#i don't think terfs are actually feminist the way they think they are. They hurt cis ppl too as well as trans ppl

[iamnmbr3]

I feel like Rowling has a huge petty personality streak and that turned against Dracos fans and shippers and thats why he has worse standing with her than James, Regulus, Snape even tho they are equal or even worse than Draco. BUT she also wants us to accept Curced Child as canon where Draco is a redemeed person, good husband and father and called Harry's friend in the script. All without the benefit of paying this off in the main storyline.

yeah JKR is definitely super petty. and on the one hand she claims her books are anti bullying but then then on the other hand she totally brushes off what James did to Snape even tho it's the most egregious incident of bullying depicted in the book series. She lionizes Snape and Regulus, but frames Draco totally differently even tho his situation is very similar to that of Snape and Regulus except even more sympathetic than theirs since right from the start he had doubts about joining the Death Eaters and idolized Voldemort in the abstract without having been exposed to the reality of him.

To be fair, iirc Cursed Child was written by someone else with JKRs approval. but yeah. it's still hypocritical.

also a lot of JKR's criticisms of Draco fans are couched in sexism. which is unsurprising bc TERF ideology isn't just transphobic. It's also deeply sexist. TERFs are convinced that personality traits and worth are determined by biological sex. Which is...the basis of sexism. It's why they often say things that are also really sexist and damaging towards cis women even tho that is the very group they claim to be defending.

[genderqueerdykes]

i feel like the recent wave of feminism is so terfy, whether it is unintentionally or not. i have many friends sharing those shitty takes to their accounts and calling men names like "moids", "nem". despite my many attempts to tell them, directly or subtly, they seem like just nodded at the moment i told them and then forgot it the next day. most of them are queers. and thats the ironic part. not to mention that one time where one of my close acquaintances share a post with "y chromosomes will disappeared after 2 million years" with the caption "oh god i hope so" even when they knew i was a trans man. or something like "if men can get pregnant they will have free healthcare" wtf trans men have been for so long and they don't receive shit?

"terfs dni" on bio then you parrot exactly what they said like ok i get it if i was not existed some of them will become full blown terf

im glad you sent this because on god yes, certain queer people are literally just proud to be terfs and rad fems right now. like it's straight up just happening, it's not speculative. at this point we have to call a cigar a cigar and talk about how people are quite literally just *proud* to be transphobes and engage in political lesbianism and intersexism openly and freely. like people are just actually proud to be this way right now

i get so many random asks called me a moid it's unreal LMAO the thing is, it's intended to be used against trans women and fems to misgender us as men, it's short for "femoid", but if people are also just straight up using it against actual men, then wow, people are just literally showing that they're a terf on their sleeve. like y'all, nobody uses the slur "moid" but literal terfs. they're the ones that coined it. why are you proud to use their language

i understand that terf indoctrination is very aggressive, and that terfs target disenfranchised people who have very, very low self esteem and get their sense of self worth from bullying and belittling other people. but the amount of people who are basically bragging about belonging to this edgy cult of violent misogynists is baffling. i don't know why people are so blind to the fact that rad feminists are literally violent misogynsts. nobody hates women more than terfs.

terfs think women are stupid, clueless, defenseless, and powerless. terfs believe that women can't defend themselves. terfs believe that men are inherently stronger than women and women aren't capable of fighting off men. terfs think that women are pathetic and weak. terfs think that women can't be strong or assertive. terfs think that it's impossible for women to hold a position of power in any situation, even over their own children. terfs believe that if you've ever been abused by a woman, it's your fault, because that woman is traumatized and is just "trying to cope with patriarchy". terfs believe the cycle of abuse is your fault, and that women can never be held accountable for being violent and abusive, because "women can't hurt people".

nobody hates women more than a rad fem.

like political lesbianism, the core of terf and rad feminist beliefs, literally walks us back a century in terms of queer progression and acceptance. the idea that only cis women are safe to be around, the idea that cis women can only be abused by society and never perpetuate abuse, the idea that trans people are a threat to lesbianism, the idea that trans people are a threat at all period... why do you want to become your conservative parents so bad? why do you desperately want to become your extremely conservative queerphobic grandparents who would've beaten the shit out of you for being queer?

sucking up to the right won't make them like you better. sucking up to these people won't make you "normal lesbians". that's the thing, people seem to secretly think man hating terfs are "the real lesbians" and everyone else is an invader. like people think the default, "normal" lesbian is a violent man hater. they think that's what "real lesbianism" is and it's disgusting. like that has nothing to do with lesbianism, y'all, it's all gender politics. don't ever listen to a terf or rad fem talk about lesbianism. they're not lesbians, they just want a "safe girls only club". that has nothing to do with being a dyke

anyway, thank you for sending this. i agree with you. and it really makes me quirk an eyebrow when people say "terfs dni" and then spend literally hours shitting on trans men, talking about how we're invading xyz spaces... hey, uh, trans men are trans, too. you're support to care about trans men. yeah, especially if you're a lesbian. like. you're supposed to support all trans people here, you don't just get to pick and choose which trans people you """support""", here.

[fairydares]

loook i get why the idea of riding the "anti/pro" fandom disk horse makes people gag a little in their mouth and try to opt out entirely, but here's why i went from feeling exactly the same way to taking a firm profiction stance. I've been meaning to make this post for a while.

~10 years ago, I posted a fic for the first time and it got its own harassment campaign. The fic wasn't even sexual, and wasn't going to be (it remains incomplete). It was accurately rated T on fanfiction.net. Anyone in the Fairy Tail fandom will understand this: I literally got harassed for writing a "Lucy leaves the guild" fic💀.

After many nice comments, someone left a pretty nasty one. Hurt, I messaged them back. They acted super attacked that I'd responded (lmao) and after we argued, threatened to "rip my shitty story apart in the comments section" if I responded again. I told them "go ahead lol."

They went ahead.

