#marginalized people deserve to be listened to

[akindplace]

dont give up on yourself or on other people just because there are awful people doing terrible things out there. shitty people do a lot of damage, but giving up in desperation and defeat only helps their cause, it’s what they want you do. you can still believe in a better world and do what you can to help people in need. you still have your own power, even if it’s smaller in comparison, don’t relinquish it to them too. we’re not giving up, we’re holding on to each other, because there are still good people out there and we must to hold on to our humanity in times where others seem to have completely lost theirs.

[lgbtlunaverse]

I think a lot of people's perception of "US centrism" on this site is "americans assuming us-specific problems are universal" but i've found it just as often if not more often manifests as the opposite. Usamericans thinking a problem people deal with worldwide (food deserts, late stage capitalism, bigotry) or a problem that did start primarily in the US but has been exported worldwide via cultural imperialism (this particular example is not the us but canada, but I sure did looooove having trucker protests in my country after they got 'inspired' by those in north america /s) are things only they have to deal with. I regularly get tags on this post that say something like 'blame the puritans for ruining american society' or will straight up go '#usa #fuck this country #i bet the rest of the world doesn't have this problem' I am from the Netherlands and have never set foot on the american continent.

[lastoneout]

*grabbing young queer people by the shoulders* listen to me. radical feminism is inherently transphobic. you cannot rehabilitate it or reclaim it or make it trans inclusive, I don't care what the people on twitter who claim to be authorities on queerness say. the foundation of radical feminism is nothing but bio and gender essentialism and biphobia and aphobia and anti-kink rhetoric and intersexism and yes, misogyny. it does not offer a future, not for bi people, aroace people, sex workers, not for kinksters, or intersex people, cis women, or trans people regardless of gender and you should care about those people. it will never result in queer liberation because it is an ideology of exclusion and hatred. you gain nothing by buying into the idea that half the population is evil by birth or by transition. you gain nothing by acting like women are perpetual victims who can't think for themselves and are tainted by their association with men. being a man or being attracted to them is not a sin. if we truly want to stand a chance of dismantling the patriarchy we actually NEED men on our side especially marginalized men. they are our allies.

the problem with terfs is not just transphobia, it never was, the radical feminism is also so unbelievably harmful. you cannot save it and it will not save you, stop drawing lines between queer people and join hands with them instead. remove people who are actually harmful, not innocent people who happen to have the wrong sexuality or gender or job. we get there together or we don't get there at all. we need each other now more than ever. do not listen to those who seek to divide us even if they are queer. we all deserve so much better than the hell radical feminism pretends is a liberated future.

I do not blame anyone who fell prey to this rhetoric, I know it feels good to have a common enemy and lash out at those you think are siding with them however they do it, but men, especially marginalized men, are not your enemies. and it's never too late to realize that and change for the better.

[phosphorusab]

I cannot fucking believe that there are people “no angel-ing” Nex Benedict because they poured water on these random girls who had been harassing them (and had been harassing them prior, despite not knowing them). If it had been their cishet kids who were being bullied, they wouldn’t have a problem if their kids poured water on someone. And now there’s psychos saying Nex deserved to get beaten for responding to being antagonized.

This always happens, a queer person isn’t a ‘perfect victim’, it’s okay for them to die. And even if they were perfect victim, it’s still somehow acceptable. This happens to every marginalized person who snaps one day due to abuse, and gets killed.

And the excuses only get more and more stupid. “Oh they were no angel, they poured water on somebody”. Yeah, after being bullied for a year straight every school day. It’s almost like every human has their limit of fucks to give and shit to take.

I hate all of you ‘no angel’ people even more than I hate people regurgitating misinformation about how Nex died, based off of what the corrupt school and the fucking bastard cops (who are allowed to lie) say. Even the cops suspect foul play. Listen to the 911 call, that’s a head injury. Dozens of people who’ve had experiences with someone getting a head injury and dying later on will tell you that.

[septembersghost]

I know you haven't been posting TS stuff out of respect for everyone upset rn but this made me think of you :3 https://www.tumblr.com/hightowres/717128939650285568

oh i love this, it's so pretty and very much my #aesthetic, thank you 💕

[covid-safer-hotties]

To My Unmasked Friend in the Fifth Year of COVID - By: Anna Holmes - Published Aug 17, 2024

I’m going to be honest with you, because I love you, and you deserve nothing but honesty. I’m going to try really hard not to be angry while I do it, but it’s probably going to slip out every now and again. But I need you to hear me out, all right?

