#intersex people also. i'm so sorry

[a-little-bit-oddish]

so i'm joining the stem cell registry and donating blood regularly now, because i like, should. and it's been a good process and they're very nice. but as i was signing up for things, it had the box for sex at birth. Which is kind of an insane question. not "what hormones does your body primarily run on". but just... sex at birth. something that is not relevant for blood donation, and also extremely misleading??

they check your red blood cell count when you show up. if I told them my sex at birth was female they'd be fucking horrified by my count. testosterone does shit to the blood! It is so much more relevant to know that my body runs on testosterone! i keep seeing medical fields doing this.

i think that they assume it's nicer, somehow. they don't just ask sex anymore, they just go haha please tell us what you were called as a baby :) we're doctors so we need to know, it's important :)

except it's not. at all. it is more ethical for me to lie to the blood donation centre so that they don't see my blood and flag it, when it is perfectly good blood for people with more testosterone.

i have to go to a throat doctor next month. they specifically asked for my sex at birth. there was not an option to tell them what they should actually expect from my voice and body. when it asked me to list medications, it physically wouldn't allow me to list testosterone, and it flagged it.

it's nuts, because all these places have actually been really welcoming and cool about me being trans, but the actual system is horrific, it's just forcing me to out myself by having to reach out after to correct it. because answering honestly is medical misinformation.

anyway you can just fucking lie i guess

[trans-axolotl]

also this is the reason why i hate the whole discussion about "oh can we still say hermaphrodite in science discussions" because like. you all do not fucking understand the weight of the word. what it feels like when someone calls you a hermaphrodite when you are fearing for your fucking life. the amount of times i had to call myself a hermaphrodite because no one fucking knew what intersex meant but i needed to find a way to disclose that to clients so i didn't end up assaulted again when they were surprised. you don't know how much i fucking hated myself for that and what that was fucking like to experience at 16. like. that is what that word means to me! that's what i think of when i hear it! lots of other intersex people have their own stories, their own ways this slur was weaponized against us and written down in our medical records and a million fucking things. so i really don't want to hear from dyadic people who have never had this slur used against them about how hard it is to find an alternative word and how they just really really need to be able to still say it because of all the scientific discussions that are happening all the time or whatever. literally fuck off i don't care

[evilkitten3]

some reminders that i think this site could use:

-it is still not ok to be racist

-it is still not ok to be antisemitic

-it is still not ok to be islamophobic

-it is still not ok to be misogynistic

-it is still not ok to be classist

-it is still not ok to be xenophobic

-it is still not ok to be intersexist

-it is still not ok to be ageist

-it is still not ok to be ableist

-it is still not ok to be fatphobic

-it is still not ok to be -phobic of anything under the lgbtq+ umbrella

-not even if you really dislike someone

-not even if you really dislike their spouse

-bigotry is not bad because it's targeting the wrong people, it's bad no matter who it's targeting

-hating someone for something outside their control is still bad

-sweeping generalizations of large groups of people will inevitably include smaller marginalized groups within that larger group and if you forget about this they will accuse you of bigotry towards them and you will deserve it

-the above does not separate those marginalized peoples fully from the larger group, nor does it make bigotry towards them acceptable

and also

-someone having a different opinion from you does not make them automatically a bot or a psyop. it makes them a person who has a different opinion than you

-fallacies, propaganda techniques, and means of spreading mis/disinformation are not just things to watch out for from those you view as opposition, but also things to keep an eye out for concerning your perceived allies and yourself

-sometimes people just don't know things or know incorrect things. this is not a statement of their moral inferiority. not everyone is actively out to do harm, some people just have questions or are wrong about things

ok? ok

[artificial-ascension]

It is insane how little trans and intersex unity there is. The struggle of an intersex person and a trans perisex person are not dissimilar; they are both struggling for recognition and respect as their gender in a society that despises deviation from the established rigid gender structure. That's not even touching on people who are both trans and intersex.