Now know that it was a relatively small harassment campaign, but at the time, it was devastating. Right around then, I wound up in the hospital. After I got out, I went to excitedly check my fic, and found several reviews saying things I wouldn't repeat to my worst enemy. I was suicide-baited more than once, told "thank fuck you finally abandoned this shitty story, dumb cunt," stuff like that.

There were several accounts involved, and I can't say for sure, but I suspect at least a couple different people were involved, though probably at least half of it was one person.

All the other comments were screeching about how I hadn't updated, mostly. "NO UPDAAATEE WHY DOES THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS TO MEEEE??!!!" was one that stood out after I'd been miserable in a hospital for an extended period of time.

Idk what people think is going on when FT fic authors write this trope, and frankly I don't give a fuck. Because while I was partly writing the story out of some young, cringe feminist rage, I also did genuinely have a real story I was compelled to tell. I was inspired by another, popular fic I loved which used the trope to talk about how trying to shoulder our burdens alone really just hurts both ourselves and everyone who cares about us.

My own story was ultimately going to have similar themes, with more focus on strength, what it means, and in what contexts earning and having it actually matters. In retrospect, no wonder I wound up in hot water, because at the time "Lucy vs. Strength vs. Misogyny" was the FT fandom's Designated Nonsensically Activist Debate™. But that's partly why i wanted to write about it; engaging with the fandom had gotten me thinking about it 🤷‍♂️

Not too long after that, FFNet oh-so-benevolently granted us the ability to delete comments from our own stories (they never took my reports seriously at all, afaik). I deleted all or most of the harassers' comments (may still be a one or two up, and i'm fairly sure there's a couple comments defending my fic from the harassment) without saving screenshots, which I really regret now. I was just so mortified and full of self-loathing about the whole thing that i wanted to forget it completely. Something that had brought me joy at a very lonely, vulnerable period of my life had turned so negative, and i couldn't even tell the people closest to me about it without being made fun of for writing anime fan fiction.

I didn't understand why this happened at the time, but--after a period of trying to forget/bid out of it all with a slight anti lean (a common approach I see people use, and one which I'm not proud of adopting)--I just had to figure out What the Fuck Even Happened There. And I'm telling you, after years of reflecting, wrestling with both sides, and educating myself, that this "status quo of harassment" culture which pervades fandom goes way deeper than you think and comes out of a way darker well than you probably realize. An astonishing amount of this is, quite literally, TERF shit and evangelical shit.

Trying to be in fandom and take a stance of, "Anti/Pro shit? Ew, I'm Not Touching that," is like swimming in a heavily polluted river and being like, "Poison? Cringe. Not me lol."

You might be lucky enough to be in a less-polluted part of the river (AKA a relatively non-toxic fandom, in which case good for you!)...but tbh this rhetoric and peer-signalling will still seep in.

I can't stress enough that pro-fiction, AKA "proship", is the normal, leftist-about-art-and-sex opinion. Pro-ship is against all the horrible things you're against; in fact, pro-ship isn't trivializing real trauma by equating it with fictional trauma, or trying to apply literal evangelical/radfem solutions--which are proven not to prevent or help. Profiction/proship is literally just saying, "Fiction is fiction, reality is reality, and the two don't have a 1:1 relationship. And historically, trying to censor just things we've decided are bad has done nothing but get LGBTQ+ and POCs censored. Therefore, depictions of illegal things shouldn't be censored." That's it. "Proshippers all ship problematic ships," is a brazen lie. Many of them share other fans' disgust for those ships, they just don't believe in censoring fic authors over it.

It is also taking a stand against harassment because--and I hope my own story has helped drive this home--as with all groups who adopt ingroup/outgroup thinking, antis are defined by their tactics, not actual stances on real, serious issues. What happened to me was absolutely a result of anti, "it's okay to 'bully out' anything I just don't like" mindset pervading fandom. In a way, this was the mindset's final form. They didn't even feel the need to cite a reason the trope was "bad" or "wrong"; it annoyed them, and they viewed their own feelings as a valid enough pathway for policing to go right ahead and do so.

In the interest of offering solutions instead of just bitching about problems, I might make a "how to know if you've bought into these types of views"-type post sometime. Also might come back to this and provide some sources/citation.

[olderthannetfic]

Re: discourse about using outliers / the worst examples of a group to justify generalizations-- this is also a problem with the femslash wank asks

I'm one of those filthy f/f folks who actually does want to see more femslash relative to mascslash, but I'm not anti-fujo or a terf or telling ppl to change their own tastes. I'm proship / SALS and kinkmato and I think fujoshi are great; I appreciate their massive contribution to fandom culture including AO3's existence itself

But some ppl seem like they just hate f/f fandoms generally and want a reason to bitch about us? and I've felt super demoralized by it whenever I read your blog lately

Like the complaints about f/f being too wholesome and fluffy and that this is somehow bad?? tumblr is C O V E R E D with cutesey fluffy bubbly m/m art using That Artstyle we all know and nobody complains about it. But when sapphic art is like this suddenly its cause we're boring sexless puritans who dont know what pussy should look like? The huge amount of kinky weird depraved f/f thats out there gets totally erased and the wholesome stuff gets scapegoated as a symbol of regressiveness.

Or the constant lecturing to "JuSt CrEaTe It YoUrSeLf" as if nobody who says they want more f/f would actually be making it??? How do you KNOW they're not making it? Are you stalking the tumblr of every ao3 f/f author to make sure they never expressed the opinion you hate , and vice versa??

Yeah a few awful ppl have been super obnoxious, terfy, or puritanical bullies with how they talk about this topic. But when you constantly bring those people up to demonize talking about it at all it feels like you're creating a taboo around it because you want those annoying lesbian feminists to shut the fuck up. Cause how dare we, right? How dare we express desire for something in a way that reminds you patriarchy exists.

You won't even let us express that we're bitter or sad about feeling like a minority even amongst other queer women. You won't let us express simple jealousy without interpreting that jealousy in the most terfy antiship bad faith way possible!

