#no fucking man in the world is being oppressed for the fact of being a man

[ratbastardman]

every reactionary leftist needs to be handed a dvd copy of deathnote because like if your first step to saving the world is deciding who needs to be protected and who needs to be eliminated my brother in christ you’ve got the moral compass of a fucked up teenager raised by a cop

[justsomeoneunordinary]

i am getting so tired by all these "oh no poor boys and men" posts i am seeing on my dash - far more about men's issues and oh how much they suffer than i see about women nowadays and that's just sooo....

full fucking offense but women worldwide still earn less than their male co-workers do for the exact same job. in some places it's better than others but it's still a universal problem

women still have to work more to climb the career ladder and get a leader job than their male co-workers do. in some places it's better than others but it's still a universal problem

there are still, now in 2kfucking24, two countries left where women still can't vote

women and girls, especially immigrants, are the majority victims of sex trafficking!!! this is still happening!!!!! sex trafficking hasn't stopped!!!

every. single. woman i know - every single one!!! - has been sexually harassed by a man at least once! it even happened to me and i never thought it'd happen to bc i am someone considered rather unattractive - have even been said so, directly to my face, by men, which is a form of harassment in itself - and i have never heard of a woman who hasn't ever been sexually harassed even once. and hey, isn't it fucking nuts that this is something you just have to expect at a certain point as a woman? that this simply WILL happen one day that a man will come up to you and be a fucking creep or even worse???

women are still being told by men what they should and shouldn't wear. now, this year of 2kfucking24 the women's volleyball team was fucking finally allowed to cover their full body at the olympics instead of wearing their tiny bikinis!! and what happened on social media first things first was creeps talking about how disappointed they are now! because they couldn't leer at the ladies anymore!!

but you come on tumblr and people reblog posts about how oppressive it is for men that they can't show their feelings or they will be called weak and unmanly boohoo :( sure, that fucking sucks. i'm sorry you have such terrible friends, dude, and i really hope you find better ones - but that's not fucking misandry, you're not being oppressed for being a man, you're not being oppressed at all!!! this is people being mean to you, this is bullying at most! but misandry?! shut the fuck upppp

some time ago i saw a post abt how women should stop being afraid of going out in the dark and how it's fucked up to think of every man they meet at night outside to be a rapist. and i get that! i do somewhat agree with that! but a neighbor of my friend's had recently been followed in the evening on her way back home by a bunch of guys til her home, calling her a bitch and saying they'll kill her (she didn't even know them) and they even got into the house complex bc some idiot let them in. they only ran away once she called the police. back in my highschool days it not only happened once but twice that a girl from my school was followed home after her afternoon classes and was raped. recently, in my living area, two women were stalked at night and killed shortly before they managed to arrive home. and that's just what happened in my general area!!!! not to mention what happens in so many places all over the world!!!! and yeah, i don't think being afraid of going out at night now is going to do me any good, but i totally get why some women are afraid!!!! idk, maybe men should just stop creeping on women, rape them and/or kill them? so that women would not have to fear going out at night alone anymore? just a random thought but hey maybe i'm just hysterical :)

but no. let us talk abt "misandry" instead and how oppressed these poor guys are for *check's notes* women sometimes being unreasonable assholes to them

enough!!!

[theghostofashton]

.

[uniteds]

stuff that happened in the 2022/2023 football season that should send us into a coma but we’re too desensitized:

1. the whole ass world cup in the middle of the season. what was that

2. manchester united sacking ronaldo and announcing a sale of the club in the middle of the world cup

3. ronaldo getting dropped at the world cup and his replacement scoring a hattrick immediately after

4. keeping up with the belgians (world cup edition)

5. keeping up with the belgians (courtois saying he doesn’t respect kdb after stealing his missus)

6. ronaldo stans beefing with a little moroccan girl

7. the kingdom of saudi arabia buying newcastle united and then telling the premier league that they didn’t and the premier league going “oh okay if you say so”

8. megan thee stallion being romelu lukaku’s date to lautaro martinez’s wedding

9. pique cheating on shakira and then shakira releasing a diss track about it

10. shakira figuring out pique cheated on her because someone ate her strawberry jam and pique doesn’t eat strawberry jam

11. apparently the girl pique cheated on shakira with (clara) cheating on pique with pep

12. wagatha christie libel case

13. real madrid dropping a video accusing barcelona of fascism and the government of cataluyna getting involved

14. the pope coming out as a manchester united fan

15. the one napoli fan that basically made zielinski strip on the pitch

16. mount vesuvius park shutting down because napoli fans wanted to fake an eruption as a celebration

17. frank lampard taking everton into a relegation battle, getting sacked, and then taking chelsea into a relegation battle

18. on that note: chelsea were in a relegation scrap and finished 12th

19. mourinho lost his first ever european final to sevilla europa league black magic

20. whatever the fuck borussia dortmund did on the last day of the bundesliga season

21. anthony martial’s ex wife chasing his first wife down a french motorway with a baby in the passenger seat

22. psg suspending messi because he took an unsanctioned trip to saudi arabia and then unsuspending him two days later because they didn’t want people talking about geopolitics

23. the absolutely bizarre messi apology video released by psg

24. spurs refunding their fans’ tickets after being embarrassing

25. pep’s heartbreak over the fact julia roberts is a manchester united fan

26. chelsea scored one goal in the month of april

27. chelsea and spurs had six managers between them and won one match combined between march and april

28. mourinho fighting anthony taylor after the europa league final

29. milan derby in the ucl for the first time since 2005

30. luis enrique saying he’s cool with the spanish players having sex during the world cup as long as they’re not having orgies

31. luis enrique saying he doesn’t have sex anymore unless his wife wants to

32. man city charged with 115 counts of financial doping and trying to get the barrister in charge disqualified because he’s an arsenal fan

33. mourinho wire-taping himself to catch referees being corrupt

34. ryan reynolds and mac from it’s always sunny in philadelphia buying a football club and that football club getting promoted

35. pele died rip

36. women football awards sponsored by shein and klarna having a category for “male football ally of the year” and it’s just random men that went to one (1) women’s game

37. barcelona negreia case (how do you say calciopoli in catalan?)

