#of young oppressed men and how their oppression can radicalize them

[thunderingreign]

The solution is to build up power inside our local communities outside of capitalism by getting involved with (or starting) an organization seeking to do that. We have to look to Leftist organizers for guidance. We have to look to historical Leftist strikes, resistances, and rebellions and learn from them, critically sifting through the actions of the past in order to not make the same mistakes.

“Be A Revolution: How Everyday People are Changing the World and You Can Too” by Ijeoma Oluo is an AWESOME book to read if you are feeling hopeless, drained, or are looking for how to start. One thing Oluo helped me with was realizing how capitalist-fucked my imagination was— every solution I could think of was a half-measure and I always felt overwhelmingly unsatisfied at the progress that my imagined solution could affect. Once you realize how powerful imagination is, you realize how we need to weaponize it as a means of deradicalizing people out of the death cults of fascism and capitalism, and you realize just how possible that really is. The first thing you’ll need to do when organizing is convincing other people to have hope— which is to imagine a better future.

Oluo also relays a LOT of accounts of how specific people went about starting organizations in response to the terrible conditions they were experiencing. There are men who are working against the patriarchy in prison— teaching their fellow men about how they’ve been trapped in a cage of toxic masculinity before ever being imprisoned. There are people dedicated to teaching about hierarchy and the functions of oppression. I haven’t finished it yet but the accounts I’ve read so far have changed everything for me.

So, what can you do?

First off:

Take care of yourself. You matter in so many ways to the cause— more than what you can do to make change, you are a beacon for people around you. You are a lover, a friend, a comrade. We must care for ourselves because we are loved and valued and losing us will only add to the despair people are already contending with. We must remind ourselves and each other that people are relying on us and not better off if we’re gone.

Focus on the humanity of the people around you. Are you surrounded by republicans? Focus on your mutual interests and don’t assert your differences— people will work with you while still calling themselves conservatives, so take advantage of that. You don’t have to be friends with everyone in the movement, even if having friends already engaging in direct action makes it way easier to do so yourself. Remember our goal is not ideological purity— it’s affecting change and change is all about numbers.

Keep moving further Left and continue questioning authority. These problems have been going on for hundreds of years, and they were never going to be solved by a system that exists to arbitrarily prevent people from access to human needs. We must look to the people who have already been in the fight rather than continue deferring to politicians.

If you’re able:

Volunteer at any local organization that is providing food or shelter— even if they are conservative, volunteer. Having that volunteer experience can help you see how those organizations are structured and who in your community is being failed by them.

Start an org for needs that aren’t being met in your local community. Start as small as you can, even as simple as starting a community garden in your backyard. It will snowball if it is helping people.

Find a spot to set up a free store. We all have stuff we don’t need anymore, instead of selling it or giving it to a thrift store, give it away to someone.

Print posters and zines and hand them out outside of high schools. We need to be engaging in tactics that work to bring young people further left and a part of that is simply informing them.

And since this is not a comprehensive list, continue seeking out radical solutions from authors and activists who have dedicated their whole life to studying and explaining. Look to the people who have been doing grass-roots organizing for years.

If you’re disabled:

spread information about how oppression functions and how to organize an assembly— you can explain to people who don’t have the time to study or who have a learning disability that make it difficult to parse the thousands of words that are used in explanation. Synthesizing info so that it is accessible to all is CRITICAL

start an artist coalition with friends and make provocative art that makes people think twice about all this shit. People are not aware of what their options are. They are also just trying to survive under capitalism.

share your knowledge on essential skills with your friends (gardening, opsec/infosec, conflict resolution, etc.) There are people who are working in these orgs that could use the expertise that you have.

Books on my TBR that could be helpful:

They Will Beat the Memory Out of Us: Forcing Nonviolence on Forgetful Movements by Peter Gelderloos

The Solutions are Already Here: Strategies for Ecological Revolution from Below by Peter Gelderloos

Beyond Cop Cities: Dismantling State and Corporate-Funded Armies and Prisons edited by Joy James

Renters Unite: How Tenant Unions Are Fighting the Housing Crisis by Jacob Stringer

Against Technoableism: Rethinking Who Needs Improvement by Ashley Shew

Let This Radicalize You: Organizing and the Revolution of Reciprocal Care by Mariame Kaba, Kelly Hayes, Maya Schenwar

Surviving the Future: Abolitionist Queer Strategies by Shuli Branson, Raven Hudson, Bry Reed

We Do This 'Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice by Mariame Kaba, Tamara K Nopper, Naomi Murakawa

Becoming Abolitionists: Police, Protests, and the Pursuit of Freedom by Derecka Purnell

Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition by Silky Shah, Amna A Akbar

A People's Guide to Abolition and Disability Justice by Katie Tastrom

is this fucking SATIRE??????????????????????

[princessefemmelesbian]

Maybe I’m just being dramatic but it does legitimately scare and sadden me to see that a lot of transandrophobia truthers are literally just…young boys. Like, actual children. Like you’re not even old enough to vote yet and you have your whole life ahead of you and yet you are being manipulated into joining an mra group that hates trans women with a passion and thinks that men are oppressed in society for being men, and constantly uses Black men as their talking point in order to sound diverse and inclusive, meanwhile they’re also appropriating and misusing terminology specifically created by Black women to talk about our own oppression in order to get their misandry point across…to say nothing of the fact that the largest people in this group(including but not limited to its creator!) have misogynistic rape/detrans kinks centered specifically around preying on lesbians and trans women and this is something that is normalized and defended by the vast majority of transandrophobia truthers, or at least defended viciously by every single transandrodork that I’ve ever encountered who argued with me(a lesbian!!!) that actually there’s nothing wrong with getting off to the corrective rape of women because two consenting adults can do whatever they want in the bedroom(yeah right)! Not to mention I have yet to come across a transandrophobia truther who wasn’t also a raging die-hard Zionist.

