#political “category”

[pingintech]

hell yeah man i do in fact reject those binaries as well trans and cis are not immediate black and white separate ends of a spectrum trans is a self identifier th funny thing about self identifiers is you can choose not to identify with cis and also choose not to identify with trans plenty of nonbinary people do exactly that and while its true that nonbinary falls within the broader umbrella term of transgender many nonbinary people choose not to identify that way and ergo are NOT trans and hell yeah imma argue against the idea of mammals vs everything thats not a mammal *Especially* because most of all animals are fish

when i say we should all be working to dismantle binaries as default in our own lives i mean all aspects of our lives its frankly downright unscientific to pretend that the natural order of things is a or b

what better ways are there to talk about transmisogyny in the trans community??? by not assuming there even are trans people unaffected by it by literally just centering the convo around transmisogyny instead of creating two imaginary distinct groups that are in competition with each other and wherein one group is more oppressed by the same forces that affect all trans people

oh youve got me i used the word point instead of category but the people arguing we shouldnt be heavily reliant on agab are in a political category its called being trans being a trans person by default means you inherently exist in a political category and dont pretend that your point wasnt more that you think people saying we shouldnt rely heavily on agab terminology are living in a non political fantasy world i was pushing back against that idea because the people arguing against terminology like this are also coming at it from a political angle they are also fighting for ideals and for a movement

and sure there are intersex ppl who identify as tma just as there are trans women who are also terfs but dont pretend there isnt a real strong gender bent to who you think is or isnt tma or tme especially since tme isnt a term people self identify with as much as it is a term people label others with there are clearly a lot of factors at play when we imagine someone in the trans community is unaffected by transmisogyny up to and including passing politics and stealthing but if agab wasnt so very obviously also heavily part of what most people consider tma/tme its explicit when you include agab usage and tme/tma politics in the same sentence your stance is near outright stated and when your argument HEAVILY hinges on agab you know who youre excluding from the conversation??? intersex people because in discussing agab v socialization intersex people FUNDAMENTALLY do not have the same experiences and hence it is completely unhelpful to discuss gender in that way as it relates to intersex people

imma take a moment to break all this shit down actually ive already made this response real long but imma keep yapping bc you know what this has been bothering me for a real long while now

okay so lets say your afab youre trans masc you pass and youre stealth guess the fuck what??? transmisogyny affects you even if no one else in your life knows youre trans you know youre trans and being stealth you have to listen to alllll the shit people say about trans people when they assume trans ppl arent around your gender is still always called into question in the way most cis mens gender is often called into question and any sign of weakness of hint of femininity is enough for someone to call you a girl guess the fuck what thats trans misogyny

is your average non passing non stealth black trans woman gonna usually have it a lot worse yeah definitely but it is SO not useful to say that she is affected by transmisogyny and he isnt

and dont pretend when you say tme you mean cis people because then the more effective way to talk about it would literally to just talk about cis people and even then guess what cis people are affected by transmisogyny in fact you see it in pop culture all the time female celebrities being judged for being too manly male celebrities being judged for being too feminine no one is immune to transmisogyny and the far right q anon types who like to believe anyone they disagree with is trans are evidence of this because they will actively go out of their way to scrutinize behavior and appearance of cis people for any perceived hints at gender ambiguity and tear that person down for not being peak performance of their gender

saying there are people who arent affected by transmisogyny is as dumb as saying that women are the only ones affected by the patriarch and that feminism is only for women a rhetoric that is in fact VERY common amongst terfs the parallels between the rhetoric is undeniable and its a HUGE part of why whenever i see people talk about tme/tma i get so mad youre literally letting ourselves be radicalized by the same exact fucking talking point but applied to trans people this time watch new era trans terfs add two extra letters to the acronym tmeerf

Genuinely, the reason why so many discussions about transgenderism end up the way they do (in addition to the overt transmisogyny) is a complete unwillingness to view gender (and sexuality) as political categories, instead viewing them exclusively through the lens of "personal identity"

