#is just a slippery slope to radfem

[carucath]

I feel like defining your identity by who you AREN’T attracted to instead of who you ARE attracted to is a bad idea

[olderthannetfic]

RE: porn addiction discussion:

I've seen a lot of both breakups and divorces over that very thing in the past decade, Imo I don't think its reasonable to expect everyone who has seen a dissolving in their relationship due to the excessive pornography usage of one partner partner to just suck it up and get used to liking porn themselves, accept watching porn together as a replacement for their sex life, otherwise /they/ must be some non-communicative creep who just wants to use their partner like a dildo.

More and more chicks get pressured by guys into doing that. Or like the other asker said, acting out things from porn that they dont wanna do, and regret it/dont enjoy it. I think its less about ~protecting pristine sacred christian piv~ and more of an acknowledgement that its not realistic to expect the majority of sexual relationships to be able to healthily function like that as long as theres 'communication'.

Communication isn't the end all be all when there's only one clear party that this scenario benefits. The person with the broken dick. To promote the idea that they should, can and is be used against people who don't want that for themselves or their relationship, under the guise that if their boundaries are firm they must be some flavor of "sex negative/christian/radfem/prude"

There's nuance to the topic. People with the same level of porn usage can be happy together, engage in their kinks mutually, all that jazz. But there are also an increasing number of relationships where a dude uses porn and sex-positive language to pressure chicks into doing things they dont want to, having the kind of sex life that they dont want to, which becomes a slippery slope. Or a dude gets so into porn that hes leaving it open on his computer for their kids to see in an exhibitionist sort of way, completely disregarding welfare.

And I don't mean that as any sort of hyperbole or rhetoric, that example happened with my own Dad. Lemme tell you, your father leaving open pages and pages of anorexic amputee torture porn on the family computer that you, as an 8 year old girl, have to rush to close before your younger siblings come in the door after you home from school, will have an impact on both that relationship and ones level of comfort with porn longterm.

And even then, I still got into relationship after relationship once I was old enough, where guys were constantly wanting to replace sex with watching porn with them, and when we did have sex they always wanted to 'try something they saw' rather than just have fun doing something mutually enjoyable and intuitive. Partners sneaking off at my 15 year old sisters birthday party to jack off to 'teen porn' in the bathroom, leaving home for work early just to jack off in a gas station parking lot for 2 hours, watching porn in bed next to me when I have to get up for work soon, being unable to maintain an erection without porn-related stimuli (be it watching or scenarios), spiraling into cheating, etc. Years and years of sex positivity, attempts at understanding, experimenting, and accommodating, and communication on my end didn't help, until that communication was "I can't keep trying to salvage this by myself anymore, I'd be happier alone."

Not everyone is going to be down with it, or should push themselves to be, and not all reasons for not wanting that for your own sex life are rooted in some Christian or Radfem rhetoric. Lived experience plays a role in such stances. Strong boundaries can be hard to build when there's pressure in both the bedroom and outside world that the ones you have are 'wrong', but it's worth it to stand up for ones own comfort, security, and happiness rather than endlessly accommodating.

Personally, I'm overjoyed to have now found a longterm relationship now where the furthest extent of that either partner engages with is fanfic and lewd art. I wish everyone the same luck in finding a partner that has compatible desires.

--

~broken dick~

Oh please.

This kind of discussion is obsessed with "porn" meaning mainstream live action porn aimed at straight guys and with the kind of dumbass men who think that stuff is a model to emulate. In reality, there are shittons of types of porn. People who pressure their partners suck regardless of why.

These experiences sound shitty, but I'm still rolling my eyes at this spin.

[transexualpirate]

Hi! Saw your post on redberryterf and racism.

I'm not PoC(nebulous USA spicy white but I come from immigrants) but I've been eyeing that user specifically for a fucking minute tbh. Her posts always seemed too edgy and evocative of the alt-right to me, in a way I couldn't quite describe much less prove something wrong with. Lo and behold LOL.

The truth is racism is everywhere there's white people and especially there's racism where there's Not Supposed To Be, like radical leftist organizing.

Queer AND radical feminist spaces host plenty of racism cloaked in whatever politically correct language, because both Queer and Radical Feminist discourse spaces on the English-speaking internet are predominantly white, western, upper middle class and college-educated.

I've seen some women on here try to claim Radical Feminism is *thee* feminism of the rest of the world, but I find that disingenuous. Most American and British radical feminists are nothing like Korean or Chinese radical feminists, and who knows what would happen if we were all in the same conference as those in Mexico, Romania, Greece. A responsible feminist would not try to separate herself from racism in her own movement by claiming The PoC Agree and would instead acknowledge and address it.