And that’s why it disturbs me so much to see young trans boys jumping onto this transmisogynistic hate train like you guys realize these men don’t have your best interests at heart, right? They’re only going to manipulate you into being a sexist entitled asshat who shuns and bullies the trans women in your community and sees them as oppressing you. Like I know you’re still in middle/high school but you can still think for yourselves, you can choose to be better than this, you can choose to actually learn about feminism and realize that it’s not actually misandry that oppresses you, it’s transphobia. Misandry doesn’t suddenly become real because you slap a trans paint over it that’s not how it works that’s not how intersectionality works that’s not how any of this shit works. There are better trans men to talk to about trans issues who know that the patriarchy is real and don’t shit on trans women in order to speak out about trans topics, so go seek them out, okay? You absolutely do not have to listen to shit that the “male supremacists but trans” group of lowlives has to say. Hell, tell them to fuck off instead! Please, I promise you that there are much better options, there are ALWAYS better options, and you still have time to escape before they fully radicalize you into basically being an incel. There will ALWAYS be another way. ❤️

[deadpoetmagda]

The way everyone now took up in arms blaming women and girls for the elections results and young men turning into the far right truly made something click in me, literally everyone and their grandpa is blaming women, even groups who hate each others are now bonding together like besties just to blame women, so excuse me for ranting on tumblr.com, this is gonna be long :)

What's been happening lately really opened my eyes to how hypocritical everyone is, what's everyone only ever good at is pointing their fingers at women and throwing the blame at us, misogyny and violence against women in all its shapes and forms since the dawn of time till these days didn't cause women to go out on the streets and murder men in masses, yet apparently misandry is real and some comments online made by the evil feminists were enough to radicalize young men and turn them into far right incels and are to blame for the elections in the US, women are always to blame for everything, I'm not surprised with this coming from men but to see women spewing this dumb bullshit too is so disheartening, to me you're no different than the conservatives who blame women for men's "loneliness epidemic" instead of encouraging them to start treating us better, teenage boys and men are shouting "your body our choice" at little girls and young women yet all you fuckers can take from that is that these girls and women are somehow to blame for it!!! A 19 yo girl typing I HATE MEN on her silly little Facebook page or reddit discord after years of nothing but stories of rape and misogyny in the news and in her neighborhood and her school and her home and literally fucking everywhere is to blame for men and boys being radicalized actually, meanwhile the internet is filled with men sharing rape videos and their violent fantasies about us and then they go out in real life shouting and smirking at us admitting how badly they want to strip us of our rights!!

Teenage boys are watching violent porn, men gang rape teenage girls, women and girls get trafficked, raped, beaten, murdered on the daily around the globe, it's statistically proven that husbands mistreat and abuse their wives on such a high scale even in first world countries, not to mention the daily misogyny and sexsism we face, men don't even need to get "radicalized", the majority of men out their don't want us to reach them and be "nicer" to them like you preach, they simply want power over us and to misuse that power, and women and girls who recognize this and see it clearly in the world we live in right now and the thousands of years of recorded history we have and not even to mention personal experiences are the ones to blame... for being aware of it and acknowledging it and demanding change!!!! How fucking dumb are you, or maybe you're just a pretentious hypocrite :)

No one's ever blamed these boys and men for me and other women to end up having radical feminism views, nah they're too busy calling us demented and mentally ill and lecturing us about how to treat men better lest we fail them and blaming us for everything wrong with the world!

Ever since I got introduced to radical feminism and found myself agreeing with some of its ideas and arguments I was always still critical and sometimes even wary of it and never really called myself one, but now if I get totally sucked into it and get "radicalized" myself it's actually all your fault, how about that? Congratulations, centuries of men raping us and creating endless systems to oppress us in unimaginable ways didn't radicalize me, you and your hypocrisy did that instead :)

Honestly fuck all of you dumb shitheads, you can't gaslight us into cuddling men while they keep beating us bloody, I've had enough!

[hrrystylesbookclub]

as someone who loves to reread books, i feel like the hunger games has some of the best rereadability

i’ve read each of the trilogy each least 5 times each, and tbosas twice, and every time i pick up something new, sometimes about panem as a whole, sometimes it’s character insights, sometimes it’s connections to the real world.

ive said it before, but suzanne such a brilliant author, and she manages to give every character such depth that makes them ALL such compelling characters

i just think it’s incredible how she can write books that fall perfectly into a ya dystopian genre and also provides such profound commentary on society and government

[flershnork]

I can't believe OP had to say this.

Apparently, people forget that men are, above all else, people. Misandry is not cute. Transandrophobia is not cute.

This sort of behavior is not only how we break apart our own community in a time of need, but also the same way that fascists manage to turn young men against us. Everyone is oppressed under the patriarchy, even men. Just because their problems are fewer, does not mean they are lesser. Making men feel bad for being men is how we turn them against us.

We live in a culture of toxic masculinity where many people raised as men are taught to repress their feelings and live a life of stoicism. Where crying or showing emotion is seen as a negative trait. A culture where men are ~3x more likely to commit suicide.

This doesn't mean you can't stand against men who try and use their position to push others down, it just means you shouldn't stand against those trying to help others up.

Yes, misogyny is an issue and non-men are lower down on the totem pole. This does not mean you can just use gender essentialism against them. It turns out, even when the group isn't a minority, judging someone for what they are instead of who they are is bad actually.

Feminism is about reaching equality, not simply renovating the patriarchy with a fresh coat of paint and a new balcony.

Not even to mention that some of this is trans women adopting ideas from gender critical radical feminism, which, may I remind you, doesn't even see us as real women. Don't stand with our enemies, and don't push potential allies into their arms.

All the shit going on is already upsetting enough but it rly is devastating to keep seeing posts bashing trans men for asking to be included in conversations about reproductive healthcare, trans safety and hrt right now, at a time where solidarity and community is so fucking important

And unironic posts along the lines of "don't forget to include trans men in your no-dating-men practice".

And a post about how trans men aren't safe to date either because they're rapists too with replies full of this

Gender essentialism will doom us all. The fascists don't even need to "divide and conquer" anymore because y'all are just doing that shit for them for free.

[ramblings-of-a-detrans-woman]

Why I will never support the radical feminist movement, as a detransitioning woman.

note: this is not meant to be any sort of hit piece or slander, I respect every feminist, even ones I disagree with. This is just my reasoning for why I do not like the radfem movement.

For a bit of context, I’ve indentified as trans since I was 12. At 18, I’ve decided to live my life as a lesbian woman, and i’ve never been happier with that choice.

Now, being a young trans man, I interacted a lot with pro trans content online (of course I did), and so of course I’ve heard about radical feminism. A passionate branch of feminism that takes a unique approach to women’s rights- deconstructing gender entirely. It sounds wonderful in theory, because of course gender is oppressive, most notably of women. I would know, being one. Even when I was trans I had to worry about being out at night. I even got chased once, and a man attempted to lure me to his truck another time. It’s brutal. But radical feminists devote their activism to ending this in a straightforward, logical way.

So why do I, a woman who has experienced both misogyny and transphobia, not support that? I feel that this is a good question for both trans allies and radfems alike to to ask. Knowledge is power.

Well, I’ll be direct. Radfems are some of the most depraved people i’ve ever met. I know, that sounds like a lot, but there’s no other words I can use that don’t perfectly encapsulate my experience with radfems. It’s depravity.

For weeks, I was harassed by transphobic radfems. Radfems, who are insistent on their love and support for TIFs aka trans men. It’s strange then that they would be so cruel towards one, wouldn’t you say?

