#one of the articles will at least have a section on harrassment. it's more complex than it looks (but still a horrifying thing to do)

[engiiiiiii]

i don't technically have a problem with the term anti-transmasculinity it's just... not a term? like we don't do this for anything else surely? and then people attack that as a term and like... I really like the term transandrophobia, it doesn't have negative connections, it's an actual term, etc. the discourse against it just fits into downplaying every transmasc view until it's nice or something. we really need to unify on these terms at least because it's the first step to combatting erasure. it also promotes it as an academic term which does help avoid this kinda discourse happening again. I mean this is an online discourse anyway, but that's my only community rn so. it's very worth the fight. i mean im not helping by being a transgirl and talking far too authoritively about this but maybe I am helping. maybe.

[mcivercomix]

Tw, I mention rape and sexual assault / harassment and suicide in this response

I really wasn't expecting a reply, and I certainly didn't think it would be respectful as it is, thank you for that.

Most certainly there is misogyny, homophobia, and racism amongst trans people. But I don't think it in any way shows that trans women aren't women at all.

Just as trans women can be misogynistic, so too can cis women. Because again like you said, it's all encompassing. Everyone is taught to be misogynistic. There are women who advocate advocate against abortion and birth control of any kind. There are women who teach their daughters to be passive and to ignore male violence. Yet they're all still women.

You say trans women want to use female only spaces as to feel validated, and while I can't speak for every trans woman on the planet, I can say that for myself and pretty much every trans woman I know, the reason we'd use something like the women's restroom is because we're worried about getting assaulted in the men's.

All the trans men I know also prefer the women's restroom for this very reason. We don't have spaces where we can go that are deemed appropriate. Gender neutral spaces exist but certainly not in most places, at least near me.

It's not about our feelings, it's about safety.

You linked an article about desexed language and for the most part that language is for trans men. Men who often still have their breasts, uterus's, and may or may not be on hormones. They're the group of people being included with language like "pregnant people" and what not. I'm really arguing in support of desexed language, I couldn't read the article you linked actually because of a paywall but I found this and I think this section is a pretty good objection to it.

Like most things I think it depends on context. The hemoglobin level in my body is in the range of cis womens, and HRT has done everything from redistribute my fat to change the amount of oil produced by my skin. My medical needs are more complex than "male" or "female". Still, I'm not fully disagreeing with you on this point and I'll be sure to read Invisible Women.

When it comes to your claim that trans women call all lesbians who don't want to sleep with them transphobic... I'm really sorry but it sounds like you're fighting a strawman.

I don't know anyone with that mindset, and while I'm not saying it doesn't exist (I have seen it one or two times online) I am saying that it's ridiculous to act like most trans women think like that.

I don't care who you do and don't find attractive! Any serious person doesn't either. I'm not a lesbian, I won't speak about what's happening in lesbian spaces but is the presence of trans lesbians really that detrimental? We're not some huge percentage of the population. And most trans lesbians I know are exclusively in t4t (trans for trans) relationships.

I did grow up male, and I have no problem saying I was socialized as one. But do you really think that If a man came up to me and started sexually harassing me, he'd start treating me like a man if I told him I was actually trans?

The answer is he won't, I've been in that exact situation. Luckily we were alone so he just ignored it and kept harassing me, trying to get me to do things I don't wanna repeat. If there were other men around though I might've gotten my ass beaten or killed.

That's because of male socialization. Young boys are socialized to see women as some sort of prize and not as people. They seek to segregate themselves from women altogether, only interacting when receiving their "prize".

In these boys only congregations though they still seek blood, and constantly ridicule, exclude, and sexually harrass/assault any other boys they deem as too feminine or gay.

This is what it was like for me growing up.

I remember attempting to perform some hyper masculine persona for like a year in middle school but it didn't work. I eventually started to spend more of my time with girls which the other boys did not let go unpunished.

In highschool I wore a dress to school one day. I didn't pass at all, anyone looking at me would've thought I was a boy. But in the middle of some math class a boy I knew began to rub his foot up and down my legs, and just laughed when I told him to stop, moving his foot higher up to my thighs. I remember him telling me it was because of what I was wearing before almost kicking me in the crotch.

Men do this to keep other men in line, it's how they're socialized. Every trans woman knows this, every trans woman goes through this. Men look at us like they do cis women. Some of them only support us because they desire our bodies, others who either don't find trans women attractive, or do but are ashamed of it attempt to paint us as hideous hardly human monsters in order to dehumanize us.