38. infantino saying he feels gay, african, like a migrant worker, disabled, arab, and qatari

39. infantino saying he was oppressed as a child because he was ginger and italy is not safe for gingers

40. david alaba’s father in law getting arrested for being one the leaders of a far right group plotting to overthrow the german government

41. richarlison being tumblr’s it girl for a month and then not scoring a goal for the next four

42. juventus being in the middle of another corruption scandal and being docked points because of it

43. two teams getting investigated by the british government for playing football the weekend the queen died

44. gavi getting a yellow card in the first minute of a football match

45. pogba’s brother was arrested by french authorities for being part of a group-organized extortion attempt against pogba

46. richarlison getting a tattoo of neymar’s face and neymar paying him 30k to get it removed

47. iker casillas coming out, puyol implying they had a thing, and both of them retracting it in the most misha collins way possible.

48. sane and mane fight

49. zlatan retired from football

50. barca withholding about 50 million in wages from their players and somehow frenkie still didn’t want to join manchester united

[nekropsii]

Why do people call Porrim an MRA??? it's such a bad take I can't even begin to fathom the logic.

Uuuuugh. Okay, to my understanding, the logic is predicated on two concepts:

Kankri is Correct, there is no Misogyny on Beforus.

Since Beforus has a Matriarch, "complaining" about the Oppression of Women on Beforus is the exact equivalent... Men complaining about men being oppressed, despite us living in a Patriarchal society.

This is a terrible argument, because... Porrim literally explains in detail that that is not the case.

Yes, Beforus has a Matriarch... A Superficial Matriarch, where the woman in power is more of a Figurehead than anything. Law Enforcement and Politics are handled mostly by "Higher CIPs" - Ceruleans, Indigos, and Purples - which are predominantly born (hatched?) as men. ... If all of the Social Order and Politics are Enforced and Dictated by men... Then that... Is a Patriarchy.

So, we have it directly explained to us that Beforus is Superficially a Matriarchy, with a Governing Body largely composed by Highblood Men, who canonically benefit from the subjugation of women, because having women be of generally lower class than men means that... Men can cull women, potentially on the basis of being women. You know, that social system, enforced by the predominantly male-lead government that allows for what is essentially the ownership of people you deem incapable of caring for themselves as pets? The system that will take any excuse in the book? Sure, that may have been a social rule implemented by their version of HIC, Feferi fucking Peixes, but it's still being used as a weapon. Just because something was made by a woman, does not mean it cannot be used as a weapon against women in the name of misogyny. You think Alternian Culling doesn't work the same damn way?

There's a sharp cut of irony you have to feel at the fact that Porrim literally says that conversations of Misogyny on Beforus are often shot down using "The Matriarchy" as an excuse. If Misogyny wasn't a thing, why the fuck are Rufioh, Kankri, and Cronus literally, textually, purposefully Misogynists? Why the hell is Latula like that, then? I don't think this is a 1-to-1 allegory for the real world, man- Troll World Building has NEVER been a direct, clean allegory for the real world. I do not think she was ever intended to be read as an analogue to Men's Rights Activists, I think she was intended to be read as an Alien Feminist. If anything, this feels less like an MRA, and more like someone getting shut down for trying to have a conversation about how Misogyny Exists in, like, Thatcher-Era England or something. Well, there's a Female Prime Minister, isn't there? Misogyny is over, clearly.

Porrim is constantly posed as an Exposition Fairy on the same level as Aranea, just... With Politics and World Building rather than Character Analysis. Porrim is portrayed as cool, collected, and correct. Do you think Andrew Hussie - literal Andrew Hussie - would portray a fucking Men's Rights Activist with that level of grace and style? Because the answer is no! Every time a character is a Misogynist in Homestuck, they are comically terrible! Rufioh, Kankri, Cronus, fucking Caliborn! Hussie is a lot of things, and yeah, some of these things are bad, but none of these things include the label Misogynist. Hussie is well known for... Not doing that, actually, that's, like... A major appeal of the comic. The female characters in Homestuck are known for being really, really well written and really, really well handled!! If there was a Men's Rights Activist in Homestuck, we would know about it, because that character would be comedically terrible, constantly dunked on by everyone around him, totally bitchless, and posed as a relentless fucking menace who does not deserve to breathe the same air as any of the women in the story. You know, like Cronus! And Not Porrim!!

Also, can we all take a moment of silence to ponder how much of an L it is to have your entire point of discourse be based in the idea that straight up literal actual Kankri Vantas is correct? That is capital e Embarrassing.

[autolenaphilia]

The understanding of feminism on this site is absolutely terrible. To the point where people have no idea of what feminism even is. It’s especially annoying when people on here claim to be feminists, but contradict basic tenets of feminist thought.

And to be fair, feminism is a complicated and not united ideology at all. But let’s try to explain anyway. A basic tenet of any feminism is that society is a patriarchy. Women are oppressed and exploited, and men are the oppressor class. Men gain advantages for being men, which is what male privilege is. And feminism is about destroying this system of gendered oppression, the patriarchy.

This is as basic as it gets. And that we live in a patriarchy is easily proven. Patriarchy theory is a theory, but it’s a very well-supported one. Basic statistics and other evidence prove women are disadvantaged and discriminated against, and that men prosper in comparison. Misogyny is real, it’s an oppression that definitely exists.

