#ofc 'men' here applies only to cis men

[chaos-of-the-abyss]

hm rgu just has a really nuanced take about how patriarchy harms men. it says that men are brought up in a society that encourages them to harm women and emulate other misogynistic, abusive men [touga emulating akio, and to a lesser extent saionji emulating touga and later akio]. this often does come at some cost to their own psyche, because the men they are emulating hurt and abuse them too [touga is abused by akio, saionji is abused by touga though touga is not nearly as skillful with it]. but regardless, they are punching downwards to mistreat the women in their lives the same way their abusive male role models do [touga abusing nanami, saionji abusing anthy], and they choose to act this way to women because, despite the conditions of patriarchy inflicting a toxic and self-destructive relationship with other men on them, they are willing to imitate and obey the same men that hurt them if it means they can keep the privilege and power over women that the patriarchy grants them by default for being men. [touga wants to be akio's successor, he wants to inherit the world that akio has constructed for himself, which is built on the foundation of patriarchal power over women. and to do this touga deliberately keeps himself on akio's radar rather than pull back once it becomes clear what akio's intentions with him are. touga believes he's letting himself be manipulated, he believes he is consenting to it, and that that will be worth it if it means claiming akio's seat of power in the future. (of course what touga doesn't consider is that he cannot meaningfully consent to any advances akio makes, because he's a minor and akio is an adult.)]

rgu asserts that yes, patriarchy does harm men, but that harm comes almost exclusively from other men. and, more importantly, while abusive men may have been hurt by the patriarchy at the hands of other men, it is still their choice to hurt the women around them. and rather than dawdle and sympathize with harmful men for how they themselves were hurt by other harmful men, it's more important to prevent them from hurting anyone else

[mrfoox]

me: -literally crying as i explain how roo was extra kind to me when i expected the bare minimum-

roo: miranda... thats the norm. you should expect guys to be gentlemen. men should be kind to women

me who has had so many things mentally damaged by men around me and thus have little expectations of others: um.... -sobbing- don’t think that is the normal thing for every guys alive

[tirfpikachu]

Omg the post about 'a lesbian could be attracted to a man if they're very special' reminded me of something that happened.

I go to a club and one of the girls who went there recently split from her BF, and apparently he wasn't very nice. She said she had only ever dated women until that point and before that she thought she was a lesbian. The girl's friend said well he did catfish you.

Turns out, the girl had met him on a dating app when he was identifying as a trans woman and he basically 'detransitioned' the moment they started dating.

So this girl's friend is going well, you are a lesbian, and then the girl goes, really quietly, well no, I guess I'm bi? Girl's friend: no, you're a lesbian.

Like, I'm holding my tongue because I'm bi. I've never dated a man (nor do I intend to), but I still find them attractive, so I'm bi. And this girl was genuinely attracted to her bf, but her friend was adamant she was still a lesbian and I'm just... if I can openly say I'm bi without any intention of dating the opposite sex, and never having done so, then what's the issue here?

It was so awkward, like the girl was clearly uncomfortable about it.

THAT'S SO AWKWARD WTF ????????????

like bruh if you're attracted to Just Some Dude who isn't even presenting as transfem anymore... you're bi as hell. if you've genuinely been attracted to a guy or an omab person who isn't presenting as female or even aligning with women socially... you're not a lesbian. febfem sexuality should honestly be more normalized. it's okay to choose to only date one side or the other! it doesn't make you any less bi. that's legit just biphobic rhetoric. people don't CHOOSE to be gay based on finding one side annoying or smth. gays legit are incapable of being attracted to either the opposite sex or people who present as the opposite sex, within reason ofc. and even then that's still technically a bisexual experience in the bi = both sexes definition, and not a homosexual experience unless you can't tell at all the person's sex... which imo is pretty unlikely once you learn the person is trans, there's usually certain features & behaviors that give it away once you look closer that might or might not affect your attraction. but yeah, saying that you can straight up be into someone who presents 100% as male and STILL be a lesbian is unhinged.

like the "well the person is transfem" as an excuse doesn't even apply?? that blows my mind. i would even, very controversially, have given people some leeway on the whole being technically bi/into both sexes yet only being into bio/cis men & transmascs (or bio/cis women & transfems) thing... like in a way that's being into both sexes but also only being into gay-passing relationships, which is a really unique experience. it technically still falls under bisexuality, but imo it's still a close cousin experience to gayness. honestly if the whole "bi lesbian" thing had been only about people who are technically bisexual in the dictionary definition of the term but are only capable to be attracted to people presenting as female or male and only date in a gay-presenting way, i wouldn't have had an issue with it since transness can make sexuality quite complicated. they would still face homophobia, including about them not being into het-presenting relationships. as long as they had been respectful abt homosexuals i wouldn't have cared. but alas, "bi lesbian" is for a rly stupid reason...

that "friend" is just pushing biphobic & lesbophobic rhetoric. i hope you can have a good convo with her and reassure her that if she was ever into a guy, a male person that's 100% male-presenting, she is extremely bisexual. there's just no way around it. even with the transfem identity, i'll see 100% male-passing transfems try to get with lesbians and it drives me fucking crazy. it's disrespectful af!!

