstates itself or a matriarchy forms that puts women at the top of an oppressive hierarchy, the problem still remains; the lines of sex and gender are being used to express power culture. People are still being controlled on the basis of their sex and gender. The problem is that people are able to control others based on the way they were born or the way they look.

 This is where my issue with modern radical feminists is. They oppose only the oppression of women without actually fighting the core of the power culture that causes it. The problem with the patriarchy, in my eyes, is that it uses the idea of sex and gender to force people to behave a certain way. Yes, a lot of radfems are gender abolitionists who don’t believe in gender, but they still uphold the use of sex to control people. If someone who was born male behaves in a way that is typical to female individuals or identifies as something other than a man, radfems will get upset about men infiltrating women's spaces and things like “womanface.” If someone who was born female identifies as something other than a woman, they say that person is delusional and ruthlessly misgender them. Many of them treat transgender and nonbinary people as malicious and evil and mentally ill. As something that is furthering the oppression of women, somehow. 

But do you see the problem? It’s the same thing that the patriarchy does; decide for someone which category they should be in then socially punish them for not adhering to the “rules” of that category. It doesn’t allow people to decide for themselves how to live, they have to respect the category they were forced into. Yes they have choice within that category but if they try to step out of that category into another one they are more comfortable with then they are attacked. “You’re invading!” “You don’t belong here!” “Quit oppressing us!” “You’re trying to destroy our progress!” Both the patriarchy and the modern radical feminist movement insist that you must behave in accordance to the biology you were born with. You can’t decide for yourself how you want to look and sound and what words you want to use for yourself. No. You must do what you are told. You must do the things determined by your biology. If you don’t you are sick and dangerous and delusional. If you don’t craft your social existence in accordance with your genitals then you should be punished. Yes patriarchy and radfems are different but at the end of the day they are using the same lines to enforce social rules and control. Neither of them will allow people to choose for themselves what category they are in. Both of them resist attempts to move away from adherence to those categories. 

So lets talk about that. The idea that sex is a social construct. I’m not gonna go into all the reasons why the idea of sex used by the patriarchy (and radfems) is not biologically objective and why sex as a concept is flawed in general. If you want to get into that here’s a video to get you started (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcOhfOrz0HM). What I am here to talk about is the point that we shouldn’t be identifying people based on sex to begin with. There is no real reason why society should be divided by sex or gender at all except maybe mentioning what reproductive system you have to your date if you are looking to build a future with someone you can have kids with. Like, even if sex were an objective fact the way they say it is, why the hell does it need to effect our social life? Why should it prevent us from changing our appearance, either with clothing or surgery? What value does that have to anyone who isn’t seeking to control others? If one sex holds power over the other (like in a patriarchy) then the sex lines benefit one and oppress the other. And if the sexes are somehow made equal, the fact that they are still adhered to socially means that people can be punished for arbitrary things simply because the behavior didn’t match their genitals. That is still a form of oppression, because it controls people on the basis of sex. 

I’ve scrolled through the “sex is a social construct” tag on here before and there are a LOT of radfems posting on it calling people deranged for suggesting that sex isn’t objective. But what really caught my eye was this post: 

The whole post is a strawman argument and I want to address its failings. So the first thing I want to address is the misunderstanding in the first tag. The claim isn’t, “sex is a social construct and therefore evil,” the claim is “sex is a social construct and therefore shouldn’t be used to divide us or dictate our lives.” Sex as a concept isn’t bad because its a social construct. Its bad because it is used by people as a tool of control and domination over others for things they can’t control. The point of bringing up that sex is a social construct isn’t to say that social constructs are evil, its to challenge the idea that sex as a concept is a valuable thing that we cannot and/or should not get rid of. Sex is a social construct because it is a subjective method of categorization. But even if it weren’t, the fact still remains that sex is the basis of all sex based oppression. 

The post is making the point that even if we don’t describe sex the biology behind it will still exist and so will the oppression done on the basis of it. It is based on an understanding of the “sex is a social construct” position that is over simplified. The post assumes that the goal of the statement is to prevent people from acknowledging things related to the concept of sex. It assumes that the position is an irrational one that thinks if we stop naming something everything connected to it will disappear, like a baby without object permanence. That is not the point we are making.

The point we are making is that as long as sex as a concept exists and is valued in our society, it will be used to oppress people. Sex and sex based oppression won’t disappear if you just stop naming it, obviously that’s ridiculous. But as long as sex exists sex based oppression will exist, because you cannot enforce a meaningful difference in sexes without forcing people to adhere to those rules and by extension punishing behaviors on the basis of sex. Our point is that if you want to end sexism you have to remove the societal value of sex. And by extension, the fact that sex is a social construct means that not only can we stop valuing sex socially, we can abolish it altogether. We have an opportunity to not only bring sexism out of the public perspective, but to destroy it altogether and move onto something more accurate and valuable. 

Yes, the biology people use to justify the use of sex as a concept will always exist. People will always have reproductive systems and chromosomes and hormonal levels effected by that. The difference in a world without the concept of sex is that those things won’t be treated as intrinsically connected. Yes, they influence each other, no one’s denying that. But they are separate and independent things that should be treated as such. The reproductive system and the processes associated with it should be relevant in only two areas: producing children and receiving medical care. It should not be relevant to the ways we dress, what plastic surgeries we are allowed to access, what artificial hormones we want to take to change our appearance, and the words we use to represent us. Those things should be up to the discretion of the individual, not socially or legally mandated. Our culture shouldn’t care about people’s genitals. No one should be asking “what’s in your pants?” to determine how to categorize or treat you. No one should be assuming anything about anyone's genitals or allowing that to change their perception of that person’s social existence.