I won't defend those who actually harass ppl or moralize over ships. I won't defend anti-fujos. But when you constantly lump me in with those people just because I looked at AO3 stats and went "Hmmm, it would be cool if this was more balanced :/" or whatever it feels like you just don't want me to say anything at all

--

Is this about me personally? Yes, I agree that topics that are repetitive start to feel like an attack.

But with regards to AO3 stats, this is my pet peeve, as you probably know if you read here often, and I'm unlikely to stop being angry about it.

AO3 is extremely unusual in the history of fandom for being a very big, very multifandom site that is not m/m-specific but where m/m outnumbers other things. There have been large-ish slash archives before. There have been and still are other large, multifandom archives, from FFN and Wattpad, which are in AO3's weight class, to medium size ones like MediaMiner. The spaces that aren't m/m-specific generally have f/m vastly outnumbering m/m. They also make it harder to get stats than AO3 does.

I don't have an issue with people looking at overall fandom stats and complaining that f/f has the short end of the stick when it comes to fanfic broadly. I do object to people pulling only AO3 stats and going "The one anomalous clubhouse that looks like this is the problem" and pointing at m/m.

It's the same problem you point out, just in another direction. After being told "Okay, but the amount of m/m..." constantly for years, people are fed up and never want to hear it again. Even if it's phrased nicely. Even if the person saying it is also hurting.

[lesbianrobin]

not to return to the drama of yesterday/invite more but the terf accusations are wild because like. the whole fucking thing is that it's trans exclusionary radical feminism. what makes terfs terfs is the transphobia particularly transmisogyny.

and accusing somebody of being a terf for. being mean to a fictional man. is like... first of all i actually don't think they believe anything they're saying like i do think they're just trying to use social justice language to make themselves seem justified but BESIDES THAT. it is actually so insanely transphobic and misogynistic to act like Being Mean To A Guy is equivalent to trans exclusionary radical feminism. terfs are not primarily hurting men they are primarily hurting trans women!! it is quite literally in the name!!

but "terf" has been watered down so much that now people just use it as an insult against any lesbian they don't like. if you commit the crime of not worshipping men then you are actually a radical feminist which means you are also a transphobe and now people can attack you for not liking men but in a Woke Progressive way. it does not matter your actual ideology or even if you're trans yourself All that matters is that you dared to not center men 24/7.

and the worst fucking part of all of this is that as always trans women are being shouted over and disregarded! these people don't CARE about trans women all they care about is bullying dykes. and they're losers so they invoke trans women as some bizarre justification for their actions while doing Nothing to aid or advocate for trans women. it's just like such hateful loser behavior and it pisses me off.

[velvetvexations]

I feel like a lot of the trans women saying that masculinity/manhood is always rewarded in everyone because patriarchy often forget that the opposite is true, actually, for people who are seen as women/put in the "woman" category.

Because yes, trans women are usually forced into manhood and "rewarded" for being men, and punished for being women. But that's not because manhood is universally rewarded in everyone, but because partriarchy sees having been born with a penis as "man".

It also sees being born with a vagina as "woman", and every deviation from that is *also* punished.

Yes, people who are seen as women/girls may have more freedom in expression of gender (depending on where they are from. I hate when ppl act like people afab everywhere can just dress like men without punishment. There are so many countries with laws on what "women" (and those treated as women because of their agab) can wear, and if anyone believes for one second that breaking these laws is REWARDED in any way, they're so fucking deep in their own head and need to talk to someone from these countries) but that freedom was fought for by feminists! Feminists have fought to be simply just allowed to wear pants. It's ridiculous to look at how it is now (in the western world) and make conclusions on that without looking at *why* it is that way now and how it was before.

And people are usually expected to grow out of their tomboy-"phase" by the time they reach their late teens, or early twenties at latest, and become a feminine woman, wife, and mother. If you don't do that, your masculinity gets punished.

And the masculinity of people afab is also only (begrudgingly) accepted (in SOME places in the world) as long as they're still visible as women or girls and their masculinity is hot and serves cishet men. As soon as they step "too far" out of these roles (by being non-binary or men, or being "ugly", fat, or anything that would make them "undesirable"), their masculinity gets punished. Horribly.

It's really infuriating when (trans)radfem trans women try to act like their experiences are universal and whenever someone says something that disagrees with them, they must be lying or "delusional" (yay, ableism! so progressive /s) for thinking that they were, in fact, punished for their masculinity or manhood...

Sorry for unloading this on you, didn't know where else to put it. And thank you so much for listening.

I think a major issue here is that no matter how much we try to reason things out and work through why they act the way they do, radical feminism, trans or cis, ultimately comes down, at some point, to a deliberate decision to prioritize egocentrism and their own desires over seeing other people as real, actual people - not even other transfems, who they just sexualize and try to control, or call a TERF if they can't. And it's hard to reason with that.

Like, they have to know on some level that they hyperinflate trans women in particular being "socially murdered"* to use as social capital and terrorize younger** transfems into isolating themselves. Maybe a very long time ago for some of them it came from the distress they felt from the legitimately immense danger transfems face in a variety of contexts, but they've shot far beyond that now and just don't really care. They've built a cage of unreality around themselves that makes me feel like I'm talking to aliens.

Like the other day, I was talking to one who insisted that the tee-em-ees will not show up for me. Like, I said they did, and she said they won't, and I was like, but they DO! They have! Always! I've seen it with my own eyes, directly for me specifically! But it was just "who hurt you," "let yourself be angry," "don't settle for just scraps," "they won't treat you better if you throw yourself at their feet," "social murder," and it's like WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? ARE YOU HAVING A STROKE? WAS THIS A DREAM YOU HAD?

And what about the deliberately cruel fuckery, the constant derision of the most petty things like forcemasc? What the fuck do they get out of wrongly asserting that women are never punished for masculinity and never have a problem with being viewed as masculine, like why are they doing that, what is their goal? Because it seems like it's literally just "mock and invalidate the sexual interests of others and deem it an inferior copy of our thing."