Climbed in your inbox because I think it will do us all a service to discuss how racism is enabled in leftist spaces regardless of the rest of our political alignments x have a good day.

hello!! i really appreciate this, so thank you. i agree with what you said wholeheartedly (ill have to look up the poc agree, though, not very familiar with that). i think people assume that just because a space is far left it is automatically exempt from racism, which is just. factually incorrect.

i mean, to begin with, there is no community in the whole world that is fully exempt from any sort of bigotry. that just doesn't happen. there is no community like that. not the trans community, not the queer community, not the radfem community, that's just not real. the thing is that bigots are everywhere. sometimes they do it out of malice, "infiltrating" those spaces aware that what they're parroting is harmful but uncaring, but more likely it's just ignorance, completely unaware that what they're saying is Actually Bad because they've been trained to not question their own thoughts ever.

so whether it's malice or ignorance, it is a lie to say that (x) community is completely free of all bigotry, which is a feeling that i have seen, whether implicitly or explicitly, in a lot of rad-whatever spaces. i mean, have you fucking browsed the "radqueer" tag over here on tumblr? that shit has more intolerance than fucking fox news and it's all completely masked under "radical acceptance", "positivity" and "equality". that is not what you'll find in their communities, though. and though not as extreme or as obvious, the radfem community is like that in many ways.

the fact that your community has a common goal of equality does not mean that your methods are sensible or justified, and it definitely doesn't mean the members of your community are somehow magically exempt from being the sort of people that actively goes against equality.

my problem with the radfem community specifically goes a bit further than just the general lack of awareness and accountability about and to the occasional bigot hiding in plain sight. i believe the entire community is built on a narrative that ends up being a type of "slippery slope" that very often leads to bigotry. so more than the occasional bigot, i think a lot of what is in the radfem community actively leads people to be less tolerant and accepting of others, in many ways.

one of them is the fact that a lot of classic and even some modern radfem writers and activists were and are incredibly racist (and sometimes homophobic as well), which is a fact that is rarely acknowledged in radfem spaces, if at all. and it shouldn't be just acknowledged, there should be some sort of active work to push the ideas influenced by that hate out of the community.

i also believe that when put in practice, a lot of radfem beliefs make people assume that women are the most oppressed group there is, automatically putting them as winners in the oppression olympics and completely disregarding how being negatively affected by one axis of oppression doesn't erase the fact that you can still be privileged in other ways. if women are the True Oppressed Class, then they can't oppress anyone else in any other way. maybe they can acknowledge that certain women can oppress other women, but anyone outside of their class? unfathomable. and this perpetuates many harmful rethorics.

another big problem i have is, naturally, the transphobia, leading radfems to more often than not become terfs. the unwillingness to accept that someone that wasn't Born A Woman(tm) can find genuine joy and comfort in womanhood - it must be a lie to hurt women, or a mental illness acquired through degeneracy, or a mockery, because women are the True Oppressed Class, after all, that's the opposite of joy and comfort. or the unwillingness to accept that someone that was Born A Woman(tm) might not find womanhood suit for them for many reasons, not all of them born from misogyny. but i know that we're talking specifically about the racism in that community and that is fine. im just making a link to how hate is often "intertwined", and one will feed the other.

regarding racism specifically, i do think the radfem community needs to do better in acknowledging and fighting it, more than most communities considering the aforementioned points. unfortunately, the only radfems ive seen on tumblr actively work for that were menalez and another one who's url i cant remember right now.

regarding bigotry in general, i think most radfems need to rethink a lot of stuff and see where their priorities lay. i think all communities would benefit from that, truly, specially left leaning and far left ones that believe themselves to be Truly Good And Pure (free from hate) - including the trans community, for the record.

and i think people of color aren't listened enough in society, which results in us being shut down when speaking about how that reflects in our respective communities, which results in people like redberryterf feeling comfortable enough to share her horribly racist opinions freely and without a care. i personally had already gotten into a debate with her before in which i told her she had to rethink some stuff but naturally i was ignored. which is why i referred to her as a well known person in the community: i don't interact that often but i had already stumbled across her posts multiple times and a lot of them have a LOT of likes. she isn't as big as menalez or that pineapple blog, but she was definitely influential in some way. and yet no one called her out on her bigotry until it was as obvious as it can be. i mean, it doesn't get any clearer than "i don't care that im being racist". she was spoonfed so much hatred that her perception of reality was altered to the point where being racist was probably a bad thing, but it was fine as long as it was towards men. then it's warranted. she's a woman, after all, the supreme oppressed class, she could never oppress anyone else.

anyways, this was a long fucking way of saying To Fight Bigotry You Have To Study Your Roots, Acknowledge Nuance And Different Points Of View, Listen To And Spread Awareness About Marginalized People and Never Ever Assume That You Are Exempt From Bigotry. That's A Sign That You Are Parroting Bigotry.

thank you for your ask. i think it's super important to find common ground with people you disagree with, and fighting racism is always important. im sorry for the long fucking reply, i hope it was at least a little bit coherent. sorry for occasional grammar mistakes or poor english in general, it isn't my first language. and have a good day!