That is why my biggest problem with Radfems is the adherence to biological sex and the insistence on the relevance of people’s genitals at birth. To me, while feminism began as a movement against women’s oppression, it has evolved into a battle against sexism and sex based oppression in general. To me, respecting trans and nonbinary people is and essential part of the progression of feminism. To me, ignoring gender roles (not reversing them) and doing whatever the hell you want is an essential part of the progression of feminism. To me, the removal of biology from social relevance is an essential part of the progression of feminism. 

And because my definition of feminism is a movement to end sex-based oppression, Radfem content frustrates the hell out of me because in my eyes they are just contributing to sex-based oppression by upholding the value of sex. They are replacing one version of sexism with a new one, not actually solving the problems that make sexism bad in the first place. 

From my perspective, many radfem perspectives seem so narrow, reactionary, and hateful. They are fighting against the problems that feminists generally do, but rather than removing them it just seems like they are transforming and replacing them with new, equally bad problems. We need to get rid of the patriarchy and not replace it with a matriarchy that does the same thing but this time mirrored and with vengeance. Patriarchy isn’t bad because it favors men, its bad because it is a system of sex-based oppression and domination. Radfems are just advocating for a different system of sex-based oppression. Their problem doesn’t seem to be with the systems of control and force, but rather the fact that they were used without an acceptable justification. But retaliation against past sexist oppression is acceptable justification for sex-based domination because “They deserve it. Look at how they treated us for centuries!”

And like, I get that not all radfems are going to agree with the direction of vengeance and flipping the script on men, but enough of them do that it is a relevant part of the community. Not only are these ideas present in some form or another within the radfem community, but they have made their way out into the world and been used by the patriarchy to try to demonize feminism as a whole. And the fact that people actually believe that and they have actual proof that there are people trying to achieve these things makes their campaign against feminism in general so much more effective. 

Its just a problem in general and every time I see a radfem trying to say this kind of stuff, even super watered down, I just wanna bang my head against something. I hate it. I hate it. Why does that community consist of like 90% hate? Why do they only care about their female-born in-group? Why do they feel the need to harass people for not agreeing with them? Why are they somehow always the victims any time anyone does something with their own sex or gender that doesn’t effect them at all? Why is everything sexist to them? Why? Why? WHy?! I hate it. But at the same time it fascinates me. I don’t know why. Maybe its just a desire to know the “enemy,” to understand what is at the core of their worldview in hopes that I can unravel the strings and stop all the hate and harassment. Idk. 

I’m sorry for ranting. I just....I really wish there was more empathy. That more people were willing to sit down and actually examine the source of our problems rather than just fighting the symptoms. I wish more people listened to each other, even if they didn’t end up agreeing. Even if no one changed their opinion on the thing, I wish people would take the time to understand each other rather than constantly straw-manning their opponents. I just....ugh I’m tired of it.

[femmesandhoney]

A migrant from another country isn’t automatically a bad person. Far from. Most are just looking for a better life. But some people flee oppression, not least women. How do we help them by letting them come to our country, if we let the oppressors in too? Which is already happening, and would be a guarantee with open borders.

If you lived in Europe, you would know that a lot of the men that have moved here from African and middle eastern countries hold absolutely medieval views on women’s rights. And also on gay rights. There have been gang rapes. Numeous, systematic assaults on women at swimming pools, or just out on the town. Letting in men, and it is almost only men coming, that think that women wearing a skirt, shorts or a bikini and walking outside without male company, are free reign to do what they want to, that has been catastrophic for women’s safety in our countries.

And frankly as a feminist I think that it’s crucial that you understand this. Women don’t have the same rights that we do in the western world in every country of the world. There are entire continents where women don’t have basic rights. And the only way for us to uphold progressive, equalitarian values, is by having borders. Within which we can decide the law, and be protected by our countries laws.

Girl idk how to fucking explain to you that one can recognize male violence is an issue no matter where you go and who it can come from and that currently most nations border policies are actively harmful and inhumane to migrants and those in need of refuge. You sound like such a conservative shithead, you can reframe your argument as much as you'd like to try and hide that you seem frankily very racist and just don't want immigrants in your country, it really doesn't work.

"I think its crucial you understand this" um yeah, I literally study complex international situations for my degree. I think about complex shitty situations all the time, for a grade, for my future as an educator. I think you're extremely tone deaf to the idea that nation-states are not actually this amazing praise worthy institution you want to say it is and you repeating it as if western countries are the creme de la creme of morality and the most law abiding people ever is just painful to read. It doesn't automatically equal "progressive, equalitarian values" as it simultaneously kills and abuses thousands of people daily. But idk maybe thats just me :/ you can both want to make sure there's structures in place to protect women from any and all male violence while also wanting to help vulnerable people. And don't come trying "wah those men aren't vulnerable" like sure yeah probably, but i still frankily want to see all the migrant women and children reach safety and that means making sure the huge humanitarian crises happening with migrants right now is properly addressed by world governments.

[babsaros]

i slightly regret not putting the original post under a read more just bc this is so long, and i do not plan or anticipate this discourse being stirred up here much longer. i try to maintain distance from this sort of thing and generally focus on productive or at least positive things. but i do have some refutes to make because the replies are driving me personally crazy, and my pharmacy has screwed me out of my meds for the past week and counting. :p

Firstly, @dysphoria-things , I'm sorry, I'm trying not to be overly rude to people who haven't earned it, but you replied most recently and it just seems like you don't actually understand what intersectionality means. In this conversation, intersectionality specifically refers to multiple axes of structural oppression (system-wide status quo belief that a marginalized group is 'lesser' than the majority) overlapping, and the relationships people have with those axes, and how people treat other people under that oppression. Men in a patriarchy are not oppressed for being men, so within this intersectional framework we're describing, men are thus exempt from misogyny and transmisogyny, as an example. You have to understand that when you say manhood intersects with other marginalized identities, it does not. A black woman is intersectionally discriminated against for being both black and a woman, two marginalized classes of people. a disabled queer person may be intersectionally discriminated against for being both queer and disabled, two frequently oppressed classes of people. a white woman CANNOT be intersectionally discriminated against because she is only discriminated against for being a woman, NOT for being white. A gay man CANNOT be intersectionally discriminated against because he is only discriminated against for being gay, NOT for being a man.