Detransition is hard enough. It’s difficult to tell family that you were wrong. It’s difficult to reconnect with my gender. Hell, i prefer the term detrans over cis just because i have such a disconnect from my gender. So why do I have to deal with transphobic radfems sending me gore and death threats?

Thankfully all of the accounts doing this seem to be deleted or repurposed. But it’s only a matter of time until a new account is made just to send me an ask telling me to kill myself or a message about how much of a loser i am.

It’s this reason alone why i’ll never be a radfem. They’re just sick people. They don’t want liberation for women, they just hate trans people. It’s not even thinly veiled, their accounts are fully based around how horrible trans women are.

The truth being, trans women aren’t bad people at all. It’s easy to think they are because the news and media cherry picks some of the worst ones, but every community and minority group has bad people in it. some of the sickest people you could imagine, really. yes, they can be trans. but does being trans make you a sick person? does it turn you into a predator? no, it doesn’t. it just means you’re trans. trans or not, it’s up to men to be mature and take accountability for their own actions that they consciously make. a cis man is as capable to walk into a women’s room as a trans woman is.

if radical feminists cared more about women and detrans women, i could consider getting along with them. but sadly, all these passionate and dedicated feminists care about is hating trans people with a fiery passion. and i’ve been a casualty. it’s very difficult for me to sympathize with radfems when they’ve upset me to the point that they have

let me make it clear that gore and death threats don’t upset me, i’m not easily offended. So it’s not the threats that make me angry. It’s just the principle. The fact that radfems are spending their time scrolling reddit for gore pictures to send to fellow women instead of supporting us makes me SICK. it’s heartbreaking to picture a woman, raped and beaten by her boyfriend, and a radfem standing in front of her, readily available to help, but choosing to yell at a passing detrans woman. It’s really sad.

hopefully those reading this can take my words into consideration and use it to improve yourselves or your community (if you’re a radfem). i love womanhood and being a woman and i would love to share that joy with my sisters, but i just can’t when these issues i’ve experienced are in the back of my mind. I want radical feminism to be a safe space, a place where sisters can go to talk to women, relate to women, cry with and support women. but so far, the only love and support i’ve received has been from the trans community. that speaks volumes.

i am going to post more about my experience with finding my womanhood again in the future, so if you’re a detrans woman yourself, trans ally or not, consider following me :) i’d love to build myself a little community

[fadetoblacked]

Big, Bold, Black

In a world increasingly aware of systemic injustices, we must question every aspect of our lives and how they contribute to or challenge these systems. One powerful yet often overlooked area where we can enact change is in our personal relationships. As a radical anti-racist and pro-Black activist, I believe it is essential to encourage young European women to date African men. This is not merely a matter of personal preference but a radical act of social justice.

Challenging Eurocentric Beauty Standards

For centuries, European beauty standards have dominated global perceptions of attractiveness, marginalizing and devaluing the beauty of African men. By choosing to date African men, young European women can challenge and deconstruct these oppressive standards. This act of love becomes a statement against the narrow definitions of beauty perpetuated by a Eurocentric worldview. Celebrating the beauty of African men is a step towards embracing diversity and dismantling deeply ingrained biases.

Promoting Cultural Exchange and Understanding

Dating African men offers an opportunity for profound cultural exchange. In a world where ignorance fuels racism, understanding and appreciating diverse cultures is a powerful antidote. Relationships between European women and African men can foster greater empathy and awareness. These relationships become a microcosm of what a more inclusive and understanding society could look like. Through love and connection, we can bridge gaps and foster unity.

Redressing Historical Injustices

The history of Europe’s interaction with Africa is marred by exploitation, colonization, and systemic racism. While individual relationships cannot undo this history, they can be acts of personal reparation. By choosing to date African men, European women make a conscious choice to stand against a history of oppression. This is not about fetishizing African men but about recognizing and valuing their humanity in a world that has often sought to dehumanize them.

Supporting Black Empowerment

In many European societies, African men face significant socioeconomic challenges due to systemic racism. By forming relationships with African men, European women can contribute to the social and economic empowerment of Black communities. These relationships can break down barriers and create networks of support that extend beyond the personal to the community level. It’s about building solidarity and working together towards a more just society.

Rejecting Racial Prejudices

Deciding to date African men is a powerful rejection of the racial prejudices that persist in society. It is a declaration that love and human connection transcend the artificial boundaries of race. Young European women who choose to date African men are making a bold statement against racism. They are choosing to see and value people for who they are rather than the color of their skin.

A Personal and Political Statement

Every relationship is political. By choosing to date African men, European women make a personal and political statement. They declare their commitment to anti-racism and social justice. These relationships become symbols of resistance against the racist structures that seek to divide us. They represent a vision of a world where love, respect, and equality are not just ideals but lived realities.

In conclusion, young European women have a unique opportunity to contribute to social justice through their romantic choices. By choosing to date African men, they can challenge Eurocentric beauty standards, promote cultural understanding, redress historical injustices, support Black empowerment, and reject racial prejudices. This is about more than individual relationships; it’s about creating a world where love and justice go hand in hand. Let us be bold in our love and unwavering in our commitment to a just and equitable society.

[starryjoy]

The absolute worst shit of any discourse over an identity being inherently worse than another is when someone from that identity agrees and closes themselves inside an echo chamber dedicated to shitting on people like them and they just keep repeating how it's real that they are awful.

Lately it's happening so much with transmascs. so many young transmascs are seeing words from radical feminists saying how men are inherently evil and how only women can ever be oppressed and somehow they eat this information right up, going to great lengths to protect people who want them dead.

And as a trans woman this is absolutely dreadful.

You are not helping anyone by saying how you do not matter. You are not helping anyone by saying you do not suffer. You are not helping anyone by denying yourself.

I will mark you as unsafe for me for now. But I wish you good luck.

[clowncaraz]

transandrophobia draws blood.