Yet this basic understanding consistently eludes people on tumblr, even as they claim to be feminists and say “fuck the patriarchy.” People are at best reluctant to acknowledge misogyny as being real and lack understanding of it.

Talking about misogyny will get you accusations of being “terfy” when it’s just basic feminism. Even transfems get these accusations. I’ve already lamented that many people who are anti-terf (which you should be) don’t know what a terf is. What is actually “terfy” is having biological determinist and cisnormative explanations of who women are and what causes misogyny. In reality, trans women are very much women, and have to navigate the world as such. We constitute an especially oppressed subset of women, due to suffering from an intersection of both misogyny and transphobia: transmisogyny. The recognition of misogyny as an oppression we experience is needed to explain our experiences and suffering. We are not men, and are exiled from manhood and it’s privileges due to rejecting it and not performing masculinity.

Particularly disturbing are people who claim to be feminists and yet argue that “misandry” is a real thing. It’s often not said to be “misandry”, I’ve read words like “antimasculism” (more or less explicitly) used as substitutes for the term “misandry”. It is often phrased in terms of “the patriarchy hurts men too.” That the patriarchy is just harmful gender norms that oppress all genders more or less equally.

And those who adopted this have abandoned feminism, often without acknowledging it. They have abandoned the most basic feminist tenets, such as we live in a patriarchy, a society that benefits men. The idea that men do not gain privilege from being men and are in fact hurt by it is an anti-feminist idea.

It’s an incoherent way of analyzing gender. The question of who is the oppressor class in this analysis is eluded entirely. Who benefits from oppressing men via gender norms? Feminist theory is clear about men being the oppressor class who benefit as a class from the oppression of women. It’s a basic question, yet studiously avoided, sometimes in terms of blaming it on the system, understood as some impersonal monster, not as a system that exists to benefit certain people.

It also misunderstands how masculinity works. Sure, being forced to adhere to masculine gender norms hurts, I’ve been badly bullied myself for breaking them. But even if the patriarchy hurts men, it more importantly benefits them. It privileges men, because that’s the literal definition of patriarchy.

Masculinity benefits men, that’s why they perform it. The proper performance of masculinity is needed for being recognized as a man and thus given male privilege. It gives them power over women (cis or trans), even other men (like gay men) and degendered others, the ability to commit violence against them with impunity. Men who perform it are not the primary victims of masculinity, the victims of the violence done to prove masculinity are. And privilege is what men are afraid of losing if they appear non-masculine. It’s the fear of losing their status, of experiencing just a smidgen of the horrors trans women are given everyday. Men will do violence to avoid that. I don’t wish to downplay the horrors of being an openly gnc man (especially if they are also gay or queer in some other way). but they still have a privileged position compared to women in general, and especially transfems.

Of course, men are oppressed too, but it’s not for being men. Working class men are oppressed under capitalism. A long list of oppressive systems like racism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia and so on do oppress the men who are affected by them. Men thus often find their male privilege curtailed by these oppressions, especially if they are affected by several at once. And because of this there are indeed situations where women can hold power over men (white women do often hold power over black men in white supremacist societies for example). This does however just curtail their male privilege, not negate it entirely. You just need a more complicated analysis, that takes those factors into account. Still, all else being equal, men hold power over women. It’s when comparing gay men and lesbians, comparing disabled men and women, and so on, that you can truly see the privilege these disadvantaged men still hold despite the real oppression they experience. Women are also affected by these oppressive forces, and their effect is made worse by intersecting with misogyny. Men in oppressed communities still have power and privilege over the women in that community. Their experience of oppression looks different, but that’s due to the absence of misogyny, rather than the addition of any misandry (as another tumblr post put it, and which I can’t find now, so I can’t give credit. Would love to be given a link if you can find it).

And we have to be careful when talking about oppressed men, because their experiences are often exploited to justify anti-feminism. The fact that the oppression is real is exactly why it’s useful, because it can be decontextualized to argue that men are oppressed for being men. Propaganda often lies by omission, than by outright making things up. Warren Farrell, “the father of the men’s rights movement”, used the experiences of working class men dying in dangerous jobs and as soldiers in war to argue that male power was a myth, and in fact “men are the disposable sex” or “the expendable gender.” Those deaths are real, but the context that it’s due to capitalism exploiting the working class is removed, and instead attributed to their gender. The facts that working class women also suffer and die from exploitation and that capitalist men benefit from the exploitation of the entire working class are ignored. It also eludes why women don’t die as these men do. Women are kept out of many “dangerous” jobs and the military in order to justify their subjugation as “the weaker sex.”

It’s a terrible argument, and Farrell and the men’s rights movement he helped create are openly anti-feminist and deeply misogynistic, denying women’s oppression. Yet I’ve seen variations on Farrell’s argument posted by supposedly “pro-feminist” blogs. Queer bloggers here will hold up the sufferings of gay and trans men as proof misandry is real, that men are oppressed for being men, ignoring that their oppression is due to homophobia and transphobia. And still against all reason still use the word “patriarchy” and being feminists, despite denying the analysis of society as a patriarchy where men are privileged for being men.

At least Farrell and his fellow proud MRAs are honest about rejecting feminism and believing patriarchy is a myth. I’m glad at this point that I was and am a fan of David Futrelle’s blog criticizing and mocking the men’s movement, because that has enabled me to recognize and criticize the arguments they use, a thing some people here clearly need some help with.