[jewishbarbies]

Very random but I’ve sort of just expected biphobic wlws to be transphobic too. Because a lot of them have the mentality of “men bad, woman good, you’ll be happier with a woman!” And that always goes hand in hand with “women who have dicks are not real women, they are men and men bad!” It’s like a weird purity test.

no literally, it’s such a slippery slope for them that they can’t help but fall into TERF territory the second they decide bi women aren’t real and/or are brainwashed for dating men. their hate campaign against men specifically motivates their biphobia, transphobia, and misogyny. they’re the tiktok “women shouldn’t date their natural predator!!” radfems who think they’re sooo brave for trying to rob women of their choices while ‘fighting for a woman’s right to choose’, which i find wholly ironic. all i picture is a group of 5yr old little girls saying boys are icky.

[wildpeachfarm]

One of the craziest thing I see is the growth of terfs hidden as “feminism”. I got some tweets of someone mocking femboys and saying that if men wear skirt that’s fetishing of women (????), and now they’re using the minor and sexuality card as a defence, and now they’re screaming that attacking them is misogynistic and homophobic because they’re a lesbian and “be a lesbian means they even hate men” (which is fucking bullshit like what).

Genuinely I’m worried about this growth of terfs that even started with some ccs, especially female ones. As a girl, I start to feel so damn unsafe even around girls. And the young generation is growing with those thoughts, I’m so worried for the new generation

Sorry about this rant is just crazy to me

oof yeah idk if you have seen some of the other things discussed on this blog but this is something I have touched on before!

Unfortunately there is a very slippery slope between the internet (cough cough tiktok and twitter) rhetoric used that is claimed to be "feminism" and the things that are twisted into terf/rad fem language and ideas. Additionally, I think a lot of female CCs are unaware of just how easily some of their language can be spun into something harmful because they are just not educated on it at all or don't care. And it becomes even more of a problem when you advertise yourself as a feminist CC (which is absolutely fine to do, and talking about issues women face is always important) because you will always attract some radfem followers just because of the nature of the internet and because they think we are all fighting for the same things (which is incorrect).

I think that hiding your terf behavior behind lesbianism is so offensive and gives the rest of us a horrible name as well.

I don't want to turn this into a whole thing again because I have already talked about this in depth before, but I do understand your frustrations anon

[is-the-owl-video-cute]

I’m getting seriously concerned about Agro. He went from “these are intrusive thoughts I have that I am distressed by but cannot control, unfortunately,” to “wanting me to feel BAD about these thoughts is bad of YOU, actually,” pretty damn fast and I just…. it’s not about self flagellation for the rest of his life? It’s about the ability to realize these desires he clearly has would be WRONG to act on?

He claims to be no contact but if the blood and guts and suffering of animals turns you on yet you DRAW IT, WORK WITH IT, AND HANG OUT WITH PEOPLE TELLING YOU IT’S FINE…. How long are you gonna stay “no contact”? You’ve already admitted to sliding part way down the slippery slope from “These thoughts are disgusting and I don’t have them” to “These thoughts are disgusting and I DO have them” to “These thoughts are normal” YOU ARE ALREADY NORMALIZING THIS AGRO AND YOU WORK WITH ANIMALS YOU ARE AT RISK OF OFFENDING

I do think him reblogging a bunch of “actually it’s normal to have these thoughts about animals and not experience any negative reaction to them and if you think otherwise you’re a radfem/Catholic/ableist :/“ posts lately is not a great sign.

And I really wish he would stop calling it zocd because, if it ever was, it’s now long progressed to regular name-brand zoophilia and zoosadism.

Which he should be seeking help from in therapy, not validation from other zoophiles online.

[cinemagh0ul]

Hidey Ho! Here’s my Intro Post!

