#intersectionality etc etc

[gremlingirlsmell]

Yea, I'm pro TransUnity™.

I would like a united community! But to accomplish that you don't shut down anyone talking about intra-community issues and saying we "divide the community" or are "playing opression olympics". Rather, you need to listen.

Listen to transmisogyny-affected people about intracommunity transmisogyny. Listen to trans poc about intracommunity racism. Listen to disabled trans people about intracommunity ableism. Etc, Etc.

Listen to people you want to share a community with you have privilege over, just LISTEN for once, without immediately snapping back! Maybe you'll learn something instead of alienating people you have privilege over and pushing them to make their own smaller communities. And maybe then we can finally have some fucking TransUnity™

[trans-androgyne]

“Men can’t get pregnant” “Men don’t need abortions” “Men can’t have boobs” “Transmen scare women, they shouldn’t be in maternity wards or the women’s restroom. Also menstrual products shouldn’t be in the men’s room” “Men don’t need women’s healthcare. We’re not treating you.” “Testosterone is gonna make you aggressive and sexual. I don’t know if I want to hang out anymore.” “Testosterone isn’t gonna make you a twink, you’re gonna have acne and be bald and ugly and sweaty and gross and get fat and hairy (these are bad things to me)” “You wear a packer? Why would you want a dick, is it like, sexual?” “Phalloplasty is fucking disgusting. It’s not like a real dick, why would you want that? You’re mutilating yourself. No, that can’t be transphobic, I’m trans.” “Lol obviously trans men can’t top, they don’t have a dick”

But you’re telling me the social construction of manhood and masculinity specifically has nothing to do with the transphobia trans men face? Yup, just “garden-variety” transphobia

[nonbinarymlm]

The thing is, most people (in the US and Western countries at least, that’s where my experience is from) have some forms of privilege some forms of oppression. This isn’t saying everyone is equally oppressed and privileged, but most people have privilege in at least one way and oppression in at least one way.

And if you experience oppression in some ways and privilege, it’s much easier to see your oppression then you privilege.

Privilege is largely invisible to those who have it. Oppression grates against you all the time. So it’s much easier to see the forms of oppression you experience then the forms of privilege.

That’s why it’s so important for us all to listen to each other and not play Oppression Olympics. You can face very real oppression that really affects your life, and still learn a lot from other people who face other forms of oppression that you don’t. We have to listen to each other. In the queer community especially I think this is important, because there’s so many different ways to be oppressed and to be privileged.

[chronicsymptomsyndrome]

Some people will get soooo offended if you say they are privileged ???what’s the deal with that

privileged=undeserving? it’s morally ambiguous?? privilege=malice??? evil intent?? no!

[ruegarding]

anyway here's my rant:

despite her comment in son, hazel doesn't have much adhd/dyslexia coding. her treatment at st agnes has more to do w being a black girl in the 1930's and her powers/curse than her possible adhd/dyslexia, considering she never mentions any symptoms specific to adhd or dyslexia in her backstory. the closest things are her interest in horses, which could be considered a hyper-fixation, and her flashbacks, which could be argued as daydreaming associated w inattentive adhd. furthermore, her powers could easily be used as a commentary on masking similar to the general attitude towards her vs other dead ppl (she looks alive, so she deserves to be alive, unlike all these other ppl who went thru the doors of death). overall, interesting set up, not expanded upon in canon.

similarly, the only time piper is ever implied to have adhd is in that boo scene, which doesn't hold much weight bc it's a general statement in an impersonal pov (as opposed to "piper was only able to keep track bc of her adhd/demigod abilities," still in third person pov, but a more personalized statement). this post began as a quest to answer the question "how does piper's adhd manifest," and the answer is "uhhhhhhhhhhh."

continuing w the trend, jason is never implied to have adhd or dyslexia at all. would have been interesting to see, considering jason has the whole gifted-kid-burn-out thing going on, but alas.

