#i know the scene has been criticized for being trans exclusionary

[21stc3nturyd1gitalb0y]

turns out, i fit in pretty well with the riot grrrls because i, too, enjoyed angrily screaming about womanhood. the difference that went over my head at the time was that, generally, most of them hated being girls due to sexism, and i hated being a girl due to gender dysphoria.

ill never forget the angry punk girls who made me who i am, even as i outgrew a subculture that centered femininity. they helped me survive my teenage years, and ill always be grateful for the introduction to intersectional feminism

[go-scottishgal14]

Why does one group have to annihilate & negate another group? can’t they co-exist?

Masked pro-trans protesters ambush feminist 'Let Women Speak' rally in London and clash with police and rival activists

Daily Mail online,May 29, 2023

Two opposing crowds of gender activists clashed after masked trans activists carrying banners reading 'arm trans kids' descended on a women's rights event hosted by Kellie-Jay Keen.

The 'Let Women Speak' event, held yesterday at London's Hyde Park, has continually been a fractious one with demonstrators - and counter-demonstrators - arriving to voice their opposing views.  

Video from yesterday shows uniformed police restraining people at the scene of the protest after violence broke out, with officers later confirming they had made three arrests.

Many trans rights activists were pictured carrying banners displaying slogans such as 'trans joy will outlive you all', 'Cis d**** for trans rights' and 'Terfs off our turf, defending trans lives.'

The term terf refers to a trans exclusionary radical feminist, a slur commonly aimed at women with reservations about trans visibility in female spaces.

Demonstrators from the Let Women Speak event were also carrying colourful signs emblazoned with messages like 'Lesbians don't like d***' and 'Stop lying to children.'

In videos from the scene, trans rights protesters can be seen massed in a large group facing the women's rights demonstrators.

They can be heard chanting: 'Facist scum, off our streets.'

In another video Parker can be seen dancing as her fellow demonstrators call her a 'legend.'  

Speaking following the event, a Metropolitan Police spokesman said: 'Police are present and engaging with multiple protest groups at Hyde Park, and a proportionate policing plan is in place.'

MailOnline has approached the Metropolitan Police for an update on the situation.

The events organised by Parker's group in Hyde Park have frequently been targeted by trans groups - often resulting in clashes between the two sides.

At the last event in April, police were forced to keep gender critical activists and pro-trans protesters apart from each other.

Parker is leading a campaign for the word 'woman' to be defined as 'adult, human, female' in law, but has been met with protests from trans activists.

Also known as Posie Parker, the mum-of-four who dresses in bright jumpsuits and sports a Marilyn Monroe-style hairdo, has built a following by claiming it's impossible to change sex as she pushes to exclude trans women from female-only spaces.

NOTE:  I’m no expert/authority on issues concerning transgender people, and I think children should NOT be influenced to change genders at a very young age but allowed to voice their concerns about being uncomfortable in their own body, educated about transgender options, and then able to make their own decisions once their older. How old? I don’t know, that’s a quandry for me...what I don’t like is that WOMEN are being negated/overlooked/discriminated against, TRANSGENDER people feel they’re being negated/overlooked/discriminated against, and I don’t understand why the two groups can’t just co-exist. Peacefully. Work to resolve the issues that are affecting them -- and even come together on some issues to provide a stronger unified voice that benefits both groups.  Maybe I’m just out of touch with the world, which I realise is another  possibility and I hate the idea of possibly becoming limited/narrow minded in my thinking.....

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Dolores Umbridge

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

Sometimes it’s not enough to have a villain. Sometimes, you have to have a character who is thoroughly, unrepentantly awful, someone so despicable the audience will root against them, guaranteed. These are hate sinks, characters that you sink your hate into. When executed well, these characters can be truly great, because they are just so horrendously evil that their ultimate comeuppance is overwhelmingly satisfying. And while she’s certainly no Huey Emmerich, Dolores Umbridge at least gets to take home the silver medal in characters you love to hate. And you will, without a doubt, hate her, for more reasons than you might realize.

Motivation/Goals: Umbridge is seemingly only motivated by her desire to keep whatever power she has. Whoever is in power, she serves unquestioningly, going above and beyond what anyone should. Her tenure as the Ministry-appointed Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher was filled with horrific violations of human rights, including her brutally torturing students, and keep in mind this was all done in an attempt to monitor the school because they thought Dumbledore was training an army of child soldiers to stage a coup and overthrow the Ministry by claiming Voldemort was back.