My name is Dan

I’m 20 years old

I’m a genderqueer aspec lesbian

My pronouns are they/she/he (I don’t particularly object to most pronouns)

I have autism, this is not a drill, I will bite you and you will get infected by my pure unbridled autism venom (or you’ll just have to listen to me ramble about my favorite movies, but you decide which is worse)

Mainly do art and writing but in general I enjoy making things

Some of my media interests and hyperfixations include Saw, Final Destination, Resident Evil, Black Christmas, The Halloween franchise, Child’s Play, Yellowjackets, Dead by Daylight, DC comics, Black Metal, Industrial Music, Tarantino movies (especially Kill Bill), Carrie, and just overall horror movies and movies in general.

Heads up! I post a lot of splatter/g0re horror content as it’s the type of horror movie I’m most drawn to. I do not like actual g0re. If you don’t like things like that or horror content for that matter, this is not the account for you.

DNI: bigots (obv), apart of the whole “proship” vs “anti” thing (I’m a normal person), queer discourse heavy accounts (unless a queer person is committing homicide stay out of each other’s business), REAL g0re accounts (again I can handle fake g0re, real g0re wigs me out), and if you’re under the age of 15. Also radfems are on thin ice because I know not all of you are terfs, but it can definitely be a slippery slope.

Anyways I won’t keep you here long so I guess this will be all for now

My card for expanded info:

[mars-and-the-theoi]

Hello there!

Oh, wow, a new introduction post!

Hello, I’m Mars and this is my religious/spiritual/witchcraft sideblog to my main blog @marsdeathdefiances there I post fandom content. And again this is my religious sideblog! I’m 22, I’m genderfluid so he/she/they pronouns work for me! I’m also bi but that’s more just a fun fact than anything in my opinion. I’m disabled so forgive me if my posts aren’t all that regular or anything. Really just a silly little man from the midwest, I tend not to take myself too seriously and I’m pretty laidback so if you ever have any questions or anything don’t be afraid to reach out.

I’m a hellenic polytheist and I have been for the past six years now! I currently worship: Zeus, Hera, Plouton, Apollon, Dionysos, Hephaestus, Phobos & Deimos, Ares, and Aphrodite! Though I honor and give occasional offerings to countless other deities. I semi engage in hero worship with Akhilleus, Patroklos, and Odysseus but I haven’t had much time or energy to fully get into it yet. I very loosely practice witchcraft as well (loosely as in I’m very off and on with it so it’s not really a main focus of mine).

DNI: terfs, radfems, nazis, nationalists, fascists, white supremacists, racists, ableists, saneists, pro-life folks, transphobes, anti-theists, etc. etc. y’all get the idea

Everyone else, so long as you’re not on the dni list in any capacity, you’re welcome here. The only real rule I have is that you’re respectful of me and my beliefs and that’s really it. Again I just try to be laidback and shit so y’know so long as you do that one simple little thing we’re cool. And I should say that my blog is an abrahamic faiths friendly blog. Listen, I’ve dealt with some Christian related religious trauma, so like I get where some of that anger comes from but blanket hatred is dangerous. It’s a very slippery slope. Okay? So we don’t do that here.

That’s really it, I think. Again I just try to keep things chill and all that. If you have any kind of questions or whatever feel free to ask. So…yeah. Hi!

[wizardpink]

Something that has been on my mind is the way that this website is full of people who want to oppose TERFs more than they want to defend trans people and we are never gonna succeed by applying this method.

So many people have taken the stance that all TERFs are wrong about every belief they hold, that anything they say is one slippery slope into Nazism, and that is a fundamental misunderstanding of why TERFs are able to draw people to their side and how it is they operate.

TERFs are dangerous because they will tell you 99 truths to make you believe one lie.

TERFs appeal to potential converts by holding a LOT of the same beliefs and convictions that most of us who fall on the political left and who support social justice movements do.

So when a stealth TERF says something like "makeup bloggers, shady self-care gurus, and tiktok influencers getting plastic surgery who all appeal to one white western beauty standard isn't good for impressionable teens to be consuming constantly," and your response is to reactionarily oppose what they're saying because they're a TERF ala "fuck off, makeup rules and plastic surgery is great," you've fallen for their trap.

Because they've said something relatively sane sounding, and you've made yourself look like the unhinged one with shitty politics. And the person who hasn't been exposed to these TERF talking points and stealth missions, who also feels like maybe being bombarded by shallow looks-obsessed media isn't good for young girls' self-image, has one of two choices: believe what they see right in front of them, or take your word for it that OP is the secret villain and somehow you, who appear to hold the same values as a Fox News host, are right.

Like, some of the takes I have seen people on tumblr promote JUST to oppose a radfem are literally like something straight out of a Republican dude-bro's MAGA reddit channel. Telling women concerned about sexual assault and rape they're being sexist against men. That ANY discussion about patriarchy is transphobic and should be shut down. That all concerns about sexualizing women without their consent, or the role of violence in the porn industry, are just prudish anti-sex propaganda.