[timetravelstudies]

a meandering post about transmasculine aesthetics (or lack thereof)

i was thinking about how in both big and small, common and niche/micro ways, when youre transmasc you kind of have to resign yourself to the double bind of both always having to borrow the language of other people and groups to describe yr own experiences and simultaneously being accused (though not always so directly & in so many words) of stealing valor.

this i think applies across the board in a variety of cases but specifically i was thinking about victimization/victimhood, including but not limited to sexual victimization. and ofc victimization is not all there is to being trans &/or queer but as i said a while ago in a post re: that one girl raised by gay dads who was complaining about how lgbt culture is "too focused" on homophobia, victimization (& ostracism, & aggression, & in general adverse social circumstances) is an inescapable part of the queer experience so i feel like this is an especially apt case study.

like (and now im gonna go so micro and niche this probably wont be recognizable outside my very specific sphere of mutuals & inlaws but its the example on my mind rn) i have often seen tboys etc. on here for lack of a better word romanticizing a certain kind of sexual abuse & exploitation that is commonly associated (socially and artistically) with boys and young men who are "too" "feminine" and thus attract the attention of adults esp adult men. and like even once we go past the whole "are you allowed to (fantasize/post/make art/romanticize/jerk off/...) about X thing, do you have the correct trauma, i want an itemized list of everything bad that's happened to you on my desk by tomorrow or i unleash the mob" and we get to people who correctly see that type of thinking as always anti-victim and inherently deleterious (as well as anti-art but thats another post entirely), there are still plenty of instances of in this case transfems who have this...... disdainful and almost condescending tone of "actually what youre sexualizing is MY experience, MY oppression, MY victimization, /I/ and/or people like me were the ones who were abused for being boys who looked like girls, NOT you" which ..... i dont even really want to disprove or anything like that bc im not particularly interested in that, and tbh i get how it can be extremely annoying and frustrating for a general group of people to not give a fuck about your extremely real and continued oppression and/or contribute to it only for some of them to turn around and also aestheticize some aspects of that experience. like i totally get where the girls are coming from on this mostly.

but what i want to draw attention to is something else which....... ok let's say all the guys immediately drop the ganymede/painting of isaac/takemiya bpd shota/whatever posting tomorrow. let's say that is a transfeminine or queer male experience the tboys have no claim over or whatever. the alternate pool of imagery & psychosexual landscape to borrow from is that of female victimhood. which again a lot of guys do draw from. but as soon as a tboy gets on some ldr coquette dollette traumacore shit he gets accused of holding onto his white female privilege of being presumed harmless and ontologically innocent and so on. so what then?

to be clear, im bringing up these criticisms which are most commonly levied at transmascs by transfems not because i want to criticize transfeminine people or transfeminism especially but because i see this stuff as the most poignant and relevant commentary on transmasculinity that exists in the contemporary discourse as of 2025, and im including academic & adjacent writing in that statement. (for instance, a cis feminist critique to the ldr shit would be that trans guys are trying to escape sexist oppression while stealing its valor, as i was saying at the beginning of the post. i think that statement is erroneous and dumb for reasons that should be self evident and if they arent then this post isnt for you.)

anyway. my aim isnt really to debunk these transfeminist criticisms or even put an asterisk next to them and say in which exclusive cases they are applicable. the transfeminist theory answer to these qualms is obviously that there is overlap btw the experiences of cis women, trans men and trans women because they all occupy a minoritary (in the deleuzian way) position in the hierarchy of power founded by and based on cis masculinity. but the point im trying to make, or rather the issue im trying to discuss, isn't one of power politics. it's one of language, or more specifically symbols, or more specifically aesthetics.

there is no such thing as a transmasculine aesthetics, and yes, this is most likely because of discrete sociocultural historical reasons and was probably in no small part spurred by a transmasculine desire for assimilation into one group of cis men or another at all costs or at least for blending into the background as "just a regular guy" (this was a really interesting post touching on this topic. i havent done the reading myself but it's a credible account that makes perfect sense to me). but again, im not interested in a social and historical account. What im interested in is aesthetics: how people internalize, digest, express concepts on a sensorial and pre-verbal (or non-verbal or quasi-verbal) plane.

regardless of the reasons, we are here now: there is no transmasculine imagery of sexual victimization. there is no transmasculine imagery of much anything. this is especially true the more "queer" you get in an academic sense, i.e. the further away you go from a type of (trans)masculinity that is as close to hegemonic as you can get without cisgenderism (strong, in control, buff, facial hair, capable, handy, butch, a top, dating a woman or someone unambiguously more feminine...). there is no transmasculine aesthetics of gender non conformity, of artsiness, of etherealness, of fragility, of madness, of gayness & bisexuality, and yes, of sexual victimization - or rather, there are aesthetic languages for all these things that transmasculine people understand, appreciate and engage in, because we are people in the world like everyone else, but none of them are recognizable as transmasculine.

if youre wondering, why do you really care that much about aesthetics? arent there real, material problems in the world? id say yes, and we face those too. however. i am a big proponent of the importance of aesthetics as a mode of analysis because i believe human beings perceive, interpret and digest the world largely (though ofc not exclusively) through aesthetics. but even if you dont agree with me on the general plane, please look at the world around you. in the 2020s aesthetics are everything. all of our culture, all of our thinking, is done through imagery first and logic and words second, if at all.