I can only assume it's because a lot of trans people fall back on a brand new gender binary (or trinary if they feel REALLY 'inclusive' of nonbinary people), which by nature, excludes intersex people. That, and many trans people, have yet to unlearn intersexism (as a lot of people haven't) and get offended by the notion that they, an enlightening gender deviant, have continued to remain ignorant about an aspect of gendered society or worse, could possibly be bigoted when they are a minority and get so enraged they become hostile against intersex people to cover up that they could have been ignorant about something.

[Obligatory disclaimer: I am a perisex trans person. If I got something wrong about intersex people or an intersex person would like to add their thoughts, I would be much obliged. I am not on every single corner of Tumblr. Sorry if I looked over some obscure discourse. I am also writing a Tumblr post and not a PhD thesis, I apologies if it is hard to follow, unclear or incorrect in some areas. I am willing to correct or expound upon my points if need be.]

[chemicalarospec]

Some intersex people genuinely don't want to be included but the majority of us want to be. It's actually really difficult to be in queer spaces that consistently enforce sex binaries, never use the updated progress flag with us, and never have intersex flags.

Often the idea that we don't want to be included comes from intersexists who want us to remain as "disorders of sexual development" (outdated offensive term). It's unfortunate that this idea permeates the queer community so much.

You can see photos from this intersex organization using the pride flag, if you need more than an anon's word. https://interactadvocates.org/#

Thanks for the information!

I didn't know "disorders of sex development" was considered outdated and offensive, I thought it was actually a modern (more formal?) alternative to "intersex". Unless that was "differences of sex development"? (I almost tagged it on the original post but I wasn't sure what the term was.) Ah, I found more information on the link (x). Thanks for the website, very helpful!

This subpage is a great source on intersex people wanting to be included! It's a bit more ambivalent than I expected - combined with this anon's word and my previous impressions it seems like there are still a significant amount of intersex people who don't want to be a part of the queer community, but the ones who do want to be included would much prefer the queer community open its arms. So it seems to me the best course is to do so and the intersex people who want to can individually distance themselves (my impression is most people of that group more want to be personally distanced than think 'I' should never be a part of 'LGBTQA') and only partake in intersex communities.

We recommend adding intersex to your organization’s LGBTQIA+ acronym only once you have intersex leadership, consultation and/or resources. Intersex people have very specific needs, just like each letter of the acronym.

This line in particular stood out to me because they only provide guidance for what organizations should do... I feel like most times when the decision is being made whether or not to use the intersex progress flag, it's individuals and small groups like my GSA making posts, selling merch, decorating a space, etc. that aren't serving any needs besides community for anyone... I guess I already came to the conclusion to include by default though? (Honestly this page feels just barely strong enough for me to send to anyone if this question comes up in the future, so if anyone has any more sources do send in more anons!)

Honestly I was hoping for something like "our survey of as many intersex forums/organizations/people as possible found that 80% of intersex people want to be included in 'LGBTQIA', pride events/orgs, and the progress pride flag" --that this had been "laid to rest" and I could just tell my friend straight "no, intersex people want to be included now"-- , but of course I shouldn't expect things to be too simple haha, people & groups are nuanced and nuance comes in the form of caveats. At least I feel much more informed now!

[crittertalez]

As a system with a lot of nonhuman and alterhuman members (hence our system name) our alterhumanity often affects our daily life and make many of us want to nest, or make us be able to make nonhuman noises, or even have individual scents. And as embarrassing as it is to admit to more "normal" people, it can affect sex lives as well, including some members going into heats or ruts or whatever equivalent they have. Which would all sound like a perfect mix-match of things to get us into the misceverse! But there feels like there's just this significant barrier between us and that community

That being just how heavily it focuses on people's sexes and ascribing certain personalities or dynamics or behaviors or what have you to being a certain sex or having certain sex characteristics. Even when it comes to people making it more explicitly queer there's still an expectation to believe that, say, it is "typical" for a certain sex to be more submissive and calm while another is more aggressive and territorial. And, even more notably, it's seen as fun and interesting, quirky even, new, for this to be treated as a fact of life. The idea that one sex could instead do the actions typically associated with another is queer and known to be unusual (even if the person is describing it as a Good and Interesting thing, they're still enforcing the idea that certain actions typically belong to another sex)

Which.. Is just Sexism 2! "Women cook and clean and are more quiet, demure, submissive and Men protect the territory and what is theirs (which includes their wives, being treated as possessions), they're sex-driven and aggressive" 2. "Women nurture and Men protect" 2. We want to go into animal care, we spend much of our time researching animal dynamics and behaviors for fun. But even if nonhumans & alterhumans often do not see themselves as human, we are still all people, and the idea that ascribing certain personalities/behaviors/traits/etc to certain sexes is okay and fun as long as they aren't human sexes is.. Blegh.