Later, when Death Eaters took over the Ministry, she would put her same cheerful energy into desecrating the dead body of Mad-Eye Moody and sentencing Muggleborns to have their souls sucked out. So, yes, she’s just the pinnacle of the unpleasant government drone who goes on a power trip and abuses those beneath her with impunity

Performance: While she certainly didn’t fit the description of the ugly, toadlike woman from the books,  Imelda Staunton definitely showed that sometimes changes from the book are better than the original. By making Umbridge look like a kind, maternal figure she manages to project an outward air of sweetness and kindness; who exactly could think such a sweet-looking lady would be capable of such malice? It just makes the fact that she invented a blood pen torture device for use on students and that she can wear a piece of the soul of the most evil wizard to ever live around her neck with no ill effects all the more horrifying. Staunton absolutely kills it in the role, and even manages to make Umbridge a bit more cunning and competent than her book version in small ways while still keeping the smug, sickeningly sweet condescension that we all love to hate.

Final Fate: Umbridge, like any good hate sink, gets only the most brutal of comeuppances her way. In Order of the Phoenix, Hermione leads her into the Forbidden Forest; in the books, Harry explicitly mentally notes Hermione is unknowingly bumbling her way into Aragog’s den, but in both versions they are accosted by centaurs, and when Umbridge tries to assert her authority over them, they drag her off kicking and screaming. If you know anything about centaurs in mythology, you can probably imagine what they did to her, but mercifully neither book nor film spells it out. The sad thing is, she not only survives this, but she gets to retain her position in the Ministry, which pisses Harry off to no end when he finds out.

Fortunately, her good luck runs out in the final book and film. While in the book she’s merely knocked out of the story when the gang goes to retrieve Voldemort’s locket, and she would only be revealed after the story concluded to have been sentenced to life in Azkaban for her role in sentencing Muggleborns to death, in the movie it’s heavily implied that the Dementors she had been holding off sucked her soul out when Harry broke her concentration. I hate to imagine how her soul must have tasted, but really, it’s what she deserved.

Best Scene: I don’t think her best scene is even necessarily HER scene, but a scene in which she gets some sweet, sweet karma: Fred and George’s glorious escape from her nightmarish Hogwarts, a moment so awesome even Professor Flitwick pumps his fist from the sheer righteousness of the Weasley twin’s magnificent getaway.  

Best Quote: Looking through her quotes, during one of her exchanges with McGonagall she drops this line: “I am sorry dear, but to question my practices is to question the Ministry and, by extension, the Minister himself. I am a tolerant woman, but the one thing I will not stand for is disloyalty.” Now this line is already chilling on its own, but taking into account some recent developments, in which Umbridge’s creator, a woman who has a skewed idea of ‘tolerance,’ has been quick to label anyone who dare criticize her toxic views as a misogynist… the line has become disturbingly relevant.

Final Thoughts & Score: Dolores Umbridge is such a very real, very chilling kind of evil, and ultimately this is what makes her so effective. I think most of us have been in a position where a seemingly kind person in a position of power abuses their authority with a smile, and most of us have likely had an extremely rotten, unpleasant teacher. There is just something infinitely relatable to the experiences the students go through in the books.

But I think what truly cements Umbridge as one of the most disgusting and evil characters in a franchise which includes Sniveling Backstabbing Rat Man, Literally Insane Fascist Torture Fetishist, Pedophile Cannibal Werewolf, and at least two wizards who are Literally Hitler, and what ultimately helps her stand out is that she projects this air of kindness and sweetness, that she puts on this mask of being kind, agreeable, and friendly… and then she goes and uses her power to sentence innocent people to death. She has the demeanor of an angel with the heart of a devil, and while this alone makes her such an enjoyably detestable character, what helps her stand the test of time is that she really also holds up well as a criticism of J.K. Rowling herself.

Rowling put forth this sweet, motherly identity for years, this kind older woman who cared about the plight of the LGBT+ community, strived for diversity and inclusiveness, and donated so much of her fortune to charity… and then, on Twitter, she began slowly but surely showing cracks in the sweet facade. A tweet here, a comment there… and soon enough, Rowling had outed herself as one of the most disgusting things a person can be: a trans-exclusionary radical feminist. It certainly was not intentional on her part, but there is some sick humor in the fact that the woman who identified so heavily with Hermione, the girl who fought for the freedom of the oppressed with every fiber of her being, ultimately ended up being more like the oppressive, fascist monster with a sweet face.