in fact, though it is almost certainly just a coincidence due to the unprecedented exposure transgenderism is having right now (which i dont count necessarily as a good thing but not the point rn) a kind of explicitly transmasc aesthetics IS being born through what some have jokingly dubbed the "sweatermuppet industrial complex" - you know, the st sebastian with top surgery scars, png of a syringe, dog poem, richard siken quote collage type shit. ive criticized that stuff before and i'll do it again, not only because i find it corny, but also and especially because i feel that not even a few years since its inception have passed and already it has become a self-referential, sterile vein only good for selling lame sweatshop tshirts. but thats what happens when you scold every other type of expression out of existence: at worst it simply never gets made, or at least shown, again, and so it doesnt get to inspire the next thing, at best its edges get sanded down into something inoffensive if not exactly excellent and you get the doglamb with two heads again. and at this point it feels important to restate that any representation of queer & trans existence, ESPECIALLY the negative aspects of it (which again, are an inevitalbe and intrinsic part of it) will necessarily be offensive or even repulsive and yes, problematic, to some.

anyway. it all pisses me off and makes me sad for so many varied reasons. because i love aesthetic and artistic expression - not even just art, but every kind of utterance that is done on an aesthetic level - and i want to be free to do my own & also i want to see those of other people who are similar to me in some ways but different in others and let that inspire me to create, think and live in new ways (as indeed i already do with stuff mostly made by non-transmasculine people). because those of us (transmasculine people, trans people, gnc people, queer people) who are marginal and specific and weird even within our already small identity-groups deserve to express ourselves and be understood rather than languish in unsayability. because any of these experiences - queerness, transness, sexual abuse - is painful enough already when you CAN talk about it. because transfeminine people are lowkey carrying & saving art, culture and cultural discourse in this century even more than usual and i believe and feel in my bones transmascs as a group can give that much more if not to the mainstream at least to the community. because i believe the only thing that can save us from hurtling past the edge and down into the void is an aesthetic revolution and i also believe that only queer people can bring that about. etcetc. and yes tumblr is a very bad place to have any sort of conversation bc youll get into fights anywhere but tumblr is also soooo irrelevent. but also i feel like this is the only place where we can have this sort of conversation at this (extremely granular, specific, sophisticated) level where you need to have understood a bunch of shit beforehand already. theyre still doing pronoun circle type shit on ig. anyway. that was my post thanks for reading. shuffles off my soapbox

[nothorses]

hi this is just me wanting to know more i don't support radfem ideology at all but im trying to think critically

cis men are the perpetrators of the majority of gender based violence right? so wouldn't the whole concept of lesbian separatism be effective in reducing violence? how do we respond to that argument if we're of the opinion that lesbian separatism is bad, because ofc it would make a difference to reduce that much violence by alienating cis men from society.

what's a productive response to someone who thinks eradicating men from society is a good feminist cause? i don't know if this is a separate question but: how do you logically explain that getting rid of men won't get rid of the patriarchy?

This is... a weird line of reasoning.

“Of course it would make a difference to reduce that much violence by alienating cis men from society” is such a bold claim.

First of all: why would we assume it’s only cis men being alienated by lesbian separatism? If the goal here is for women to only interact with other women, trans men and other trans folks who otherwise do not consider themselves women should not be included. If the logic is that this is a TERF movement (it is) and the intention is to include or exclude people on the basis of their AGAB, then trans women and trans AMAB folks are going to be excluded.

Second of all, cis men alone make up almost half of the world population. So where are they going? If they’re not getting uprooted and placed somewhere else physically, how do you plan on creating a society where all cis men are just Not Interacted With except for other cis men, and functionally, how does that work- in terms of jobs, families, partners, loved ones?

And... what metric are we using here? Is it how people look, how they act, are we checking everyone’s genitals and birth certificates? Do we need to put trans people on a registry, do stealth and cis-passing trans people need a badge or something that marks them Part Of Society?

On a global scale, there is no reality where All Cis Men are peacefully alienated from society so that lesbian separatism can happen everywhere. What you’re looking at here is mass genocide: “Kill all men” is an extremist lesbian separatist slogan, the idea being, very literally, that all men must die so that women can be safe.

I am taking for granted that any reasonable human being understands that mass genocide is a bad thing, which means this becomes a personal choice. Which is what lesbian separatism typically is; it’s about forming separate, distinct communities devoid of men. Communes and stuff.

And look, I’m not gonna tell people not to go make their woman’s-only commune or whatever. But I will ask these questions:

How do you determine who is Sufficiently Woman to be welcome at the commune?

What is the necessity of dis-including everyone else?

If they’re not a TERF about it and they decide trans women count, but trans men don’t, what threat do trans men pose to cis women that they must be barred from entry? What about non-women nonbinary folks?

What is it about women, specifically, that makes them uniquely safe and non-threatening? Why can that quality not apply to other genders? Are there exceptions to these rules? What do you do about them?

When a woman abuses, harasses, hurts, assaults, or rapes another woman or a young girl, what do you do about that? Does it “count”? Do you get rid of that person?

If women can be dis-included on the basis of being dangerous, or if non-women can be included on the basis of being safe, what is the necessity of making this space women-only in the first place?

What’s happening here, especially when the reason is something like “safety”, is gender essentialism: the assumption that certain genders possess certain inherent, immutable qualities. Like being uniquely safe, or posing a unique threat.

Cis men are responsible for a good amount of intimate partner violence against women because we live in a society where that violence is encouraged and excused. Cis men are also not the only perpetrators of intimate partner violence against women; this is a broad statistic, and by no means a rule.

If you want to reduce the rates at which cis men abuse and hurt their female partners, you should attack the systems enabling that violence.

[nona-gay-simus-main]

7 Tropes That Make Me Uncomfy

Disclaimer: This is my personal opinion, calm down. Also, I'm white and do not speak for BIPOC communities

1. The Black Cop

Look, cops are racist af, we all know this. So what is this obsession with cops in media being Black? Is it to make them seem more palatable to liberal/leftist audiences? (That's rhetorical, we know it' is.)