Often these bloggers bring up the ancient anti-feminist accusation of feminists not being a movement for equality at all, but about hating men and their masculinity. Anything critical of men as a class who holds power over women is understood as “misandry” or “terfy”, and so is any criticism of masculinity as a gender role. Criticism of masculinity are only made in the context of “toxic” masculine norms hurting men, never in terms of how it confers men power and privilege and how the misogyny of hegemonic masculinity hurts women and other people. I suppose in this kind of thinking my earlier criticism of masculinity as a tool for gendered violence is enough for them to call me a misandrist. And like I’m not. All men benefit from patriarchy, but if you are a man and don’t abuse women or are a misogynist, you are okay as a human being in my book. What else can I say?

These criticisms are not just taken as misandry, but as some kind of widespread norm, despite really only being made in feminist and queer spaces. So making a tumblr post saying “it’s okay to be a man, it’s okay to be masculine.” is seen as reasonable, despite that being literally what the vast majority of society already believes (including the feminist spaces that can reasonably be targeted by this statement). It’s a bizarre statement to make in a patriarchal society that favours men and expects them to be masculine. It again echoes MRA complaints about how society has been captured by a feminist conspiracy (with anti-semitic undertones, as any conspiracy theory has, that’s how MRAs answer the question of “who is oppressor class for misandry?” btw).

It illustrates how a bad understanding of feminist theory leads people into some rather right-wing positions, all while clinging to the banner of being a feminist or progressive. Our society is a deeply misogynist one, yet in response to feminist gains it likes to cloak its misogyny in a kind of superficial feminism. And acknowledging misogyny is a real oppression is hard when you grow up and live in a society that justifies it. It’s especially uncomfortable to do so if you benefit from it. It’s more comfortable to deny misogyny. But it’s work that needs to be done. Or else you can turn into basically an MRA while still believing yourself to be a feminist, which seems to be the trajectory of some people on this site.

[babsaros]

hey. when cis society is oppressing a trans man, what he is experiencing is. In Fact. misogyny. i'm sorry i know none of us like to be reminded of our agab, and it hurts whenever people perceive you as the wrong gender. but a cis person hate-criming, assaulting, verbally abusing, etc, a trans man is not doing "transandrophobia" because they do not perceive him as a man.

they perceive him as a woman failing at her gender, as a woman who has been seduced and lied to and manipulated because women are so easily led astray, just like it says in the bible. they perceive him as a woman who has been mutilated. they perceive him as a dyke that needs to be fixed. if they are hate-criming him because they *do* perceive him as a man, because he passes well enough they aren't thinking he could be trans, then they're doing so out of homophobia, perceiving him as a gay man, a pervert, a sissy, a danger to children. OR, they are being transphobic but specifically because they think he might be transfeminine instead. when cis society oppresses a trans woman, they are able to do it on multiple levels at once. She's a woman failing at her gender, a dyke that needs to be fixed. Or she's an evil and grotesque crossdressing pervert, a rude caricature, a danger to polite society. she will never be doing enough to escape oppression entirely, no matter if she gets every surgery she can and wears makeup every day and passes perfectly, because she lives under a patriarchy, and she's a woman, so she lives in a panopticon, and HAVING to get surgery and wear make-up to be respected IS oppression, especially if the alternative is being hate-crimed.

trans women (and trans men who pass) are not experiencing "transandrophobia" when a 'queer women and nbs" event turns them away at the door for being too masculine. they are. IN FACT!! experiencing the byproducts of misogyny in a patriarchy!!! where the terfs and coward cis women running those events and occupying those spaces have been taught (sometimes through experience, sometimes by men, sometimes by women) throughout life that men = stronger and more dangerous than women ALWAYS. That they need to protect themselves at all times and always be vigilant. That men and women can't be friends without sexual tension (and so as queer women the mere existence of what they perceive as a "man" is a threat). That women need a separate sports league because they can't possibly compete with someone who has even a little bit "extra" (an unquantifiable amount actually because there isn't a standard range) testosterone. That women should cook and men should fix cars. i promise you, i promise i promise i promise. it's misogyny. like!!! you don't say cis gay men experiences "androphobia", bc that's not a thing!! you sound like fucking mens rights activists guys please! you don't say a black man experiences "misandrynoir"!! because living in a patriarchy fundamentally means men do not experience oppression based on their gender. its not happening. shut the fuck up. stop walking us back to 2014 can we please take a step forward and stop bitching about this. there are genuine issues in the world and i'm frankly sick of people who should be smarter than that needing to be gently hand-held through this fucking explanation for the millionth time and still stomping their feet.

[saisaixchan]

Re: the One Piece poll

Guys OP has a s literal army of trans characters, it's actually a plot point, there's literally so fucking many trans and NB and genderfluid people in OP its kind of fucking insane

There's Bon Clay/Bentham from as early as Alabasta in March of 2000, 3 years after the initial publication of OP

Bon's powers let him transform into other people, and he's the only member of a bad guy group with male/female partners who doesn't have a female partner bc he's both the male AND female partner in his rank

He doesn't need one bc he's both

Bon is also consistently one of the best characters who helps Luffy, and who deeply respects the bonds of friendship, and he deeply admires Ivankov (next in the list)

Plus, Bon Clay is only one of two in the villain group to become good guys and befriends the main characters

There's fucking Ivankov, Queen of Kammabakka Kingdom an island full of drag queens and trans people, with his hormone powers that lets him trans all the genders for himself and everyone around him (aka the Newkama in Impel Down- a literal army of trans people who help Luffy break out of prison so he can save his brother)

AND he's the second in command of the Revolutionary Army, a group actively against the World Government that controls the entire globe, and is fighting against it's corrupt politics and ideals, such as allowing slavery for the higher classes, fighting the racism against Fishman it's held up for centuries, and all that stuff