We are losing ground by ignoring what WE stand for in favor of only paying attention to what radfems stand for and opposing it. This is the exact tactic we mock Republicans and Democrats for doing, running a campaign based solely on what your opponent is doing wrong without offering any solutions or positions on issues. "TERF bad!" is not an ideology! "Trans people are human beings who deserve the same rights as their cisgender peers," is an ideology.

One thing I love to see is someone finding a good post by a radfem and refusing to engage with it, and potentially spreading OP's blog to more people, and instead making a whole new post with the same point that ISN'T going to potentially lead people down the radfem pipeline. Hell you can even leave a link to the new post in the replies of the original. I know saying "OP is right about this topic but they're a radfem so block them" probably doesn't feel as good as just leaving "die radfem scum" but when the topic is "women should be able to walk alone at night without being afraid" are you really doing a service to our cause by looking like you disagree with that? TERFs WANT to spread the message that trans people and their allies hate cis women and are a danger to them. Don't do their work for them...

It fucking SUCKS playing their game. It feels like being baited into a no-win situation. But making yourself look like a traditional misogynist isn't an L you have to take. There are other approaches.

[miraculouslumination]

I literally do NOT understand how people can still be upset about mspec lesbians existing. Actually it is so ridiculous and pointless. You know how much my life has changed since I found out about mspec lesbians?? Probably, I don't know, 2% of it? At MOST? And that's only because I eventually adopted the term Pan Gay for myself, and just made my mind more open to the complexities people can have with sexuality and gender identity. That is literally it.

Meanwhile exclusionists act like mspec lesbians are the secret villainous cause for all mspecphobia AND/OR lesbophobia. That mspec lesbians are forcing every lesbian ever to like men. But even that’s bullcrap because not every mspec lesbian is even ATTRACTED TO MEN. Cis or otherwise.

Mspec lesbians have literally not caused ANY REAL, TANGIBLE HARM to the community. Y'all are on a dangerous, slippery slope with this type of "REAL lesbian" thinking. And the pool you're sliding into is nothing but pure radfem/terf kool-aid. Don't get on that slide, but also remember you can always get off.

Educate yourself, open your mind, and see past your binarized way of thinking

[barbiegirldream]

Yeah the exclusionist to "gender critical" radfem to TERF pipeline is so real. And so many young LGBT people are falling down this slippery slope it's unbelievable. Those people's gross rhetoric is literally everywhere, even in the trans community! "Non-dysphoric trans people are cis people trying to invade the safe places for the real dysphoric trans people" is the same as "unlabelled people are cishets trying to invade the safe places of the real LGBT people" is the same as "cis aroaces are basically cishets trying to invade the safe places of the real LGBT" and all of this bullshit has been derived from the TERF rhetoric of "trans women are men trying to invade the safe places for real women". Exclusionists will be like "how dare you associate me with terfs" meanwhile repeating TERF rhetoric. These radfems have literally gaslighted these LGBT kids into believing that bigots are trying to invade their safe places by making up false identities.

Nawww I thought transmeds all grew up or got therapy in 2015 how are we still there. Covid did so much damage to the development of kids.

Terfs did so much bull shit that people don’t realize. Like the radfems in the 90s were the ones to popularize lgb because they thought queer was too inclusive so they needed it to become a slur. Like gay was also a slur it just had to become the umbrella that was also inherently tied to homosexuality and not a broader definition. People don’t know how to spot terf rhetoric these days because they think it’s just like JK Rowlings worthless ass going “I hate everyone but cishet white people”

It’s a big shame how accessible real information is but people don’t know how to look for it. Or they just think Twitter threads from other 15 year olds are good enough.

[just-antithings]

Anti rhetoric and radfem rhetoric have overlaps when focusing on purity (often sex negative and anti kink), what one is/is not allowed to do, and control the behavior of others, smearing them when they don't conform. For radfem, women can do no wrong and trans people are disgusting and women need to be protected from them. For antis, it's minors/survivors. (Although radfems often use "protect the children" as an argument, such as when arguing for bathroom bills, usually "protect little girls from bathroom invaders". And, "funnily" enough, homophobes also use that argument as well.)

Antis and radfems are reactionaries; everyone who doesn't agree with them is bad, and they harass people until they snap then smear them for it, never mentioning the harassment campaign or context for that response. They also use inflammatory language (which, again, so do bigots trying to strip away others' rights, like prolifers calling a fetus a baby) to illicit emotion from their audience while removing the required nuance for that argument.