What do they get out of misgendering cis and trans men for forcefem funsies and telling them to suck it up? They don't really believe that their forcefem joke is the only thing that might make an egg crack. That's extremely obviously a lie. They're doing it because they want to, because it's their kink, because they don't care about the feelings of other people, and they can use transmisogyny as a convenient defense when people ask them to moderate literally any of their behavior for the comfort of everyone else to literally any extent while demanding everyone else shut up and defer to them on every single topic in every single situation.

And this stuff with D20 and Ophiuchus and the transmasc character being treated better? A lie. Just fully making it up. Inventing it. Fabricating it. For attention.

I've never had one acknowledge it when I've tried to explain that I first learned about all of this from transmasc friends bringing it to me so they could defer to my opinion.

They're determined to stay like this. It sucks.

*truly a phrase that makes me livid to even think about now, they reduce it to about the same level of seriousness as forcefem jokes, every single time it's so thoughtlessly hollow and self-obsessed but you could guess that from it being a fair description of every thought they externalize

**let me make this clear, I'm referring to young adults, I am not accusing anyone of being predatory towards minors nor am I saying the motivations are necessarily sexual anyway, although clearly transradfems don't care about the effect their hyperbole will have on the mental health of minors exposed to it and trained from a young age to never trust anyone, so underage transfems are very much a concern here, but not in the sense that they're being directly and personally abused in any way

[animentality]

In response to your post about radfems and men, a few years ago I started going down the radfem rabbit hole, a lot of this came from being in a community of men who actually /were/ psychopaths, along with having a father and grandfather who were too. I have PPD as well, so seeing these men act this way and having radfems whispering in my ear "All men want to kill you, all men want to kill you" was DETERIORATING me like acid. I cannot describe to you the hell I was living in each day due to paranoia eating away at me. It felt like my own spirit was a chain link fence turning into rust.

Then I met my husband, and he completely changed my life. And yes I know women can save themselves, we aren't all damsels in distress, but I honestly /was/ too bad off to just pull myself out of it. Since fear of men was the biggest thing killing me from the inside out, a man coming along and showing me that I can both trust people AND at least some men, seriously subdued a massive chunk of my rage, hatred and fear. And he really goes above and beyond too! Every problem I have had he has helped me to fix, along with showing me how to do things myself. Some people may not like that it was a man who "rescued" me, but I don't owe it to anyone to be an idyllic girl power success story, I owe it to myself and to our son to not be a terrified wreck.

I mean I have always suspected that radfems and terfs were like this.

Like my going theory is that if you believe men are irredeemable monsters who can only hurt other people all the time, you clearly don't have good relationships, with anyone at all.

That kind of mistrust of your fellow human beings comes from a well of hurt and paranoia that you're not addressing properly.

I'm glad you found someone to help and love you, though. And I don't think it's anti feminist to need someone to rescue you either.

what's so wrong with being saved, no matter who or what does it?

nice metaphor with the chain link fence btw. that'll live on in my mind for a bit.

[redditreceipts]

Hi! ex radfem cis lesbian back. I saw you asked why I reconsidered my viewpoints, so I will answer:

Firstly, I do want to keep the context in mind that this is simply my experience and very well may just be a me thing.

I gravitated to being a radfem at around middleschool, because I was sexually harrassed by a boy. It gave me the "all men are evil" complex. But I slowly realized I only used my hatred as an excuse not to face my trauma. There are great men in my life, my father and brother are some of my biggest supporters. My brother even tried to beat up the guy who harrassed me lol. The hatred I felt for every male I saw (excluding my family), the fear I felt, made me intensely paranoid and unhappy. I also found it was just wrong. Like anybody, men are not a monolith. Somebody born into a male body is not instantly evil. I've actually been harrassed more (sexually and in general) by females in my life, so I realized the generalization didn't hold up.

Of course, it is obvious that males are more likely to commit violent crimes, even if my personal experience was opposite. But I try these days to see the best in everyone, as not assuming somebody's moral value based on their sex has helped me live a more happy life. When I say I find GC spaces a bit extreme, there are a myriad of blogs who constantly say all men are evil, all men should die...I think that sort of talk is unproductive. Like it or not, males will always exist in humanity. So we should be finding a solution to the social issues and dismantaling patriarchy instead of invoking ire in innocent people (People are more likely to listen if you are nice to them...I have seen many men get mad at the "all men are trash" thing because that would include them, even if they haven't done any wrong. Whether or not it's fair we have have to watch our words doesn't matter -- this is just the proven best way to get others to take your points seriously).

As for the trans stuff, I just don't really care these days. Using different pronouns doesn't affect me as it is just words, so I don't care. Much like men, I view all trans people as individuals and don't develope an opinion on them as people based on identity alone. I find operating in the world this way is just easiest, and helps me not develop a bias. (Also as a GNC lesbian I have been mocked for being "a trans woman" by what would be considered "transphobes" I suppose, because I look like a guy, so I feel how some TERFs try way too hard to point out "obviously trans people" just hurt GNC people. But I know that's not the majority of TERFs.)

That is just trans people however. The trans "movement" (quotes bc it's not technically a movement but you get what I mean, the social atmosphere etc), which is not a person but a common ideal, has a lot of issues. My biggest issue being that it's hard to have actual conversations about it without walking on eggshells. My best friend is trans actually, and 100% accepts her sex. After all, you have to be the opposite sex to be "trans" at all. So even if I was harrasses by a trans woman, I would not think of all trans woman that way, much like how I do not demonize all females because I was harrassed by a handful.

That said - The social class of "men" (not the person or sex, but the way we have normalized socialization and the like) has many issues, and I am 100% for tackling these issues. I think we as a society must be open to talking about things even if we disagree with them or it makes us uncomfortable. Now more than ever we nees loud feminist voices. You may be just a tumblr blog, but one blog can go a long way. Even if I don't 100% agree with every post you make or radfem ideals or whatever, I am very thankful to have people who are not afraid to hold discussions and discourse. I do think the hatred for radfems is unwarranted to the degree it has reached. I wish we could all have civil discussions. So in short: keep posting and keep talking, thank you.