By now, we’ve talked about my reality. My personal struggle with long COVID, the isolation I live in, why I am so angry all the time.

But let’s talk about you. You just went to a big convention overseas. You got on a plane, got a little gussied up, talked shop with some insiders, geeked out over awards and merch, ate, drank, were merry, left with your social cup and your heart full.

You’re a good person. We wouldn’t be friends otherwise! You’d never dream of tripping a person with a red and white cane, using the r-word, excluding a disabled person from an event because of something they can’t help.

You might even acknowledge that the COVID response from governments and organizations has been ableist and inadequate.

But you didn’t wear a mask.

For whatever reason — you wanted to show off your makeup, it makes you itchy, you believed the messaging that COVID is endemic (what does that actually mean?), you just don’t think about it anymore — you made a choice that actively excludes people like me from participating not only in an event like a convention, but society at large. And yes, it is a choice. Every time you step out into the world without a mask on your face, you have made a decision that your very good reason, whatever it is, supersedes the right of disabled and at-risk people to exist safely in your orbit.

Well, hold on, you say. It’s not any one individual’s fault, it’s the inadequate public health messaging. Isn’t that what you’ve been saying?

And I have. In the past, I have talked about how it is unconscionable that health authorities have thrown their hands up and rescinded guidance that would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives and prolonged a pandemic that, to hear them tell it, has been bested. It hasn’t. Worst of all, the financial motivation that we all know is driving this premature victory lap isn’t even being fulfilled. Long COVID and other post-COVID complications are costing the global economy one trillion a year. Meanwhile, article after article handwrings about nobody wanting to work anymore, about the sagging college application scene, about declines in military enlistment, and the strain on our healthcare systems.

All of this is very much the fault of our leaders, who have decided the political ramifications of “normalcy” are more important than the health and lives of the 400 million people living with long COVID across the globe, the immunocompromised folks who are increasingly being shut out of every conceivable public space, and the disabled community which has been screaming into the wind about our marginalization since before the virus even hit US soil.

But I want to be very clear. You are helping them do this.

The reality is that we have been living in this deeply flawed landscape of “personal choice”, and you’ve made yours. You’ve opted not to look into how densely clustered cases are. You’ve stopped listening to your friends who have informed themselves. You’ve given yourself permission to put COVID on the back burner. You’ve earned it, right? Four and a half years of trauma?

COVID doesn’t care if you’re tired of being scared or careful or considerate. COVID is not something you can personally overcome by being smart or virtuous or brave. It is a virus which only seeks to infect and replicate, and it is getting very good at those things. While you’ve looked away, my community has been scrambling to avoid variants that skirt immunity and don’t show up on rapid tests until day five-seven. The constant battle has changed since you were last in it. It’s not sufficient anymore to get your shots and test before a big event. You could well be asymptomatic and infectious, or have symptoms and convinced yourself it can’t be COVID because that second line hasn’t popped up.

You have come to the conclusion sometime between 2022 and now that you just have to decide what level of risk you’re comfortable with and live with it. The problem with that is scale. It’s you and everybody else doing that, and a lot of people have decided they are comfortable with a high level of risk. Despite what you’ve been told, you’re not just making that decision for yourself. You are making it for every person you come in contact with.

Think back to the early tense days of 2020. We were told to select a “bubble.” Those people would be our social lifelines, and through those, we could control our exposure.

My bubble is quite small. It includes my husband, my sister, and two friends I see relatively frequently.

My husband goes to work via the bus, and to the grocery store. Every person he comes in contact with there has the potential to infect him, and then he has the potential to pass it along to me. He mitigates this by wearing a well-fitted respirator at all times.

My sister goes to work at a busy public place. She masks when public facing and takes it off in the back office. She goes to restaurants, bars, concerts, hangs out with friends and her own partner unmasked. About 75% of her interactions have the heightened potential to infect her, which she might then bring into my house when she visits me.

My friends do not mask anywhere except my house when asked. They attend concerts, shows, cons, bars.

Obviously, I am in control of whether I wear a mask around these people. And as we approach one million new cases a day, I will be around everyone but my husband. But science is clear: reciprocal masking is more effective at infection control than a single person masking — especially when that single person is trying to protect themselves, not others.

This is settled science. We’ve known this since 2020. It says clearly that the choice you make is not personal- it has implications for everyone you come in contact with.