Azriel Pierce is a afro-latino transmascfem kafin who goes by they/them. Kafin is a gender label that does not fit into the binary, nonbinary, abinary or others and therefore can only be described by one’s self or personality.

the label of transandrophobia.

transandrophobia, the result of trans + androphobia, is broadly known as the fear of masculinity and manhood present in genderqueer people (masculine nbys, masculine intersex people, butches/studs/dykes/masculine women, trans men, transmascs). it was first described by a trans man of color named Saint in 2017.

i tend to include masc women/butches/dykes/studs in this because transandrophobia is known to not be used as an opposite to transmisogyny or a gender specific term for just men. it is quite literally a form of oppression against masculinity and manhood that is not cis, het or non-queer, and inherently includes masculine women because TERFism often uses radical feminism to attack queerness— often denying masc women their womanhood and trying to separate it from their identity and presentation to imply they’re “secretly men”.

we have now established that these identities are inherently affected by transandrophobia:

masculine nbys

masculine women

butches/studs/dykes

transmascs

trans men

masculine intersex people

so transandrophobia can be experienced based on the culutral views of masculinity or suppression of trans manhood for the recreation of cis womanhood in men. this can include corrective rape and sexual assault, transandrophobic medical abuse and mistreatment of transmasc bodies, the refusal to provide life-saving testosterone when eligible, social settings being hostile to queermasculine people, butches of any kind being refused lesbianism or harassment in bathrooms for appearance, and so on.

this statistic from The Trevor Project’s 2023 U.S. National Survey on the Mental Health of LGBTQ Young People, revealing that transmascs/trans men and nonbinary people (followed by those gender questioning) are more likely to suffer from forced sexual contact.

https://www.thetrevorproject.org/research-briefs/sexual-violence-and-suicide-risk-among-lgbtq-young-people/

what comprises transandrophobia is androphobia and sexism.

all these people will experience sexism in unique ways that cannot be called transmisogyny due to the nature of attacking their masculinity first and foremost, then their assigned sex next. when said masculinity is attacked, TERFs will use that to deny them the right to it on the basis of their sex traits. an intersex man can’t be a man because they happen to have a body that is not perisex, therefore, the limits to their manhood is applied by reducing them to an object or a “disorder”. alongside intersexism, that is transandrophobia.

androphobia is the fear of manhood and the patriarchy, and when transmasculine individuals experience this, it becomes the fear of queerness that develops into “freeform masculinity”, bridging away from the commonly seen toxic and patriarchal masculinity and into it’s own category — something of a “cenntriarchal” form (cenn- from “cennend”, meaning parent).

the cenntriarchy does not refer to a specific gender or group as the head of a family, nor does it imply that those in the authority are all of one gender. instead, it is used to describe when those of any authority are of any gender and therefore would create societies that are diverse enough to allow men, women, nbys, thirds, and others to be centered at the foundation rather than behind women/men. this would challenge the ideas of what masculinity, femininity, and androgyny are supposed to look like or how they act in society because it features different cultures and religions.there is the belief that trans men and transmascs have the ability to uphold patriarchal forms of masculinity the moment they are men, which is a false statement created to “pin the patriarchy on the mule”. in this world, a hybrid is not considered to be as good as a horse — even if that horse is not purebred. cis masculinity will always be more valuable than trans masculinity and trans men cannot benefit from a concept that believes them to only be their sex traits and never their self. there is only one way masculinity can survive in queer spaces without the dominance of manhood, and that is the cenntriarchy allowing the possibility for everyone to contribute as the authority over their own rights regardless of gender.

standing by transmasculinity.

a common pushback against transandrophobia seems to be the idea that trans men are just transitioning towards cis manhood, as if they’re not men yet. they aren’t women, but they aren’t men either, so they stay in the gray zone of being defined by their agab or their sex traits.

the isolation of manhood from transness is a tactic used to correctly gender trans men without having to acknowledge their gender as being related to trans manhood, even if that fear is towards those who uphold the patriarchy — which trans men, by identity, do not fit in the patriarchy. when trans men and cis men are perceived as the same type of manhood, the assumption becomes that trans men are of the patriarchal system instead of being completely outside of it.

Saint has stated that “transandrophobia is the way that the fear of men impacts the material reality and mental/physical health of transgender men.” he has said that transandrophobia is not simply when a transmasculine person experiences misogyny or sexism, given that everyone experiences it, but that it is when the queermasculine identity is faced with trouble, hardship, oppression, or hatred because of said relation of manhood.

to put it simply, the irrational fear and subsequent hatred of transmasculinity and trans manhood. that is a broad definition of transandrophobia amongst all others.no one hates cis men for being men, it is hate of their ability to use their cis status and patriarchal power. cis manhood is preferred, actually, it is widely accepted, it is “natural”.. trans men on the other hand don’t have those privleges, and are hated for being failed cis men and confused women, who are then hated for being related to cis men by being men incorrectly.

even being in proximity to transmasculinity has comments like “kill all men”, and “why would you want to be a man?” thrown your way or in the direction you walk towards.

those who are interested in separating the transmasc community into halves of cliques and discrediting POC in the creation of transandrophobia terminology and discussion will also forget that many of the ones speaking about transmasc oppression are of color. they whitewash our terms, then our community.

https://www.tumblr.com/killjoycatlady/726305694582751232/doberbutts-is-a-black-trans-man-who-has-spoken?source=share

most known critics of transandrophobia are the most exclusionary radical-leaning trans queers who have fallen to TIRFism and Baeddelism.

those who engage in Baeddelism/TIRFism also have a habit of ignoring transmasc struggles, or claiming that our invisibility is easier to handle. this is not the case, given that transmascs have the highest suicide rates since last year.

to me, Baeddelism/TIRFism isn’t protecting trans women, trans men, nonbinary, and other queers from harm but actively allowing it to fester through discourse and strife. there is no protection for us and there is no language for us to use in order to convey our pain that isn’t refused or called a “copy” of transmisogyny to indicate that men are oppressed.

the denial of transandrophobia does not directly cause these deaths, this suffering, but it restricts the way we can communicate how transmascs are dealing with this pain of being left out of our own communities, our identities, our literature, our ability to be seen.

we do not want hypervisibility, we want help surviving.

[cuubism]

Hey just wanted to say you're not a killjoy at all, you're actually absolutely correct

Thank you, I wish I didn't have to be 😔 I wish we lived in a world where gender equality was so long solidified that we could make silly jokes like that and not have it inadvertently feed into real world misogyny. I could see a world where women's inequality was so far in the past that 'ugh i wish i could just have someone else pay for everything' could be a funny #relatable 'we all hate working' kind of joke because everyone understood we don't actually want dependency. But that's not this time period when so many people genuinely believe that a woman's place is only in the home, and when young women might see that joke and believe that giving up their independence is a good idea or that women fighting for the right to equality in employment was a mistake. It inadvertently feeds into the rising tide of misogyny and points people towards those "traditional values" influencers that really push the idea that women should (god i hate the phrase "women should") submit to men and that their only valid life path is being a wife and mother. Especially when algorithms tend to push people down alt-right rabbit holes, like, even my insta feed is full of trad wife fundamentalist christian content because I hate watch it and then the algo feeds me more 😂 that's on me really I should just block all those accounts.