The same would be true for a trans man, who may experience transphobia, or misogyny, but not transmisogyny because that is the specific word for oppression from both being trans and a woman, and not transandrophobia, because there is no such thing as androphobia. misandry is very very real, and can be (but not always) inflicted on cis men, trans men, and trans women (!!!), but it does not count as structural oppression because it does not happen on a system wide scale.

again, "butchphobia", by your OWN definition right there, is misogyny. a butch's masculinity is not the thing being attacked. the cispatriarch society holds the belief that only men should be masculine, because men are superior and masculinity is power. the butch is the target of oppression, based on their agab. If the butch's masculinity was the target, then cis men would be discouraged and punished for performing masculinity too. but, that's not the case. cis men are ALWAYS going to be praised for living up to masculine ideals because that's what they're supposed to do under a patriarchy. cis, gender-conforming men are always playing the game right because they're "winning", but if anybody else tries to win, that's against the rules. i don't know how many more ways i can explain that men are not oppressed under a patriarchy and thus this term for supposed intersectional oppression CANNOT be describing anything intersectional, because the thing being oppressed is not masculinity. You cannot be INTERSECTIONALLY discriminated against for being both trans AND a man because MEN are not discriminated against under a PATRIARCHY.

I am a transmasculine butch. When i am oppressed, it is because my oppressors view me as a woman, as an object that they and their society should have power over. They are being transphobic, and misogynistic, based on what they perceive my gender SHOULD be, maybe regardless of how well i'm passing or not.

This is not about semantics or etymology. the people in the replies trying to compare this to the word bisexual are almost-purposefully ignoring the better-fitting semantic examples i gave in the original post, and missing the point. The definition for the word you are proposing is fundamentally flawed, and we already have words for the specific forms of oppression trans men face. You are misunderstanding the basic fundamentals of a concept that people are trying to misuse to justify victimhood and further oppression of transwomen, and muddying the waters about the underlying causes of all our collective issues as a trans community. And @impunkster-syndrome i think it's pretty clear we're not buddies, so I'd appreciate refrain from mocking remarks like that. Once again, though, you have no actual refute to anything in my original post. I'd genuinely love it if you could quote at what point in my original post you think I assume all transmasc people pass, because i thought i had worded it pretty purposefully and i do not hold that assumption, so if that's what you're reading i must have made a typo somewhere, or you're making your own exceptionally cynical assumptions.

this is also not about oppression olympics. measuring that should not be something any of us concern ourselves with. again, please quote where in my original post you think i have said that either transfems or transmascs have it better or worse than the other. I value solidarity with all my trans siblings and community, and think we should be presenting a united front against conservative talking heads, instead of falling for the infighting bait that terfs and conservatives keep laying out for us.

despite my frustration, i have not set out at any point to 'kick' anyone. in fact, i've walked back and revised this entire statement multiple times in an attempt to avoid hurting yours or anyone else's feelings too hard (despite some of these people openly identifying as radfem-adjacent, mens rights activists, and zionists who dont seem to care about hurting other people). Butttt i do have a hunch you're going to stick to your guns and continue not actually reading anything i've said here, in which case i encourage you to just fucking block me lol. i even put that bit in bold so you'd see it as you skimmed, yw.

So, basically, we can totally argue about how much this matters (and i can keep getting frustrated that nobody here can put up an actual argument), but my personal opinion is that that would be a huge waste of time and i'd rather go play games and tell my girlfriends how much i love them. Look, if you've really got your heart set on this term, it makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside, you really like it for describing your personal experiences, then fine!!! use it!! pull on your big kid pants and put your foot down and say you like it with your chest. we're not the fucking cops.

But do your community the fucking favor of standing with your transfem sisters when they talk about their own oppression. listen when they talk about the endless transmisogynistic harassment they receive, be as fucking angry as you would if it was a trans man when a trans woman is hurt. learn their names and get to know them. play their favorite video games and listen to their favorite music. fucking love them before its too late. assholes.

hey. when cis society is oppressing a trans man, what he is experiencing is. In Fact. misogyny. i'm sorry i know none of us like to be reminded of our agab, and it hurts whenever people perceive you as the wrong gender. but a cis person hate-criming, assaulting, verbally abusing, etc, a trans man is not doing "transandrophobia" because they do not perceive him as a man.

they perceive him as a woman failing at her gender, as a woman who has been seduced and lied to and manipulated because women are so easily led astray, just like it says in the bible. they perceive him as a woman who has been mutilated. they perceive him as a dyke that needs to be fixed. if they are hate-criming him because they *do* perceive him as a man, because he passes well enough they aren't thinking he could be trans, then they're doing so out of homophobia, perceiving him as a gay man, a pervert, a sissy, a danger to children. OR, they are being transphobic but specifically because they think he might be transfeminine instead. when cis society oppresses a trans woman, they are able to do it on multiple levels at once. She's a woman failing at her gender, a dyke that needs to be fixed. Or she's an evil and grotesque crossdressing pervert, a rude caricature, a danger to polite society. she will never be doing enough to escape oppression entirely, no matter if she gets every surgery she can and wears makeup every day and passes perfectly, because she lives under a patriarchy, and she's a woman, so she lives in a panopticon, and HAVING to get surgery and wear make-up to be respected IS oppression, especially if the alternative is being hate-crimed.

