#queer academia

[taliabhattwrites]

I don't think there is a significant or notable number of people who believe transmascs are not oppressed.

I feel slightly insane just having to type this out, but this is rhetoric you inevitably come across if you discuss transfeminism on Tumblr.

The mainstream, cissexist understanding of transmasculine people is the Irreversible Damage narrative (one that's old enough to show up in Transsexual Empire as well) of transmascs as "misguided little girls", "tricked" into "mutilating themselves". It is a deliberately emasculating and transphobic narrative that very explicitly centers on oppression, even if the fevered imaginings misattribute the cause. As anyone who's dealt with the gatekeeping medical establishment knows, they are far from giving away HRT or even consults with both hands, and most transfems I know have a hard enough time convincing people to take DIY T advice, leave alone "tricking" anyone into top surgery.

Arguably, the misogyny that transmasculine folks experience is the defining narrative surrounding their existence, as transmasculinity is frequently and erroneously attributed to "tomboyish women" who resent their position in the patriarchy so much they seek to transition out of it. This rhetoric is an invisiblization of transmasculinity, constructed deliberately to preserve gendered verticality, for if it were possible to "gain status" under the sexed regime, its entire basis, its ideological naturalization, would fall apart.

Honestly, the actual discussions I see are centered around whether "transmisogyny" is a term that should apply to transmascs and transfems alike. While I understand the impetus for that discussion, I feel like the assertion that transmisogyny is a specific oppression that transfems experience for our perceived abandonment of the "male sex" is often conflated with the incorrect idea that we believe transmasculine people are not oppressed at all. This is not true, and we understand, rather acutely, that our society is entirely organized around reproductive exploitation. That is, in fact, the source of transfeminine disposability!

I know I'm someone who "just got here" and there is a history here that I'm not a part of, but so much of that history is speckled with hearsay and fabrication that I can't even attempt to make sense of it. All I know is that I, in 2024, have been called a revived medieval slur for effeminate men by people who attribute certain beliefs to me based on my being a trans woman who is also a feminist, and I simply do not hold those views, nor do I know anyone who sincerely does.

If you're going to attempt to discredit a transfeminist, or transfeminism in general, then please at least do us the courtesy of responding to things we actually say and have actually argued instead of ascribing to us phantom ideologies in a frankly conspiratorial fashion. I also implore people to pay attention to how transphobic rhetoric operates out in the wider world, how actual reactionaries talk about and think of trans people, instead of fixating so hard on internecine social media clique drama that one enters an alternate reality--a phantasm, as Judith Butler would put it.

Speaking of which--do y'all have any idea how overrepresented transmascs are in trans studies and queer theory? Can we like, stop and reckon with reality-as-it-is, instead of hallucinating a transfeminine hegemony where it doesn't exist? I'm aware a lot of their output isn't particularly explicative on the material realities of transmasculine oppression despite their prominence in the academy, but that is ... not the fault of trans women, who face extremely harsh epistemic injustice even in trans studies.

The actual issue is how invisiblized transmasculine oppression is and how the epistemicide that transmasculine people face manifests as a refusal to differentiate between the misogyny all women face, reproductive exploitation in particular, and the contours of violence, erasure, and oppression directed at specifically transmasculine people.

You will notice that is a society-wide problem, motivated by a desire to erase the possibilities of transmasculinity, to the point of not even being willing to name it. You will notice that I am quite familiar with how this works, and how it's completely compatible with a materialist transfeminist framework that analyzes how our oppression is--while distinct--interlinked and stems from the same root.

I sincerely hope that whoever needs to see this post sees it, and that something productive--more productive dialogue, at least--can arise from it.

[dzgrizzle]

Virginia Woolf's Bedroom at Sissinghurst Castle in Kent

[amanufacturedheaven]

Rare Language Learning: Polari

If you have ever used the words:

- Naff

- Butch

- Camp

You have unknowingly been speaking the sociolect known as Polari, the language of queer people primarily used in the 30s to the 70s. Polari is now an endangered language, as labelled by the University of Cambridge

Something of note: Many resources out there imply (or state) that Polari was a language invented and used solely by white cis gay men, which is decidedly untrue. Many words of Polari come from drag culture, lesbians, and the Romani people and their language. The use of ‘the language of British gay men’ may be a more palatable title to the general public, but it is not to me. I did my best to curate a variety of resources, but unfortunately much of queer history has been lost many more decades than I’ve been alive, if you have any other resources for studying Polari I would love to read them, message me or leave a link in the replies.