And being clear — if I could, I’d make everyone wear a mask for their own health. I don’t want people suffering with what I have. But you’ve been told this lie that you can take your risks for yourself, so you feel comfortable going out without a mask. You’ve been told this lie that it’s possible to completely recover from a COVID infection, so you assume that even if you do catch it, that’s what’ll happen to you, despite evidence showing that every body is indelibly changed by an infection, and that risk only grows with each subsequent infection.

And the greatest lie of all — that only the sick or elderly have anything to fear from COVID — has given you unfounded confidence in your own “good” genes or immune system or fitness. You can get long COVID even if you’re in peak form — in fact, may even be more likely to be hit hard.

So you have decided, individually and collectively, that only the sick or elderly should have to take precautions, and you freewheel through life, only to get surprised and dismayed when you bump into COVID in the wild. It’s back, people declare every summer or winter, as though it ever left.

But I want you to really think about the implications of your choice. Besides yourself. Because let’s be honest here, that’s who you’ve been thinking about, right? Your risk. Your comfort. Never mind your bubble, never mind the bubble of everyone you come into contact with, never mind the people like me who are literally hiding from people like you.

You’re not masking at the doctor’s office. You’re not masking at the airport. You’re not masking at the giant superspreader you just attended, and you’re not masking in the bars and restaurants where we know the virus flourishes. And then you’re bringing that exposure back to your family and friends. Back to the grocery store, where you run across people like my husband, shopping for someone who is unsafe to leave the house, or your elderly neighbors, or an immunocompromised employee.

You’re a good person, or you like to think of yourself that way. That’s why when you’re asked to mask, you dismiss it out of hand — because that changed behavior implies that you’ve been doing something wrong.

And my friend, I’m telling this because I love you: you have been. You might have been doing that on faulty information, but be honest with yourself and with me — you’ve heard me begging people to take this seriously. You’ve seen the information I’ve been sharing. You have had the opportunity to seek out the correct information all along, and you have chosen not to.

It isn’t too late to change your view of the risk you’re imposing on the people around you. It’s not too late to push public health to become more effective. It’s not too late to act in solidarity and be the inclusive person you think you are. It’s not too late to take care of yourself.

Ultimately, that’s what I have been screaming myself hoarse about. I don’t want you to end up with what I have. I don’t want you to inadvertently impose that on someone else. And yes, I’ve been angry, because you’ve been advertising your absolute lack of concern with group shots of your naked faces on social media. It doesn’t seem to bother you that I am stuck at home like it’s 2020, except for doctors’ appointments that I literally have to risk my life to go to. You’ve told yourself that it’s not your problem, because only the sick and elderly have to take precautions.

You know better. You can do better. For your community, yourself, and me, do better.

Please. I love you.

Anna

PS. If you’re feeling upset and embarrassed right now, the best thing you can do is take action. Get yourself good masks (the surgicals and cloth ones don’t cut it anymore), donate to mask blocs so others can access good masks, write to your representatives and the President, comment on upcoming CDC guidance, schedule yourself a booster, and talk to your loved ones about doing better, too. The only way we get out of this is with community care. So care.

[melancholic-pigeon]

Leftists on tumblr: listen to marginalized people about their own oppression

Jewish person: X thing is super antisemitic

Those very same leftists on tumblr: OH SO YOU SUPPORT MURDERING BABIES THEN? GENOCIDE APOLOGIST

Jewish person: here's an exhaustive list of sources going back thousands of years proving that X is antisemitic.

Leftists on tumblr: Doesn't count, colonizer!!!!!! /gets X tattooed on their forehead, puts an X bumper sticker on their car, calls people Genocide Supporters when they say "hey X is not allowed here because it's antisemitic"

Leftists on tumblr: "Why do Jews keep complaining about leftist antisemitism? I don't see it; it's clearly a distraction from talking about those Noble Savage Palestinians. Prove to me you're oppressed, X! X X X X!! CHANTS X FROM THE ROOFT0PS"

Jews: we don't super trust you guys not to call for our extermination, since you have repeatedly at every past opportunity

Leftists on tumblr: Look, I know antisemitism is annoying, but now is not the time to discuss blood libel when those Evil Jews are eating Palestinian babies!!! HASHTAG X

Jewish person: *rubs forehead as Turning from les mis plays in the background* (nothing changes, nothing ever can / round about the roundabout and back where you began)