Ivankov is one of the most important characters in the series in regards to the world politics and the fight for freedom against the oppression of the WG, and he works with what are unambiguously the Good Guys in the world, who are headed by Luffy's father

There's Okiku in Wano, who its 100% trans and even gets the horny Sanji treatment

(which is kinda important bc there was some Bad Trans/Queer rep earlier in the series involving Sanji running from drag queens who were harassing him and for a while Sanji was pretty transphobic and it was a whole thing, but Oda seems to have learned or educated himself by this point, so yay)

Plus Okiku is a super strong samurai, fucking powerful girl go off, and everyone treats her as one of the girls and she's the best tbh she deserves the world

She's so sweet and kind and strong af and is just as much a warrior as the rest of her group

Plus there's Yamato

Who, to be very clear, is not CONFIRMED as trans, but has a lot of gender fuckery going on that he belongs on this list imo, come to your own conclusions ig

Yamato is 100% confirmed as the biological daughter of Kaido, which is backed up in several other sources and even a colorspread with only biological women, but everyone in the story itself refers to him as he/him, Including Luffy who calls him by Yama-guy/Yamao

(something Luffy only does for men- he calls Ivankov and other more genderfluid or femme leaning queer folks by -chan)

and Yamato calls himself the Son of Kaido multiple times

Yamato saw someone be so awesome that he wanted to emulate that person and become them-

but as an apparently separate decision, he decided he also wanted to be a man, too! Not just because of Kozuki Oden, but because holy fuck look at that gender, I want that for myself!!!

His identity as Kozuki Oden and his identity as Son of Kaido seem to be separate things, bc Kaido, Kaido's forces, Luffy (our main character who helps us understand how to treat situations), and everyone else around him at least acknowledges that Yamato, is, in fact, the SON of Kaido, and everyone, regardless of which side they're on in the war, respects that and treats it as fact

Meanwhile, absolutely no one treats Yamato like he's actually Kozuki Oden

And there's no sign of Yamato being forced to become a man because Kaido wanted a son- 1), he was called Oni Princess fairly consistently as a child by Kaido's forces, and 2) he only became known as Son of Kaido after Yamato himself decided he wanted to become a man

Yamato has refused everything forced on him by his father, and has run away, hid, and fought back at every moment he could, and his gender and pronouns were the only real decision of his own that have been respected as all his other freedoms were taken from him

(Which doesn't say much about his horrible father- Kaido was guided by an incredibly strong female pirate at a young age, and he has plenty of strong women among his crew. Kaido doesn't care about what gender his kid is, or gender at all)

So yeah while Yamato is not confirmed in the text as trans like many other characters are in much more obvious ways, and several sources confirm that he's biologically female, he still goes by Son and he/him by the other characters and by his own choice, so make of that what you will

Please enjoy this spread of Yamato in the Men's bath (he refused to join the women's bc no mixed bathing), and Okiku in the women's

Anyway yeah op has tons of trans, genderqueer, and genderfluid representation in it, it might not look it but it's been there since basically March of 2000 when Bon Clay was first introduced and it hasn't stopped since

[ceilidhtransing]

I feel like so much shitty discourse could be avoided if people more consciously bore in mind the fact that Mainstream Society and The Queer Community are, you know, meaningfully different spaces that often have different social phenomena and different issues.

Random example, there'll be a discussion about femininity often being prized over masculinity, especially transmasculinity, in some queer spaces. And there'll be a bunch of transmasculine people talking about being made to feel unwelcome once they came out, feeling pressured to identify as nonbinary rather than as a binary man as that receive less hostility, being increasingly isolated and othered once they started T, feeling pressured to act more feminine and GNC, being told that their presence as a man makes others in the space uncomfortable, etc.

And then inevitably someone will respond with something like “OP what fucking planet are you on. You're fucking insane if you think femininity is prized over masculinity in society. And the idea that nonbinary people have privilege over binary trans people - what is this fucking enbyphobic bullshit? God, some people are so stuck in an echo chamber of terminally online tumblr queers with their invented problems that they've forgotten what it's like in the real world.”

But was the discussion about wider mainstream society? Or was it very particularly about the queer community and issues that these people have faced specifically within that community?

The queer community is a subculture (arguably many subcultures but let's try to keep it simple), and it's totally, utterly standard for subcultures to - even deliberately, as an act of pushback - value different things from the mainstream culture. Aesthetics thought of as “weird” or “[insert slur here]” by the mainstream can be highly prized in the queer community. Identities that are all thought of as equally “fucked-up” and “cringe” by the mainstream can find themselves organised into some weird hierarchy of validity and oppressed-ness within the community. Politics which are considered extremely fringe and radical by the mainstream can be considered the default norm, even a necessity, in the queer community. Gender expressions that are seen as the most basic “normal” thing ever in the mainstream can be devalued by the queer community for “not looking queer enough” or “being straight-passing”. And none of this is a contradiction because this is pretty much how subcultures operate! They assert different values and cultural norms from the culture they exist within and that's partly what makes them subcultures.

So if someone's pointing out “I face this issue specifically when I'm interacting with queer spaces”, it doesn't do the conversation any good to assume that they're talking about mainstream society and attack them for “being deluded about how the real world works” or “inventing fake problems to sound more oppressed” or something. (And the inverse - someone pointing out “I face this issue when I'm interacting with the mainstream” and someone else responding with “I don't know what you're talking about; I never face that issue at all [in my exclusively queer friend group and support network]” - is far rarer, but it does still happen, and it's just as unhealthy for the discussion. Probably the most common example of this I can think of is when cis gay and lesbian people discuss homophobia they've faced, for instance to do with their gender expression, and someone goes “but that doesn't happen, because actually cis gays are a privileged group and I've never seen anyone attack their presentations” - yes, because the frame of reference you're using is the queer community, where being gay is pretty much the expected default, and you're forgetting that in mainstream society, even cisgender gays and lesbians are by no means “a privileged group” that experiences no oppression ever.)