trans women (and trans men who pass) are not experiencing "transandrophobia" when a 'queer women and nbs" event turns them away at the door for being too masculine. they are. IN FACT!! experiencing the byproducts of misogyny in a patriarchy!!! where the terfs and coward cis women running those events and occupying those spaces have been taught (sometimes through experience, sometimes by men, sometimes by women) throughout life that men = stronger and more dangerous than women ALWAYS. That they need to protect themselves at all times and always be vigilant. That men and women can't be friends without sexual tension (and so as queer women the mere existence of what they perceive as a "man" is a threat). That women need a separate sports league because they can't possibly compete with someone who has even a little bit "extra" (an unquantifiable amount actually because there isn't a standard range) testosterone. That women should cook and men should fix cars. i promise you, i promise i promise i promise. it's misogyny. like!!! you don't say cis gay men experiences "androphobia", bc that's not a thing!! you sound like fucking mens rights activists guys please! you don't say a black man experiences "misandrynoir"!! because living in a patriarchy fundamentally means men do not experience oppression based on their gender. its not happening. shut the fuck up. stop walking us back to 2014 can we please take a step forward and stop bitching about this. there are genuine issues in the world and i'm frankly sick of people who should be smarter than that needing to be gently hand-held through this fucking explanation for the millionth time and still stomping their feet.

[pumpkinpaix]

Hello! Feel free not to answer this question if it is in any way too much, but I've been wondering about something concerning the "western" mdzs fandom. Lately, i have seen multiple pieces of fanart that use what is clearly Christian symbolism and sometimes downright iconography in depicting the characters. I'm a european fan, but it still makes me vaguely uneasy. I know that these things are rarely easy to judge. I'm definitely not qualified to do so and was wondering if you have an opinion

Hi there! thank you for your patience and for the interesting question! I’ve been thinking about this since i received this ask because it?? idk, it’s difficult to answer, but it also touches on a a few things that I find really interesting.

the short answer: it’s complicated, and I also don’t know what I feel!

the longer answer:

i think that this question is particularly difficult to answer because of how deeply christianity is tied to the western art and literary canon. so much of what is considered great european art is christian art! If you just take a quick glance at wiki’s page on european art, you can see how inextricable christianity is, and how integral christian iconography has been in the history of european art. If you study western art history, you must study christian imagery and christian canon because it’s just impossible to engage with a lot of the work in a meaningful way without it. that’s just the reality of it.

Christianity, of course, also has a strong presence in european colonial and imperialist history and has been used as a tool of oppression against many peoples and nations, including China. I would be lying if I said I had a good relationship with Christianity--I have always faced it with a deep suspicion because I think it did some very, very real damage, not just to chinese people, but to many cultures and peoples around the world, and that’s not a trauma that can be easily brushed aside or reconciled with.

here is what is also true: my maternal grandmother was devoutly christian. my aunt is devoutly christian. my uncle’s family is devoutly christian. my favorite cousin is devoutly christian. when I attended my cousin’s wedding, he had both a traditional chinese ceremony (tea-serving, bride-fetching, ABSURDLY long reception), and also a christian ceremony in a church. christianity is a really important part of his life, just as it’s important to my uncle’s family, and as it was important to my grandmother. I don’t think it’s my right or place to label them as simply victims of a colonialist past--they’re real people with real agency and choice and beliefs. I think it would be disrespectful to act otherwise.

that doesn’t negate the harm that christianity has done--but it does complicate things. is it inherently a bad thing that they’re christian, due to the political history of the religion and their heritage? that’s... not a question I’m really interested in debating. the fact remains that they are christian, that they are chinese, and that they chose their religion.

so! now here we are with mdzs, a chinese piece of media that is clearly Not christian, but is quickly gaining popularity in euroamerican spaces. people are making fanart! people are making A LOT of fanart! and art is, by nature, intertextual. a lot of the most interesting art (imo) makes deliberate use of that! for example (cyan art nerdery time let’s go), Nikolai Ge’s What is Truth?

I love this painting! it’s notable for its unusual depiction of christ: shabby, unkempt, slouched, in shadow. if you look for other paintings of this scene, christ is usually dignified, elegant, beautiful, melancholy -- there’s something very humanizing and humbling about this depiction, specifically because of the way it contrasts the standard. it’s powerful because we as the audience are expected to be familiar with the iconography of this scene, the story behind it, and its place in the christian canon.

you can make similar comments about Gentileschi’s Judith vs Caravaggio’s, or Manet’s Olympia vs Ingres’ Grande Odalisque -- all of these paintings exist in relation to one another and also to the larger canon (i’m simplifying: you can’t just compare one to another directly in isolation etc etc.) Gauguin’s Jacob Wrestling the Angel is also especially interesting because of how its portrayal of its content contrasts to its predecessors!

or! because i’m really In It now, one of my favorite paintings in the world, Joan of Arc by Bastien-Lepage:

I just!!! gosh, idk, what’s most interesting to me in this painting is the way it seems to hover between movements: the hyperrealistic, neoclassical-esque take on the figure, but the impressionistic brushstrokes of the background AAA gosh i love it so much. it’s really beautiful if you ever get a chance to see it in person at the Met. i’m putting this here both because i personally just really like it and also as an example of how intertextuality isn’t just about content, but also about visual elements.

anyways, sorry most of this is 19thc, that was what i studied the most lol.