It's hard for someone to both educate and argue at the same time, and they use that to also play into anti intellectualism, such as "You can't explain this in a way that everyone understands" when the topic being discussed requires a base level of education; an example of this is climate change deniers, or in topics of civil rights.

Like, someone says "violence in video games is gross and people who like it like violence." It's much harder to educate someone about the difference between reality and fiction *and* argue against the opposition's points being made, especially when there's a base understanding needed of what fiction is, who should and should not be able to access types of fiction, a knowledge of psychology, a knowledge of tropes in violent video games and why someone would use them, and a knowledge of why someone would like them. The over simplification "people who like violent games like violence" leaves out the convenient "...in real life" implication as well, which also needs to be addressed and argue against.

It's a lot easier to just toss out inflammatory statements and allow someone else scramble to do all the educational work to properly rebuttal, and it has the bonus of allowing for slippery slope statements to push others into converting to their way of thinking. Everyone agrees with "children need to be protected", so then they push their next line of their agenda while still being reasonable; for both antis and radfems, it's "so they need to be protected from things that harm them", which again, is reasonable. Children need to be kept out of spaces and things not meant for them.

But then it typically progresses into changing the behaviors of others (keeping trans people out of restrooms/keeping problematic content from existing), rather than things that should be done to keep children from harm and how to properly label and modify spaces to ensure children don't get into them, and continues until it becomes acceptable to target people who are "bad" (don't support/conform to radfem/anti belief), also becoming more restrictive on what is and isn't okay.

👆👆👆👆

[bongwooder]

I agree w/ the last addition, I just think a lot of people lack the nuance to understand that yes it is statistically more likely that a man may hurt you in x situations, but that protective measures such as "let's meet in public for our first date and I'm not willing to go back to your apartment until a few dates in" is entirely different from waving a gun at someone at them purely existing in the same space as you. I think women have every right to say "I am not interested in ever dating or having sex with men ever again" but saying "every woman should avoid every man like the plague" is a different story? I'm absolutely not a "not all men" type person but we can't ignore that feminists spouting intense fear-mongering of men is a slippery slope into TERF/toxic radfem territory, especially in the hands of white cis women who may ignore their internalized racism/ableism/classism as last reply said

thinking about how my mom spent like 2 years getting downright vicious about the houseless folks who were camping in the woods past her house (to the point of getting a BB rifle that looked like a real fucking gun to threaten them with when they crossed in front of her house??) and justifying it with White Lady Fear a la "what if one of them does something to me! I am but a helpless white woman living all alone!!" and like...

y'all, she terrorized those people. every single time she saw someone outside, she was riling her dog up to bark, waving a gun in their faces (that for all intents & purposes they certainly thought was real), yelling at them, calling the cops (thank god the 2 rural-ass cops didn't actually give a shit), etc.

and she justified it with fears of womanly fragility & inability to defend herself, and I believe how afraid she was! she talked about fearing they would break into her house at night and sexually assault her, and I believe she was legitimately afraid of that. she's been victimized in many of the ways she was afraid of being victimized by them.

the thing is that it doesn't matter how real the fear is.

nothing ever happened, nobody ever tried to threaten her, nobody tried to break in, nobody even approached her. she initiated every single interaction. when she told them not to go through her yard, they did the best they could to respect that without giving up their camping spot; which was on someone else's property, who didn't mind them being there (not to mention one of them is actually indigenous to this specific land!)

she was a thousand times more threatening to those people than they ever were to her, but her fear of them was still real. and that's exactly what made her so dangerous.

I need cis women to internalize this ASAP. your fear is real, and it can and will hurt others. your fear is real, and it is harmful. your fear is real, and your hurt is not deserved, and you still need to grow & heal & prevent it from causing harm.

[dandunn]

Just read a post from a former TERF and this is a really good point:

Lots of the most popular 'fuck men' posts come from TERFs.

This is a trap I see a lot of non-transphobic cis women on this site fall into tbh. 9 times out of ten if I see a post like this I check and yep, the OP is also a radfem.

Ladies if you want to be an ally to trans people, please check. Download ShinigamiEyes if you can and CHECK to make sure you're not accidentally reblogging radfem rhetoric. It can be a slippery slope and you might not even realise it.