People need to be able to discuss issues in the specific social contexts they're talking about without it being basically guaranteed that someone will misinterpret them and start jumping down their throat in anger at something that wasn't even said or implied. It is so bad for the community when people seemingly can't fathom that the dynamics at play might be different within queer spaces versus out in mainstream society and it leads to so much pointless toxicity and aggressive misunderstanding.

[clotpolesonly]

thinking about Declan and the moth again

it HAUNTS ME that the moth is one of the few times that Declan seems to lose his self-awareness completely. like, yeah, he's the ultimate king of repression, but he's usually very conscious of what he's repressing and the fact that he's repressing it. he knows his issues.

he knows that he forces down his emotions in an unhealthy way so that he can be the adult in the room at far too young an age. he knows he can't form healthy relationships because of a lifetime of danger and insecurity. he knows he dehumanized his mother as a means to cope with their batshit family situation. he knows he's competing with his father's ghost for a place in Ronan's life. he knows he resents Matthew for being the primary factor in his parentification and loss of opportunity in life. he knows he loves his father no matter how much he tries to convince himself to hate him. he knows he feels trapped in the life he's leading, doesn't see a way out, and likely wouldn't take it if he did because it would be at the expense of his brothers.

all of these things, Declan acknowledges openly, either to himself in narration or out loud to others. he may delude himself about how well he's coping with his issues, but he has no illusions about what his issues ARE.

except for the fucking moth.

it's such a perfect, on-the-nose symbol that it almost strains credulity for Declan not to acknowledge it as such, and yet not once does he ever look at the moth and feel the way he did about the black string art exhibit that made him recognize how trapped he felt in his life. "how the moth had beaten against the walls for those first few days, until it had learned it could not escape."

the learned helplessness of it - there's no point fighting to get free, just lie down and accept that this is your life. know what you're allowed to do, and have, and be. know what you're not. a creature of his father's making, confined by his father's hand.

and not even something as eye-catching as a butterfly, no, but a quieter subtler moth with eyes like glittering purple-black marbles that will never get to live a life because Niall made it so.

and the symbolic parallel of the display case and the townhouse. the rigid real world structures that Declan himself requested, because they made him feel more secure than being surrounded by dreams, and that his father provided in a well-meaning but ultimately short-sighted attempt to accommodate him. things that Declan only recognizes much later as the cages that they were.

Declan now regrets demanding his dad make the display case by hand, and when he puts himself through Ronan's bad-feeling security system at the end of the series, the memory it hits him with is inheriting the sterile alexandria townhouse that was exactly what he'd claimed to want.

these are symbols of Declan's complicity, in a manner of speaking, in the whole tragic mess that was his upbringing. at some point, quite early on, Declan's oppression became a joint effort, something that he participated in (because a complete lack of control in the situation would have felt worse). it reminds me of Declan struggling to remember which of them first decided to lie to Matthew about what he was, whether that was his dad's idea or if he'd done that of his own volition, just following pattern.

did dad trap him, or did he build the walls himself? or was it both?

but, for once, none of this is acknowledged by Declan in the text. this artistically-minded chronic overthinker carries the moth around with him - one of the two dreams he will never sell, alongside the gift from Ronan - and he stays so uncritically sentimental about it that he releases it on his wedding day with happy/nostalgic tears in his eyes, and it just boggles my mind.

this is the man who looked at a bunch of string and had the immediate revelation that he was utterly miserable and trapped in a spiderweb of a life precariously balanced on a knife's edge where one wrong move could get him and everyone he loved killed, but he looks at a direct, uncomplicated, one-to-one representation of himself and somehow does not recognize that it is not something to think of fondly. that, yes, it may be a symbol of his father's love for him, but it's not good.

[velvetvexations]

I keep seeing transradfems say that "tme" trans people have the "privilege" of being seen as female-aligned over them because "they have access to women's spaces which are denied to trans women". And I'm like In What World is having to misgender yourself and erase your transness a privilege? Also anyone whom perisex cisgender feminine women view as "too manly" is excluded from those spaces, regardless of agab. Many "theyfabs/cuntboys" don't get any access to those spaces just like trans women who don't pass, butch transfems etc. Sometimes trans women who pass and are stealth do in fact get access whereas a masc nonbinary person is excluded. That particular claim is literally denial of "tme" people's lived reality. And I also hate how some people use tme/tma for nonbinary people when they actually mean "theyfab" and "theymab". Get a fucking grip

That really pisses me off because like. This is something that's already stuck in my brain and regardless I don't want to discuss it beyond this response, but I'm often reminded of the trans man who was attacked after being told to use the women's bathroom.

Like, you can say that's because he was misidentified as a trans woman - so fucking what? Who cares? What difference does it make? He was a man forced to misgender himself because his masculinity was seen as invalid and then his existence as a masculine person invited hostility. Similarly, look at the passing transmasc high school wrestler who was forced to wrestle with girls and got headlines with him holding a cis girl in a headlock. It's the exact same situation.

These people may have assumed those two were AMAB, but hey, guess what, they don't see trans women as women! They hate trans women because they think we're men and they hated those trans men because they are men.

I'm putting this in the tag because I feel it could be useful, though I want to reiterate I don't want to talk about these incidents more. You didn't trigger me or anything anon, I'm perfectly fine, this is just the limit with which I can engage grave incidents of IRL oppression.