Leftists on tumblr: SEE? THEY WON'T EVEN HAVE A GOOD FAITH DISCUSSION WITH ME 😭

Leftists on tumblr: "anyway discussions of antisemitism are a DISTRACTION. I am good person who is being very helpful and only hurting bad people who deserve it, like those filthy Jews— I mean zionists"

Leftists on tumblr: Why, oh why are people calling us antisemitic? 🥺

[simbistardis]

The asexual experience for white people is not the same for racially and ethnically marginalized people. Black aces and other asexuals of color must fight against stereotypes like the Jezebel, the Mammy, the China doll or the Geisha Girl, or the desexualized Asian male trope that have historically stripped our personhood of any nuance. Therefore, the insecurities we harbor that prevent many from even identifying within the community are valid.

Yes, diversifying spaces online and IRL can be hard. As the ace community continues to grow, BIPOC aces speaking on our experiences should be listened to and affirmed by white aces and all allosexual people alike. White aces with platforms in the community and beyond should especially “take the initiative to actively address anti-Blackness, they need to credit the Black aces they learn from, and they need to acknowledge the fact of that their whiteness helps to propel their careers,” Sherronda explains in the same interview. As even within the ace community, Black and POC asexuals often endure the harm of white supremacy and/or racial antagonism with little to no defense or solidarity from white asexuals.

BIPOC aces should know that we have long deserved better than the colonization of our sexuality. Societal myths, racial stereotypes, and tropes shouldn’t dictate our perception of ourselves. Luckily, in our broad understanding of (a)sexuality, we have many of the tools, knowledge, and resources to begin shifting narratives of sexuality that can ultimately benefit all people of color, whether they’re self-identified as asexual or not.

Asexuals of Color Still Seek To Validate Their Sexuality by Ebony Purks for Rebellious Magazine (2021)

[creatingblackcharacters]

Okay so after sitting on the responses from yesterday's question, I have some follow up questions to what seemed to be some consistent... Themes in the answers.

Like yesterday, I am asking with intent to listen (and maybe ask more questions) so I will not be arguing- at best, you'll get a "hm" to acknowledge i saw what you said.

My follow up questions:

1. There are a lot of people who think they're the only one who would speak up. Imagine what would happen if everyone who thought they were the only one... Spoke. But even if you do think you're alone... Why is antiracism not worth standing alone for?

2. There is a difference between feeding the trolls and speaking up when something wrong is happening. Do you feel people are more comfortable assuming the former so that they don't have to interact via the latter?

3. Why do we think that bigotry will go away if it goes unaddressed? Is that how you also feel about bigotry that you experience via your other identities?

4. Why should we entertain and prioritize the annoyance of bigots? Why do you not deserve to be here and have a safe, comfortable space any more than they do?

5. What do we plan on doing when Black fans lose their patience due to disillusionment? Are we okay with the outcome of that, of choosing... Well, being racist but safe? (Be honest with yourself!) Would we rather Black fans just accept that it's easier to assume everyone is antiblack, the same way it's easier not to speak up against it as a social norm? If we want to show that there is still a welcome for Black fans, that we are safe, why don't we act to show that?

6. If everyone only hangs around people who aren't antiblack, why is the space still so overwhelmingly antiblack? Have you considered that you cannot adequately judge from within?

7. No one really answered my "what is the boundary" question at all. What I should have asked is, are you willing to recognize that you have a willing tolerance for antiblackness? That there is a certain amount that you are okay with allowing before thinking it's worth speaking up?

*I also want to note that I'm not directing this to Black fans. I know that the context changes when you have to fight. I'm asking the people who have the privilege of fighting antiblackness while not having the identity. I.e. some marginal power in the area.

[sunnystars2023]

Ways BNHA Boys Show their love

Group 2

Synopsis: The ways the boys of BNHA show their love and affection to you.

Characters Included: Izuku Midoriya, Shoto Todoroki, and Tenya Iida.

Group 1/Group 3

🔋👾🌀⭐️🐸⭐️🌀👾🔋👾🌀⭐️🐸⭐️🌀👾🔋

Izuku Midoriya

Midoriya is semi ok with PDA he like people to know that you two are together with out having to say it. He like feeling close to you but he won't kiss you on the lips in public.

Midoriya takes notice of the little things you do and or like. He has his own journal about you. He knows when you've reached your limits and when you need breaks. He knows everything you enjoy from movies to flowers. You guys know each other so well its almost instinctual.

