#i'm firmly of the stance that the reason lots of people are transphobic is because they're on the agender spectrum

[existencebringsonlypain]

I go by she/her because that's what I'm used to, but gender isn't really something that important or meaningful to me personally. I use they/them when referring to myself, but I have no problem with others using any other pronouns (though I'm not used to neopronouns, so perhaps not those).

this could probably be referred to as agender.

which means...

I am a 𝗤𝗨𝗜𝗡𝗧𝗨𝗣𝗟𝗘 𝗔 𝗕𝗔𝗧𝗧𝗘𝗥𝗬

[rosalesbeausderholle]

So, like... are you a terf? Can't tell tbh

Okay, so I've been staring at this ask for days, trying to decide to answer or not, because I knew if I answered I'd likely end up writing a lot about my thoughts on this whole thing, and that the effort wouldn't be appreciated, so I'd rather leave it or answer with a witty one-liner.

But you know what? This is also the perfect opportunity to actually lay out my beliefs, which have changed over the years, and get certain things off my chest, because I feel like I must, so I'm going for it. Obviously, this blog is not super serious, but I do talk a lot about politics and especially feminism on here, so I think it's important that the people who read it get a good sense of where I actually stand.

This may be long, so I'm gonna give a short answer for your benefit, anon, and then a long one.

So, am I a terf?

Short answer: no. I neither consider myself a radical feminist nor do I exclude trans people's experiences with gender from my analysis of gender, while I firmly believe that feminism is a movement for women's liberation and must center women, the destruction of gender roles would be helpful to everyone. I also, genuinely, don't have anything against trans people, even if I disagree with some stances on gender people tout in the name of trans rights. So no, I don't think I am one.

And if you mean it in the sense of "is this blog safe for trans followers?" Well, it's a blog, a blog can't physically hurt you or oppress you, or make you unsafe. It can upset you, sure, and I hope I don't upset people by blogging, but I don't post anything with the intent to hurt anyone, and I hope I don't hurt trans people either, I certainly don't go out of my way to do so.

Now, the long (long, long, looong) answer under the cut:

It is true that I don't consider myself a radical feminist, that is, I don't consider myself a radical feminist anymore.

There's many reasons why I drifted away, but mostly it boils down to the general atmosphere in the movement. During my years around online radical feminist spaces I've seen people become increasingly more and more cruel and increasingly more like the people they argue against. What led me to it in the first place was not only that it pointed out the flaws and problems on popular views on gender, sexuality, and feminism in general, but that they were proud of being "the rational ones", "the ones that don't ostracize people for wrong think", "the smart ones that act according to science and not obsessive beliefs that don't hold up to analysis" and over the years I've just found that to be untrue.

The sense of sisterhood is just… not there and it honestly feels like you're one wrong word of being metaphorically stabbed in the back (the same way I feel within mainstream feminist/lgbt communities, echo chambers proliferate anywhere). I've seen people piled on for the smallest disagreements and misinterpretations, I've seen women demonized over all kinds of shit, and for incredibly hypocritical reasons too (one notable example that I'm sure people familiar with the drama will recognize is the woman who admitted to having done BDSM and be a Domme… harassing and stalking a woman who was abused by bdsm as a teen?) The cruelty I've seen some radfems express towards other women is honestly astounding, and I'm not about that.

There's also a lot of bigotry. For one, yes, there's radfems that are transphobic (of course they say that they aren't, that transphobia doesn't exist, or that they consider transphobia to be something else entirely) and I don't even mean in the sense of using one set of pronouns over the other or not believing in gender, I mean in the sense of being outright cruel towards trans people who don't deserve it whatsoever. In the sense of immediately assuming that all trans people ever are fetishists and have awful intentions and want nothing but to hurt women and gay people, in the sense of constantly making fun of trans people's appearances, in the sense of talking about how the bodies of trans people are "broken", "mutilated", "deformed".

Not to mention the fact that so many have no sympathy whatsoever for what experiencing dysphoria is like. Then of course, there's a myriad of words like "troon" that just feel like "I want to call trans people slurs but I might get judged for that." I can't stand for that, no matter the disagreements I have with mainstream ideas about gender.

I've also seen many examples of ableism, homophobia, racism, and a lot, like A LOT, of internalized misogyny which leads to saying incredibly misogynistic things towards other women. Whatever the debate du jour is, it feels like there's always someone ready to call someone else a "dickworshipper", or to call lesbians "incels", or to express some seriously victim-blaming-sounding sentiments towards women abused by men.

This has become worse in the recent years because as more and more people find out about the feminist vs trans debate about gender, and more people self-identify as "gender critical" (a label that now makes me ashamed), more white conservatives have started to use these platforms to spread hate, and also, as the debate becomes viler and crueler on both sides, people, well, people get angrier, they get somewhat radicalized (again, this goes for both sides), they start believing it is acceptable to behave in a way they wouldn't have a year ago. The fact that this all happens across the internet just makes it worse, because it's easier to insult anonymously than to someone's face.

So, because of that, and because of not agreeing with stuff like political lesbianism and some level of biological essentialism (not in the way people use it, in the "men are naturally wired to be violent and misogyny is inescapable" way, which I don't grudge people for having these sentiments I get why they exist, I just disagree) I don't call myself a radical feminist anymore.

However, it is still true that I have a lot of problems with modern takes about gender and feminism, and that if you were to label my feminism, "radical feminist" would be what fit best. The fact that I disagree with a lot of how radfems/gcs act doesn't mean they can't also be right in certain issues and I've personally made lots of friends and met a lot of wonderful and incredibly smart people through these spaces. And the idea that anyone that so much associates with "terfs" is immediately an irredeemable demon is a flat-out fear-mongering lie.