Umbridge is an easy 10/10. She’s not nearly as fantastical as the other enemies in the series despite being a witch like they are, but her evil is so much more down to earth and relatable… even more so because she disturbingly reflects the attitudes and personality of her creator. Combine that with Imelda Stauntons incredible performance and, well, what other score could I possibly give her? She’s second only to Huey Emmerich in the hate sink department. I think Stepehn King put it best:

“The gently smiling Dolores Umbridge, with her girlish voice, toadlike face, and clutching, stubby fingers, is the greatest make-believe villain to come along since Hannibal Lecter. One needn’t be a child to remember The Really Scary Teacher, the one who terrified us so badly that we dreaded the walk to school in the morning, and we turn the pages partly in fervent hopes that she will get her comeuppance… but also in growing fear of what she will get up to next. For surely a teacher capable of banning Harry Potter from playing Quidditch is capable of anything.”

Oh, and one more thing: fuck Huey.

[dream-of-hydaelyn]

Regarding my twitter suspension

This is going to be a very long, and hard to write post, but I feel like I need to get everything going through my head down or it’s going to drive me insane.  So as some of y’all know my twitter account was @WillowPlaysXIV  I used this account to announce my streams, post memes, and talk about my experiences as a trans woman in the gaming and comedy scenes. The other day, this account was permanently suspended by twitter. I’m not writing this for pity, or for attention, or even as some desperate bid to get my account back because I know that twitter will likely never respond. I’m posting it here because this is quite literally my only avenue now.  I guess the best place to start at this is the beginning.  I first came out as trans when I was 18 years old, and in my freshman year of college. I was already invested in LGBTQ activism, I was an intern for the human rights campaign for a while, and actually helped found the first LGBTQ student union on my college campus. When I began my transition, my activism continued, even moreso when I left college. I wasn’t even aware of the existence of TERFS (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists, more detailed information can be found here) until a girl I went to middleschool with turned out to be one. 

It started small. I would get anon hate on my original tumblr account. Nothing I couldn’t handle. If any of you remember me from my “fursecutions” days you remember this. But month by month the amount of terfs targeting me specifically because of my activism grew. They organized campaigns against me, putting me on lists of “violent males” next to news articles about actual rapists. They contacted my employers. It came to a head when I was 20 years old. For two weeks straight I had a 24/7 nonstop barrage of harassment from these supposed “gender critical” feminists that culminated in a Suicide attempt.  It was the darkest time of my life, and my supposed “crime” to these people? I retweeted a story about a trans woman getting kicked out of a feminist event in manchester for being trans.  That was when I stopped participating in feminist activism all together. I stopped campaigning, I stopped working with the LGBTQ youth group I was involved with, I stopped meeting with congress people. ever since I was a kid, I wanted to be an advocate, and I left the career I’d been working at since I was 14 behind.

Terfs celebrated this, cheered and laughed and took screenshots to make fun of me when I was suicidal, but the harassment continued unabated. in the end my block list was somewhere around 24 thousand people long.   Once terfs decided they weren’t getting anywhere with outright bullying anymore, they resorted to reporting anything and everything I tweeted. most recently, the reported a tweet thread about me attempting suicide when I was 20, as I described above, enough times to finally trigger an automatic suspension of my account. I have filed an appeal and twitter has decided that my account will not be restored.  so that’s that. 

Terfs have been doing this to countless trans women with the express purpose of removing us from places where we are safely able to be ourselves and alienating us from our communities. they do not want us to exist, and they will never stop until cis people, en masse stand up to them.  Even if you aren’t political, or even if you’re just a Final fantasy RP blog who never talks about anything OOC, or just a friendly twitch streamer... This is never going to stop unless you take the time to stand with your trans peers. This is never going to stop unless you make space for trans people, and speak up when they’re pushed off of platforms because if you don’t... before long we’re not going to be around at all.  I still don’t know quite what this means. Twitter was how I booked a lot of my shows as a standup comic, and also how I announced my streams. So the future of both those prospects are completely in question. For the time being I will still be streaming according to my usual schedule and posting here.  Thank you for reading 