Midoriya is a sweetheart but after his first year at UA he grew some tough skin. Training to be a hero already puts you on edge but Training to be a symbol is harder especially when you're on the line. He doesn't play when it comes to you.

Izuku Midoriya might be a softy at times but when it comes to you, his friends, and Civilians, he's a protecter.

Shoto Todoroki

Todoroki likes to be private so PDA is a no go for him as publicity is a bitch and he’s still Endeavors son. Not that he doesn’t wanna show you off it’s just he doesn’t want a bunch of randos having extra pictures of him much less with you. He makes an exception for hand holding on days where you both need a little extra love. Behind closed doors, thats when he becomes so clingy even just in the dorms and not in your personal rooms.

Todoroki at first isn’t to sure how to be someone’s partner as none of the girls that pursued him never got his attention. The only example he has is Natsuo but he doesn’t ever bring his girlfriend home, but he watched you quietly and would talk to you about what you wanted and what you liked and would listen about topics you grossly know too much about. As time goes on he figures it out, learns what you need and is so sweet but still a little dense.

Todoroki loves to spoil you when he has the chance. When he and Endeavor started to re-kindle their relationship Todoroki accepted a Debit card that is loaded for necessities and such. So if you even whisper of wanting something and he can get it, he’s already got it. He says quote ‘You’re so kind and deserving so why wouldn’t I get it’. Not only is he physically Rich but he also once he gets comfortable with you and the relationship is a Rich lover.

Shoto Todoroki is a learner but a Rich lover so be good to him and he’s good to you.

Tenya Iida

Iida is a strong class leader along side Momo. He is very confident and concentrated on being a good class rep. He like Bakugo HATES PDA as he sees it as A) breaking the rules and B) a breach of your intimate privacy. He will only hold hands if you just absolutely need some affection. He prefers to be touchy behind closed doors.

Iida is strict to his rules even with himself. He tries to keep everything in line. Tries as when it comes to you he will lightly bend the rules for you. If it’s late and you need him, his doors open even past curfew sometimes. Wanna cuddle and end up falling asleep in his bed, he lets you until curfew and brings you to your dorm room. He would bend any rule for you. Bend not break. He is more loyal to you than a dog is to his owner. Iida will not stand for any slander or insults towards you or about you.

Iida is hard working and driven by his peers. He won’t give up and won’t stop working towards his goals so be lucky that you became one of them. He cherishes you and thinks the world of you. He thinks of you as more then just a girlfriend. You’re his partner and Best friend. He helps you with whatever you need. No he won’t give you answers to homework but he will let you borrow his highlighted notes with tips hand written in the margins and go over the assignment without judgment. He also brings you books that he thinks you’d like and writes more notes in the margins for you varying from sweet I love yous to pointed out things that reminded him of you.

Tenya Iida is a smart lover, loyal companion, and a hard-worker. He is as good as gold so take care of him.

🔋👾🌀⭐️🐸⭐️🌀👾🔋👾🌀⭐️🐸⭐️🌀👾🔋

Masterlist <- here

Thank you sm for reading! Check out other parts for more characters! If you want more content follow my wattpad @sunnystars2023!

[sophie-frm-mars]

If you're fairly young and online it can really help you to learn to spot who is dealing with their feelings well and who isn't. Now, obviously a lot of people in marginalized classes experience a lot of negative feelings when talking about how the world is, and that's okay, so I'm not saying just ignore anyone online who's having a rough time. On the other hand, people who make an identity out of being angry, or sad or "being a bitch"/"being a dick"/not caring about the feelings of others really aren't processing their feelings well. You'll often see these same people claim to be completely unaffected by things that are quite clearly massively dysregulating to them, and if they were having a more normal time being online they would probably say "yeah, this making me feel [feeling]" and either log off to go process that or move through it more honestly

I think you can save yourself a lot of time that you might spend arguing with someone who cannot hear you and doesn't see your inner reality because they're too upset if you can recognize when what someone is saying comes from failing to deal with their own feelings

There will also be times when people who are like this decide to make it your problem. Unfortunately social media sometimes rewards unhealthy coping mechanisms. People find themselves with big audiences or communities of similarly dysregulated people who aren't very well and then they just want to find someone it's okay to bully, because it makes them feel better, and it won't make them feel better if their bullying has no effect, so they pick on people they feel like they can reach instead of people truly deserving of ire, fascists and finance perverts and so on