There's a reason why these debates get so heated and so hurtful, and while sure, I recognize that it is true that most trans people want to live their lives happily as they feel most comfortable, I can't just ignore how there's a lot of misogyny and homophobia that so many people arguing for trans rights (both by people who are trans and who are cis) spout.

The cotton ceiling is a prime example, it will never be anything but incredibly homophobic to tell lesbians and gay men that we must examine our sexualities in order to change them so that they include trans people that we're not attracted to. And this has hurt people, a lot of us, and it has even lead of actual real instances of sexual coercion, because in a climate in which being attracted to someone means validating and respecting them, and not validating them is the worst you could do, it gets so so so easy for predators and abusers to take advantage of vulnerable people. And this, by the way, has nothing to do with anything inherent to trans people, but with that how predatory people have always been drawn to those who are vulnerable.

And you can argue in circles all you want about how "well nobody is telling you that you have to fuck X, nobody cares!" they sure care when they ask lesbians unprompted who they'd sleep with in order to make sure they're politically pure, they sure care when they make guides telling us step by step how we should get over our aversion to penis, they sure care when being only attracted to the same sex as yourself gets you immediately branded as a terf and that's the worst thing anyone could be ever, regardless of your actual stances on feminism and on trans issues. The moment someone has said "no, I'm not into that" and your response is "yes, ok, BUT you should ask yourself why" you've already lost, you've already become the bad guy in the situation, you're already trying to ignore someone else's sexual boundaries.

And the reason why lesbians and gay men care so much and get so angry about this is because we've fought for so long for our sexual orientation to be accepted and for us to be able to proudly be ourselves, and now, we not only have to face homophobia from outside the community, but from the inside too. We can't even rely on the people who are supposed to be on our side not to be disgustingly homophobic towards us. And yes, wanting us to change our sexual orientation so you, personally, feel valid is nothing but homophobic. We're not hurting people or disrespecting them by not sleeping with them, we're not fetishists or genital-obsessed freaks. We just happen to be attracted to one sex that's all. It's not evil, it's just how we are. And you know what? I don't deny that there's women out there who might be a, idk, Kinsey 5 and who'd describe their sexualities as "everyone who identifies as a woman", and you know that's fine, but the fact is that these women's sexuality doesn't work the same as mine, I'm attracted to female people, not to external femininity or a gender identity (something I can't even see!) and I'm not gonna apologize for feeling like that. It also doesn't have to be hurtful for trans people that there's people who are exclusively same-sex and opposite-sex attracted, while other people may be more attracted to gender presentation. We're just different, that's okay. And sex is not activism, so no one has to sleep with anyone so that person is respected, because sex =/= validation =/= respect, but rather respect of other people's personhood is the only thing that equals respect, whether you find them hot or not.

There's also a lot of misogynistic sentiments that come out of modern lgbt communities and liberal progressives, and who are tied up in debates about trans rights. Such as: the insane idea that biological sex doesn't actually exist or matter, people claiming to be progressive yet basing their gender identity (or other's gender identity) off of gender roles. So many parents who go to the doctor and get a diagnosis of gender dysphoria only become worried in the first place because their little girl played with trucks or their little boys like to wear dresses, because they find that behaviour aberrant. I don't think that is in any way progressive, and I don't think people saying "I'm trans because I fit the gender steriotypes of the opposite sex" is either and sure, not everyone does that, but it happens. I believe in abolishing gender in the sense of abolishing gender roles, I don't think there's anything inherently masculine or feminine, there's just people who, mostly, are of one sex or the other, and there's the roles that are imposed and assigned unto them from the moment the doctor says "it's a girl/boy" (please everyone read Delusions of Gender).

Basing one's identity on gender roles and misogynistic ideas of what it means to be a man/woman is just… misogynistic... plain and simple, and while everyone is free to do what they wish, I can't just pretend that I'm okay with the perpetration of misogynistic gender steriotypes, or pretend that my body doesn't make me part of a sex class which is who misogyny is aimed at, and that my only sense of "womanhood" comes not from pronouns or from an innate feminine essence but rather my body and all the experiences I've lived in it. And I can't deny that, or deny that other female people (or afab people, if you prefer) are also affected by misogyny because of their bodies and how they're interpreted, regardless of their gender identity. It's ridiculous to say that a trans man can't be part of feminism, or that he has the same status in patriarchy of a cis man, same with trans and cis women, it is ridiculous to pretend our bodies aren't real and don't affect our lived experiences.

Of course people experience is gender dysphoria and I want to be empathetic to that experience, and I believe that people have the right to deal with it however they feel more comfortable with, which yes, includes gender transition. But there's also people who detransition for a myriad of reasons, and people who are dysphoric but don't physically transition for medical reasons, or people who's dysphoria doesn't last forever. Because of that, what I believe is that there should be available methods of dealing with dysphoria that don't include only transition, and I don't think that's taking away from trans people, but rather giving people who are dysphoric more options. I obviously do not support conversion therapy in any way shape or form, but medical transition is still a huge, literally life changing process, and people deserve to be informed when they go through it and have more options to deal with their dysphoria if they decide not to (options that obviously aren't going to a conservative therapist and encouraging them to be a girly straight girl or a manly straight man).

There's not one way to be a man or a woman, gender roles are bullshit and not natural, homosexuality is real (and so is sex) and it's fine that it exists, trans people deserve the right to live free of discrimination, homophobia and misogyny can also come from people who aren't white cishet conservatives, and deserves to be called out for what it is, but so does transphobia. Oh, and burn the sex industry to the ground too. That's what I believe.

Now, you tell me if I'm evil.