[moongothic]

If being weak is a "sin" in Crocodile's mind, then isn't a painful defeat and maybe even death rightful punishment for it? A punishment you deserve for your crime of "being weak"? That's an intriguing mindset from him because it makes me wonder how Crocodile might view his own past and the things he has gone through? I might not go as far as to say Crocodile "blames himself" for the things he's gone through, as he doesn't seem like the kind of guy who dwells on the past like that. But I do feel like Crocodile has accepted in his mind that things like losing his hand happened because he was weak, and it was his own fault. That he can not blame anyone else for what has happened to him. He fucked around and he found out.

It's just interesting because to some degree, One Piece thematically does agree with this sentiment, this is a world where the strong eat the weak. (One example at the top of my head; Luffy refusing Katakuri's apology when his sister intervened with their battle, saying he should've dodged the attack properly if he didn't want to get hit.) Chaka falling in this scene and being unable to stop Crocodile may lead to the deaths of so many more, including his loved ones, and if that comes to pass, it's is Chaka's own fault. For being too weak. But also Crocodile has twisted that idea; Crocodile is using his worldview here to justify himself and essentially saying he can do this (take over Alabasta and kill a million innocents doing so) and get away with it because he's powerful. When in reality "weakness is a sin" isn't about the survival of the fittest, but how this is a world where the strong are meant to protect the weak. (See: Luffy) (Also how Pell told Baby Vivi in that flashback about how he trains so he can protect the Royal Family; again, he he craves power not to oppress the weak but to protect them)

But, just to get back to Crocodile again, I feel like this worldview might also give us more insight as to how he acts in certain situations post-Alabasta. Like when we see Crocodile towards the end of Miss Goldenweek's cover story, both when he declines to escape from jail and in his Impel Down mugshot, Crocodile has a smile on his face. That really is the face of a man who has accepted his fate, is it not?

"Welp, this is what I get for losing to a child in flipflops"

Or when we see him come collect his debt from Buggy; Crocodile seemed quite relaxed and fully admitted he had assumed Buggy would've ran away before he even got there to collect his money. Of course, considdering his trust issues Crocodile would've been mentally prepared for Buggy skedaddling anyways, but the fact that he loaned the clown money to begin with while assuming he'd probably never get that money back-- like Crocodile knew that was going to happen and he just accepted it. And just rolled with it.

Of course, when things take an Unpleasant, Unexpected Turn, he will blow a fuse. Multiple, even.

Him angy

IDK man this is all just interesting to me

[crippled-peeper]

people who say “the difference is that terfs want trans men to detransition and they want trans women to DIE” have apparently never, not a single time, EVER, talked to disabled deformed trans mascs before. or Jewish trans mascs. or homeless trans mascs. Or literally any trans masc that isn’t a 17 year old fucking child on twitter

the fact yall are completely serious when you say shit like that is so predictable and fucked up.

full offense but I don’t want to share a “community 🥺” with people who cover their ears and go “LALALALALA!!!! I DONT SEE IT!!! I CANT HEAR YOU!!!! ITS NOT REAL!!!! SHUT UP TME!!!!” when the history of eugenics is brought up, or when a trans masc talks about their life being endangered by their family members, or when far-right “radical feminists” doxx a jewish trans man

the world is a big complicated place with complicated people and all forms of oppression do not rotate on the axis of your personal experience of womanhood. sorry 😢

[alluralater]

“bi-lesbian” explain this to me in a way that isn’t inherently lesbophobic (challenge level: impossible)

never in ALL my experience as a person out in the wild have i encountered a bi-lesbian in my extremely dense and saturated population of lgbt+. not once. not a single time. would you like to know why? because it’s for the sake of online discourse. go out and ask a lesbian that isn’t chronically online (even one that is) what a bi-lesbian is and they will awkwardly laugh and question if you’re serious. the first thought would probably be a bigender lesbian, not a lesbian that fucks/dates men. bi-lesbian isn’t a thing because there’s already a fucking WORD for this sexuality. there’s nothing wrong with being bisexual! you don’t need to “make space” for including self-identified men in a sexuality (the ONE sexuality) that doesn’t include men.

to be like “oh but you’re asking us to define what a man is and that’s a slippery terfy slope” no it’s fucking not. a man is someone that identifies as a man. yeah someone’s gender can be complex and that’s their own deal, but it’s still the same principle. no one is excluded from lesbianism to the degree in which bi-lesbians would have people believe. the likelihood that you’ll see someone out in the streets as a bi-lesbian is lower than the likelihood those same people will be outside touching grass. to nitpick away at gender and sexuality just to give yourself a podium to scream homophobic and transphobic bullshit from while online, is not revolutionary.

plus i’ll be even more deadass with you— this bi-lesbian thing is primarily a white hyper-individualized concept. it’s like what peta is to animal activism except peta does occasionally get shit done and their radical intentions are for the good of all people and creatures. bi-lesbians purposefully do not want to be called sapphic, they don’t want to be called bisexual, they don’t want to be in or under any other umbrella because truly it’s like PAINFUL to be kept in a box of what they deem “oppressive labels” as if your proclivity toward men makes you oppressed. sorry baddies, it doesn’t. to reject community in the spaces that would otherwise take you in is wild as hell. you can like men, it’s okay. i’m telling you right now, it’s OKAY to like men. it’s OKAY to include men in your sexuality. lesbianism has literally only one fucking rule and if you find it doesn’t work for you, just slide over to another sexuality like damn. this need for hyper-individualism over community is toxic as fuck. lack of identity doesn’t mean you should be attempting a coup of other sexualities. it’s a journey and it’s a process, there’s nothing wrong with admitting you like men and not knowing what your label is. the world has undefined gray areas, you don’t have to label yourself a lesbian if it doesn’t fit

i’ve had the bi-lesbian conversation with SOOO many people like a huge number of people (because i’m curious and i like to see if online discourse is facts or false) and 95% don’t know what it is, the rest laugh and ask me if i’m serious. because really— it’s not a problem of visibility, it’s a problem of irl people knowing how fucking offensive bi-lesbianism is. not wanting to admit they’re simply bisexual or umbrella-sapphic is odd as fuck. i even bring up points made (transphobic points) about how mspec genders apparently don’t count for lesbians since lesbian sexuality to a bi-lesbian means *one* attraction to a gender, not more. and people find that shit to be repulsive because lesbianism is a historically broad spectrum of non-men attracted to other non-men. there is no rigorous whittling down of someone’s gender so much that you decide they’ve been excluded from lesbianism.