"Why do people use agab/tma? Is not the point of being trans to escape the shackles of your agab?" I cannot stress this enough but I am not the one doing the shackling, society has invented the shackles and I am using language to describe them and how they affect me

In a hypothetical future situation where society is no longer (trans)misogynistic and the patriarchy has been fully dismantled, these terms will have no real use. But it's important to recognize what is current actual material reality and what is simply idealism and hypotheticals

I would love to live in a world where tma vs tme is not a meaningful distinction. But that world doesn't exist (and also you are not helping make it so it does), and so those terms remain useful

[bunnyboy-juice]

NO MORE ASSOCIATING THINGS WITH FEMMES ONLY BECAUSE THEY ARE PINK!HYPERFEM FEMMES ARE GREAT AND I LOVE YOU CAMPY FEMMES WHO EMBODY PINK BUT ALSO JESUS CHRIST CAN YOU GUYS NOT GO MORE THAN ONE DAY W/O TRYING TO SHOEHORN FEMMES INTO BEING ONLY PINK UWU BABIES. I AM FEMME AS IN GRASS AS IN DIRT AS IN TREE BARK AS IN WEEDS SPROUTING THROUGH THE SIDEWALK CEMENT. FEMME AS IN GENDER NONCONFORMITY AS IN FUCK YOU MY FEMININITY IS WHAT *I* SAY IT IS. FEMME AS IN DEPTH AND DARKNESS AND WARMTH AND TERROR. FEMME AS IN CAVES. FEMME AS IN LIGHTNING. FEMME AS IN AN AMALGAMATION OF TRAITS THAT I HAVE DECIDED ARE FEMININE REGARDLESS OF WHAT SOCIETY SAYS. FUCK IS IT THAT HARD TO UNDERSTAND?!???

[curiositypolling]

okay I don't want too much discourse here, I'm just curious where the numbers are (re tumblr), considering how much there is about it

also apologies to the uhhh rest of the world I'm sure youre sick of hearing about this stuff

pls reblog for sample size etc

(before anyone makes any ‘no trump option’ jokes, I figured on the gay communism webbed site it would just get troll votes)

[wistfulwatcher]

emily prentiss + leaving and coming back for her family

[tanadrin]

It is so, so easy not to devote your life to an obsessive hatred of a single category of human being. That some people nevertheless cannot manage this is something I sometimes find really depressing.

[ecstarry]

im so so so tired of seeing people use james latin identity as an accessory but NEVER doing the actual research to make him even slightly accurate to ANY latin american country.

STOP USING OUR CULTURE AS A FUCKING COSTUME IN YOUR FICS. IF YOU DONT HAVE ANY LATINX FRIENDS TO HELP YOU, THERE ARE ENDLESS RESOURCES OUTSIDE OF GOOGLE TRANSLATE FOR YOU TO WRITE HIM RIGHT

[somewhereincairparavel]

I'm so immersed in my jason grace new rome uni fic that I'm studying ancient roman law terms using this as an excuse. help.

[librarycards]

If one subscribes to an ideology that views people with cognitive, psychiatric, and other diagnoses as mostly incompetent, ‘child-like’ and unable to care for themselves or make meaningful decisions about their lives, then an idea such as independent living or living in a non-institutional setting is quite radical, which is why it was, and still is, so ferociously resisted. It may be useful to understand what one means by a ‘dependent population’ that cannot live 'independently,’ which is what many proponents of institutional and group home living say of people with significant disabilities. Two dimensions could be affiliated with the term dependency: first, dependency on the state for financial support, health care, and other provisions; second, perceived inability of people to engage in their own self care without assistance of others (Oliver 1990). Some disabled people seem to fit both definitions.