Heyyy! I am first of all really sorry that my answer comes so late, it's because I didn't really have the time and/or energy to read all of the asks I got, so I didn't open yours - I hope that this is not all too late of an answer :)

I guess that you are making various points here. First of all, I understand how the hatred of men can be unproductive in some ways. I agree that for many women, they don't gain anything out of fantasizing about the death of all men or reading stuff about how men suck and are evil. However, I also think that this is useful for some women. I have to say that even though I don't hate all men, this type of rhetoric awoken me out of my non-feminist slumber, and I think that this can be a helpful outlet for many women. I mean if there were any real-world harms proven from this rhetoric, I would obviously be against it, but as for now, I just think that this rhetoric can be useful for some and not so useful for others.

Like my blog. Is it productive to make fun of weirdos on the internet? Some people will probably say that this just makes them angry and depressed, but other people will find something cathartic in those posts and find their own experiences represented for the first time. And for those who find it not to be helpful to read that stuff, I would expect them not to read it

Secondly, I'm glad that the trans stuff doesn't affect you, but I have to say that it affects me (and many others). I'm politically active and have gotten so many creepy comments and abusive behaviour from entitled males who believe that they are women. Where I am politically active, analysis of male socialisation is totally absent and most politically active women are not really safe. I have also been told that I can be non-binary if I don't identify with the gender stereotypes, and I identified with that.

But I guess those weren't really your points, your point was just that those are the reasons for you not to be as active anymore. And that's fine! I obviously hope that you still believe in female empowerment and women's liberation, and you seem to. I'd almost go so far to say that some of your beliefs are still those of a radfem, but maybe you have other stuff to focus on, and that's totally cool ofc!

Also, thank you for saying that about my blog and say hello to your friend from me hahah

[nothorses]

I swear I feel like every time I hear a terf or baeddal talk about transmen I want to stand on a mountain and shout that women can be misogynists too. It always goes 'transmen dont have privilage' -> 'oh so transmen are IMMUNE FROM MISOGYNY' and sure thats a bad faith argument but I think they really believe women are immune. Internalized misogyny still cuts people the same and terfs have a LOT of it tbh.

genuinely I think all of the actual feminist theory, even the shit that has been fucking baseline since 2012, flies out the window when a lot of people are actually challenged on their regular-ass unexamined transphobia toward trans men, & reflexively choose to defend themselves rather than, like, introspect for one second.

and I dislike calling them all TERFs or Baeddels; the latter especially is the name of a very specific, very small group with a specific ideology (which is only experiencing a fairly niche resurgence right now), and a lot of these folks are just regular people who dig their heels in when faced with the possibility that they might have some non-optimal ideas about trans people. and worse, that they might have made a mistake- especially one that has very likely hurt someone else.

people don't like to think that they have hurt someone. they will try to deny it rather than accept the guilt that comes with acknowledging their mistakes. and when that fact becomes undeniable, a lot of people will choose to believe that the person/people in question deserve it- that they are fundamemtally different and/or worse somehow- in hopes of convincing themselves that they don't need to feel bad for causing harm.

some of these people are probably acting with different, or even just very extreme conclusions of, this same logic. but like. we do need to keep in mind that a lot of it is in the realm of normal human behavior, and that we suffer from the same impulses.

but like, that's why they're so quick to throw all these ideas out as soon as they become inconvenient. it's not a dark master plan, and it's usually not a whole horrible theoretical framework with a cult-like following, either; it's normal guilt avoidance. it's not wanting to examine your biases or have to work on yourself. it's avoiding the possibility that you might be imperfect in one more way. you don't need to fall down the rabbit hole to think that way.

you don't transcend all societal influences the moment you realize you're trans, and you can't transcend them even if you haven't known anything other than life as the target.

but it sure is a lot easier to believe you do. 🤷‍♂️

[nervoustragedyluminary]

Idk why calling transmasc people "cunts" & "bitches" in an insulting way is so normalised by fellow transmascs and trans guys in the Anti-Transmasculinity and transandrophobia tags.... like you realise you're just doing toxic masculinity and transphobia right?

Trans women never asked you to do this and it's pretty transmisogynistic and chauvinistic to claim you're doing it on their behalf or to fight for their liberation when it's actually the same self centred bullshit that predatory cishet men do when they go "I'm a feminist and all men are trash (but not mee I'm one of the good ones)"

the tone of many of these kinds of posts is very "I'm not like those other guys I'm one of the cool guys who is better than all the whiny boys who are behaving like girls (Derogatory) for talking about Anti-Transmasculinity and I'm gonna prove how feminist I am by calling them cunts and bitches and telling them they aren't real men because IMO 'real men' (white pericishet abled men) don't face gender based oppression or talk about facing it"

it's just very thinly veiled truscum "you're a transtrender for talking about Anti-Transmasculinity " BS trying to hide behind "I'm defending trans women & fighting transmisogyny by calling out these whiny bitchcunt tboys who won't man up and suffer in silence for the good of trans women like I do" when you're not even centring trans women in this kind of "advocacy";

you're just doing the classic thing of making it all about your own insecurities with masculinity and attacking other trans people for not being 'stoic' enough about transphobia and violence they face & claiming that trans women benefit from our erasure and silence .

Like you realise most trans women don't see you hurting trans dudes, misgendering them or mocking trans survivors of DV & SA and go "woo yeah this helps me fight transmisogyny & SA and DV against trans women please tell another guy that he deserves to be SA'd or detransitioned for being whiny"

and it's pretty telling of your unexamined transmisogynistic assumptions about how this behaviour must somehow benefit trans women that your first go to for "how can I be an ally to trans women? " is apparently to seek out trans guys and tell them they deserve sexual or domestic violence while calling them bitches and cunts and misgendering them to try to threaten them into silence on issues that effect them

... Just yuck behaviour like how to say you agree with terf rhetoric about trans women being pro DV and SA MRAs without saying it.