to forcibly include lesbianism in the title of “bi-lesbian” is wild as fuck and super offensive considering the amount of history, pain, and oppression that lesbians deal with. so yeah, i’m gonna talk my shit

anyway it just all feels a lot like hyper-individualism and white concepts of people needing to be more special than anyone else because god forbid you be anything but extraordinary and eye-catching and somehow all the while, calling yourselves oppressed. like even by definition bi-lesbians would be less oppressed than lesbians. and this need to be INCLUDED in lesbians spaces even though they deem themselves to be of a different sexuality, is wack as fuck. trynna have your cake and eat it too. well you can eat my ass. lesbians aren’t automatically bigots because you feel excluded. if you don’t feel like our sexuality matches up to your inner self, there are a myriad of others to choose from should you like/care to label yourself with one <3

[torchwood-99]

Action Heroines Deserve Your Respect

I hate, hate, hate the fact that we've now moved into a space where action heroines are written off as "girlbosses" "nlogs" "yassified queens" "acting like men" and other bullshit like that. I hate that after centuries of women being oppressed through the enforcement of gender roles, female characters who cross gender boundaries are dismissed with a "ugh a woman doesn't have to fight/act like a man to be strong. women can be feminine and strong too".

I hate that people don't see why there will always be a strain of feminism in the action heroines because her existence; whether she be written well or not, and acceptance is a sign that we're moving past attitudes that have kept women confined and limited.

I hate that an action heroines has to be ten times better written than a male action hero because people; both men and women, are just waiting for the chance to rip her to shreds and dismiss as her as "lazy feminism" "girl boss pandering" and a "not like other girl girl".

I hate that there can be male characters who have little personality other than badass and people can just enjoy them for what they are and take them in the spirit in which they were created, whereas a female action character must never be allowed to be a badass bit of escaper lest she be the worst thing to ever happen to feminism.

I hate that there's less than one female action heroines to every ten make action heroes and their existence is still treated as a scourge in fiction. I hate that a poorly written male action hero is no more or less than a single character who wasn't written well, whereas a poorly written action heroine; whose threshold of being well written is much higher, is seen as an attack on the genre.

I hate that in genres where action and battle sequences are a staple and often provide massive emotional/plot climaxes, people refuse to see why female fans may want to see female heroines in those scenes.

I hate that people who aren't that into action heroines themselves can't just sit stand and shut up and think for a second why their existence means so much to fans of their characters, how long it was for fans to see characters like that become mainstream, and why for girls who see themselves in these heroines more than any other, it's bloody exhausting to hear them dismissed as "shallow" and "only liked because they act like men".

The moments when the music is the most dramatic, the moment everything has been building up to, when the chills are going down your spine, when every split second decision matters, when trust in friends is vindicated, when humanity is stripped down to its bare essentials and you see who these characters are when there's nothing left to lose. When nothing is pretty and soft but harsh and desperate and brutal and ugly. These moments matter so much, and are such a crucial part of the genres they exist in. They are so thrilling and cathartic and moving to watch, and of bloody course there are girls who want to see themselves in.

Not because these action heroines are acting "like men". Because these sequences tell us that the traits exhibited by the heroines in these sequences, the strength, physical and emotional, the resilience, the quick thinking, the camaraderie, the skill, are not exclusively the domain of men. These women aren't "trying to be men". They're trying to live. To defend. To advance a cause. To partake in the world around them on their own terms and have their lives in their hands.

Yes, yes, yes, there are lots of ways to be strong and proactive and admirable but fuck it, a good action sequence is moving and inspiring and fun and can make you feel like you've been on a roller coaster. And when I watch a sci-fi or a fantasy epic, I want to see women in those sequences. To be a part of that onscreen phenomena that is so pivotal to the genre.

When I watch an epic fantasy or sci-fi show, where there are beautiful and thoughtful and terrifying and emotional battle scenes, I want to see female characters partake in them. I want them to be the ones giving the speeches, being in that charge, wielding their swords, terrified, bloodthirsty, rage filled, righteous, merciful, valiant, exhausted, sweat, brutal, honourable, sly, messy. I want them to be in those moments for those moments in themselves.

[renmorris]

yes disco elysium’s two main characters are men attracted to men.

yes there is a degree of flirting and mutual attraction between them.

yes this is a game about oppression, racism, addiction, and the ghost of communism and yes being gay and having a shitty relationship with your sexuality or race or your disabilities are all intertwined with this because people are fucking messy and complicated and nothing in this world exists separate from internal or external contexts

no they don’t fuck within one week of knowing each other

yes they are cops who enjoy harassing civilians and are generally deeply unpleasant people

there is room for nuance, and it simply boils down to this:

disco elysium is not your feel good gay dating sim story. it’s not a bioware game. it's not stardew valley. and yes the fact that the characters are a bisexual man and a gay man are in fact crucial components to the narrative that is being told. act like an adult.