-Willow (Seska Tayuun, Balmung Server)

[blackbird-brewster]

I had two profound experiences today, extremely unrelated in context but both thought provoking after the fact. The first experience had to do with me getting my first library card in 18 years and how I was very anxious to go into the library for any reason other than to print something.  I will detail this experience in a different post but long story short, all of the embarrassment and shame I felt because of my learning disability melted away and I ended up spending nearly two hours just browsing books. I left feeling to included and happy, I actually cried tears of joy.  Fast forward to the second notable experience of my day. Tonight I went on a date with my flat mate to “Naked Girls Reading: The Feminist Propaganda Edition”. Naked Girls Reading is apparently a sort of “brand”, started in the US as a protest against the ways women’s bodies are usually sexualized when naked. The theory is exactly what it sounds like, performers are completely nude and read aloud to the audience.  I had never heard of this amazing concept, so I jumped at the invitation. ESPECIALLY since tonight’s theme was feminism. I figured naked women reading feminist works sounded AUHMAZING.  [Rest behind a cut for length and transphobia]

The event was hosted by a popular personality in the New Zealand LGBTQPIA scene. They are a self labeled transvestite that MC’s events as their drag king persona, Hugo Grrrl. I assumed, if it was hosted by a gender diverse person it was going to be fairly inclusive.  Welp, you know what they say about assuming. 

Things started promising as Hugo opened their monologue with my favorite greeting “Guys, gals and nonbinary pals”. Hugo then went on to talk about some of the topics of the night including body positivity, body hair, porn, sex work, sex positivity, etc. It sounded really exciting and inter-sectional, I was pumped.

Within the ten minute monologue there was also the disclaimer that “Although this is called “Naked Girls Reading”, gender is a spectrum and the binary is bullshit.” (woo, yeah!!) ”...We only call it that because it was started in America and we didn’t come up with the name.” (Wait, what?)

Ok... but you could literally just call it “Naked People Reading” or “Naked Folx Reading” or ANYTHING else if you want to TRULY be inclusionary. I wasn’t even concerned about the title UNTIL Hugo made the point to say gender binary is bullshit... but then to say “meh, we didn’t come up with the title we’re just being complacent in it” Was sort of shitty.  If you are trying to include people, then INCLUDE them. Don’t say “Hey I’m not transphobic, BUT....” There was no point of this disclaimer other than to point out you recognized a problem but would rather go along with it than change one word of the title of the show.  Things only went down hill from there. A few minutes later as Hugo was wrapping up the monologue they wanted to get the crowd pumped before introducing the performers for the evening. To do this, Hugo had “all the women cheer!” (which they did) then followed by “now all the men!” (which they did). It turned out it was just a set up to make the men a punchline of a very stereotypical “feminist hate men” joke. These jokes are always obnoxious and yes, I recognize Hugo was trying to connect to the large feminist audience so we could all laugh at how society views us...but again, we were back at only acknowledging the gender binary. 

Now I realize many people right now will think I’m being extremely cynical. “Kit, you can’t say someone is being trans exclusionary if they are a queer that self identifies as a transvestite!” But I can because they were.  If you are going to mention nonbinary people. If you are going to make a point of talking about how the binary is bullshit. If you want to have a disclaimer that gender is a spectrum. It’s ALL or nothing.  Inclusion isn’t “I acknowledged you, you should be happy” it’s “I acknowledged you AND included you with everyone else as if we’re all the same.

The monologue is over, I am properly uncomfortable and agitated, the performers come out. From the promises of topics, I expected diversity. Again, that nasty assuming sure got the better of me.