Seriously if you want to advocate for trans women and trans fems (and trans neuts) try to actually listen to them and stop trying to use them and their struggle for liberation (which is inextricably entwined with our own) as an excuse to play out this tired self obsessed "I'm more of a real man than you" dominance paradigm BS

And also maybe while you're at it listen to some of your fellow trans men and transmascs talking about their own issues and don't be so quick to assume without cause that they're blaming trans women for Anti-Transmasculinity existing in the first place or that they think trans women as a group are oppressing them.

Like there's a HUGE difference between talking about societal violence from cis people, lateral in community violence and anti transmasculinity and going into terf GC & radfem BS that claims that trans women are "using mAlE pRiVeLeGe to rule the trans community and oppress the poor TIFs" & listening to the good faith discussions and understanding what people actually mean when they talk about Anti-Transmasculinity and transandrophobia actuall helps you to quickly identify and discard BS terf rhetoric that tries to pretend to be pro transmasc rather than just writing off anyone speaking on these issues as "you're just a detransitioner (Derogatory) in waiting you're not a real trans man because real men don't have or talk about problems"

[not-gray-politics]

anyway the americanized version of 4B is just a repackaging of terf ideals and we should call it what it is (I don't have enough context about korean culture/history to pass any judgement on the original movement; this post is specifically about the most recent version of the movement that's been gaining popularity in the U.S. since the election.) I support boycotting misogynistic industries and cutting off toxic people, especially when they vote against your rights, but if your response to this is to start talking about the inherent evil of men and cutting off all men in every circumstance when about 53% of white women (the vast majority I see making 4B content recently) also voted trump. I think your focus is in the wrong place. The call is coming from inside the house. Divorce that shitty husband who's been exploiting your labor, break up with that boyfriend who doesn't respect you, stop talking to that relative that's celebrating your loss of reproductive rights, stop supporting that business with a trump sign on their property, absolutely. I will always encourage you to find people who support and care about you and to build community and safety for eachother. But don't turn around and hang out with women who advocate for the exact same right wing bullshit with a coat of pink paint and call it "4B". Don't rely on terfs who think you're inherently weaker and dumber and will always remain less powerful than men. They do not actually care about advocating for your rights, they only care about hurting the right people and keeping you afraid. They'd vote against you in a heartbeat if it meant hurting a trans woman, they probably already have. They shout about girl power, sisterhood, womens' solidarity, but they do not believe we can overcome misogyny in any meaningful way. There's a lack of faith that we can ever prevent the root causes of misogyny, that men will always be inherently predatory and unable to control themselves around women and have power over us and there's nothing we can do to stop it or change it, so they believe in bandaid solutions like segregation to "protect" us, (inadvertently placing the responsibility on women to make up for mens' actions, which is my primary issue with 4B, not everyone has the choice to just "avoid all men" or "avoid toxic men" or "not have sex/children/etc.";) instead of advocating for meaningful activism and change so that no one needs protecting. They're not feminists, they're defeatists. It's a belief in mysogynist dystopia, and you should know by now how I feel about dystopia. (It's a tactic to drain your motivation, keep you from imagining a better world, and keep you complacent. Always resist dystopia.) They will not be there for you when it matters. Remembering the intersectionality of these issues is so important right now. You cannot advocate against trans rights, gay rights, poc rights, disability rights, or fat liberation and then say you advocate for womens' rights. Racism and misogyny are historically intertwined. Fatphobia and racism and misogyny are historically intertwined. homophobia and transphobia and misogyny are historically intertwined. ableism and any form of eugenics are DIRECTLY linked. Half the shit we hear about any of these minority groups is just a recycled antisemitic talking point. To the bigots in charge we're all the same. If you're not a white, cishet, financially powerful able-bodied man, they want you to be subservient and fall in line. We share the same fight; for our dignity and for a better future. It's equal rights for all or none, you can't separate them from eachother. If they're coming for one of us they're coming for all of us sooner or later.

[doberbutts]

I saw someone claim that the reason some trans men turn to talking about transandrophobia (with of course the underlying implication that that's a bad thing) is because they're former terfs who have had their terfy social circles turn against them after coming out as transmasc and that's why they now believe that "men are oppressed" and so on.

I find this to be an odd rationalization that I don't really buy, but do you know if this is actually a common lived experience?

I mean. I have yet to poll every single trans masc talking about whatever word of the day we're calling our problems? I am literally Just Some Guy and I am also very much not the trans masc police.

But I don't think it's that common. I also don't think this was asked in good faith, but I'm answering it like it was anyway. It's just not really an appropriate thing to ask someone, and especially not when you consider that it doesn't really matter either way.

Like, yeah, any former beliefs you may have had may influence the way you theorize in the current moment, that's not an untrue statement. It's also really toeing the line on the same logic that terfs use that say trans women will never be rid of their "male socialization". It's pretty much the gender swapped version of "trans women that talk about transmisogyny are actually former incels" which is also just not an appropriate thing to say to or about someone.

Personally I don't think it's that weird that transgender people of any and all genders are positioned well to discuss the ways gendered oppression hurts us. Many trans people have experiences with being treated as multiple genders, sometimes simultaneously, and mostly to harm us. Discussing the ways that gender can be both sword and shield is often just a discussion of lived experiences. No radical beliefs necessary.

I also personally don't think that it's very prison abolition website of you to imply that someone having problematic beliefs, behavior, or social groupings in the past means everything they think of is now tainted beyond repair. I thought we wanted rehabilitation, not forever punishment?

I never called myself a terf, and the singular friend I had that did become a terf was kicked out of our mutual friend group for their shitty beliefs and was never invited back. I've always rejected radical feminism in all of its forms because I don't think it's kind or fair to blame entire demographics for systemic issues, nor do I think entire demographics are somehow incapable of causing harm along systemic lines just because they also experience that systemic oppression.