[liquorisce]

the conversation around “hating men” is a nuanced one

while you weren’t the one to make the statements within your last reblog the content very much irks me and it seems like you agree with what was said at least in some aspects.

black and trans men are not being killed and discriminated against bc they are men they are being killed and discriminated against bc of the minority they belong to. throwing these minority groups under the bus in a attempt to make a flawed point is an issue not to repeat myself but there is nuance and intersectionality to this conversation. using their identities as gotchas for the sake of “defending” them is so odd considering the perpetrators of most of those crimes against them are men.

women are not claiming they hate men and then going onto murder them, they are not killing men who don’t smile back, nor are they beating them black and blue at a moments notice. It is men who perpetrate this behavior and it them who are the common assailant. obviously it’s not all men and i hope you understand that.

I can sympathize with young girls who claim they hate men bc they see the terrible things men do to others, I can sympathize with grown women who express their hatred of men and ache with resentment and hurt, but mostly I can sympathize with them because I know at the end of the day I know that these women and girls have sympathy for the other side even in all of their “hatred”.

I’m not at all playing the “who has it worse” game but we see how black women, indigenous women, women of color, white women are the ones being brutalized in double and triple the amounts men are for the sole reason of being a woman.

There’s just such a major difference between teen girls on the internet saying they hate men and grown men being violent and cruel to anyone they choose. Misandry doesn’t exist I’m sorry. until I see (I pray not) men dropping in the same way women do because of women i will never take the idea of misandry existing seriously.

It’s in China where we see a young woman being dragged out of a restraunt to be beat by men because she refused to sit with them, it is in Canada where we see little indigenous girls being plucked off the streets and being taken advantage of, it is in America where men pluck away at black trans women freely without punishment, it is my friends who have no attraction towards men being pushed into marriages back home or be killed in the name of “honor”

I’m sorry for being very high strung and bothered by this but as someone who I genuinely respect I am very conflicted at the reblog and statement u put out.

Hi friend! I appreciate you discussing this with me. and I am in agreement with most things you have mentioned. and I think the crux of that post and your feelings can coexist, I will try in my own clumsy way to explain why I think so.

answer below bc some of it is personal, I hope you will be patient with where I am coming from

i actually agree with a lot of what you say. i am also from a similar place with women being forced to marry men, where child marriages are common, where honour killings are rampant because of the dishonour a girl brings to her family. i am not discounting any of that. and I will fight those till my last breath.

i fully recognise the terror women go through just because they are born women, and I am tired of screaming it to the rooftops. i also will stray away from the "not all men" thing, but I still stand by the point that following a lot of the online man-hating discourse invariably leads to terf circles. i followed it myself and found myself in places that made me very uncomfortable.

i think the crux of that post is simple "values ought not to be assigned by gender" and the slope is slippery going forward bc by now intersectional feminism really ought to include queerness as well. (and it can) . even more so than "values ought not to be assigned to gender" is the fact that quite often it is an entry way into the clutches of radfems. ONLINE. i mean its just an unfortunate thing that is getting really loud of late.

frankly the point that really resonated with me is somewhat personal. i have a cousin who is a transman who is struggling with transitioning. and has faced immense bullying at the hands of young girls who called him awful things like gender traitor, and essentially cause a lot of mental harm to a person like him who has grown up on the internet with these girls as peers, who talk about misandry like it is a cool thing. consider it from his pov: having been raised as a girl along with its patriarchal pitfalls and expectations, to finally try to seek comfort in his own skin by identifying in his true gender, only to see that the feminism that led him there is suddenly so hostile to him. it is a stupid thing IMO, but this stupid thing can really contribute to severe anxiety and depression amongst young queer folks. and it is just not necessary. i don't think it is wrong to speak out on that front while also speaking out against the horrifying experience of living as a woman.

There’s just such a major difference between teen girls on the internet saying they hate men and grown men being violent and cruel to anyone they choose. -- this is true, and I think there is a big difference and it is ok to talk about the former once in a while. i think especially young girls can be taught to have nuanced conversation at a young age to avoid turning out like JKR, bc we can talk to them about these things and make them aware of the effect they have on their peers. if you think comments by these girls are "harmless" I just want to point out that it is not. i don't think we can equate the kinds of harm they cause, bc it is radically and disproportionately different but it can still be called out. i believe that's what the post I reblogged spoke to. it is probably not cishet men who are harmed by this but by queer individuals, and I think there is space in my politics to include both.

also while i say it can be called out-- I think the context you bring up and the context of that post are wildly different and should not be used to derail from each other. they are different and can have their own spaces and should not be compared to one another.

misandry does not exist - no it doesn't, not really the way misogyny does, but yet girls use the label in a trendy way (and this underlying 'coolness' concerns me honestly) and cause harm to their young peers perhaps inadvertently or perhaps purposefully. either way, a small minority is affected and when they talk about it (like OP who is a part of this minority), I think it should be respected. i would not want my cousin to talk about his experiences and be shot down. bc it harmed him and his experience deserves to be talked about as long as it is not talking over the experience of women who are oppressed, bc like I said they are two distinct things that deserve their own space.