The best thing you can do is make sure that your life offline is as fulfilling as possible, or if you are still in a place in life where online is a really important support system for you, then make sure it's separate from these people. Hang out in a discord call with your friends, play some games, swap movie recommendations, tell them about a blog you found recently, listen to their problems for a bit. Or go for a walk, listen to the birds, learn to tell apart the bird songs, find a place where you like being alone that isn't in your house

Negative emotions are united by the fact that we don't want to be seen when we're experiencing them. We want others to think of us as happy, excited, passionate, curious, and not as sad, angry, ashamed, scared. This makes us sometimes lie to ourselves when we're experiencing those feelings, dissociating from our emotional reality and seeking a release while making up justifications for why what we're doing is normal and rational and achieves some greater goal. If you see someone who is clearly very upset but claiming to be cool as a cucumber, they're simply not your problem, go to a different page

[lovelymylene]

introducing

໑ 70s LOSER MATT

LOSER MATT.. who isn’t shy, just terrible at social cues, leaving people wondering if he’s being intentionally funny or just awkward.

LOSER MATT.. who doesn’t say much but notices everything, his sharp eyes catching details others overlook, like someone’s mood changing or a song subtly switching tempo.

LOSER MATT.. who’s clumsy in the most endearing way, tripping over nothing or spilling his drink, then muttering a dry, self-deprecating joke that actually makes people laugh.

LOSER MATT.. who only comes to parties if Chris and Nate are going, and even then, he spends most of the night nursing a drink and bobbing his head to the music in the corner.

LOSER MATT.. who sits on the edge of his bed, headphones on, completely lost in the world of his favorite obscure album, mouthing the lyrics like they’re gospel.

LOSER MATT.. who practices drumming on every surface he encounters—desks, tables, his own thighs—earning annoyed looks from teachers and amused ones from friends.

LOSER MATT.. who doodles on the edges of his notebooks during class, filling the margins with weirdly intricate designs no one ever sees because he immediately closes his book.

LOSER MATT.. who will pause mid-walk in the hallway to daydream, staring off into space like he’s in the middle of a movie scene only he can see.

LOSER MATT.. who spends his free time at record stores, thumbing through vinyls he can’t afford, memorizing tracklists, and mentally curating the perfect playlist.

LOSER MATT.. who doesn’t understand why people hate on disco and will passionately argue its brilliance to anyone willing to listen—or not.

LOSER MATT.. who shows up to every group hangout slightly late, not because he’s cool, but because he overthought what to wear and couldn’t decide if he was actually invited.

LOSER MATT.. who panics if someone randomly calls on him, answering with a stammer and a dry, witty comment that accidentally makes everyone laugh.

LOSER MATT.. who secretly wants to be the main character but thinks he’s destined to be a background NPC, quietly hoping someone will see him for more.

LOSER MATT.. who refuses to watch a movie he’s obsessed with until he has the perfect setup—a quiet room, the right lighting, and no distractions—because art deserves to be experienced properly.

LOSER MATT.. who only really comes alive when he’s playing his drums, his quiet, awkward demeanor melting away into raw passion and energy.

LOSER MATT.. who would absolutely lose it if someone recognized one of his niche movie references, but instead, he just shrugs it off like it doesn’t matter.

LOSER MATT.. who’s clumsy in the most endearing way, tripping over nothing or spilling his drink, then muttering a dry, self-deprecating joke that actually makes people laugh.

LOSER MATT.. who has exactly three close friends, Chris, Nick and Nate, and would do anything for them—even though Chris shoos him away half the time.

LOSER MATT.. who, despite his awkwardness, has a way of making people feel understood with his quiet loyalty and soft-spoken humor.

LOSER MATT.. who dreams of being a film composer but tells no one, burying his passion under layers of self-doubt and drum solos.

LOSER MATT.. who has a heart so big it scares him, hiding it under sarcasm and humor, hoping no one will notice how much he really cares.