I mean, I sympathize, I hate my job sometimes too, I think everyone would like to have a life where they didn't have to work 40+ hours a week and had more leisure time. Unfortunately we live in a world where money by and large equates to freedom. So my go to complaint isn't wow I wish I had no life choices and was dependent on a man for my livelihood! when I'm irritated about work 😂

A lot of the content made by younger women online recently seems kind of regressive in its approach to gender roles, "i can't do this i'm just a girlie" and so on (I'm aware it's a joke, but oftentimes stuff starts as a joke and then reaches people who don't see it as one), and I worry about us backsliding. I'm concerned by young women idealizing the Trad Wife lifestyle, not knowing their history and how dangerous a position it puts women in. I'm concerned by the 'stay at home girlfriend' trend, possibly MORE dangerous for how it lacks even the meager property and alimony protections of marriages. I'm concerned by the increasing gendered political divide and radicalization of young men, the way misogyny has become more and more virulent and loud and normalized over the past few years. The way women's rights are being rolled back with even more restrictions being pushed by the Right in an attempt to hold onto power and maintain their hierarchical worldview.

We need feminism more than ever right now, and additionally I think we all need to reclaim it from radfems and terfs. The word has become too associated with them, to the point I fear people are afraid to call themselves feminists for fear of it being misinterpreted, and I'm sick of it, why should terfs get to define it? Especially when our rights in society are all entwined. Reproductive rights--an issue that doesn't solely impact women but does disproportionately affect women--arises from the same root issue of fundamental bodily autonomy as does trans rights. Moreover the existence of trans and nonbinary people reinforces gender equality because if gender and sex are malleable, not fundamental and binary, then upon what basis is the oppression of women? How can one claim that women are less than men, or that women and men 'should' hold such and such roles when even the role of 'woman' or 'man' is not discrete. I hope terfs can come around to seeing that.

I don't believe in policing people's online activity unless it's like actually threatening hate speech, so I'm certainly not going to tell them they can't joke how they want. I just hope they think about why that's where their mind goes when they don't want to work, instead of wishing that society didn't work people to the bone, that people had more leisure time, that jobs were better and more meaningful etc. I hope they think about the women around the world who are still denied education and denied the right to work and forced to depend on their family or husband with no freedom or autonomy, and how much work it took women in the past to even get where we are, and how much there still is left to do.

[kataraslove]

I just stumbled across your acc and I gotta say, I agree with alotta ur takes

Ur sooo well spoken and I really enjoy reading your thoughts and opinions

Katara is one of my favorite characters and it makes me really happy to see someone appreciate her and her writing

Ngl a lot of atla fans r lowkey braindead so ur acc is pretty refreshing

Thanks for posting!! 🩷

thank you! 🩷 your words are too kind. i appreciate it.

i did mention this before, but this blog stemmed kind of entirely out of spite. i was sick and tired of fandom on here telling me that there was only one way to interpret and enjoy my favourite character, dictating who i could or could not ship her with and how much of a stan that made me. it’s not an experience just unique to the atla fandom, of course. it’s becoming something more apparent nowadays especially, the ways in which multiple readings and interpretations of a character is heavily discouraged by fandom in favour of just one.

it’s baffling how, for so many years, there was a strict binaric interpretation of katara’s character, with 0 being non-canon and 1 being completely in favour of all things canon. either you had to vehemently agree with everything that bryke wrote for katara’s within atla and post-canon, to the point where i have seen people defend the lack of statues of her as “oh, she probably didn’t want one anyway,” (NO!!) or you had to have deep-rooted anger and rejection for all things that were done to her story, in the guise of katara deserving better.

katara does deserve better narratively, but NOT in the ways that the tumblr fandom thinks she should have. not in the ways that she should be ambassador to the fire nation, or become firelady (a racist depiction in fanon and nothing but a decorative title in canon) and live out the rest of her life by zuko’s side, serving and prioritizing zuko’s nation.

“but wouldn’t it be empowering if katara sat on the throne of her oppressors and got to dictate - “ no. it’s not. stop advocating for that type of ending for women from oppressed and marganized groups. stop acting like that is the ideal future that katara wanted this whole time, that ruling as part of a foreign monarchy that decimated your people and your culture is the ultimate threshold for liberation.

i’ve seen people who claim to take a doylist perspective for critique of atla (read: kataang)’s writing completely lose all comprehension when it comes to critically assessing post-canon zutara. by that i mean, if we continue with the writing direction that we saw for all of the female atla characters in the sequel series, a zutara endgame would position katara in a worse outcome than she got narratively. but you tell anyone that and it’s an instant “zuko would have given her 10 statues!!”

but most importantly, nothing has radicalized me more over this year than seeing the “katara deserves better (in the form of zuko)” crowd, the same crowd who is currently dreading any form of fixing or retcons from avatar studios in upcoming content, defend the hell out of natla katara’s writing. the very same people who were praising katara’s arc to the stars, stating that it was nearly complete until the two grown men decided to pair her up with aang and ruined all at the end.

well, what about the group of zutara shippers in the natla writer’s room who handed her everything in the narrative, who removed her flaws, her anger, her compassion, who stripped her down to everything except hope, all in the name so that she wouldn’t appear unlikable to audiences. i mean, that tremendously backfired for them, because now the young actress who plays katara is getting hate spewed at her for failing to portray katara interestingly, when the problem has always been the shit writing.

anyway, i appreciate this message! glad i could be of service and it’s nice that you’re a zuko fan who ships kataang! lots of people who love zuko do.

“a lot of atla fans are braindead” LMAO you can say that again!!!

[jingerpi]

Its honestly very concerning how popular ContraPoints video on "Transtrenders" was. I want to make a post discecting it briefly because I feel the video does a disservice to young trans folk looking to learn, instead leaving them feeling unjustified in their indentitiy under the guise of some radical acceptance One of the main issues with the video as a whole is how natalie breaks down existing understandings of trans medicine as a tool to try and unseat transmedicalist talking points, and show how being trans is about personal experience and "feelings". While its important to critique transmedicalists, what she does here is undermine what many people see as the best justification for trans existence without replacing it with anything. She does this in my opinion, because she honestly doesn't have anything to replace it with, and doesn't understand the real basis for gender in the world. Saying this is all well and good, I can critique anyone for not giving good basis for thing but its no help if i don't give anything of substance to back it up either, so heres a brief explanation of why transphobia is a problem, based in actual socio-political analysis.

Patriarchy is an economic structure which has been built up across centuries of accumulated surplus value which was passed down through the eldest son of the ruling class. this is a vast over simplification, but functionally this means there are systems in place in society which privilege men, give them access to more wealth, better positions, and control over non-men. Patriarchy has grown and changed over time and held different shapes depending on the society, we no longer have eldest sons inheriting royal rule (in most places), but we continue to have men as the group with the most economic and social agency in our societies. This privilege that Patriarchs have is constituted not of some magical benefits bestowed upon them from an abstract "system" but are instead taken directly from those who are not men. More specifically, men and Patriarchs take labor and resources from those whom patriarchy considers "non-men". Reproductive labor goes unpaid, women are under privileged in political society, we often don't get choices over our bodies. This isn't merely a coincidence, but serves specifically to give men power and confer more benefits onto them. Because of this, there must be systems in place to manage who is let into the patriarchy, who can be a Patriarch.