MOST IMPORTANTLY IT IS HOW EASY IT IS TO FIND YOURSELF IN TERF CIRCLES! WITH THE MAN HATING DISCOURSE! i cant repeat it enough and I worry for the young girls growing on the internet, bc I worry that they will not grow up with the sympathy that some of us other women have for men despite our frustration with them. they grow up with an algorithm that pushes non-nuanced arguments in 160 characters that are similar to the posts that they engage with. so they fall deeper and deeper down a rabbit hole that is concerningly trans exclusionary radfem. that is deeply concerning to me, bc it shapes the politics of a generation of girls, who could instead be pushed into inclusive feminist values and activist work.

also the post in specific responds to talk of andrea dworkin who is very staunchly radfem and has been met with a lot of criticism even within feminist circles. i looked it up and maybe you could too and you might understand a bit better the pov of that post in specific

thx for the talk! i hope i could explain myself properly

in case i couldnt explain myself on OP's blog you will see that he also agrees with what you are saying but the main point he wanted to make is about how such talk is quite often a dogwhistle for terfs and if you see a lot of the hate that he has received, you will see that he is not far wrong T_T

i fear the internet just has the loudest awful people and I hope ppl stay safe from them

[theladyoflove]

dog whistles

I decided to go through the followers of the LGB Alliance on twitter and block all of them, and I noticed a few trends in their bios and I thought I’d make a list of the ones that I (as a person who isn’t trans nor part of the LGBTQ+ community) saw as sus. Please feel free to add to this list!

radfem

radical feminist

gender critical / gc

sex not gender

any support of jk r*wling or maya / # thisisnotadrill

gender free

gender atheist

mentions of “trans ideology”

mentions of “trans dogma”

biology is real

sex is real

adult human female/male

“homosexual female/male”

mentions of “sex segregation”

wumben / wimpund / woomud / wombyn (reference to a popular terf post)

wombyn-born-wombyn

mentions of female/male biology in their name, bio or profile picture

mentions of not being “anti-trans” (always be suspicious of those who defend against something they have not been accused of)

“against redefining womanhood/manhood”

“not cis” / sis not cis

“cisters” 

identifying themselves with chromosomes “xx / xy”

LGB / L/G without the T / drop the T

“woman/man isn’t a state of mind” / “woman/man isn’t a trend” 

“trans is misogyny”

terf is a slur

TIF / TIM (trans-identified female / trans-identified male)

Pro-woman / pro-female / pro-male

gender exclusionary

pro-reality 

anti-gender 

MERF (male exclusionary radical feminist)

protect women's/men’s spaces

female/lesbian/male/gay errasure

These are ones that on their own I don’t think would equal a transphobe but in the context of other things in their bio/name/posts can help solidify whether or not they’re transphobic or generally bigoted.

mentions of “trans activists”

“critical of gender stereotypes”

2+2=4 (dog whistle for “biology is real” bullcrap)

rb/rt ≠ endorsement (used as a scapegoat to continue spreading bigotry)

“queer is a slur” (can be used to exclude trans people from gay spaces)

lesbophobia (in topics involving trans women)

“gay not queer” / “lesbian not queer”

mentions of “identity politics”

mentions of “women hate”

mocking of pronouns ( fuck/off, adult/human/female, ob/vi/ous)

mentions of thought crimes / “my thoughts are not illegal” (scapegoat for spreading bigotry)

I will say, transphobes and terfs can be anyone.

Terf does not equal lesbian, or even gay

Terf does not equal cis women, or even women

Terf does not equal white, anyone can be transphobic.

Just because a person looks progressive on the outside does not mean they really are, LGBTQ can just mean “gay and lesbian” to some people. Transphobes might not post their own bigotry, but look at who they follow and who follows them, or if they have posts shaming transphobes/supporting trans people.

Some of these may seem trivial, but that is how people get roped into bigoted ideologies, if you can agree with the phrase “biology is real” without knowing the transphobic undertones or intentions behind that phrase, then it’s a slippery slope from there. We have to help the trans community fight against transphobes, no matter what minority group they’re from, by learning about dog whistles and shunning people who spew them from our circles.

Don’t engage in discourse with them, as you risk shoving people on the fence to their side, don’t make block lists, you only give them a platform. Download shinigami eyes, and block every red name you see. Any attempt to “clap back” only encourages more terfs to wiggle out of the woodworks to defend their cisters. It’s not a battle worth fighting and we as cis people should be extending our love and energy to trans people.