Here's a wild idea: instead of making cops Black, stop writing stories about cops. Even if you want your protagonist or one of your main characters to be an investigator: private detectives exist. Defense lawyers, investigative journalists, there are literally so many options that don't have to include cops.

2. The Supernatural Police Procedural

This one I just don't understand. So you have zombies in your show, or the devil, or whatever, and you made it a police procedural? Really? There were no other, more interesting options out there?

I guess the supernatural element adds a bit of an original twist to the genre, but at the end of the day they're still cops investigating a murder. I think there might be more fun ways to use your supernatural characters than copaganda.

3. Rape as Karma

I think get the appeal of good, old schadenfreude. I too love when a bad guy gets a taste of their own medicine, it feels very satisfying & ironic. And irony is great!

But when it comes to rape, I just feel like it's one of those things that shouldn't really happen to anyone, even if they themselves are a rapist. It just feeds into the toxic mindset that some people are acceptable victims or that they 'deserved it' and I don't see how that's any better than what we have now.

4. The B word

No, I'm not talking about bitch - weirdly, that's one most media has no issue with. (I wonder why...) I mean 'bisexual'.

Why does media treat the word bisexual like it's a slur? I've seen shows that go to extreme lengths just to avoid mentioning it., "ex lesbian", "lower on the kinsey scale" and the always popular, "i like people, not gender." Oh my god, just say bisexual! Or pansexual! Or whatever you actually mean and stop this beating around the bush. Please, I beg of you! And ofc this isn't to say that some people don't use labels and that's also a valid experience, but why is it that the unlabeled characters are ALWAYS the ones attracted to multiple genders??

And stop treating bi characters as gay or straight based on the relationship they're currently in. Newsflash, but most bisexuals date men and women (and non-binary people) at different stages of their life and their sexuality doesn't actually change based on their partner's gender.

5. Queer In Name Only

You know that queer character, that's queer, but they also don't speak, act, think, dress, or even the same sense of humor as any real life queer person you know? Usually, it's a traditionally attractive, feminine, white cis woman - once in a while, the same, but a guy.

Now, obviously, there is no one way to be queer. That's not what I'm saying, nor am I advocating to bring back two-dimensional stereotypes. I'm just saying that it feels incredibly disingenuous that most of the 'representation' we have in mainstream media feels completely divorced from real-life queer culture.

6. Rampant Misogyny in Fantasy

This applies to any sort of bigotry, but misogyny is the most common one, because there is plenty of fantasy with no PoC or queer people, but there's almost no fantasy with no women.

And they are always there to be oppressed, be sexually harassed and assaulted (or at least attempted to be assaulted), and saved by the hero if they are lucky. Maybe there's one woman that has power, but she's usually evil or she dies. And if there is a stronger, warrior type woman, she has to be Not Like Other Girls and detest anything féminine from dresses to kindness.

I get that for most of human history women have had a pretty rough deal (and still do in most places) and I know that fantasy is often inspired by history, but it's still made up. You're allowed to create your own rules. So why do they always have to be sexist?

7. The Strong Female Character

I like a good, well-rounded female character, but what I'm talking about the Not Like Other GIrls, Strong Female Character who has to be stripped of any softness and compassion, and any femininity (besides maybe a surface level-one like love for dresses and nail-polish, if that) to be a true #GirlBoss.

Can we maybe stop doing that? Believe it or not, you can be 'emotional' and be a good leader. You can have healthy relationships with other women (platonic or sexual). You can even be a smart and dedicated person rather than a fighter.

I'm just tired that every female character has to fit this 90s femininism mold now. Where are the complex, broken women? The ugly women? The women who use compassion, intution, and vulnerability as their strongest qualities, rather than just a literal weapons? God, just give me more than this please.

[lcnlyplace]

full information.

pretty much a bio too long to read, headcanons, personality, playlist (not yet) and connections (not yet ahhh)

HERE

i went a bit crazy so below the read more is the tldr version

basic information.

BIRTH NAME: maddalena Haas

NAME: ilse salzburg

NICKNAME: ilse 

GENDER: cis female

PLACE OF BIRTH: angerberg, austria

HOMETOWN: angerberg, austria

DATE OF BIRTH: november 12, 1998

AGE: twenty-three

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: bisexual

OCCUPATION: intern at the art institute of chicago

background.

TW: GASLIGHTING, DEATH MENTION

her parents were super catholic and overprotective. she has four sisters and had a brother who passed away shortly after his first year. her dad was a farmer, her mom stay-at-home mom.

let’s just say that as a child, her mother didn’t trust her. she was convinced that her daughter was evil and this is why she allowed her more freedom bc you dont wanna anger the one you think is the spawn of satan

she used to pray a lot for her and it seems that as she grew up, it kinda worked. and so, she started to become her mom’s fave. good for maddalena. 

very quiet but always watching. she really didn’t have anything more special than other girls or her sisters but she attracted a lot of attention, boys were as curious of her as uneasy about her. girls loved her as much as they envied her. 

by 14, she was already smoking and drinking (in secret ofc), she used to sneak out with boys but nothing ever happened beyond some flirting. her father was the only one who knew she snuck out bc he saw her once.

at 16, a new boy moved to her small town and after a few weeks of this boy trying to get her attention they started dating. maddalena was CRAZY about him, she never thought she would ever love anyone but herself and even when her mother found out she allowed them to date bc she also didn’t think maddalena would love anyone lmao

long story short, a year later she loses her v-card with him and for some reason she began to cry and feel very guilty about it. elias got tired of her very fast bc we all know what he wanted. and he spread the rumor that she had been cheating on him and that she pretty much had been nothing but cruel to him, so everyone at school hated her.