The most universal way of doing this is by deciding whether or not someone is a man and conferring onto them certain benefits as long as they uphold this structure, and ostracizing them if they are not. They do this ostracization because if this structure is not upheld artificially through oppression of women and bullying of nonconforming men to keep the categories of man and woman or even man and non-man distinct, the privilege given to the in-group starts to fade. In the same way that "White" is an artificial construct created and upheld to facilitate racism like slavery, imperialism, housing discrimination, and unpaid labor, so too is "manhood" and "womanhood". These constructs appear to be based in existing biology, so they often go without question, but race is also based on such "biology" and that does not mean its a founded construct. The basis for both "race" and "gender" break down once you look at higher level understandings of these concepts. Not all people with xy chromosomes are men, not all people of African decent have black skin, etc etc... I could go on about the "exceptions" for quite some time but you likely know many of them already. These are categories created fundamentally to give one specific category an economic advantage and justify their oppression of those who are outside of said category. The reason we need to respect trans-ness isn't because there is something inherently justified about being transgender, nor because we just have to be really nice to everyone and treat their feelings as absolute truths. Its because the systems which confine us and define gender so rigidly exist purely to oppress and extract value from others. These borders are deeply unjustified and we need to tear them away. We do not need to justify existing outside of the borders, but instead challenge the borders in the first place. Contrapoints fails to meaningfully do this Natalie focuses almost entirely on the arguments surrounding justifications for transness and gives little thought to the justifications for patriarchy. It is treated as a default, always existing, status quo that is unquestionable. It makes me wonder how aware of it she really is, she seems to get stuck in justifying her own existence. the "Transtrenders" video focuses on a discussion between several characters where the primary issue at hand is how to justify being trans, should it be done through medicial, scientific frameworks? or should it be done from a kind and accepting view of others? She makes arguments against the former for being flawed and the latter for being unfounded, but she never actually replaces it with any critique of society, instead saying: "Okay, so what am I supposed to tell Jackie Jackson then? What am I supposed to tell the TERFs? That I'm a woman because reasons?"

"No, not even because reasons. Just because you are."

"So it's what, a leap of faith? Oh great. I'm sure that's gonna convince all the rational skeptics. Justine, it makes us sound completely delusional."

"Well Tiffany, delusion is what separates us from the animals." Which is an extremely unhelpful answer to give after tearing down what is to many, a key aspect in their reasoning for why they are justified in their identities, and while it is partially correct that trying to use one of the specific theories she outlined earlier to justify trans existence is an exercise in futility, she can't seemingly offer any alternative than some kind of "because I said so" when there ARE very good reasons to be in favor of trans acceptance, and historical reasons for our existence. In failing to do so she misleads perhaps an entire generation of trans people into thinking theres no real justification for their existence

The justification comes from understanding that the premise is false, that the forces which try to bind people to a specific societal gender role are themselves the issue.

She tries to point out that we dont need to justify transgender existence because the frameworks which hold us to cisgender existence are the real problem, but without ever talking about these cisgender standards in an actually meaningful way, instead talking abstactly about societies "expectations" or whatnot, where she should could be attacking the real economic forces of patriarchy. She should be tearing down patriarchy first and then using that to liberate trans existence but instead she tears down trans existence without touching patriarchy or any of the coercion or exploitation that arise from it. I consider this a great tragedy, and a prime example of her failures as an educator.

[pokegyns]

my hot take is that on radblur a lot of conversations about how hard separatism is are immedietly labeled as lesbophobic one way or another. usually bc they mention how selfidentified separatist lesbians will tell straight women how easy not dating men or being celibate is. I'm not saying lesbians oppress straight women, nobody ever says that in those conversations, but it's obviously full of shit, celibate lesbians, who aren't doing it for safety reasons, are either uninterested in romance or didn't find their dream girl YET. this is nothing like refusing to date when you have the desire purely out of principle. while there are other aspects of separatism not dating men is obviously the bulk and I'm not surprised when straight women are salty bc this is literally "Luigi wins by doing nothing" of feminism. you wouldn't have dated these men anyway...

and this is on anon bc saying "lesbians do this thing" is considered lesbophobic even if lesbians actually consistently do this thing 😁

not all lesbians etc etc but you get what I mean

i honestly agree. i'm personally a very romance-driven creature, and i know 1000% that if i wasn't a lesbian, if i had either been bisexual and fallen in love with a dude or been straight, i would never have stopped myself from feeling that love and still done feminist activism within that relationship by holding him to a very high standard and maintaining strong feminist friendships, monitoring things in a smart, emotionally intelligent way, and taking all the happiness i can out of life while also being a badass activist.

some of the hardest working female activists had happy marriages to men! and still made a huge impact, at times bigger than some separatists who scoffed at them and wasted their time just talking shit about women all day. separatists do awesome work, work that often is really valuable especially for young girls who feel like they have to dedicate their lives to dating. but if a woman gets a huge amount of happiness from dating, and is willing to be firm in her feminist convictions and handle it in the way that some non-unhinged so-called "femcels" do it, then i'm all for it and i'll be happy to hear her gossip about her bf anytime the same way i get happy hearing about my lesbian friends' gfs. seeing women happy makes me happy, i just want them to have a really good safety net and to know what they're getting into, and i love seeing male-dating women and transmascs exchange tips on how to date bio men as safely as possible and juggle dating a man and being a feminist. saying that separatism is inherently The Most Feminist thing you can do erases work that ONLY women who date men can do; they still hold something that men desire, and they get to make the rules. they also at times end up being the mothers of the next male generation, and that too can be a very powerful position to hold, as controversially as that is to say on doomerist radblr, if only because it can lead to some level of harm reduction on female kids & their female teachers etc. instead of letting only conservative women bear future kids and populate the earth - because we know they will regardless - raising kids in a feminist household can prove to be very valuable. you ofc can't prevent them from being radicalized down the line, but you can still have a meaningful impact.

it's really weird to try to explain to normie leftist-ish women irl who aren't deep on radblr that saying "you can date men and have kids and be an awesome feminist regardless" or "i personally want to see humanity continue, i don't believe in ending it, i want feminist mothers raising the next gen" or even "i believe transfems face unique struggles" can lead to you being mocked, shunned, and get hate anons outta nowhere (though nowhere near the shit i've gotten in tra circles lmao). it's a really wacky culture we have going on in here, and ngl it makes me cringe. it's just so... unproductive.