(a final note: if you want to read about a really interesting painting that sits in the midst of just a Lot of different works, check out the wiki page on Géricault’s Raft of the Medusa, specifically under “Interpretation and Legacy”)

this is all a really long-winded way of getting to this point: if you want to make allusory fanart of mdzs with regards to western art canon, you kind of have to go out of your way to avoid christian imagery/iconography, especially when that’s the lens through which a lot of really intensely emotional art was created. many of my favorite paintings are christian: Vrubel’s Demon, Seated, Perov’s Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, Ge’s Conscience, Judas, Bastien-Lepage’s Joan of Arc, as shown above. that’s not to say there ISN’T plenty of non-christian art -- but christian art is very prominent and impossible to ignore.

so here are a few pieces of fanwork that I’ve seen that are very clearly making allusions to christian imagery:

1. this beautiful pietà nielan by tinynarwhals on twitter

2. a lovely jiang yanli as our lady of tears by @satuwilhelmiina

3. my second gif in this set here, which I will also show below:

i’m only going to talk about mine in depth because well, i know exactly what i was thinking when I put this gif together while I can’t speak for anyone else.

first: the two lines of the song that I wanted to use for lan xichen were “baby, I’m a fighter//in the robes of a saint” because i felt that they fit him very well. of course, just the word “saint” evokes catholicism, even if it’s become so entwined in the english language that it’s taken on a secular meaning as well.

second: when I saw this scene, my immediate thought was just “PIETÀ!!” because LOOK at that composition! lan xichen’s lap! nie mingjue lying perpendicular to it! the light blue/white/silver of lan xichen in contrast to the darker robes of both nie mingjue and meng yao! not just that, but the very cool triangular structure of the image is intensely striking, and Yes, i Do love that it simultaneously ALSO evokes deposition of christ vibes. (baxia as the cross.... god..... is that not the Tightest Shit) does this make meng yao joseph of arimathea? does it make him john the evangelist? both options are equally interesting, I think when viewed in relation to his roles in the story: as a spy in qishan and as nmj’s deputy. maybe he’s both.

anyways, did I do this intentionally? yes, though a lot of it is happy accident/discovered after the fact since I’m relying on CQL to have provided the image. i wanted to draw attention to all of that by superimposing that line over that image! (to be clear: I didn’t expect it to all come through because like. that’s ridiculous. the layers you’d have to go through to get from “pretty lxc gifset” --> “if we cast nie mingjue as a christ figure, what is the interesting commentary we could do on meng yao by casting him as either joseph of arimathea or john the evangelist” are like. ok ur gonna need to work a little harder than slapping a song lyric over an image to achieve an effect like that.)

the point of this is: yes, it’s intentionally christian, yes I did this, yes I am casting these very much non-christian characters into christian roles for this specific visual work -- is this okay?

I obviously thought it was because I made it. but would I feel the same about a work that was written doing something similar? probably not. I think that would make me quite uncomfortable in most situations. but there’s something about visual art that makes it slightly different that I have trouble articulating -- something about how the visual often seeks to illustrate parallels or ideas, whereas writing characters as a different religion can fundamentally change who those characters are, the world they inhabit, etc. in a more... invasive?? way. that’s still not quite right, but I genuinely am not sure how to explain what i mean! I hope the general idea comes across. ><

something else to think about is like, what are pieces I find acceptable and why?

what makes the pieces above that reference christian imagery different than this stunning nieyao piece by @cyandemise after klimt’s kiss? (warnings for like, dead bodies and vague body horror) like i ADORE this piece (PLEASE click for fullview it’s worth it for the quality). it’s incredibly beautiful and evocative and very obviously references a piece of european art. I have no problem with it. why? because it isn’t explicitly christian? it’s still deeply entrenched in western canon. klimt certainly made other pieces that were explicit christian references.

another piece I’d like to invite you all to consider is this incredible naruto fanart of sakura and ino beheading sasuke after caravaggio’s judith. (warnings for beheading, blood, etc. you know.) i also adore this piece! i think it’s very good both technically and conceptually. the reference that it makes has a real power when viewed in relation to the roles of the characters in their original story -- seeing the women that sasuke fucked over and treated so disrespectfully collaborating in his demise Says Something. this is also!! an explicitly christian reference made with non-christian japanese characters. is this okay? does it evoke the same discomfort as seeing mdzs characters being drawn with christian iconography? why or why not?

the point is, I don’t think there’s a neat answer, but I do think there are a lot of interesting issues surrounding cultural erasure/hegemony that are raised by this question. i don’t think there are easy resolutions to any of them either, but I think that it’s a good opportunity to reexamine our own discomfort and try and see where it comes from. all emotions are valid but not all are justified etc. so I try to ask, is it fair? do i apply my criticisms and standards equally? why or why not? does it do real harm, or do i just not like it? what makes one work okay and another not?

i’ve felt that there’s a real danger with the kind of like, deep moral scrutiny of recent years in quashing interesting work in the name of fear. this morality tends to be expressed in black and white, good and bad dichotomies that i really do think stymies meaningful conversation and progress. you’ll often see angry takes that boil down to things like, “POC good, queer people good, white people bad, christianity bad” etc. without a serious critical examination of the actual issues at hand. I feel that these are extraordinarily harmful simplifications that can lead to an increased insularity that isn’t necessarily good for anyone. there’s a fine line between asking people to stay in their lane and cultural gatekeeping sometimes, and I think that it’s something we should be mindful of when we’re engaging in conversations about cultural erasure, appropriation etc.