I don't quite like being kicked in the head even when the kicker has a paw instead of a human foot. Something being seen as "natural" or a part of being a nonhuman animal does not automatically make it good

We've had this issue with omegaverse as a concept in general as well, especially when it comes to the versions that focus solely on men. Obviously the point is to explore secondary sexes and not the primary ones, but if you were to replace "omega" with female (and yes, that word specifically, so you understand what I mean) and "alpha" with male suddenly the problem becomes a lot more clear with ascribing submissiveness and nurturing behavior to one sex and aggressiveness, domination, and protectiveness to another

Adding a third sex or even sexes that have a mixture of traits assigned to them doesn't necessarily get rid of this discomfort, as there's still the fact of the matter that sexes are getting assigned typical personality traits. Not to mention that within the community there's an expectation to say what your sex is, and to see the idea of others being able to instantly tell what sex you are as hot and fun. Even with queer labels existing to make the idea more expansive and inclusive there's just something that feels.. Off. About how inherent to the community the idea of certain sexes coming with certain personality traits and behaviors is. I'm not much of a fan of bioessentialism even when it has a coat of nonhuman paint over it

(Also, the wolf studies that alpha/omega/beta as concepts were derived from are extremely inaccurate studies that don't have basis in real life and we honestly wish that the idea of alpha males would die out already so people stop thinking it's a real thing. It hasn't been pleasant to run into in any iteration, whether in zoology, incel culture, or alterhuman communities)

[crippledpunks]

i was recently denied life-saving gallbladder removal surgery by my GI specialist due to being "too fat" (i'm 300 lbs and very muscular) and "needing to lose 10 -15 pounds and waiting 2 - 3 months in order to get the surgery". i was then signed up for bariatric weight loss surgery before i could get the gallbladder removal despite the gallstone stuck in the neck of the organ as well as the other stones inside of it causing me to be incapable of keeping down food

i ended up getting the surgery done by a local hospital with far better doctors, but the initial denial had me so defeated. if you are fat and have ever been denied important surgeries, life saving or otherwise, because of your weight, i am so sorry and you should never have to face that. most surgeries are not impacted by weight in the slightest. this is usually an issue with the surgeon's skill as a surgeon.

i was told by every other surgeon i met that weight has no bearing on a laparoscopic gallbladder removal surgery. at the other hospital i was also told that anesthesia wouldn't work on me or that i wouldn't survive it. yet again i was told by other surgeons that was also not the case. most surgeons worth their paygrade can do these surgeries after just... trying and learning how to work with fat bodies.

i was told by the surgeons and nurses in the ER that it's ridiculous for the other hospital to behave as though fat people will never need surgery of any kind ever throughout their lives, for one reason or another. it's unrealistic. most people will encounter a potential surgery in their life times, no matter their weight and it's unprofessional to just give up when someone above a certain weight threshold needs help.

my heart goes out to you especially if you're trans, intersex, gnc, and queer and have been denied top surgery or other gender affirming care surgeries because of your weight. this is also medically unethical and done for no reason other than fatphobic transphobic bias. you do not need to lose weight to get top or bottom surgery.

take care of yourself. my heart goes out to you and you don't deserve this treatment at all

[genderqueerdykes]

I’ve been feeling really sad lately bc after this latest rise in anti transmasc sentiment I’ve had to unfollow some trans women I’ve been following for literal years bc they started reblogging and posting really nasty and very uncharitable things abt transmascs on my feed. And like. These are women whose voices I very much respected and listened to, and to hear them basically say they consider me an enemy who can’t be trusted bc I want to talk about my experiences, but all of our issues are really just splash damage from bigotry directed at them and talking abt my own experiences without acknowlefing that it’s not really meant for me is wrong. It’s like. So hurtful. And it makes me feel really hopeless about the future of the trans community.