Instead I get two skinny women and one average sized woman. They all appear to be white (although one was painted head to toe in blue and pink body paint as a My Little Pony...and later I learned she isn’t actually white.) They’re naked. So I can tell body hair isn’t really happening. A bit of bush but perfectly smooth everywhere else. All have shoulder length or longer hair and present very feminine.  Idk, again, maybe I was just so cynical by this point that I let my critic get away with me. I just wonder how hard it would be to find a more diverse cast? Am I just too deep in tumblr culture to expect to see different size bodies at a feminist reading? Or people with actual body hair, especially since there was a point of mentioning it in the monologue? Tattoos? Scars? Short hair? Disabilities? More racial diversity? (Again, the one woc was painted blue. And I feel shitty for thinking she was white but they could have included dark skinned people too.)  Introductions are done. The de-robing has happened. We now have three naked women sitting on a couch. Let’s read “feminist propaganda”! Some pretty typical stuff, Maya Angelou, Gloria Steinem, big names of the feminist movement. There was a reading of an MRA’s post from some MRA website. (Why are we giving MRA’s an audience at a FEMINIST reading?!) Intermission.  During intermission, I got up the courage to go speak to Hugo and mention why I was peeved at the start of the show with the women/men division of the audience. They shrugged and said “well it was a set up to a punch line” I smiled and replied, “I realize that but don’t you think trans folks are the punch line enough?” They tried to back track but it got awkward and I walked away. Hugo does some “feminist” trivia during the break. Throwing prize bags of tampons and chocolate to whoever shouts the correct answer. 

One question asks what does “SWERF” stand for. A woman yells the answer and Hugo repeats it back to the audience and says “Sex work exclusionary feminism isn’t feminism. Sex work is real work!” It would have been so easy to also educate about TERFs. They don’t. The irony is not lost on me. 

More trivia. I win one. I’m told, “Here enjoy these tampons!” I catch it and yell back, “Not all women have vaginas” I turn to the women at our table and say, “Hello, I don’t need tampons and I hate chocolate. Enjoy” They gladly accept. Back to the readings... A dramatic reading of Spice Girl lyrics. Some very heteronormative erotica. A reading of a radfem manifesto of the 70s (that included very acephobic commentary) And then, the woman painted as a MLP says she’s going to read Ivan E Coyote.  Now, for those of you who haven’t been blessed with reading their works or seeing Ivan perform (I just saw them again last week!), they are a trans writer from Canada. Very well known in LGBTQPIA circles. AMAZINGLY pure and moving stories and poems and “literary Doritos”. They are an amazing human being and have quickly become one of my favorite queer authors.  SO I AM STOKED!! This night has been so cishet heavy and I’m crank, I am READY to end it with Ivan. Ivan has written four of five books, has mountains of published poetry and she chooses to read a piece that is so personal to me. She prefaces this with a quick word about Ivan being an LGBTQ author. But fails to mention they’re a trans masculine person who identifies as a Tom Boy.  The piece starts out as a love letter to femmes who are often erased from Queer culture because they are “assumed” to be straight. But then turns to Ivan’s journey through figuring out they were trans and how they became jealous of femmes sometimes and how they will never be seen as who they are. How they will always be coming out of the closet over and over and over. Because their identity isn’t “visibly recognized” because it’s outside the binary.  I sob every time I hear this poem because it is so personal to me. The first time I heard it was when Ivan performed in Chch last August. I was in the midst of struggling with how the world saw me and this poem touched a part of me I thought no one would <i>ever</i> understand.  I sobbed again tonight. My flat mate patted my hand. She sobbed too for the same reasons. The journey to figuring out your identity can be so isolating, terrifying and lonely. But when you hear your story being told by someone who is on a stage, with an audience, talking as if your journey was the most normal and natural experience....it’s an emotional time.  After she finished, the performer stated “As a cis woman, I obviously do not identity with the narrator. I do however think this poem speaks to me as a femme. Because we are often overlooked.” (This gets cheers from the audience) I feel sick inside. This cis woman just spoke the very personal words of a trans person bearing their soul and claimed it as a poem for her.  No. You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to bend it to your whim. If you want to include poetry or stories about the trans experience, YOU FUCKING INCLUDE TRANS PERFORMERS.  Thank god the night was over.  My flat mate and I are sitting at our table deciding how to make our own event called “Naked Queers Reading” and how much better it would be. We’re minding our own business when out of the corner of my eye I see a crowd around the stage area.  Of course. There’s a man who has taken off his shirt to pose with the naked women so he can get his buddy to take his picture. Of fucking course there is. That’s when we left.  I don’t know if I am just lucky to live in such a comfortable Queer circle of friends that I’ve become blind to the world of heternormative, patriarchal bullshit or if I am truly too fucking cynical to go out in public...but fuck was I disappointed with tonight.  Anyway, if you made it through this entire post, thank you. I promise I’ll post a really lovely story about the library tomorrow. Right now I want to watch Ivan E Coyote performances on YouTube and drink my tea from my Unicorn Elixer mug.