PERHAPS IT IS OBVIOUS that I have no idea where that line falls LMAO since after all that rambling I have given you basically nothing. but! I hope that you found it interesting at least, and that it gives you a bit more material to think on while you figure out where you stand ahaha.

was this just an excuse to show off cool (fan)art i like? maybe ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(ko-fi)

[theravenclawrevolutionary]

i'm not a frev expert. and you seem to be approchable enough and to have read enough. i had a question, or kind of a question. i just. i think that if robespierre wasn't against all the deaths by guillotine, he wouldn't have written that quote about virtue and terror. maybe i'm getting you wrong, or i'm not understanding the sense of that quote. could you explain?

Oh dang. I'm kinda surprised that people think I have any real authority on the subject of the Frev since I'm not an actual historian or anything and I'm surprised people find me approachable but of course I'll try my best for you Anon! And if anyone else has a better interpretation or anything else to add please, go ahead. I'll also try my best to keep it in as simple language as I can. But I digress.

⚠ This post is quite long so be prepared for that ⚠

First of all, Robespierre has more than one quote talking about terror and virtue. I'm assuming that you're thinking of the one that goes, "Terror is only justice: prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country." since that is the most common one. However, if you're talking about the one that goes "Terror is only justice: prompt, severe and inflexible; it is then an emanation of virtue; it is less a distinct principle than a natural consequence of the general principle of democracy, applied to the most pressing wants of the country." Let me know and I'll write about that one. The former is definitely a quote that, in my experience studying the Frev, gets misinterpreted from what it was originally meant to say fairly often.

To start with, it's very important to know what connotation and definition the words 'virtue' and 'terror' had in revolution-era France. Modern-day definitions may not be the same ones that were used in the past. According to my research, which of course isn't infallible, virtue was used to refer to someone's disposition and the way it would lead them to choose good over evil whereas where terror was seen simply as great fear. At the time there was no connotation of our modern-day terrorism to associate with the word. Nowadays we associate terror with terrorism which brings to mind murder, mindless destruction, oppression, and unchecked authority in which someone's ideals are forced upon large groups of people. Because of this many people assume that this is what Robespierre had in mind when he referenced terror when really he meant to describe the use of intimidation tactics to seize power from those who oppressed the lower class people and the general fear that was felt by the commoners.

Essentially the Reign of Terror meant 'a time period where everyone felt a sh*t load of Fear over all the bad stuff happening at once while the regular people try to overthrow the oppressive ruling class with intimidation tactics.' It does not mean 'a time period where loads of people were purposely committing widespread acts of terrorism to push their agendas'. And really, it was the only way to give everyone the chance to get rid of the old government, the monarchy, and allow a fair democracy that would be beneficial to the future of France to be built.

Next, it's important to know the context in which this quote was originally said. The speech where Robespierre said it took place on Feb 5th (?) of 1794. By this point, the revolution has been well underway for several long years and, as I said, a lot of sucky things are happening at the same time. The republic was in a war with a massive part of Europe and they're kinda getting curb-stomped. The country is in a state of civil war between the people that still supported the monarchy and all the different groups that had different views of how the country should be run. France's economy was complete sh*t too, so all this really radicalized the people and made the whole revolution situation so much worse than it already was.

At the time there were two factions, so to say, in the National Convention that were hella pissed at each other and really at odds. the Hébertists (who, to make things easy, wanted to escalate the Terror, go on the offensive with the military, and the overthrow and replace some of the existing government structures at the time) and the Dantonists (who wanted to sorta get rid of the revolutionary government, negotiate for peace in the war, and chill out on the whole Terror thing). And remember that these groups of people were very loose and like people in today's politic didn't agree with every stance their 'faction' took.

By the time Max made this speech, which was addressing these two groups, the situation between them was escalated big time. The Hébertists, with their views of 'more terror all over! That'll help us win everything,' or 'terror without virtue,' were pushing for a system that would quickly prove fatal. By contrast, the Dantonists with their, 'we just need to kinda chill and things will work out,' way of thinking or 'virtue without terror', would only lead to them (and the rest of the country) getting walked over by everyone else.

Throughout the entire speech, a speech I haven't recently read all the way through, Max comes back to the idea of terror and virtue, stressing that both are necessary. What I think he meant to do was talk about how the revolution couldn't survive without both terror (fear and the aggression that causes it) and virtue (the choice of good over evil) being applied. He's trying to explain to both groups that a little bit of both ideals is the most beneficial way to go about things. In reality, it has nothing to do with whether he personally believed in or advocated the death penalty/ the use of the guillotine. Instead, Robespierre is emphasizing that at that particular moment in time doing what is right and good (virtue) will most likely end up causing some bad things that will make people afraid for a while (terror).

What Robespierre is not saying is that terror, and by extension the violence that is causing the terror is virtuous. There are several easy-to-find sources that prove his personal disapproval of the death penalty from a moral standpoint. As a young lawyer in his hometown in Arras, he became physically ill at the idea of having one of his clients sentenced to death, even though he was found guilty of the crime he was on trial for. He made a speech agreeing with the abolition of the death penalty on May 30th of 1791 (?) arguing that there is no place for the death penalty in a civilized society because the law needs to be a model of what is good. He attempted to save the lives of Georges Danton and Camille Desmoulins, two friends/coworkers that he is commonly charged with sending to their deaths when the opposite is actually true. Additionally, he did the same with other more controversial people including the king's sister of all people, Madame Elisabeth. Even when voting for the death of the king he reiterates his own opinion on the death penalty saying, "For myself, I abhor the penalty of death that your law so liberally imposes, and I have neither love nor hatred for the King; it is only the crimes that I hate…. It is with regret that I utter this baneful truth…Louis must die in order that our country may live." Though it conflicts with his personal views, Robespierre makes the decision based on the needs of France as a country, something that many politicians need to relearn how to do today.