In everyday usage, dependence implies an inability to care for oneself and thus having to rely on other people’s assistance. Conversely, independence implies not relying on anybody and requiring no assistance, a concept tied to an individualistic ethos (Oliver 1990). Disabled people often embody a different definition of independence, as exemplified in the principles of the Independent Living Movement. Under this framework, independence is perceived as the ability to control one’s life, such as hiring one’s own aides, and deciding on daily routines. It is not understood to mean doing things without any help from others. When analyzing daily living in modern societies, it is hard to find situations in which any people are independent from one another. Thus, projecting dependence as a characteristic only of 'fragile’ members of our societies (i.e., elderly, disabled, and children) may seem natural, but it relies on a specific North American framework of rugged individualism (Ben-Moshe, Nocella, and Withers 2013).

If anything, in many cases it is societal attitudes that create dependence amongst elderly and disabled people. Inaccessibility of the built environment, patronizing attitudes, historical exclusion from schooling and the increasingly fast pace of life in modern societies are all contributing factors to the social construction of disability (Wendell 1996) and dependence (Oliver 1990). Dependence is not inevitable or inherent within these populations. Dependence was prescribed to people with disabilities, and the elderly, so it seems detached from 'normal people’s’ existence (Finkelstein 1993). An additional problem of the creation of forced dependence and infantilization is that it is often 'masked by loving care’ (Hockey and James 1993) of family members or professionals.

Liat Ben-Moshe, “Alternatives to (Disability) Incarceration”, Disability Incarcerated: Imprisonment and Disability in the United States and Canada.

[crowns-of-violets-and-roses]

It really shows how ridiculous the British electoral system is that Starmer’s Labour is on course for a sweeping majority with 40% of the vote. Which is approximately the same percentage of the vote Corbyn’s Labour received in 2017

FPTP delenda est

[comfied-chriterature]

Okay seriously what is it with the "straight a student popular girl adored by everyone as the most beautiful and most caring and helpful actually resents everyone around her and the pedestal she's been put on and fake smiles her way through the day" always having PURPLE HAIR??

(Also she's comphet lesbian-coded -> "Little Miss Perfect" vibes LMAO)

[ezrazone]

i bring a “being into fantasy incest / CNC / age play scenarios for sexual gratification is morally neutral” vibe to the kink and fandom communities that people who have yet to unpack the sexual anxiety and conservatism and outright reactionary fascist tendencies underpinning what they think are coherent “left” politics reaaaaally reaaaaally don’t fucking like

[identitty-dickruption]

the thing is. I understand why dyadic trans people cling to the "sex is biological + gender is social" dichotomy. it's a very comforting dichotomy for a lot of people! sex is something that feels natural and biological so it can take some really hard work to deconstruct it. whereas, if you continue to take sex for granted but separate it from gender, you gain this cool new way to explain your body and your experiences. like I said. that's super comforting for a lot of people

but unfortunately for anyone who might feel comforted by that dichotomy....... it is actually worth the hard work of dismantling and deconstructing. you're never going to be able to fight for real liberation by continuing to parrot the idea that sex is natural. you're going to keep on reinforcing intersexist (and often transphobic) ideas about the world unless you can really properly understand the ways that sex is just as social as gender

[stalebagels]

[lord-squiggletits]

Pharma's place in a Functionist society (headcanon)

So I've talked in some previous posts about all the reasons that Pharma isn't a functionist because canon never showed him espousing functionist ideals + he's actually in a place to be a victim of functionism. And I've been working on a Pharma-centric oneshot that made me put into words the best metaphor I can think of for Pharma's relationship with Functionism:

He doesn't support Functionism, but is simultaneously a beneficiary of it and also marginalized by it, because his position of being forged both a doctor and a jet basically turns him into a "token minority" of sorts.

I know that sounds kind of silly or maybe like a clumsy political allegory, but hear me out. There are a couple facts about Pharma and the circumstances of his forging that put him at the crossroads between privilege and marginalization within Functionism:

Tyrest says that Pharma was "famous for being forged." Not famous for being a forged medic-- otherwise surely Ratchet would be just as noteworthy-- but famous for being FORGED. But also, note that this is an opinion that SOCIETY had about Pharma, not something that Pharma espouses about himself. (For the sake of an example, Pharma isn't Starscream, who has an explicit, deep-seated need for others' love and approval. Pharma himself doesn't express any opinions on his own popularity or convey that fame/adoration is something he wants.)