I may not have known the correct words for the label at the time, but I have always been a black, intersectional feminist. From the time I learned what "transgender" was, I have always been trans-friendly. Even before I figured myself out. So this rational not only doesn't work with me, but it also is pretty offensive all around.

[autolenaphilia]

I got the following tags on a reblog of my post about "transandrophobia" I blocked them, strawmanning me as a radfem and then telling me "radfems can choke", a clear death threat, told me this is not going to be a productive conservation. So I'm going to respond and document the abuse this way instead, not sorry. This response is so typical of the anti-feminism on this site that it's worth responding to.

The post this is about is linked above, please tell me how anything in it is bioessentialist. Because I'm a trans woman and talk about transmisogyny, It's probably obvious I don't believe who is a woman and who is subject to misogyny because of it is based on any concept of "biological sex", a concept I'm actually quite skeptical of. It's because I reject such bioessentialist ideas of womanhood and patriarchy that I'm not a radfem, for whom such ideas is central to their concept of feminism. My feminism is trans and intersectional.

I would also be interested to learn where in my post I go "woman good man bad." I point out that misogyny and male privilege is real, but that's different. Saying that men have male privilege is not saying they are all morally bad people, nor is claiming that women are oppressed by misogyny claiming that they are all good people. This is pretty basic stuff in any analysis of oppression. Men may all benefit from male privilege, but you are not a misogynist who hurts women, you are not a bad person.

And criticizing the concept of transandrophobia doesn't count as transphobia against transmascs.

The rest are transandrophobia theorist clichés I already argued against in the actual post, like "transfems have a word for their oppression, we deserve one too" and "transfems don't get to speak over transmascs (except we get to claim transmisogyny is actually misandry)." So I refer back to that post instead of repeating myself.

I have to commend this blogger for being honest enough to outright admit they believe "misandry is real". And also for writing "unfriendly transmisogynistic reminder" while accusing transfems of being too loud, taking up too much space and speaking over afab trans people. For that is indeed a classic example of transmisogyny, even if the accusation of us being "male socialized" is implicit rather than explicit. The accusation against me of being basically a terf feels like projection, especially for someone joining in on the transmisogynistic harassment machine on this site that terfs form such a large part of.

These tags are a perfect example of how basic feminist ideas like "patriarchy is real " and "misogyny is real" are labelled "terfy", something I talked about before. This is combined with the classic antifeminist technique of claiming feminism is man-hating. Even trans women like me doing feminist analysis and talking about the transmisogyny they experience gets labelled terfs, it's obscene. This blogger basically engaged with the "man-hating feminist" stereotype in his head instead of my actual post he was responding to.

And this man-hating feminist stereotype is not what feminists actually believe, whether you call them terf/radfem or baeddel (which seems to whatever it's original meanings seems to have become a word for the specficially transfem man-hating feminist stereotype .

And terfs/radfems are bad, don't get me wrong, but I explained before that "man-hating feminists" is not a good way to think about them and distorts the actual serious problems with their ideology.

[frigid666]

this was originally a response to a post asking why there was so much pushback against separatists when the bulk of female abuse is done by men, specifically in intimate relationships.

accepting "niche" experiences women have had that would make them hesitant or skeptical about ideas like separatism is critical to improving the flow of engagement with separatist ideas. most normie women do not have specific trauma involving ousting/ostracization from feminist communities, but many of feminist women do. specific users have written about being mistreated and vilified by various feminist communities, and i have known of several women who were also harmed greatly by their feminist communities; through vicious in-person harrassment, cyber bullying, or being abandoned when they got outed to their larger local mutual aid/action community as "terf" and none of the other radfems had the courage to publicly defend them. these experiences are real and often catalysts for life-long distrust of feminist groups. "trashing: the dark side of sisterhood" by jo freeman [×] is a great short read about a second wave feminist's personal experience with a feminist community's widespread hostility towards her. this piece isn't specifically about separatist groups, but its helpful to illustrate that misconduct is present in all types of feminist groups, there's historical record of it, so there's no point denying it.

something i think many separatists fail to fully appreciate is that a lot of (radically) feminist inclined women may actually feel the hurt of a rejection/mistreatment from a women's community much more severely than the usual mistreatment from a mixed-sex community because they expected the women's community to be a safe space for them. whereas they have no such expectation from a mixed-sex community. we always discuss the unique power female comraderie and community have, but then it must also be acknowledged the unique harm it can cause when something goes wrong. i have seen women completely lose faith in the idea of finding real feminist community, they were so burned by the level of immaturity and bad faith they encountered. there's a certain ability many feminist-inclined women have to show resilience against male and non-feminist female transgressions that is missing when it comes to responding to the transgressions from feminist communities. the hurt is magnified by the base values we all ideally share. if holding someone to their purported values, being called a sexually charged insult by a man is less hurtful and hypocritical than by a woman who is supposed to be above such behaviors, for example.

experiencing such maliciousness firsthand, through a friend/mutual, or simply reading through the writings feminists from older generations have left for prosterity often doesn't inspire a lot of faith in similar contemporary communities. i don't mean that in the "women are all catty and will betray each other, they can't be real friends" way. i mean it in the "women (including those with feminist values) are human, and so we are susceptible to perpetuating the same community dysfunctions that everyone else does (i.e. gossip, name-calling, losing touch w reality, sophistry, tunnel vision, rape apologia, etc)." these are all behaviors i and others have observed from separatists. most women don't find such things inherently more tolerable just because it's an exclusively female group doing it rather than a mixed-sex group. the internet is an artifice to a certain extent, but i think it's fair to say that the level of anonymity a platform like tumblr provides enables masks to slip. many users interpret the nastiness that comes from a lot of users in the separatist niche as the mask slipping - "so this is how they really feel" - like thinking it's ok to use sexually- charged insults, thinking it's ok to degrade/mock women who participate in new age religious practices, thinking it's ok to accuse lesbians who deviate from certain scripts of secretly being bisexual, thinking it's ok to dogpile politically inconvenient rape victims, the list goes on. i don't think it's fair to paint an entire group using its worst behaviors, but it's human nature to do that. one bad apple and such. particularly when an entire community is comfortable allowing such bad actors to exist in the spaces, dictate topics of discussion, and influence popular opinions. im glad sespursongles was mentioned, bc her writings are immensely important to the strain of separatism that's popular on here, yet she was extremely vile towards bisexuals, harboring immense disdain for us, and put blame almost exclusively on bisexual women for the continued existence of patriarchy and the failure of modern radical feminism in her writings.