i'm not including the statement annabeth makes abt demigods typically having one or both and hazel's statement abt "just being a demigod," bc it's also established that it's not a requirement. the fandom wiki claims frank is the only demigod to not have adhd: if "just being a demigod" means that every demigod has adhd/dyslexia, then frank, inarguably, has adhd/dyslexia, as well.

more importantly, in a story where adhd and dyslexia are explicitly addressed and considered the cornerstone of the world building, i need it to be explicitly said that a character has adhd/dyslexia in order to give credit to canon (my personal hcs are a different story).

so, it seems like leo is the only one out of the lost trio w adhd or dyslexia, and it's only adhd. he frequently references things he's reading and shows no issue doing so, given that it's in a language he understands.

interestingly, leo claims "he couldn’t read ancient greek" in hoh, so it could be that the ease w learning ancient greek (and potentially latin) is exclusive to those w dyslexia. however, this has been as inconsistent as the actual dedication to giving demigods adhd and/or dyslexia. for example, chiron says the ability is "in their blood" in tlh w no mention of dyslexia, but in tlt annabeth says percy has dyslexia bc "[his] mind is hardwired for ancient greek."

the only character to bring up how dyslexia affects them in hoo is percy, making it seem like his dyslexia is much worse than annabeth's, the only other character who we know is dyslexic (from pjo, it's never mentioned in hoo). if leo is "seriously adhd," then percy is seriously dyslexic. something to be said how they're both treated as comic relief in fandom, considering.

frank not being diagnosed despite his dyspraxia coding could be used as a commentary on medical racism and the model minority stereotype. since frank is exclusively listed as the only demigod to not have either diagnosis and his dyspraxia coding eventually disappears, it doesn't appear that that was the intention.

moving to a more theoretical discussion, it's hard to say what is/is not definitively adhd/dyslexia symptoms, specifically using canon, considering we rarely see any of the demigods acting "normal." the majority of the time, they're on a quest/in an extreme situation. contrast w pjo, where we learn things abt percy's adhd and dyslexia while he's at school, a relatively normal situation, and then can apply it to the rest of the series. w hoo, it's almost all guesswork.

leo mentions that his adhd affects his memory, so we know that similar moments can be attributed to his adhd. but is hazel forgetting part of sciron's story a symptom of adhd or just a normal thing that happens bc forgetting things in stressful situations is normal? is jason's seemingly permanent amnesia a symptom of the memory wipe or is it exacerbated by adhd? is piper's aversion to feminine clothing and make up caused by sensory issues? we'll never know, bc they're never said to have adhd.

[sameteeth]

in s3ep2, eleanor tells mrs. hudson she doesnt come from privilege, which mrs. hudson immediately denies. but i think its SOOO telling of eleanor's character! she sees herself as a woman in a world full of men, which she is, but she completely ignores the class and racial divides she obviously benefits from. she claims she has no privilege to mrs. hudson, who comes from no money and works as a chambermaid to woodes rodgers, leaving behind her beloved children to make sure eleanor has clean clothes and to empty her chamberpot. eleanor had power on nassau, power she wielded for her own benefit and to the severe detriment of others. obviously she experienced misogyny, but she was never forced into poverty, never forced into sex work, never forced into service of any kind, because her father was wealthy and she was born into a higher class. her experiences of misogyny and oppression are vastly different than mrs. hudson's. but for her to tell a chambermaid she experienced no privilege? it's laughably untrue. eleanor oversaw and directly profitted from the trade of hundreds if not thousands of slaves on nassau, was raised by "chattel property of the guthrie estate" mr. scott, who is never even given a name in his own tongue (on screen, at least), never showed kindness to anyone but those who put money in her pocket because she was born with that money and that trade empire already in the guthrie name. she had to fight to get it, and fight she did, but the fact that those things were so close to her reach just by virtue of the circumstances of her birth? that's privilege, whether or not she sees it that way