@lovelymylene <3

[calebwittebane]

alright can i just say something.

can I just voice my opinion can I be heard. this post Bovvers Me. now i know this is a joke post. but in reality, in practice, as it has been released into the world, its a half-joke-post. it gained so much traction because people really do think like this and not for entirely self-deprecating ways--though that would be bad too. listen, when it comes to LESBIAN GAY BISEXUAL TRANSGENDER sex, being submissive is more readily accepted in the culture that is afraid of sexuality, because to a certain degree it appears to remove involvement and intent (which of course in reality it really doesnt, and the idea that it does has been used by predators to obscure abusive dynamics, but i digress). being dominant, being horny without guilt, initiating and "leading" the scene, it involves a level of earnesty that many people are scared of. it is Cringe to them even tough they crave it, but what they want is an oscar worthy performance that hits all the unspoken levels of subtleties and post-post-irony, done by someone without feelings or boundaries or different levels of comfort, who is just here to act out someone elses fantasy and leave. it is a dreary picture of gaysexhavers SO afraid of being earnest, so intent on needlessly judging and policing others all because they do it to themselves first and foremost. a pursuit of joy and understanding gets trampled over by the need to appease The Shame and The Voyeur and The Peer Judgment and to conform to norms even in privacy. the notion that its shameful to be horny, that wanting things is predatory, that youre making a mistake and committing a sin to even be doing this in the first place. the need to have someone to project anxieties and shame onto, the need to look at someones "right" to have a sexuality, unspoken social currency, self-policing. moreover, when a person is designated inherently less deserving of normal things like safely expressing desire, kept perpetually afraid of unknowingly becoming a predator due to some intrinsic quality of theirs, their boundaries are more easily trampled over and their safety is not as readily taken into consideration. not to mention that such pathologizing of agency and expression mirrors the same old dehumanizing patterns found in wider society, as it ends up harming those most marginalized within lgbt spaces--POC, especially Black people, trans women, very gnc people, disabled people, and so on.

TL;DR - people will think and talk like this and then be like "where are all the doms..." this and "no one wants to top..." that

[nothorses]

actually I don't think I like the posts that say that transmascs who go "you wanna be oppressed soooo bad" to other transmascs are all otherwise-privileged white/abled/etc. assholes who don't experience oppression personally so they assume nobody else does either.

like.

look.

I get the urge to reason it that way, and I definitely agree that a lot of the folks saying that AREN'T marginalized along a lot of other axes. A lot of the people speaking FOR acknowledgement of transandrophobia are marginalized in other ways too, and that's for a reason, and it's incredibly important to acknowledge. and dismissing that oppression, assuming everyone talking about this is just privileged and whiny, absolutely erases the very real oppression- and marginalized identities- of those people.

and. and.

"you've just never experienced it because you're only oppressed as a trans man and that's basically nothing" is a bad argument, it's provably not true, and it actively works against what we're trying to fight for in the first place.

talk to these people for a moment, and hear what they're really saying:

"my suffering isn't as bad as anyone else's. it doesn't deserve to be talked about."

"we're taking up too much space."

"we're taking resources, attention, and support from the people who actually deserve it."

"we have to know our place. we have to shut up and listen. we have to put ourselves in harm's way to protect everyone else, because we don't deserve safety."

this is not "I've never experienced oppression before so neither have you", and this is not exclusive or unique to transmascs who don't experience a lot of other intersecting marginalizations.

this is what people say when they're hurting, and they believe they deserve it.

it fucking sucks when they project that onto everyone else, and when they allow that to become so loud that they won't listen to people who are hurting and need help just because validating their hurt would validate their own. a lot of them are real pieces of shit who do real harm, and who really fucking suck. you don't have to like them, and you don't have to put up with that behavior, and you don't have to be their friend.

but fuck, y'all, we have got to preserve the humanity in this conversation. they deserve kindness and support, they deserve to have their pain acknowledged, and they need the help just like everyone else does. that they refuse to see that is the problem. someone needs to see it for them.

we're fighting for them, too.

[abtrusion]

Trans-national Ethnography Reading List

Studies of trans in the academy usually kind of suck. There is a tendency to speak through us, to understand our claims to gender as either pitiful or dangerously conformist, and generally to just not listen to anything we have to say. Gender has traditionally been the property of feminist theorists, who have produced a lot of great work that's well worth using. But any researcher who does not seriously contend with the anti-feminine and anti-porn tendencies of feminist theory will find it impossible to take trans seriously: we tend to be really hot, sort of sexual, and always a little bit too loud.

Ethnographic research is pretty resistant to these academic neuroses. Because ethnographic work involves months-long immersion in a group and participation in its members' daily lives, ethnographers are forced to identify with trans people for extended periods of time, which tends to bleed away the worst of this shit [1]. Ethnography also has a strong ethic toward preserving research subjects' ways of seeing the world, enforced via direct quotes, frequent narration, and the prioritization of endogenous terms which research subjects already use. As a pleasant side effect, this also makes ethnographies a bit clearer to read than your average academic tome.