How do I fight back against that hopelessness?

it really sucks and i'm sorry you're also being affected by this. i hear people talk about this every single day and i really don't like that this is just becoming a default in the trans community in general. it seems like the default mode of most online queers is hating transmascs and trans men as if that will somehow make cishet society accept them more. it's selfish behavior.

i'm an intersex trans woman and it's hard for me to interact with the online transfem and trans woman communities, because we're seeing a new experience in the form of transradfeminism, where trans women proudly adopt the anti-man ideals from rad feminism and spread it like it's the truth. it's a sad and painful thing to say, but these trans women are doing this because they believe rad fems and women who hate men are the only "Real" women and desperately want to be seen as "real" women. it stems from their personal dysphoria rooted in manhood, how they take out their own dysphoria in being seen as men on men and mascs. it comes from a place of pain, and it is misguided. instead of directing their hatred toward transmisogyny, they keep it inside the community. it's vile.

it's really sad but trans women and transfems are not immune to being indoctrinated by rad fems and terfs. applying those ideals to being trans isn't progressive. dictating who is and isn't trans is an act of policing. feeling as though one has the right to sit there and claim to know every trans experience, claiming to be the authority on transness... it's fascism.

i'm just plain tired of hearing people make fun of afab trans people and trans men and to talk about them like they're a blight on the community. im tired of people saying things like "do we really need more men?" i'm really sick and tired of chronically online people saying that trans men "aren't real trans people". this one really pisses me off. implying that trans womanhood and transfemininity are the only "real" ways to be trans is also identity policing. what is "unreal" about trans men? i'm tired of trans men being treated like they're unreliable. i'm tired of people wearing their misogyny on their sleeve to constantly treat trans men like they are not reliable narrators. i'm tired of people thinking somehow the instant you begin identifying as a man, you benefit from patriarchy.

i'm tired that people seriously think trans men and mascs can't coin terms for their own experiences. why the hell not? they happen, just because you don't see them personally doesn't mean they don't happen. i have met and lived with so many transmascs over the years, and we've all shared very similar stories about the discrimination we face. it's not spitting in the face of anyone to coin terms like transandrophobia and antimasculism. they happen just as often as transmisogyny does, and happily participating in it only increases trans violence

these talking points are old and it sucks to see more and more trans women get indoctrinated into literal rad feminism. hating trans men will not make dysphoria around being seen as a man go away. hating trans men does not dismantle the patriarchy. hating afab people isn't progressive, it's misogynistic. hating intersex trans men isn't progressive, it's transphobic -and- intersexist. trans men deserve so much better than this. trans men are trans. trans men are people. trans men are not evil by virtue of existing

i say try to do your best to connect with and appreciate the other trans men and mascs in your life. we have to stick together. if you have transfem friends who are on your side, make sure to be there for them, too. not every trans woman is like this fortunately, most trans women are very chill about trans manhood. this is a vocal minority of people who want to be fascists and want to control and police other trans people. transradfeminism isn't progressive, it's just as bad as regular rad feminism, if not worse, because now there's an even bigger focus on hating trans people.

hating other trans people will never get you ahead in cisheteronormative society. try to take care of yourself as best as you can. really relish trans joy when you experience it. take time to affirm your gender. know that manhood is a blessing. manhood is beautiful. it is varied, nuanced, and complex. it is a wonderful thing to experience. men are not evil. men are not bad. we should never remove the accountability from individuals.

hating trans men makes you transphobic. there's just no other way to it. whether or not you accept that it's called transandrophobia, it is still transphobia, and you really should care. the trans community isn't here for just 1 type of trans person. it's here for all of us. good luck, stay safe out there. be good to yourself

[plaidos]

I have no particular dog in this fight as I'm not a GF superfan or anything, but I would like to question a bit of your analysis.

I think you're right that the version of GF where Dipper is transmasc makes Mabel's canonical actions transphobic.