Long story short, he was not supporting the use of the guillotine with that quote, but rather trying to get two opposing factions to realize that both intimidation/fear and making sound, beneficial decisions would keep France on the right track to building a successful democracy for the people. Hopefully this helped and I explained it in a way that was easy for you to understand. If you ever have any more Frev related questions feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer or I'll send you in the direction of someone else more knowledgeable if I don't know.

Also, can someone tell me if I did a good job of explaining this? I can never tell if things I write about the Frev make sense to me because I actually know exactly what I mean to say so everyone else kinda goes along with it or if I actually say helpful things of substance. Thanks guys! And if anyone else knows more about the subject or if I've made a mistake please help me out.

~Dara

[tanadrin]

@alightingdove

I know Buddhist morality, because I closely align with it. I've read its source texts closely.

So you're saying you are pro-patriarchy, pro-slavery, and pro-feudalism? Because the linked articles make it pretty clear that that is the worldview inherent in the Buddhist canon.

I'm telling you, if you read the scripture - of the Buddhists, of Jesus, of Lao Tzu, of Vedanta monks - many were the works of philosophers. They wanted a better world and that was how it was articulated.

Lao Tzu was not a historical person. The Tao Te Ching is an anthology of anonymous writings, and is not internally consistent. For more on this, I highly recommend the Penguin Classics edition, translated by D.C. Lau, which puts the Tao Te Ching nicely in context as a document of the Warring States period, and dispenses with a lot of the mystical nonsense that is often anachronistically imposed on the text by less historically informed translators.

As for Jesus, scholars of the New Testament are pretty divided on what parts of the Gospels might be authentic sayings of the historical Jesus and what parts were later additions; but it's quite clear that the early Jesus movement foresaw the rapid approach of the end of the world. Positing Jesus as some kind of aspirational moral reformer isn't just a problem of imposing a modern worldview on a historical figure, but is actually totally incompatible with the picture of the man we can reconstruct.

I'm going to risk being overly blunt here, and say that you don't give the impression of someone who has an appreciation for the critical or historical study of religion, and that you take not only religious texts, but what later followers of these religions have retrojected back onto these religious texts (including what followers of completely different religions have retrojected onto these texts--the modern Western view of Buddhism is much more akin to orientalized Protestantism than Buddhism as it is traditionally practiced, as the links I posted carefully explain) at face value, without any real insight or effort to understand worldviews which are in fact very different from the moral therapeutic deism so popular as a framework for understanding religion these days.

I understand how has been misused both currently and historically, but I don't believe religion is the source. People don't need religion for oppression.

At this point I think we are talking past each other. I never said people needed religion for oppression. My original post wasn't about religious oppression at all. It certainly wasn't about ancient or medieval religious traditions--it was about weird religious movements in American history, and why I think they're interesting. I think you're imagining I have some kind of anti-theist Religion Bad worldview I'm trying to advocate for here, and I would rather have conversations with people interested in responding to what I actually write, than what they imagine I have written.

I think it is wrong to blame religion when what we have is people seeking to inflict harm using anything they can find as justification. They don't need to use religion and do not care if they contradict it. They are malicious, and they will still be here even if religion is gone.

Again, you are talking about something totally different from what I was interested in talking about. The relationship of spiritual belief to the structuring of power and its use as a tool of oppression is an interesting topic, but it's not the one I was discussing.

@alightingdove

I'm fully aware of the weirdness. I'm very aware of the world's religions and their differences. My point is that the virtues of Buddhism are, generally, well-intentioned and sustainable from a secular perspective. We know why the Buddha became an ascetic - he witnessed sickness, aging, and death, and he decided to leave his luxurious life in pursuit of meaning.

Had to break this discussion out of the comments section because I think you're making a number of serious errors in your assumptions.

One--Buddhism is not an especially noble or enlightened religion. As this Buddhist and scholar of Buddhism points out, traditional Buddhist morality is deeply medieval, and very out of step with modern values. It is patriarchal, puritanical, and authoritarian. See also this post and this one.

Two--we have narratives about the Buddha, composed centuries after his death. As scholars of religion like Stephen Shoemaker and the cognitive scientists they have based their work on have pointed out, oral traditions are very bad at preserving authentic historical detail. They very quickly become adapted to serve the politics of later eras, and later traditions get written back onto the founders of movements to justify themselves. This is certainly true of Christianity, which had developed elaborate ahistorical traditions about Jesus within a hundred years of his death; it is even more true of Buddhism, whose oldest texts date to something like four hundred years after the Buddha's death. Islam, Zoroastrianism, Taoism, and many other traditions centered on a single founder figure (even one who was certainly historical, like Muhammad) have similar problems.

Three--religions catch on for many reasons. "Disillusionment" seems to be only one factor out of many. People adopt new traditions because of politics, identity, millennarian fervor (very big in early Islam and Christianity), hope of strategic benefit (knowledge or power from the gods), because they're forced to under threat of violence, and so forth.

So I think it is a bad idea to ascribe particular generosity or wisdom to (or to be excessively deferential to) people who, even if the traditions surrounding them are entirely authentic, made claims about the world which are unprovable or outright false, and whose morality was repugnant. And it's especially a bad idea to do so just because they have proven historically successful, given that the reasons they have proven to be thus may be pretty arbitrary.

[hillbillyoracle]

Some Thoughts on Why White Pagans Need to Heal Their Relationships with Christianity

Note: I've been trying to write a piece like this for months and the only way I know how to write this is to be very vulnerable and personal. So just please keep that in mind as you read this. It isn't very refined and it's something I'm still very much in process with, to borrow a phrase from my charismatic Christian upbringing. It's more a diary entry than a finished piece and none of these thoughts are original or eloquent. My hope it's helpful to see someone thinking through these things though.