When trans women are forced into male spaces, especially prisons, they are subject to this playground mentality times a thousand. Trans women in male prisons are raped every single day, in locker rooms and bathrooms they're often harassed if not assaulted.

I can't force society to see me or other trans people in the way we want to be seen. That's why we transition, because we want to be seen as women or as men and people won't accept that unless we completely change everything about ourselves. So when you see us advocating for stuff like this, please know it's about our safety.

This is the biggest thing that confuses me, and really just makes me sad. I've seen Terfs and Radicals Femisists reply to articles about this with laughter and mockery. If I didn't look at the profiles, I wouldn't have been able to tell them apart from the men. How can women who advocate for female liberation, who speak out against the exact same issues I also face, find the suffering of people like me amusing?

You mentioned stuff like terfbre@king, of course I think that's disgusting. I've never heard of it until now, and honestly yeah that might speak to a problem of trans people not calling gross shit like that out in our communities. But I've seen people with your exact mentality celebrate sexual violence against people like me. In fact, I've seen them deny that it's even possible for any not born a girl to experience sexual violence.

How is that not apart of rape culture? How are people like that any different from men?

I'm not trying to say you're like this btw. I hope it doesn't come off like that.

I simply don't think of gender like you do. I think people just make assumptions about people based on physical characteristics and social behaviors to determine someones gender. Both man and woman are social roles we've created, vaguely defined. It's like asking me to define a chair.

I can't give you a concrete definition of what a woman is, or what a man is. The best I can do is gesture vaguely at a handful of things we associate with each and yes, you're 100% correct to call out some of those as misogynistic stereotypes. Man and woman, it's a creation of culture. We force people into these roles, I've read countless stories by intersex people who say how surgery was done to their genitalia in order to put them into one of these boxes, irregardless of whether or said genitalia presented a problem for the child.

As for what separates someone like me from a feminine man, it's that I live as a woman. A feminine man might be treated exactly like me, or he may be treated entirely differently. I will say, one exception to the playground mentality I talked about earlier is performing femininity to mock it. When boys jokingly shove tennis balls down their shirt to look like breasts or talk in a overly exaggerated high pitched "girl voice". Sometimes a bunch of these dudes get together and build a whole culture out of it, and yeah it's really annoying and upsetting.

However it doesn't matter if he's a normal dude™ or some racist misogynistic femboy from the depths of 4-chan. He's a man if he thinks of himself as a man. Just as I'm probably a man to you. Ones gender is the role we assign to ourselves and others, typically based off appearance.

Lots of trans women will tell you the whole "I was always a girl" line, and that's really just a line to say to cis people. But myself and a lot of the trans women I know explain it as "we wanted to be girls, and then became women". Sometimes I look in the mirror and see a man, sometimes I don't know what I see, but most of the time these days I see a delightful young woman who I don't hate. Probably the best perk of transitioning is being able to look at mirrors.

I'm not just saying that trans women also experience a lot of the issues cis women do under a patriarchal society. I'm saying all trans people experience it.

Trans men and some non-binary people grow up as women, and those actively transitioning might not (and might not want to) fully pass in order to be viewed as "real men".

I just don't think gender works like some immovable switch. I think we're meant to get a little silly with it, experiment, and find what makes us comfortable. And it's so fun looking at all the weird shit trans people do!

Trans men who still identify as lesbians

Trans women who still identify as gay men

People with xeno-pronouns (I don't even understand these but they're so interesting from a linguistic perspective).

All the crazy shit non-binary people do.

And Im sure you're frowning with disapproval reading this, lots of trans people might be too. But imagine a world where that's all perfectly ok, a world where gender doesn't really matter all that much and people have the freedom to move between them as they please. In this fictional society, a patriarchy couldn't exist, because it requires control.

I do understand your counter to this, that a society where gender is no longer completely determined at birth would opt instead to control whatever class of people could give birth. And that's a very genuine thing to worry about. However trans rights are largely an issue of ones bodily autonomy, just as woman's rights are. It's why trans people align themselves with cis feminists and why they often align with us. I think your reasons make sense in vacuum, but I think the reality truly is that we truly do just have the same problems, the same enemies.

Sure, I doubt this society will ever exist on this planet, and if it does it certainly won't exist within my lifetime. But neither will the fictional female only society plenty of Radical Femisists strive for, and both of them will be filled with countless other problems.