I would like to question the insinuation that those same actions would've been "normal sibling rivalry" (?!) were Dipper closeted transfem or even cismasc, as opposed to "worst sister ever" (!?) behavior. Especially if we're going with transfem Dipper, those incidents of bullying remind me much more of patterns of bullying against transfeminine people, and intersex people CAMAB (such as myself) that I've personally witnessed/experienced.

Also, to the idea that Mabel being transphobic fundamentally changes her character in some way. Like, sometimes characters we're supposed to like hold a bigoted attitude which they will unlearn over the course of the story. Sokka from Avatar and Weiss from RWBY come to mind. Mabel being one of those characters doesn't fundamentally change her storyline or arc.

you’re right, Mabel’s actions and teasings are still mean with a transphobic undercurrent — even if Dipper is a dyadic cis boy, to be honest. but she’s also a twelve year old born in 1999. i too have received the kind of bullying associated with the way Mabel acts towards Dipper about his gender, but i’ve also had similarly “jokes” from loved ones who didn’t realise how shitty they were being because they didn’t have the political framework to analyse what is fucked up about it.

but if we’re reading Dipper as transmasc, it’s like… everybody he knows is accepting enough of his identity to gender him correctly, but they’re still totally willing to say things to him that you would categorically know are bigoted even at that age. like a twelve year old cisgender girl who knows about trans people and respects their existence might not realise how needlessly callous she is being when she teases her (seemingly) cisgender brother for having “girly” interests, but that same cisgender girl would probably be able to identify that her openly transgender brother wouldn’t want to wear makeup and that it would be incredibly fucked up to make him. i’m not saying it’s “right” but Mabel needs to actively Be A Transphobe (rather than just having some twelve year old cis girl ideas about gender & masculinity) to treat Dipper the way she treats him if he is openly transmasculine, but I feel like there’s more of a plausible deniability. i feel like the Mabel we see in the show is a couple years away from being like “wow, that was spectacularly mean of me, i hope that didn’t have an effect on Dipper’s self worth”

i feel like if (in the crazy alternate universe where this is possible) there were an episode where Dipper came out as transfem after feeling hurt by Mabel’s jokes she would be really torn up about it. she’d say something like “i’m really sorry, i didn’t know you felt so strongly about gender… i thought we were just joking around but i should be paying more attention to how you feel, Dipper…. wait, maybe you don’t want to be called Dipper any more. Oh no I AM a bigot!!!” and then Soos would come in and be like “heheh. total hatecrime dude” and then we’d cut to Bill being like “i don’t care what gender you are pine tree… i’m gonna get that GIRL if it’s the last thing I do” except girl would be obviously ADR’d over in Alex Hirsch’s normal voice with his live action mouth over Bill’s animated mouth

also transfeminine Dipper has just always made more sense. the big argument was that he uses a nickname instead of his birth name which he keeps a secret. and that would make sense if Dipper had a girl’s name, but Dipper’s birth name is “Mason”. so he actually is choosing to not use a male name and instead use something gender neutral, even though he really loves matching with his twin sister & having matching names is a family tradition — so he probably has a pretty big reason to not use it, considering he still doesn’t even with all the reasons he has to.

[isobug]

( @radiomogai ) I just wanted to add a little commentary because the term was archived under "conformant"- this is a term which can and does cover cishormonal experiences which could be considered conformant ( i.e. cishormonal individuals who are cis xorgender. )

However it also covers non-conformant cishormonal experiences just as equally ( e.g. cishormonal trans individuals who are considered non-conforming for not wanting HRT, cishormonal intersex individuals who are considered non-conformant for not taking exogenous hormones as a "fix", and any others I'm sure I'm missing here. )

Cishormonal

Requested by anon, a cishormonal flag!

Made following the layout / inspo of this ( remade ) Transhormonal flag, with this general -hormonal symbol by @sproutflags , and using colors from this general Cis- flag by @ryanyflags ( because I like how Ryany's flag represents more Cis- experiences than just conformant + perisex + cishetallo ones like the monochrome flag is often used as shorthand for. Also it's pretty. )

The circle is for cishormonal intersex folk, while the purple represents those who are cishormonal but not cisgender and / or cissex ( or cis- in any other way. ) Just like on the general Cis- flag I referenced, the different stripe colors are for all of the possible and various identities Cishormonal folks can be or experience.