women have killed men for less ngl but she didn’t kill him no worries. she only drove him crazy. i guess he could see the crazy in her eyes and the evil that her mom once saw and he became paranoid and she also helped a little by spraying her perfume on his pillow and leaving little hints that she was around. eventually elias sort of went nuts and was taken away and never heard what happened to him ever again.

a few months before her 18th birthday she ran away as her parents wanted to pretty much either marry her or make her study something she didnt want. 

moved to salzburg, austria and pretty much had a few sugar daddies ngl. until she met an american politician who offered her to bring her to the us and pretty much give her official papers but ya know still illegal.

moved to dc and she changed her name from maddalena haas to ilse salzburg. 

never had a relationship with this man, but eventually after a year he fell in love with her and she also caught feelings but ya know last time it didnt go well.

they were together for a year but then he filed for divorce and ilse was like “oh no, we are not doing this”. left dc and moved to nyc for a few months.

became fascinated by art and applied to northwestern for art history and now she’s in her senior year and doing an internship.

the man calls her from time to time but she knows he’s not a danger and he’s just lonely so she lets him talk.

personality

probably undiagnosed with some sort of personality disorder.

very manipulative

holds grudges and will seek revenge and believe her when she says she’ll never be caught

very rational

in touch with her emotions and other’s emotions, although most of the times she doesn’t use this for good

very creative

she sees it, she wants it, she gets it kinda personality

if a friend, she will def kill for you or help you bury the body.

[spooky-qrow]

I... don't understand terfs at all I am not joking I literally do not get it

-force labels onto trans people and tell them what their sexualities 'really are' which is usually kinda homophobic as well as transphobic

-seem to think women are incapable of abuse or sexual assault?? the chances of a woman being an abuser or offender is just the same as a man, it's just that men get reported and women don't bc when men report THEY ARE INCORRECTLY BLAMED AS THE ABUSER (and other reasons ofc, some of which that apply to both genders)

-there are little to no resources in most places for male abusees or victims of sexual assault. no shelters, no hotlines, nothing. where I am there were and are no hotlines or shelters for male victims

-chromosomes and other genetical factors are more complex than just male and female. there are more combinations than just XX and XY. also its not like anyone can see your dna or chromosomes anyway? it's pretty much irrelevant

-by treating trans women as abusers and offenders you are reinforcing stereotypes that I thought you were meant to be breaking down

-feminism is about equality, not female supremacy, which none of them seem to understand

-there is plenty of science behind being trans. more than plenty, actually.

-whilst trans men are not the actual victims of terfs as a whole, treating them as confused lesbians or straight girls is infantilising and also tends to be done in a way that reinforces stereotypes that are harmful against women

-literally all it takes to educate yourself is something as easy as looking up the NHS site for gender dysphoria which is one of the most reliable sources I've seen

-talk to trans people without throwing accusations, especially trans women. terfs are so uneducated on trans women especially that it's amazing they even feel the right to attack them. just have a damn discussion for once with a willing participant in which you are polite

-bringing up or making fun of people's genitals is not only borderline sexual harassment, but it's disgusting

-bringing up or making fun of minors' genitals is borderline illegal if not completely illegal and also disgusting

-actually, attacking minors altogether which I've seen terfs do is horrifying. harassing children is fucking vile behaviour especially when it involves their fucking genitals

-a lot of what terfs say sounds like an entryway or attempt at conversion. trans people are also subject to conversion therapy, terfs!

-terfs reinforce the oppression trans people face on a day to day basis

-feminists themselves have said transphobic has no place in feminism

-believe it or not, you are bullying people. bullying is one of the leading factors behind suicide and self harm, which trans people often suffer with anyway for various reasons

-some trans people don't hate their bodies

-gender affirmation surgery is actually classed as reconstructive

-a lot of cis people agree with trans folk and respect their existence. in fact, a majority of people do. we're not just some weird phenomenon

-just because one trans person does a bad thing doesn't mean every trans person supports that thing. just because a few trans people do bad things doesn't mean every trans person does or supports that thing

-some gay people don't know about their sexuality until they experiment. not every gay person immediately knows their sexuality. the experience of discovering your sexuality is different for everyone. saying there's only one gay or a lesbian experience is, congrats, homophobic

this literally isn't even everything about terfs that's fuckin insane, so feel free to add on to this list lmao

this post is about terfs. do not derail, and do not debate transmed/tucute things on this post. do not debate exclusionism or inclusionism here. this is about terfs, gay folk, lesbian folk, trans women, and trans men exclusively.