I hope I'm not misunderstanding the Radical Femisist idea of this too much. I am still a little fuzzy on the topic, hence my general interest in it. I'm really sorry for how long this response is, I didn't intend it to be 😭😭😭

If you read this all (won't blame you if you didn't) thank you very much.

I go into a lot of detail because I'm worried about not explaining myself properly, so I'm sorry if it seemed like I'm talking down to you at any point in this. Not my intent at all.

Thank you for typing out your response too. Most of it didn't change how I feel but the bit about language did interest me and have me question a few of the beliefs I already had since it's not really a thing I think about alot. Your citing of sources is also very much appreciated.

lately i've been doing a lot of thinking about why women are the main supporters of transgenderism, and i think i've boiled it down to three main elements

1. women are socialised to be more accommodating and accepting of uncomfortable situations than men are. this has been discussed at length in the radical feminist tradition and the gender critical movement, but it bears reiterating. women are taught from early childhood to disbelieve their feelings of fear, anger and humiliation for the benefit of men.

2. i'd argue that the description of physical dysphoria is one that almost all women empathise with, because of how alienated women are from their bodies by society, in a way most men are not. even women who would say they are comfortable with their bodies have complicated feelings about having a female body in our society, even if they don't have the framework to express it. therefore, when women are confronted with men who make claims about sex dysphoria, they relate and empathise and some can draw conclusions that this distress aligns them with femaleness (i would argue that all women experience sex dysphoria in a misogynist society like ours but i digress). i think there many women also find solace in the idea that someone else could possibly have their physical distress alleviated and want to believe it is possible to find a solution to it.

In other words, “The body has been made so problematic for women that it has often seemed easier to shrug it off and travel as a disembodied spirit.” - Adrienne Rich

3. women want to believe that male oppression and men aren't really that bad. to comprehend the scale of women's oppression, and to fully understand that the men you know and love are as complicit in it as any other, feels like balancing on the brink of madness. women are desperate for evidence that things aren't as bad as they suspect.

Andrea Dworkin says it best: “Many women, I think, resist feminism because it is an agony to be fully conscious of the brutal misogyny which permeates culture, society, and all personal relationships.”

that is part of the allure of the trans movement for these women in denial. breaking down the categories of male and female, and denying the social dynamics therein, means they don't have to grapple with the ugliness of misogyny.

anyone else have thoughts on this? i'd be keen to hear if others on radblr think

[brendathewriter]

MyFitnessPal 6/16/18

So, apparently the "Food Note" section of "MyFitnessPal" has a built in brake for rambling spoonies. Far as I can recall Tumblr doesn't.

Saturday, June 16,2018

Food Notes

Water was from water bottle next to bed, 1 cup/8oz from 9am to 1pm

Also had 5oz Kool aid @ lunch about 2pm

Missed 5:30am & 6am meds.

Then the rambling kicked in...MS caused ADHD? FibroFog? Post Concussion Syndrome from long ago Domestic Violence? Too Much Trump Crap? 😵

I will never know. Here is what didn't fit on MFP:

Slept through alarm & I think 🐕 Booker trying to wake me up. (Had dreams about being pelted by ⛈ ice in a hailstorm & woke up with multiple sore spots on my leg, trunk. Trazadone causes vivid dreams but c'mon it doesn't leave bruises, right?)

Woke up around 9:30am because 🐕Booker was standing on me trying to move my left arm with his snout, crying & whining, ears in the "worried" position...maybe trying to get to my 🚑 emergency button?

(Random thought: Is Booker worried about the talk with Vet about his retirement as my service animal maybe? He seems damn proud of his vest sometimes, and seems to be trying to "prove" he's still "got it" even blind. Or am I just needing his help more?)

Ate breakfast w/o even tasting it.

Just another chore on ☑ ToDo List for a GPac-er.

Fed dog, did timed void, bowel check, and went back to bed.

Hey, at least I stayed awake. Watched YouTube crash course on statistics & a PBS series on ClimateChange which made me feel at least I accomplished learning some new stuff.

I played a match 3 game on my phone, as per my neuropsychologist & OT orders, but got bored with it. The crumbs in my bedsheets also itched me suspiciously like I imagined the on screen ants might.

It is bad enough having a form of neuropathy that feels like armies of ants on my left side, 22% of whom show up for drill each morning drunk as hell.

Then saw I had replies from fb friends in ongoing discussion about GOP & Trump & WarOnHumanity & my battles.

Wrote a response to those replies - a continuation of my day before blog post "Poverty & Perception.