[grecoromanyaoi]

i apologize in advance for admitting i watch booktok review/drama youtubers anyways to gaze upon wicked gods sounds insane in general but a part of it thats often glossed over which i think is utterly hilarious is how she looked at like the one place the romans didnt colonize and was like what if the romans colonized it instead of the people who actually colonized it

[trans-axolotl]

some of Eli Clare's writing about diagnosis feels very relevant to discussions on tumblr right now:

"It’s impossible to grapple with cure without encountering white Western medical diagnosis—ink on paper in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and the International Classification of Diseases, a process in the hands of doctors, a system of categorization. I want to read diagnosis as a source of knowledge, sometimes trustworthy and other times suspect. As a tool and a weapon shaped by particular belief systems, useful and dangerous by turns. As a furious storm, exerting pressure in many directions.

Simply put, diagnosis wields immense power. It can provide us access to vital medical technology or shame us, reveal a path toward less pain or get us locked up. It opens doors and slams them shut.

Diagnosis names the conditions in our body-minds, charts the connections between them. It holds knowledge. It organizes visceral realities. It draws borders and boundaries, separating fluid in the lungs from high blood pressure, ulcers from kidney stones, declaring anxiety attacks distinct from heart attacks, post-traumatic stress disconnected from depression. It legitimizes some pain as real; it identifies other pain as psychosomatic or malingering. It reveals little about the power of these borders and boundaries. Through its technology—x-rays, MRIs, blood draws, EKGs, CAT scans—diagnosis transforms our three-dimensional body-minds into two-dimensional graphs and charts, images on light boards, symptoms in databases, words on paper. It holds history and creates baselines. It predicts the future and shapes all sorts of decisions. It unleashes political and cultural forces. At its best, diagnosis affirms our distress, orients us to what’s happening in our body-minds, helps make meaning out of chaotic visceral experiences.

But diagnosis rarely stays at its best. It can also disorient us or de- value what we know about ourselves. It can leave us with doubts, questions, shame. It can catapult us out of our body-minds. All too often diagnosis is poorly conceived or flagrantly oppressive. It is brandished as authority, our body-minds bent to match diagnostic criteria rather than vice versa. Diagnosis can become a cover for what health care providers don’t understand; become more important than our messy visceral selves; become the totality of who we are.

...

It is impossible to name all the ways in which diagnosis is useful.

It propels eradication and affirms what we know about our own body-minds. It extends the reach of genocide and makes meaning of the pain that keeps us up night after night. It allows for violence in the name of care and creates access to medical technology, human services, and essential care. It sets in motion social control and guides treatment that provides comfort. It takes away self-determination and saves lives. It disregards what we know about our own body-minds and leads to cure.

Diagnosis is useful, but for whom and to what ends?"

-Eli Clare, Brilliant Imperfection pg 41-42, 48.

[squidgirlautism]

okay I don’t mean to be rude but I saw your post about Jewish people being white and I’m confused both by what you said and the fact that the question is being asked. Like surely whether jewish people are white depends on the Jewish person in question, some of whom surely are and some of whom aren’t? Like just going through life I’ve met jewish people who were polish blondes and jewish people who were visibly middle eastern. Who is possibly asking you if white Jewish people exist? And why on earth would the answer be no?

there’s a lot to unpack here but I’m going to start with your last questions. the world and the interweb are vast places and people from all corners of the political spectrum itch to place Jews into boxes and use the (american-centric tbh) framework of race to categorize. since the Jewish people existed before the concept of race, we simply do not fit. we are a West Asian diaspora population that has historically *never* been treated as white, and we are only sometimes white because we are a “model minority” and generally only called white by the left, where white=oppressor. it is also a (poor) attempt to “atone” for the holocaust and all the violence Jews have faced.

with that out of the way, why cant Jews be white? there are pale skinned and blonde Jews after all. while there are Jews who pass as white and many who pass as something entirely different (ie East Asian, Black), the moment they are recognized as a Jew, that is all they are. It does not matter what you look like when you are recognized as Jewish, and all privileges you may have had by not being recognized as one is gone. on top of that, “passing” Jews are often under more scrutiny because they “tricked” others into believing that they were not a Jew. being white passing will not save you from being a Jew and the baggage it comes with.