If you're white and you don't want to further colonization and imperialism in your spirituality, then going back to Christianity in some form is pretty necessary; to do the work of decolonizing it's doctrines and to prevent taking from traditions that aren't ours.

This is just the conclusion I've arrived at after a lot shadow working in and around both my ancestors and my religious trauma. My ancestors aren't all white Europeans. But given that I'm white and I don't have any way to carry on the traditions of those that weren't, I feel like the best way to honor those non-white ancestors is to go back to the spiritual traditions I do have access to and doing the work of reshaping them into something less harmful.

I have read and intellectually understood that culture forms the foundation of spirituality and that when you remove something from it's originating culture, that concept or tool no longer works properly, if at all. In working with my non-white ancestors, I really got it on a practical and emotional level. There was this sense that they'd love for me to know their traditions but that it required an understanding that just isn't possible for me given my upbringing and disconnection - "you don't know the words and there's no way to find a person who can teach you" as one ancestor put it. It was an important reminder that "this isn't for white people" isn't merely a categorical assertion but a cultural and practical one.

They've generally asked I stick to practices I have a cultural grounding in when honoring them, even though it is not theirs - the cultural and linguistic element is that important to them. They would rather an authentic expression of gratitude and care through a ritual that isn't theirs rather than an imitation of one that is or being left out of my practice all together. Which makes sense to me in a relational way I hadn't fully grasped before.

In working with my white ancestors, I've come to more viscerally understand that the present understanding of Christianity is wildly different than other historical understandings. One thing that surprised me was that some of my more recent ancestors have expressed more discomfort around my queerness and transness than many of my older ancestors but both root their understanding in the Bible. I enjoyed one ancestor who, when I explained that I'm partnered with a woman, to mean that I would have a life of service - "no men to distract you from God" - which I mean is not wrong on several levels. It really highlighted for me that Christian doctrine is far more flexible than I'd initially thought. It challenged ideas I'd picked up through traumatic religious experiences. So much of what I'd assumed was Christianity itself seems to be more Christianity right now.

The historical angle is really important me. One of the things that drove my interest in Paganism was trying to understand what came before Christianity, to connect with whatever had been cut off in that process. The more I've come to learn about imperialism within Europe - how various empires conquered and destroyed localized traditions indigenous to parts of Europe - it clicked for me that my white ancestors did to others what had been done to them. It is intergenerational trauma in a nutshell.

It's also striking to me that so many people term the traditions pagans pull from as "dead" religions or at the very least "not living". For years I took that to mean they were "safe" to take from, that I wouldn't hurt anyone by doing so. But I hadn't really understood the weight of what "dead" meant - that there was no one left alive who could teach me, that I can't live in a context where all of the beliefs, tools, and traditions make intuitive sense. And if it was important to my ancestors who had had a connection to their traditions, then what was I missing by reanimating these traditions without that link?

I don't have a full visceral understanding of what I'm missing to be honest. I have a feeling that'll develop as my practice evolves. But that question alone has marked a pretty important change in how I understand myself spiritually.

The living and cultural element to my practice is more important to me now. For me, just given the family, community, and area I was raised in, that means Christianity is the living tradition I have access to and I've been revisiting it. I was reading an interview the other day with someone who is both a Catholic theologian and a practicing Buddhist. I liked the way he put it when he referred to Catholicism as "one of his sources of wisdom". That better captures my relationship with Christianity that's been unfolding over the last few months.

Making sure that intergenerational spiritual trauma stops as much as possible with me is really important. I had mistakenly thought that meant abandoning Christianity all together, that it was the problem. Which in hindsight, is fucking wild - I hugely fucked up there. There's nothing stopping me from just enacting the harm I learned in the context of Christianity in a different context, a Pagan context. It doesn't get to the root of the issue. At the end of the day, I just want to be sure I do not use my religion, any religion, to further the harms of structural inequality and colonial oppression. That's the goal.

In reading around about this, I've come to feel pretty strongly that one of the best ways to work toward that is to strive toward animism. Animism has been a great antidote to the spiritual entitlement that colonial religions cultivate (including white paganism). Animism also builds a relational spirituality rather than a goal/individual centered one. White paganism isn't inherently animistic since white culture teaches values that undermine quality relationships - individualism, competitiveness, and seeking domination of some fashion in order to feel safe. An animistic lens requires you unlearn those values and cultivate new ones - mutuality, respect, and accountability.

So all this is to say that given my current understanding, I think trying to build a practice out of New Age concepts while trying to avoid appropriation sounds impossible and hellish. I also think it doesn't deal with the work that needs done. I'm choosing to take an animist lens to the living traditions I do have to see if that's a better space for both my spirituality and my evolving understand of decolonizing to grow in.

People will rightly question my use of the term "shadow work" given this perspective. Shadow work is a problematic term for a lot of different reasons that are beyond the scope of this piece.  Where I'm at with it right now is that most western religious traditions seem to have some understanding of what we might call shadow work which points to it being important and useful. However they all used different terms given their contexts so I'm still unsure of what term might be the most appropriate given where I'm at. So for right now, you might see me use it less in the title or body of work I write from here on out, but I still might use it as a tag to make it findable. There's a good shot this doesn't go far enough and I'm not sold on this approach. Just know it's something I'm trying to figure out.

So that's where I'm at right now. I think white pagans really need to be more serious about animism at minimum and hopefully also looking at the role living religious traditions play in their current practice as well. I think white pagans' unhealed reactivity around Christianity too often serves as a justification for spiritual appropriation and furthering colonial harm. Changes are definitely needed. What that looks like in practice for individuals will likely vary a ton. I'd love to hear from other folks doing work in this vein. What's worked for you so far? What hasn't? Where are you in the process?