i 1000% want separatism to be an option. i think it's a great side of radfeminism. but i personally want to tackle issues between male and female people by actually interacting with the male population meaningfully and figure out the issue of gncphobia ppl - including male ppl - face so that the gender boxes can be destroyed... and even that recently got me in trouble, despite me being a lesbian and obvs not dating men. chronically online spaces in general foster really extremist views that aren't helpful at all to any social movement. we can gather more separatists for the movement and let male-partnered feminists do activism their own way. obviously i've received lesbophobia from the other side as well, but i'm honestly sorry for the way that lesbians and het-attracted women generally uninterested in dating treat women who enjoy and benefit from dating emotionally. having a romantic partner is a huge part of my life, and i can never see myself give up on it. it would then be insanely hypocritical of me to expect it of someone else just bc we happen to have a different sexuality. even if a febfem ended up falling for a man and going through with it, that wouldn't be a betrayal either! female happiness is my #1 priority. and no, that isn't me being a hetero bootlicker or male apologist or whatever the fuck separatists have called me before in radfem spaces. i'm just being realistic. is our main goal as feminists to abolish the hetero dating scene? bc if so, we're gonna have next generations full of conservatively raised kids, including male kids, who will then be more likely to be sexist.

thankfully normie feminists irl, who aren't deep in either extremist tra or extremist radfem spaces, would be in total disbelief if you told them about this stuff. and they would just go back to their activism. and i think we should do the same. don't listen to those voices, do what's right for YOU in your heart. just maintain your convictions, don't let male ppl trample all over you, ditch them the very second they say anything antifeminist or shitty, and chase your happiness. your personal life does not need to define your feminist activism. you are still 100% welcome here, in this nuancefem corner of radblr!

-mod pikachu

[xxchromies]

i see where you are coming from, as a radfem, woth the topic of pregnancy. Thing is, even if the general consensus of radical feminism is that as of now pregnancy is a tool of oppression, singular individuals are still going to enjoy it as a part of their personal life. But also, a woman being *personally* invested in the idea of pregnancy, and against the idea of late abortion, should not mean that other women should stop discussing those topic however they want. Women can detest the idea of pregnancy (i do). Women should want to abort whenever they want (kid is still relying on her after all). This should be objective morality. Subjective morality is what you, personally, feel like doing - you can support a woman's right to abort after 4 months AND be unable to abort a 2 month proto-fetus yourself. You can support other women's disdain of pregnancy and still, personally, want to be a mother.

Of course, some times, those things will not perfectly align with all contemporary radical feminist thoughts, but this is something you should simply accept: you are going to have opinions, and are going to make actions, which reasonate with you but aren't intrinsecally radically feminist. No one is forcing you to lose your identity to radical feminism or viceversa.

I don’t know where people are getting the idea that all women should want to be mothers and if they don’t they’re horrible awful people and they’re just denying their true animalistic nature.

My main point was you shouldn’t use radical feminism as an excuse to say vile and dehumanizing things about mothers/pregnant women. Additionally, having children is a natural thing inherent to all animals and its men and their treatment of women that fucks it up. Also you’re free to not want to be pregnant. I don’t even want to be pregnant myself! Like it’s some tough shit, I’m not denying that. But it’s unique to the female body. And I don’t particularly love people demonizing the female body. Or normalizing the hatred of certain parts of the female body, calling them “disgusting”. How is that any different than the young women who feel shame and disgust about their periods or breasts? You could argue that having periods and breasts is inevitable while being pregnant isn’t, but it is something only females can do. And I don’t see why this viewpoint would be in conflict with radical feminism at all. I would like to think female liberation wouldn’t involve demonizing something that’s natural and is associated with the female body.

Also I don’t really agree that women being able to abort whenever they want should be objective morality.

[the-dreamers-hotel]

We are stepping on others to better ourselves.

I am absolutely begging LGBTQ+ folk to educate themselves on marginalised communities in general. You are not absolved of racism or ableism or transphobia or even homophobia just because you are LGBTQ+. You are certainly not immune to engaging in it unconsciously either, if you refuse to unlearn what the system forces on us.

Understanding intersectionality is absolutely key for queer liberation. But even more importantly, everyone must understand where their own oppression and sometimes advantageous traits affect them – such as living without disabilities, white, cisgender or even just having access to HRT, Good healthcare etc etc. There is an individual responsibility to educate and proactively and openly dismantle the tools of oppressing classes before proclaiming their opinions and thoughts on another member of the community.

If you believe that transmasculine or transmen do not face oppression based on their gender identity, then you are playing into the hands that beat you. We are our identities, and would like it if you didn’t erase that actually. In fact, maybe don’t play into the ideology that forces cisgender young men into Andrew Tate’s ilk either? You can criticise toxic behaviour without condemning all men and masculine people to death.

Not only do transmen and transmasculine people face oppression for their identity - which in itself is radically against the system quo and so the patriarchy justifies harassment - but should they have other marginalised identities, it adds to their oppression. Something a lot of this community seem to forget.

By blurting out buzzwords and barely thought-out opinions like “transmascs are privileged” or “transmen are men too and aid the patriarchy” you assist in so many deaths and so much abuse. Painting transmen and transmasculine people as toxic by default and including us in the group who want us dead as well, you make us invisible. You aid in our deaths and eradication.

Identifying as masculine or male and even passing and presenting as such does not remove the oppression experienced as someone AFAB – nor does it remove additional inequalities such as racial, sectarian/semitic, income based, sexual orientation based, and hell, homophobia.

I saw a post claiming transmen/transmasc folk on T have lost their right to be scared walking home at night. Not only do cisgender men have cause for fear during the night but to assume that “passing” somehow removes the intentions of those wishing harm on someone is absurd.

Transmasc/Transmen are treated as if they can only be men and nothing else – that this masculinity removes all other oppressive traits and it is assumed that they pass always too. Are we forgetting the subtle trained behaviour that some of us were not raised with? The conversation topics that could out us? That some of us aren’t skinny, white, and hyper masculine? Some of us are non-binary? Some of us reject conformity even as men? The fact that some of us are in mlm relationships? Hell, some of us have trans partners and that in itself can result in harm to us?

I don’t understand how you can believe a transmasc person or transman is only ever privileged.

Be outspoken to all transphobia, homophobia, racism, and misogyny – but do not deceive yourself that you are not partaking in it when you make these comments.

Stop lying to yourself. Do better.

Compassion & Comradery,

TDH.

[mariacallous]

Writing for the Bulwark the other day Cathy Young asked a brilliant question: what on earth happened to the Intellectual Dark Web and its critique of the left?  