whiteness is part of assimilation as well, as Irish and Italians and Catholics in America were not white. In Europe, it was/is a similar concept. Once they assimilated into it they could be (ie Kennedy) but Judaism, at its core, does not assimilate. as an ethnic religion (meaning, only the ethnic group can practice the religion (yes converts become ethnic Jews)) originating in the Middle East, with all of our traditions related to the levant specifically, unless you insist that the white appearing Arabs and other SWANA groups are white, calling Jews white is a double standard.

race is more than skin color and it is a social construct that is based on privilege—and Jews are not privileged. Jews have not ever been white until the left needed us to be so we fit their narrative that only whites are oppressors, and the right never has and never will see Jews as white. people like the Syrian Nazi’s use it to deny that Jews are a people that come from the levant, because obviously “white” people can’t be from the Middle East and are liars (if this sounds like a dogwhistle, it’s because it is; replacement theory and Jews being liars)

tldr white Jews can’t exist because the moment they are a Jew, all whiteness they may have had is lost.

[saturnniidae]

Side eyeing white people who like but don't reblog posts about race

[aq2003]

hello tedx talk about the concept of female actors playing hamlet from 4 years ago i wish you would not include funny haha gender essentialism in your points about how a woman would fit the character (because the concept that women take forever to make a decision is, in fact, a product of the sexist status quo you are trying to criticize) and instead consider that hamlet is someone that is constantly being made aware of their wrongness and inability to conform to nearly every standard set upon them, including gender, and so much of their inner conflict and self-hatred comes from that. yes a hamlet who is socialized as a woman would be extremely interesting but it's not just because girls deserve representation of a morally gray character w depression but because hamlet faces this expectation of docility in the face of an injustice that only they perceive, and they are made so aware abt how they're near constantly being watched, and they are so intelligent and talks circles around ppl yet they have so few ppl who they can trust who will actually listen to them and this all gains a layer of deeper meaning if it is made abundantly clear that this is all a direct result of misogyny

[rpfisfine]

my first gender in pop culture seminar was okay but god it’s unbelievable how like . Genuinely completely disconnected I feel from everyone here obvs I don’t wanna assume anything but like 85% of the class seems to be very cis and feminine and tiktok fashion looking girls who legitimately lost their entire minds when the professor announced that we’re gonna be discussing barbie next week like literal champagne bottles started flying through the air ppl couldn’t handle the excitement

[menlove]

the issue abt studying race & sexuality/gender academically is there are. so many cases. where ppl online have taken terms from academia and just use them so so so so wrong in ways that range from missing the point in a harmless way to being nearly the exact opposite of the intended use

but you don't wanna be that "well, actually-" asshole and at this point these other uses are so widely used that there's really no correcting it so u just kind of have to :)

[wewatchyoujuno]

some of you guys have to realize that just because you're (white) queer people on tumblr that like to pretend to be intellectuals and use big words doesn't exempt you from having bad takes and being a general piece of shit and talking over queer poc btw

[chocochipbiscuit]

The Patreon responded and gave me a list of their F/F and F/NB novellas, plus F/M/M and M/M novellas that featured BIP0C.

The ones they've shared are great! I've read them! But still doesn't address the fact that I'm a queer WOC who loves women and those F/M/M and M/M novellas don't exactly hit what I'm looking for here.

Unsubscribed from a romance novella Patreon because hey, I know it's a collective of authors who all share different identities and interests, but you couldn't even have one F/F option during Pride???

[obstinaterixatrix]

the thing is. when classes focus on the cultural competency aspect it’s so. okay it’s good this is an area of focus but also I know all this. but also-also being too arrogant isn’t a good pattern to set especially since there might be updated vocab/concepts/specific examples that would be useful to know or refresh on. but also I am literally a person of color in america.