Functionism on Cybertron held that if someone was born with a certain alt-mode, they can/should only have certain jobs. For people born with flight alt-modes, those people were almost always regulated to military or transportation/courier jobs

SIMULTANEOUSLY, Pharma was forged with medic hands, which under a Functionist society were viewed as the peak of medical care and all the best doctors were forged or at least had a "special something" that non-forged hands lacked (according to Ratchet).

So taken in combination, this means that from the moment of Pharma's birth, he straddled a line of Functionism between two different "predestined" paths for him, where he was simultaneously forged to be a doctor and also forged to fly, fitting into BOTH of these categories despite norms of Functionism which say you're one or the other. And I speculate that the reason Pharma is "famous for being forged" is precisely because of those lines he straddles: his very existence is a contradiction, but he was also FORGED that way. The same creed that dictated the two different functions of "hands" and "alt-mode" also says that Pharma should be what he was born to be. What he was born to be was a forged medic jet.

In my opinion, I think that being "famous for being forged" is sort of like a token-minority situation for Pharma, where perhaps Pharma was seen as a curiosity or even something exotic, not just as a person. Maybe because he was a jet and people assumed jets were only soldiers/transportation, a lot of his achievements were put in the light of "Oh, he's a really amazing doctor, for a jet" or "It's crazy that he's a doctor AND a jet at the same time". The attention Pharma received for the unique circumstances of his birth WAS positive, but it would've likely been framed in a bit of a condescending way, as if Pharma is noteworthy and famous not for being a good doctor, but for being a good doctor despite being born a jet.

So I would say that as far as Pharma's personal experience with Functionism, he simultaneously experienced privilege and marginalization. He enjoyed the privileges of being a medic while avoiding the restrictions of being a flight frame. However, a lot of the idolization and attention he received would have also come from a place of tokenizing Pharma: he's "famous for being forged," because in this society he's defying expectations merely for existing as himself. That is to say, Pharma in a Functionist society wasn't treated as remarkable because of who he is as a person and how hard he worked to be a good doctor; he was treated as remarkable for the circumstances of his forging, something he had no control over and can't change, and apparently Pharma being a forged medic jet is such a noteworthy origin that he's "famous" for it.

The above paragraph is purely headcanon, of course, but I like to imagine that part of Pharma's reason for having a big ego isn't out of simple vanity or insecurity, but because of a sort of "gifted student" syndrome, in a sense. From the moment he was forged he was treated as a rarity and an incredible phenomenon, and he would have had to work incredibly hard to be seen as "an incredible doctor" in his own right rather than just "that forged medic jet." Maybe, as a jet, he also had something to prove; he had to show to a Functionist society that being a jet doesn't make him an inferior doctor and that his alt-mode has nothing to do with his skills at his profession.

That is to say, I don't think Pharma would have been openly anti-Functionist, or had many opinions about it at all. I actually lean towards the interpretation that Pharma basically saw himself as getting lucky with the way he was forged and being content with the fact that he'd managed to carve out a reputation for himself as being incredibly skilled. However, Pharma not getting involved politically in Functionism doesn't change the fact that he WOULD have had a very complicated relationship with Functionism, in that alt-mode discrimination would have had an effect on him even though he was in the scientific/medical class and supposedly privileged.

[bisexualgenderclown]

genuinely obsessed with how harrowhark has exactly two (2) big viable ships and literally both of them follow the dynamic of

“gf who cannot credibly claim to have smiled for longer than 15 non-consecutive seconds in her entire life” x “gf who hasn’t lost her smug grin even once even when everything absolutely and objectively sucks ass for her all the time”

like harrow clearly has a type

[saint-ambrosef]

trying to talk about politics with anyone now is just “i am now going to assume your entire political worldview as it aligns with the stereotype i’ve arbitrarily decided suits you”