[alrightfleur]

『 dominique jackson. forty-six. trans woman. she/her. 』did you see FLEUR CALLISTO in APARTMENT #27 in spectrum house? yeah, they’re pretty +CREATIVE, right? they’re very +WITTY, too. some say that they can be -CONCEITED and -CRITICAL, but i don’t see it. they work as a FORMER MODEL TURNED MODELING AGENT around san francisco. you know, they remind me of A MINK COAT DRAPED OVER A $30 CHAIR. i’m glad they’ve been at spectrum house for TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS. without them, this place just wouldn’t be the same.『 may. 21. est. she/her. 』

hi y’all !! i’m may and i’m so sorry i took so long -- i have been Busy and Tired but !! have also been dying to get this up !! it is not my Hottest nor most Detailed Work but !! i’ll add more as the days go on !! j wanna go ahead and get something up for her so i’ve got a good basis !!

triggers: brief mention of death, briefly acknowledged historical trans & homophobia

fleur was born and raised in san francisco. adopted by a wealthy couple when she was still an infant, she never knew the meaning of the word ‘want’ until what she wanted was acceptance.

before anything, she came out as bisexual. i don’t want to get too historical, but as everyone knows, the 80s were an awful time to make that decision. however, her parents accepted this. there may have been some peer distancing, but her support system still existed -- a support system she feared she would lose when she heard a term and realized an extra layer had been added: she is, and always was, a woman.

behind her parents’ backs ( not due to them not accepting her, due to the fear that they wouldn’t ), she would try on dresses and other typically feminine clothing. she tried her mother’s makeup. even with the littlest skillset, she was gorgeous.

it was then that her mother found her. she was unarmed with excuses... but it didn’t matter. her parents were new to the idea, a bit confused, but remained supportive of her. they bought her her own dresses for her birthday and christmas, her mother taught her how to apply makeup. nonetheless, fleur couldn’t build up the confidence to leave the house in that clothing -- reasonable -- until her parents offered to take her dress shopping themselves. she could get whatever she wanted. she just had to leave as herself.

so let me fast forward a couple of years. her parents fuckin died, because of course they did, and she was left astray. while able to live off of the money they left her in their will for a certain amount of time, she needed somewhere cheaper to stay. she needed a job. and, most importantly, she needed another support system. and that was when she met xavier.

it was the last year of his life, if i recall correctly, but he radiated warmth and a fatherly love that she desperately missed. he told her she was beautiful, inside and out. he told her she was valid, because she was herself. he told her things she had only ever heard from her parents. everything he said was... like home.

shortly after his passing, she took advantage of his words. her beauty. we’re gonna skip the logistics for right now because i don’t have time to look them up adklsjfhalejdks but, by the time she was 23, she was an actual model. 25, a ‘supermodel’. there were details of her life that were kept behind closed doors to the public, it not being the right time period for men to know that the woman on the cover of their magazine was not cis or straight.

but she hated hiding. it felt like she was 15 again, scared and unacceptable. but she was louder now, more confident in herself -- xavier and her parents had heightened that inner beauty.

at 30, she did something quite scandalous: in an important interview, she went off-script. she didn’t want to hide her truth anymore.

of course, this got her fired. her agency knew and, with her large appeal, had absolutely no problem with it -- they simply feared the public would. so she resolved, in that moment, to start her own agency -- specializing in lgbtq+ models.

it took it a long time to get it off its feet, almost running into bankruptcy, but, as the years went by, more and more people filed in. 

she is now back to being a Rich Bitch™, but continues to occupy the apartment she’s had for so long to honor xavier.

this was so bad i’m so sorry i’m gonna try to make it better tonight + add some personality and wc tidbits (though, in advance, one would be some models!), but!!!!!!!!!! here r some basics along w some random details bc. ofc i cldn’t just do one or the other.

[daisyachain]

the niche community of queer-via-fandom tumblr is a) very funny b) very annoying and it’s interesting to think about why. first, this is ofc limited by my own experiences, but i say there’s lineage from superwholock (or whatever the thing is that got people on to tumblr and discussing queer themes in the first place) to bi vs pan discourse.

first, tumblr is a blogging platform with a culture of anonymous content creation/sharing that supports a queer community that largely grew/grows out of pop culture fans, specifically slash fans. most of this community is made up of people who went online to seek out/talk about fiction that wasn’t widely popular in their IRL communities. through factors i don’t know and don’t want to try to explain, the fan contingent on tumblr tended towards the afab.

slash content has been a focus of female fan content (for better or worse) from the K/S zines of the 60s through Naruto through (we hate to say it) Superwholock. the proportional importance of m/m relationships in male-dominated fiction combined with the slash goggles of existing female-majority fan communities makes analysis of m/m relationships into an important part of fandom on tumblr immediately post-livejournal. the first generations of kids drifting on to tumblr following fan content for H**** P***** or Naruto or whatever niche childhood obsession made them seek out other people’s opinions, content, etc.

so we have fiction-addict kids and teenagers joining fan spheres focused on interpreting m/m interactions as romantic. again, for better or worse. with that focus on interpretation/subtext in relationships, said first-time fans get saturated with non-heteronormative content and explanations or rationales for how ostensibly hetero people can in fact be gay, or how that might express itself. this broadly applies to multiple types of queerness, but first-gen tumblr was strictly m/m focused.

anyway, as they internalize this framework for interpretation and let it percolate, your average fan tumblr unconsciously starts applying it to their own life. they map their own experiences with non-conformity, isolation, alienation, and discomfort with cisheteronormative expectations on to fictional characters who they interpret as queer. these people are still teens or young adults and have only experienced queerness through fan spheres online in an anonymous environment saturated with queer or at least nominally queer content. because it’s relatively safe, these people are free to and do come out when they realize that they don’t fit cis hetero norms. this has a bit of a snowball effect, and so tumblr becomes known for a large community of queer content creators with interests in fiction and visual arts.

however, Average Queer Tumblr User by this point has been able to explore their queer identity and come out without ever going to an explicitly queer place or meeting explicitly queer people IRL. their entire context for being queer is the shipping-focused fan community that also is a large part of tumblr’s base, and whatever discourse or queer theory happens to slip through into that sphere. because of the danger of the outside world and the isolation of the online world, your Average Queer Tumblr User may or may not know or learn anything about queer history or queer thought, and if they do it’s entirely coincidental. this community didn’t grow out of existing queer communities, if anything it grew out of straight cis female fan communities without real context for queerness as an identity outside of IRL bigotry and without any continuity from the pre-existing queer community.