Here's the symbol by itself

As always free to be used anywhere by anyone!

Taglist - @radiomogai, @revenant-coining

[catboybiologist]

Do you now, or have you ever, called yourself a femboy?

Curious about something. The initial craze over the exact femboy aesthetic seemed to mostly be from 2019-2023 or so, and is much calmer now. For one, it does seem like it increased the overall, casual acceptance of cis gender nonconformity, but also helped a lot of people discover their own trans identities, whether they were transfemme, nonbinary, or transmascs finding new ways to relate to femininity. Obviously femboys aren't "dead", but they're not the same level of novelty that they were a few years ago.

This is going to be a very, very loose poll, and I know it won't cover every situation. I'm also sorry for making over generalizations! It's difficult to cover every situation. But feel free to let me know your own personal relationship with the term in reblogs and replies!

If these options are confusing, let me know! For example, I would choose "binary transfemme, stopped using the term when I realized I was trans"

Obviously if your experience doesn't cleanly fit in, I would like the best approximation! Eg, if there was a period of time where you used the term post transition, but gradually grew uncomfortable with it, you could choose the same option as me.

[momett]

I'm not at all attempting to tone police you, I'm not trying to say that your point is invalid, because of how you phrased it. In fact I absolutely agree that this exclusionist thinking that seems to spread around some parts of the trans community recently is a serious issue and extremely hypocritical on top of that.

And obviously the fact that the people reinventing bioessentialism to exclude intersex people and everyone else who doesn't fall into the cis trans binary are trans people themselves is hypocritical and firmly lacks any solidarity.

But I (as a person who for other reasons than being intersex does not fit into the cis trans binary, so it comes up) don't personally know a single trans person who holds these exclusionists views. It's not a case of "not all trans people", because a minority of trans people isn't intersexist and needs to be thought of. It is a vast majority of trans people who strongly disagree with inersexist and exclusionist views and a very loud minority who agree with it.

Then I would argue that specifying you don't mean all of them has a very different taste whether you are talking about a group who is (intersectional issues aside) the most priviliged under the patriarchy vs a group who is among the least priviliged. If I had read a similiar statement critizicing the views of certain intersex people or another marginalized group, that phrased it in a way where it is entirely reasonable to interprete it as if they are talking about the entire group, I would have the same exact criticism.

Also thank you for honestly engaging in this discussion, seriously, lots of people react entirely unreseanable to any criticism.

sorry who are you calling the most privileged under patriarchy? what group are you referring to?

also tone policing doesn't mean that you disagree with me. you want me to soften how I'm speaking about this because of how you perceive intersexism in the trans community as a "loud minority". intersexism is disgustingly common in our community. both off and online.

if anything my goal is to make people kind of uncomfortable because sometimes that is the only way they will listen!

[bonefall]

Thank you for speaking out against the ableism towards Moonpaw, genuinely. I’m an actual intersex person with XX / XY chimerism, and I have slight physical ‘abnormalities’ resulting from it, too.

The XL Bully post being at the top of the Moonpaw tag genuinely hurt my feelings, and badly. People equating her chimerism to a ‘deformity’, making jokes about how ‘oooh she killed her twin in the womb LOL’ and all that…

I tried expressing concerns with a pretty well-known designer/artist who reblogged that post, but they just blocked me - and not before making a snide comment abt how I’m apparently ‘evil’ because I, too, ‘killed my twin in the womb’.

It’s so upsetting that almost nobody will actually give two fucks about the irl people that they’re shitting on - physically disabled people and/or those with chimerism - and will just cower away when their hypocrisy is pointed out. Thank you for spreading awareness

XX XY Fusion Chimerism is cool as hell and I'm so sorry there are people out there who are unironically acting like serfs from the fucking dark ages about something that happened when you were an EMBRYO. Like, we understand that there is nothing EVIL about things zygotes do, right??

We ALSO understand that fertilized eggs don't literally eat each other??? What happened wasn't some struggle for dominance where the larger twin hunted the smaller one down, something happened and two sets of complete genes merged. There's a few ways this can happen, one of them being because there were two eggs that didn't fully separate to begin with-- so both get fertilized and then one zygote "retreats" back into the other one.