there are bad arguments against separatism and separatists, no doubt, but there's also a lot of valid concerns and hesitations about joining such communities that i dont think can in good faith just be waved away as incurable man-obsession. "king kong theory" by virginie despentes has been critical in my own understanding of why many women may never find the idea of female separatism compelling.* within this bubble, it actually doesn't matter that it's only an argument in a niche tumblr community; most everyone in radblr is engaging with the ideas here in good faith, engaging with separatism as a serious proposition, and that's why it is often opposed with a lot of passion.

*while despentes does not ever use the term "female separatism" in the book, she engages with the idea indirectly in this passage:

the importance of this passage to me isn't that i find my own opinions about rape represented in a way i hadn't before; to be honest, i still don't fully know how i feel about these sentiments other than that to hold them, one must very careful and deliberate, because i can see them easily veering into very harmful rape apologia territory. instead, it was revelatory to me because it presents a perspective about the looming threat of male violence (particularly from a lesbian woman whom it is hard to argue does not have a comprehensive understanding of feminism and also has 0 investment in men as romantic partners) that hadn't considered prior to reading this book. many women will simply never prioritize blanket self-preservation over the possibility of adventure and freedom of mobility that can only currently be experienced by living in and moving in a mixed sex society, and choosing to allow or tolerate men in their lives. we must accept how feminist women appraise certain aspects of their own lives.

[bulldogblues]

Hot take, but I'm convinced that the majority of people who love to demonise 'TERFs' don't actually give a stuff about trans rights and are just using it as an excuse to shit on women without being called on their misogyny.

Why do I say this? Several reasons.

First and foremost is that people use the 'TERF' descriptor for opinions that are in no way linked to radical feminism or feminism in general. The more terminally online elements of Twitter/Tik Tok/etc. would have you believe that TERFs support homophobes/anti-abortion activists/racists, a claim with no basis in reality (seriously who thinks that anti-abortion advocates would EVER ally with radical feminists or vice versa?) and ignores that many radical feminists are lesbian or bisexual, and are of every race.

Secondly, advocating shit language like 'uterus havers' or 'menstruators' does not help anyone, trans or otherwise, and is dehumanising towards women and AFAB trans people alike. Almost no trans people I know want it either- it's usually overenthusiastic non-trans 'allies' that push for it.

Third, I've seen the word 'TERF' thrown about for opinions that are nothing to do with trans at all, including being critical of porn or sex work, or any opinion that isn't part of the 'acceptable' mainstream. It's starting to lose all meaning.

Fourth, if you really want to help trans people, attacking radical feminists is the lowest hanging fruit there is. It's objective fact that men (and more specifically, non-trans heterosexual and bisexual men) are the ones committing the vast majority of transphobic violence and are the biggest pushers of laws that hurt trans people and prevent them getting the healthcare they need.

If you really want to help trans people:

* Call out the people with actual power in society that would cause them harm.

* Call out the male violence that threatens them every day

* If you can afford it, donate money to trans inclusive homeless or domestic violence shelters that support the most disenfranchised trans people of all

* Tackle the many bullshit misconceptions about trans people that still exist in society

Are there radical feminists that hold shitty, transphobic views? Absolutely. But 'TERFs' really don't hold the power that the Internet would have you believe they do, and outside of the odd rude comment online, they aren't out there attacking trans people, going out of their way to make their lives worse etc.

If you believe 'TERFs' are your biggest enemy, in honesty you need to spend less time online and more time focussing on the issues that will improve trans rights in the long term.

[transexualpirate]

You spend your time here fighting terfs, and sometimes you can’t even respond with a proper argument lol. Focus on the MEN that end the lives of trans people like you they are more important I suppose terfs might disagree with you and so do I but they don’t kill you. I’m beginning to believe the only reason misogyny exist from trans people and cis men towards women is because women don’t kill and commit atrocities it’s seen and weak easy to “bully” perhaps or maybe im just deranged. Do feminist have to start treat you like men do? Since the lack of respect of VERY apparent internet wide.

omg i love your username!!!!!!!

anyways lmao im not actually too worried about changing a transphobe's mind, hence why sometimes my "argument" is literally just trolling because i think it's funny lol but if you think the only people i debate are radfems and never transphobic men you haven't dug deep enough in my blog. it's mostly terfs because theres an epidemic of them in this hellsite but i just hate transphobes in general lolll

also it's funny how you phrased it as though women are capable of no harm and it's only the men committing hate crimes against trans people. i mean obv the statistics show that cis men are far more violent but i assure you they're not the only ones. it ranges from women actually committing hate crimes themselves to transphobic assholes like nikolas ferreira using "the feminists are on my side!" as an argument for why it's totally acceptable to film a minor in a bathroom as long as she's trans. i mean the first time i experienced transphobia irl it was a grown cis woman telling me i was disgusting, should be ashamed of myself and should stay away from my friends to not "contaminate" them because she found out i was questioning whether i was trans or not when i was 12. so like. instead of lecturing a random trans person online about what you think is the Correct and Unproblematic way of dealing with transphobia, why don't you try to make it so i don't have to deal with it in the first place lmao

tldr as long as im not hurting anyone ill fight transphobia whatever way i think works better since im the one actually getting affected by it <3