and so, the tumblr ‘can’t be a lesbian if you’re nb’ ‘pansexality is biphobic and bisexuality is panphobic’ ‘women who aren’t attracted to men are straight’ ‘amab people can’t be nonbinary’ queer community does have a reason for how it reliably produces the worst takes you’ve ever heard--everyone here is figuring things out from scratch and from the few references to queer history sources they’re aware of. tumblr is the cave, fiction is the fire, and we are watching the shadows of queer people on the wall

[homosexula]

long post sorry

been thinking about how so many people (even other trans people) subconsciously believe in the gender binary and how it affects their views. like even people who accept nonbinary people view them as being on a spectrum with men and women being the opposite ends of the spectrum, and you can see this belief reflected in the way so many people view trans men and trans women (or amab people and afab people, or transmascs and transfems, or people who experience transmisogyny and those who dont, etc etc) as opposites.

i think this is why people act as though if trans women experience one thing trans men must experience the inverse and vice versa. why people think trans mens experiences must be the opposite of those of trans women.

if you follow this logic, it makes perfect sense to say that because trans women grow up traumatized by the closet and by transmisogyny, that because trans women grow up unable to truly access male privilege despite being viewed as bpys/men by many, and that because so-called male socialization is bullshit, the opposite is true of trans men.

however, as trans men and women are not opposites, that doesnt hold up. the fact that trans women and other trans people who experience transmisogyny are uniquely traumatized by their upbringing and dont experience the freedoms that cis boys do as children does not inherently imply that trans men and tme trans people are not traumatized by their childhood and are in fact allowed those freedoms.

(before i continue i need to clarify that you will never hear me say "female socialization" in any way outside of mocking, and that transmisogyny is absolutely a deeply alienating and horrifying trauma that people who arent trans women/transfems/etc are clearly not subject to)

in other words, trans women not being able to access the freedoms of living as a young cis boy or man does not mean that trans men are raised free from the trauma of being a child who people view as a girl and treat accordingly. and the fact that trans girls instinctively know that harmful messages and ideals directed at women apply to them even if theyre not always individually and specifically directed to them in their personal lives does not mean that trans boys instinctively know these messages do not apply to them even when directly faced with them.

its okay to point out the inherent trauma of being a closeted trans child who is subject to transmisogyny and also point out the trauma of being a closeted trans child who is subject to so-called misdirected misogyny (i dislike this term, i think it implies that if people were simply aware you dont actually identify as a woman they would stop, but i cant think of how else to put it so here we are).

in fact, i would say that the only true gender binary is the binary of cis men vs everyone else. cis men are the only group not directly targeted and traumatized by gender oppression in both childhood and later life. (this is not to say that gender oppression is healthy for cis men either tho obviously but theyre not its direct victim and it can benefit them in many ways while still emotionally poisoning them.)

the point here is that trans women and trans men are not enemies, nor even merely opposites. were all a community and we all experience transphobia and we even all experience gender oppression/misogyny in different but not opposite ways. we need to stop viewing our communities as separate and we need to stop lashing out at each other for having different experiences so that we can work together. and yes ive seen both trans men lash out at trans women and vice versa and thats just gotta stop!!! (and no im not counting trans women and transfems wanting a space that is specifically for people who experience transmisogyny and is free of men as lashing out ofc.) anyway idk how to end this this is just smth ive been ruminating on for a while and wanted to try and articulate lmao feel free to throw your two cents onto this long ass post if you feel so inclined

[spectraling]

I was reading a bit of Anons hating on Nancy, and two words came up in my mind, that describes perfectly what is going on: interiorized misogyny. Having in mind that a large proportion of the ST fandom are young girls aged 13-16 (correct me if I'm wrong), who still get fed by patriarchal standards on females and still don't have the mental skills to refraim from this mindset, this does explain a lot. A way to deal with this would be questioning them the reasons to dislike this female character.

Lol, anon, if only. There is definitely a ton of adults on here that think the same. (Internalized) misogyny is not something one escapes easily, unless you really start to question your priorities when it comes to male and female characters. If Steve had been a woman, everyone would’ve thought he was a selfish bitch. We claim to want flawed female characters, we claim we’re feminists, but yet when a female character makes any sort of mistake we tear her to pieces while her male counterparts are allowed to stumble around as long as they’re “charming” or “hot”. Hell, they don’t even have to be that, they just have to be white cis men with a one-liner or a baseball bat.

We know this is misogyny. @nancykali talks about this all the time. And it’s not limited to the fans, the writers are ofc not super aware of their own sexist bias when writing. It sucks that so many female characters on this show have a ton of potential, but it’s never fully realized bc they’re always intrinsically tied to male characters first and foremost. It makes no sense for Nancy to be this hated unless you apply the sexist bias that everyone has.