Go back to the 2010s, and all kinds of people, myself included, were wondering why leftists allied with the most fascistic versions of Islam, and why there was such screaming intolerance in liberal institutions.  All of a sudden we were told to accept that white people were inherently racist and that men could become women –  just by saying they were.

If you moved in​ leftish circles and refused to clap your hands and cheer the new orthodoxy, your career was over.

In theory the response ought to have been a liberal defence of democratic freedoms. And from many it was. 

But the “Intellectual Dark Web” - the melodramatic name came from a New York Times  piece from 2018 – was something else. It consisted of online celebrities opposed to progressive orthodoxy, who revelled in the joy of shocking the liberal bourgeoisie. 

The full list of its members ran: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Glenn Greenwald, Sam Harris, Heather Heying, Claire Lehmann, Bill Maher, Douglas Murray, Maajid Nawaz, Camille Paglia, Jordan Peterson, Steven Pinker, Joe Rogan, Dave Rubin, Ben Shapiro, Michael Shermer, Christina Hoff Sommers, Bret Weinstein, and Eric Weinstein.

As you can see, it was a journalistic concoction, which did not hang together well. Genuine liberals, such as  Steven Pinker and Sam Harris were yanked together with reactionaries like Douglas Murray and Jordan Peterson.  

Meanwhile the self-aggrandising willingness of many of them to announce that they were  “heretics” and “dissidents” was ridiculous. No one is a true heretic, unless they are persecuted. And dissident is an honourable title you cannot in good conscience bestow on yourself – not that that ever stopped anyone.

But once the caveats had been made, you could say that these were people who were willing to attack progressive orthodoxies as they turned oppressive, and in 2018 had a kind of radical glamour.

All gone. Utterly gone. Many of those acclaimed in 2018 have become what they despised – or purported to despise. They are on the side of the enemies of liberty now. They threaten basic democratic freedoms. The alt right has turned out to be the far right, as perhaps it was always going to.

If you are looking for an immediate cause it is clear that Trump has done for them. When the crunch came far too many supposedly intelligent conservatives bent the knee and tugged the forelock, and engaged in an intellectual justification of dictatorial power.

In the process they showed that there are two ways of dealing with left authoritarianism. You can defend the values of liberal democracy, and ally with the many on the left who agree with you. 

Did the conservative members of the Intellectual Dark Web do that?

Did they hell. 

They produced arguments for tyranny, which the conspiratorial atmosphere of the alt right positively encouraged. In the process, they showed how a critique of the left can end up justifying the authoritarianism of the right.

If you paint the globalist elite as all powerful. If you maintain that progressives have the means to indoctrinate the young  through their control of the universities, schools and the mainstream media. If you further posit that they are guaranteeing their power by importing immigrants they know will vote for their centre-left parties, then a dictatorship is a justifiable response to such supernaturally powerful enemies.

Indeed, such is their supposed power​ of the "woke mind virus,​" overturning free elections is the only plausible response to a rigged system. 

If everything from immigration policy to the schools is a con played by progressive elites to ensure their control of society,  there is no other option available to the right. The 20th far right century used the justification that they were saving their countries from the communist menace. The woke menace serves the same purpose today.

I remember being interviewed by one member of the New York Times list, a media entrepreneur called Dave Rubin.

He could not get enough criticisms of the left. And indeed there was much to criticise. However, I pointed out that, if he was a serious man, he must be as willing to criticise the right. He assured the viewers he would.

Now he thinks there are “plenty of good arguments to make for voting for Trump,” even if he’s prone to “lying about everything.” 

How brave. How very, very brave.

Cathy Young records how principled people have walked away in disgust. Claire Lehman, the editor of the genuinely challenging online magazine Quilette, said that she had started out believing that the US liberals' claims that Trump threatened democracy were deranged. 

She assumed that warnings about Trump refusing to accept defeat  in the 2020 presidential election were also “hysterical nonsense”—until it actually happened. The invasion of Ukraine and the willingness of the US right to work for Putin were further blows to her conservative assumptions.

“It really made me reassess my priors,” says Lehmann. “I realized that I had had a blind spot on those two huge issues. So I updated my beliefs.” 

Others preferred to adjust the facts to fit their priors—or, Lehmann suspects, pretended to do so “because they don’t want to lose the audiences they built.”

Just so. Sam Harris added a second justification for intellectual cowardice  when he said that he was disassociating himself from the IDW label because of  other IDW figures’ embrace of Trump’s election-fraud claims. Some of  his former allies were “sounding fairly bonkers,” he concluded.

Indeed they were. But they had to. If they were not bonkers to begin with they had to learn to give a decent impression of bonkerdom, if they wanted to appeal to their audience. 

Jordan Peterson, a thinker who once had a few good arguments to make, now claims that covid vaccines caused more deaths than the “so-called pandemic,” and declares his lack of faith in every other vaccine for good measure. The podcast king Joe Rogan broadcasts vaccine conspiracism. As does a figure British readers may remember, ​​Maajid Nawaz, who was once a liberal Muslim who fought extremism and  now needs avoiding when the moon is full.

There’s a booming market for covid conspiracism in the US and beyond, and it pays to keep the customers satisfied. But, and perhaps I am being naive here, I do not believe cynics can do it. Like so many ideologues the alt-right ​must believe their paranoid fantasies as they tell them and  allow the mask to eat into the ​face  ​They cannot just pretend. ​They must believe. 

Young writes

“It may be that, because of the dynamics in today’s intellectual and political marketplace, any commentator, media outlet, or group that opposes the illiberal left but doesn’t explicitly oppose far-right Trumpian populism is in danger of being co-opted by it.”

And not only in the US. The next British general election will almost certainly take place near the date of the US presidential election. We have already had Boris Johnson and Liz Truss  announce their support for Trump, even though he is hugely unpopular in this country, and is a clear threat to Nato.  It would be politically mad for Conservatives to tie themselves to Trump in  an election campaign. And yet leading figures will do it for the same reason alt right in the US right do it.

First, they want the money. In the case of British politicians and journalists, the money American conservative lecture circuit provides. Second, they have talked themselves into a position where progressives are an enemy so dangerous that any measures are justified to bring about their defeat – including supporting a threat to the American republic and Western security. 

As someone who shared the critiques of at least some members of the intellectual dark web in the 2010s, I can make a fair prediction about what will happen next.

Whenever I wrote criticisms of the left, colleagues would say that the right would welcome and exploit all my arguments, and that was true. As someone once said, I think it was me, “the left looks for traitors and the right looks for converts”.  But, so what? A good argument must be made regardless of the consequences.

But then they made a further point. You should never listen to conservatives when they said they believe in freedom of speech, democracy and human rights. All they are concerned with is sectarian advantage.

It has been the historic achievement of the Intellectual Dark Web to prove that the sneering leftists were right all along.