That exhausted me....😖

..... but momentarily I felt less depressed about my situation.😀 I had accomplished something else! I had written something! Two days in a row! 😁😁

Oh oh! Realized my FB post thoughts fed into that whole "martyr/hairshirt" thing in my life as a Lay Franciscan Religious. 😱 Then realized that while it was heartfelt, it was also rambling and too long.

Facebook users in my experience generally only have a 7 second attention span. If there is a colorful background. Of course, @BrendaEckels on Twitter I have a mere 240 characters and less than 2 seconds to catch a "heart" or "RT".

Again, my mood started to plummet as I remembered when cranking out concise, engaging 400 word articles came as easy as writing poetry or deboning a whole chicken. In other words, before 2006.

I glanced toward my "homework" for vocational rehab due on Tuesday, and nearly burst into tears.

PRN anti-anxiety med time. Screw this CBT stuff, give me some drugs. I ended up holding the silver pill container around my neck (anxiety + cardiac = yes, it can kill), saying three "Glory Be's" (it's a Catholic thing) while doing Buddhist style deep breathing. It sort of worked, as I fell asleep.

My bladder gave my service dog a break and woke me up about 1:30pm.

So, by the time I ate a smushed, semi hard food pantry cinnamon roll for lunch #1 at 2pm I was still feeling depressed enough to send myself an email about it.

------------

To: Me

From: Me

Subject: I am beyond depressed

Message: Is it the anemia?Facing my failure to get even a Voc Rehab practice job application or practice request for reference right? Poverty in Trumperica in general?...No idea

-------------

I also had Heartburn (scale 3/10), and no appetite - not even for 🍬🍭🍬candy. That fact alone would terrify my home care team & family if they knew, but it's Saturday.

Any idea how hard it is in New Hampshire to find a weekend Aide since Trump started screwing up immigration & worker visas? For 200 years we handled labor shortages by importing whatever group of refugees were wandering the planet.

Worked awesome. Now we have great Greek, French Canadian, Somali food & festivals. Then Trump happened.

Now the plan is to take less disabled spoonie's and make them work as aides for us complex ones for just enough money to qualify & compete with us for food stamps. Worse, it is like indentured servitude: they lose their Medicaid if they say no.

How about finding any Millennials to help you that might because you adopted or gave birth to them? Be serious! They are all out working job #3 on the weekends so maybe they can move out of Gramma's basement!

The afternoon continued largely in the same rough up and down pattern as the morning, although I added "brushed my hair", "talked on Hangouts to my SO", and "rescued throw pillow from behind loveseat" to my accomplishments.

So, in the end why is it 4pm and I am NOT in an 🏥 ER pulling a 🎫ticket for that 1 in 356 chance of a comfortable psych Hospital bed with a nurse, aides, and free food brought to my bedside?

Reading a supportive message from a fan on Facebook offering to say a mass for me helped (it's a Catholic thing)

Opened the curtain, (but not so much the people here who harrass me could see into my home). Sunlight streamed on each part of me not swaddled in blankets.

I'm 114lbs 5'3" with arthritis, fibro, & anemia. Do the math. It needs to get to 90 before I thaw enough to wear t-shirt and shorts. Thanks to MS, however, anything over 95.6 makes me deathly sick.) Anyway, Sunlight + Vit D = less depression.

Reading a great blog post by a MH/at risk homeless peer helped. Try it yourself:

That one motivated me to pick up my phone and voice call (!) a homebound MH peer I know in "real life" and wish him a belated Happy Birthday with an apology for being too buried in Spoonie & Poverty shit to be able to call yesterday. Got me out of my own screwed up Spoonie 😵head for a second.

He responded with a joke only a New Hampshire Mental Health consumer would understand and he laughed. It made ME laugh. That gave me oxygen and endophins.

And all that, plus being able to write about it badly where someone who is a poor complex Spoonie in Trumperica might read it and comment with a link to their rambling post about last Wednesday?

Yep. That stuff makes the difference between life and death for more humans on more days than you can imagine. Even the ones who think they are so Abled.

Long live Tumblr's lack of character limits on posts! Long live the little things and the allies, fans, friends that save us spoonies everyday! Long live adorable 🐕Chihuahuas, who....

Crap. That's my smart alarm.

Time for timed void, topical meds, oral ADHD Med, and even though it makes me nauseous to write the words: time for Dinner 1 of the 6 meals a day....

Take care & Thanks For Reading!

Brenda The Writer ♿& her Service 🐕, Booker