[sivisgirlfriend]

long rambly post about lesbian loneliness under the cut hhhhhh

it’s kind of sad that i just realized that these days at school i consider (most likely) straight men to be the easiest people to sit next to in class in case i need to talk to them. like, obviously i would prefer to sit next to & talk to women but more often than not i feel like i’m creeping them out or they just... don’t know how to talk to me? and i’m not saying this to praise men, like i don’t think they’re actively being nice to me and some/most of them are rude to me as well, but the “safe” state of them is just like... when they realize that i’m not interested in them so they’re not weird about it or try to hit on me but instead just act neutral and civil for like the five minutes we have to discuss a question. but with women i feel like a) they’re creeped out by me if they realize i’m a lesbian b) they’re confused because they don’t realize i’m a lesbian so they don’t know how to talk to me or c) i feel like they’re creeped out so it gets weird. so i’m just in this vicious cycle

and i know it’s pretty petty but i feel kinda jealous whenever i hear ppl talk about making friends or about how they just walk up to someone and start talking. like. i could never do that? and i feel like because of the way i look and how i’m kind of... ambiguous gender presentation-wise so much more is expected of me socially. like i already risk being seen as a weirdo by just existing as who i am so i feel like if i make the smallest mistake or if i’m a little awkward in a social situation people will feel weird and leave the conversation. ppl say that i should just act confident or whatever but that will come across as me “trying to be a man” or something and like... the only option i feel like i have left is to make a fool/joke out of myself and who i am which is something i don’t want to do after this many years of repressing my identity as a butch lesbian. like it’s so frustrating that in a social situation i can tell that i’ve got it and i’m saying a lot of things or even making ppl laugh but i can still tell that they’re uncomfortable and don’t want to be in the situation ://

ofc here i’m talking mostly about straight people but i feel like this sometimes applies to gay ppl and especially other wlw. it’s a little different of course but anyway. like... i’m content just having my own little social circle & family, it’s not like i actively need more people in my life but knowing that i couldn’t have them very easily if i wanted to just bums me out. i pretty desperately want to have other wlw/lesbian friends casually/irl or just to like... talk to other wlw but whenever i try it just doesn’t work out? online it’s fine but irl just like. doesn’t work. i especially want to talk to other butches but that’s a whole other story really because like... i get mistaken for a guy for quite a lot and that’s mostly straight people, like i don’t think other butches mistake me for a cis teenage boy BUT i’m so scared that they don’t pay attention to me or when they see me they think i’m a man anyway like. or that i’m transmasc or something. because people have done that a lot. and whenever i look at myself and the way i feel comfortable presenting it doesn’t scream butch even to me, like it just says genderless blob who someone could easily read as “man” and i’m just ! god ! i know this might be kind of problematic to say and obviously i don’t think clothing/presentation = gender but like.. many people do. idk other butches or anyone really interact lmao.

saljdakljd this got really long, can’t believe this started out as me realizing that my favorite school acquaintance is a straight man 

[neonstatic]

in response to all that went down in this post (making a new post bc it was getting way too long for my liking)

sorry for joining this already never ending post but i think there's smth @veryrarelystable and @minato-arisato are missing here.

allogloss's post says that cis ppl don't get to decide whether someone is trans or not. that seems to be smth you two understand fairly well. but when vrs jumps in to argue that 'actually cis opinions matter bc how else would i be a good ally' is not welcome. this post never explicitly that cis ppl can't be allies to trans ppl. if there had been confusion abt this, he could've simply asked: “excuse me but what do you mean by this? does it mean we cannot defend trans ppl either?” to which she would have replied “no you can but/bc OR no you can’t but/bc" and queue an explanation.

i have to disagree tho with minato saying that vrs wanted to educate himself. the format of his response clearly wasn't conveying that message. he was clearly trying to educate /her/. and a cis person arguing with a trans person that they get to have opinions on trans ppl bc that enables them to be a good ally is, frankly, not a good look. i know you've got good intentions vrs but i can't help but feel like you could've gone abt this without taking the "b-but i'm a trans ally and i'm cis and i have good opinions!". i realize i might condescending myself but tbh, that's rly how it came across.

and minato, it's gonna sound weird coming from a nb person to a trans woman, but to imply that she was being terfy by saying she doesn't think a man should be in a feminist forum is also missing the point of what being a trans exclusionary feminist means. men can be dominating offline and online as well. not bc it's online that they can't ignore what women say and dominate the conversation. i know tho that a physical presence in women spaces adds a risk of assault for example so ofc a man in a feminist forum sounds less threatening. however many see feminism as a movement that should be led by women only so it's normal that some would think men shouldn't be in those spaces (offline or online). the thought process i often see is that if you allow them into the spaces, then are they feminist allies or just plain feminists/members? do their opinion matter as much as the women's? can they speak as much as the women or do we have to remind them to stay in their lane? a lotta complicated shit. all that to say that sharing one ideology with terfs is not automatically bad. not every ideology terfs have is terf rhetoric. that's a common mistake that often leads to unfair accusations and hurt feelings.

tldr; 1) the post isn't saying "cis allies don't matter we don't want cis ppl to defend us" it says "cis ppl don't get to decide what makes someone trans or not" it is pretty self explanatory, it applies to discourse on 'trenders', dysphoria and the medicalization of transness  -all intracommunity stuff no cis person should touch. it's not "charlie you can't say nb count as trans you're cis this isn't abt you".

2) not every idea terfs have is bad and automatically terfy (e.g. equality between men and women is smth terf believe in and that's not terfy that's just an ideology - what is terfy abt terf is their exclusion of trans ppl)

3) basically i think the rule of thumb is if you're cis, you can defend and argue for trans ppl but avoid arguing against them unless you got facts backing you up (e.g. arguing against a binary trans that nb ppl are trans if you've seen the video of the trans flag creator specifically saying that the white stripe is for nb ppl. that's a fact that can't be disputed.)

cis opinions on who is or isnt trans are irrelevant because cis people will never be able to actually understand what trans people go through.