You didn't kill your twin. First of all, there wasn't another "twin" to begin with, it was just a bundle of cells because we are talking EARLY pregnancy. Second of all, there's a high likelihood that it wouldn't have even been capable of getting carried to term anyway. If ANYTHING, Chimerism is the only way that ""twin"" SURVIVES.

But. I'm doing the thing where I'm barking logic at something completely irrational. Mostly I hope it makes you feel a little better.

What was said to you was shitty. Jesus Christ. Chimerism and intersex conditions are not a deformity. Being disabled isn't a cosmic punishment. You're not evil for existing.

(I'm feeling a need to just. Pause on that. Who the fuck implies zygotes are capable of evil. I thought we all agreed Brokenstar's plot thread was ridiculous why are we doing it for REAL PEOPLE).

Insane that someone needs to say this but these aren't hypotheticals. Everything I'm talking about with this discourse is based on the existence of REAL. PEOPLE.

[doberbutts]

sorry can you explain how baeddel is a slur? to me that's like saying terf is a slur

The original use of the word baeddel is Old English to mean effeminate man or hermaphrodite, largely used as a derogatory term for intersex and trans women. So, a slur.

Fast forward to the early 2010s, and we have a small, mostly fringe, group of trans women who have some fairly concerning politics and also are calling themselves baeddels as a form of reclamation. The group self-destructed after a fairly significant scandal where one high ranking member raped another and the subsequent falling out and choosing sides did the rest.

So I can understand trans women of today being uncomfortable being called a baeddel, especially with how tumblr uses labels that only tangentially apply to mean "person of this demographic I dislike". (TERF is included in this- there is a difference between a TERF and a run of the mill transphobe, but I see pretty much all transphobic behavior including from people who are very much not feminists being called TERF and, um, that "radical feminist" is an important distinction here)

But, again, if [general] you're reblogging from people calling themselves baeddels, and/or you have a username calling *yourself* a baeddel, and/or you continuously spout baeddel ideology or say outright that baeddels were right... I'm kinda... not really seeing how it can possibly be offensive for someone to call it like they see it. As said, looks like walks like quacks like hangs out with and calls itself a duck? It's a duck. Don't be mad when people call you a duck.

[trash-and-trash-accessories]

The fear of the masculine woman predates any modern conception of transness and gender. There are stories about monstrous women with masculine traits from the ancient world, they were objects of fear or disgust or hatred. This is not misdirected transmisogyny, it's not transphobia misdirected at cis women, it's a fear of female transgression and masculinity. The two are inter-related and trans women are affected by this fear of female masculinity too, and cis women are affected by transphobia but the fear of the masculine woman didn't come from transmisogyny. It predates it. It could be seen as a fear of transmasculinity, even those early examples of women becoming like men and taking on or embodying masculine traits. But it's also not necessarily that. It contains aspects of intersexism, but isn't strictly that either. It's a fear of female masculinity and the transgression of gender norms and fear surrounding women's control over fertility, and so many other things.

Anyone who sees the way masculine women (and transmasculine people) are treated as purely a result of transmisogyny is mistaken, or actively engaging in misogyny, intersexism, and erasure. It's so much more complicated than that.

I'm sorry but not everything is about you.

[rainyarbitertheorist]

i think it would be best if you put the phone down and step away for a bit to calm down and sort through your feelings and thoughts as well as look into what the terms you use mean. do some reflection on why terfs are so bad (and no, terfs are not bad because they "hate men") and also learn what tme and tma actually mean (cis women and cis men both are tme, meaning its not asking whats in your pants). you currently are painting yourself as obstinant and uninformed and the more time you spend digging this hole for yourself the less credible you get. take some time away

Anon I'm sorry you felt so threatened by an intersex person telling you that they won't describe their bodies to you, and also telling you that the words "terf" and "nazi" have actual meanings that aren't "people who don't agree with me" that you had to write a whole paragraph about it but

I won't describe my body to you, and the words "terf" and "nazi" have actual meanings that aren't "people who don't agree with me"