So with that in mind, I've got a list of stuff to read. If you are unused to academic jargon I would recommend the books (in italics), because they tend to be more 'traditional' and therefore readable. They're also more accessible because certain sites carry a wide catalog of free digital books. The articles aren't too bad either, but ethnography really deserves a few hundred pages more than an article gives, so the writing always looks a little bit squished. I'd read "Decolonizing Transgender in India" anyways, as well as Kira Hall's excellent piece.

READINGS

Imagining Transgender: An Ethnography of a Category. By David Valentine.

The Kothi Wars: AIDS Cosmopolitanism and the Morality of Classification. By Lawrence Cohen.

Decolonizing Transgender in India: Some Reflections. By Aniruddha Dutta and Raina Roy.

Dissenting Differently: Solidarities and Tensions between Student Organizing and Trans-Kothi-Hijra Activism in Eastern India. By Aniruddha Dutta.

Elsewheres in Queer Hindutva: A Hijra Case Study. By Aniruddha Dutta.

Subjectivities, Knowledge, and Gendered and Sexual Transitions. By Paul Boyce and Aksay Khanna, chapter in the Cambridge Handbook for the Anthropology of Gender and Sexuality.

Shifting gender positions among Hindi-speaking hijras. By Kira Hall.

Perverse Citizenship: Divas, Marginality, and Participation in "Loca-lization." By Marcia Ochoa.

Queen for a Day: Transformistas, Beauty Queens, and the Performance of Femininity in Venezuela. By Marcia Ochoa.

The Made-Up State: Technology, Trans Femininity, and Citizenship in Indonesia. By Benjamin Hegarty.

Beauty that Matters: Brazilian "Travesti" Sex Workers Feeling Beautiful. By Julieta Vartabedian.

Bodies and desires on the internet: An approach to trans women sex workers’ websites. By Julieta Vartabedian.

Footnotes

The disgust can come back once they get away from us for a while. See Annick Prieur's 1994 article and her 1998 book, which have pretty different levels of casual transmisogynistic hate.

[annabelle--cane]

I got into tma in 2022 on a road trip with no internet and then only tangentially interacted with the fandom (light hcs, fanart) and I am. so compelled to understand what the fandom was like in 2020. what were the takes. why was it so awful. does it explain why every time I try to look into protocol I get a rancid Vibe and jump back 5 feet.

to preface: on scale, it really wasn't any worse than your average fandom, it just A) got Very popular over a short period and B) that period was during a time of particularly high stress where many people suddenly could only experience a social life online. tma is also a fairly political and progressive work, which inevitably leads to certain kinds of Takes. it also got Very popular right at the point where the episodes were reaching their peak of explicit social commentary and sustained morbid tone, which, especially combined with point B from above, drew out some really visceral reactions from a lot of people. nothing was actually inherently rancid about 2020-2021 tma fandom, there was just a bit of a perfect storm of factors.

having said that. some common discourse themes:

the perennial shipping discourse. georgie is the only one of our leads to have never killed a person, but really, I pinky promise that your ship between two unrepentant serial killers is 100x more problematic than my ship between two unrepentant serial killers.

asexuality: how dangerous is it? on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being "mostly" to 5 being "completely," how humiliating is it to be asexual? what is the singular true asexual experience that is unproblematic to write about?

wow, jonny was so out of line for writing this episode, what gives him the right to--oh he said it's directly based on personal experiences? so sorry, my bad, I'll learn for next time. wow, jonny was so out of line for writing this epi--

I did not like this episode. this is obviously a direct act of violence against me. why would an episode be Not Good when there is, in the world, Sadness?

hello, I have sorted all of the characters into a simple chart that clearly delineates which of them are completely irredeemable monsters with no interiority or motives and which of them are perfect angel victims who have only ever been nice and never hurt anyone, ever (and if they did hurt someone then that person deserved it). if I see you adding nuance to any of my rulings, I will kill you. this also extends to the podcast writers. #ilovebinaries.

the characters... are queer... and maybe even other marginalized identities as well... and yet, they do bad things? there's not even a single completely morally innocent character? by god, did they not think about the implications this might have!

web!martin. lol people are so stupid for thinking that the theory is at all plausible, media comprehension much? that would lichrally imply that a queer, poor, mentally ill character might be capable of badness. what do you mean we are currently listening to an arc where he's an accomplice to serial murder.