Articles

Learn Polari, the Secret Language of the Gays ⚢ Out Magazine

Polari: The code language gay men used to survive ⚢ BBC

Polari and the Hidden History of Gay Seafarers ⚢ National Museums Liverpool

The Story of Polari, Britain’s Secret Gay Language ⚢ Fabulosa!

Polari People ⚢ Fabulosa!

Polari: a language born from prejudice ⚢ Englishpanish

The secretive gay language that gave LGBTQ people a voice ⚢ GAYTIMES

A brief history of Polari: the curious after-life of the dead language for gay men ⚢ The Conversation

Study Material

The Polari Bible ⚢ Internet Archive

Fantabulosa: A Dictionary of Polari and Gay Slang ⚢ Internet Archive

Sociolinguistics / Polari ⚢ StudySmarter

FlashCards ⚢ Quizlet

New Polari Translator ⚢ LingoJam

Polari: A sociohistorical study of the life and decline of a secret language. ⚢ Dissertation, University of Manchester

Polari: a language born from prejudice ⚢ Englishpanish

Simon Bowkett: a short blog in Polari for LGBT+ History Month ⚢ Civil Service LGBT+ Network

[tremendoustenderness]

The most bisexual-coded thing I have ever done was writing my undergrad thesis in English Lit about queer vampirism and the relationship of Louis and Lestat in the IWTV TV adaptation.

There were screen grabs of gay vampire sex in the appendix.

[mortuarymorticia]

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

03.04.2024.

happy march, everyone! 🌿🌷🌱

i caught up on all my homework over the weekend & i’m ahead in all my note-taking. i’ve already done a quiz for chemistry (i got an 88!) & i’m gearing up for tomorrow’s accounting quiz.

[❔] : how has everyone’s monday been?

today’s to-do list:

chemistry class & quiz.

set up pet dander vacuum.

shower & shave legs.

face mask.

dishes.

do my nails.

🎧: everglow - starset.

📖: natural beauty - ling ling huang.

🌲: 30 minutes.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

[ohwhataniight]

"In The Epistemology of the Closet, Sedgwick writes: "the fact that silence is rendered as pointed and performative as speech, in relations around the closet, depends on and highlights more broadly the fact that ignorance is as potent and as multiple a thing there as is knowledge" (Sedgwick 4). She describes the very state of "closetedness" as "a performance initiated as such by the speech act of silence [...]" (Sedgwick 3). Our silence had never been hollow, an absence of words: instead, it was theatrical, conciliatory, convincing in what it disguised, affirming of people's assumptions, loud and provocative, a word play. Our existence was subtextual, we found shelter in the crevices of interpretation, we blossomed in the fields of others' guesswork."

© Sam L. Greene

[unforgivablyshy]

Nov. 23

Study date at a coffee shop with my butch. I got a maple spice latte and he had an Italian soda.

[literarydesire]

We need more abandoned Catholic churches in the woods for young lesbians to have sex in. Thats it. Send post.

[that-aspiring-academic]

Biology notes and hand cramps man

But hey, whatever gets me an A ig?

[secretsofthewilde]

Sometimes I just remember that the final assignment I wrote for my Bachelors degree was an essay about the representations of sexual intimacy in the early seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And then I also remember that this is what I titled it

Edit: By request you can now read a summary of the points in the essay here (x)

[taliabhattwrites]

"materialist" is a really great word for indicating "only the aspects of this ideology that flatter me, but presented as though they are comprehensive and unquestionable."

I think this would be a more cutting jibe if I hadn't gone through decades of academic literature where the respected scholars who set the discursive parameters on how my culture is discussed in the West all were kind of blatantly making shit up.

We're talking stuff like "Oh, this practice doesn't mean X, it's actually something subtly different and culturally-specific, called <the literal Hindi word for X>."

I've read about the "gender-expansivity" of Hinduism, the "docile nature" of "real" Indian women, and the "enlightened attitude" of people towards gender-variance. All claims made without a shred of substantiation, which might as well be describing an alternate dimension or a fantasy setting if you're someone who actually grew up in the place(s) discussed.

So no, "materialism" is a word that means "let's try to make sure our assertions describe reality, perhaps by empirically observing reality-as-it-is instead of basing entire subfields on wild conjecture". If you talk to any number of overworked and straining marginalized grads in the social sciences, you'll quickly learn that this is very much not the norm in the hallowed institutes of knowledge-production, and is in fact an idea that is rather frowned upon.

[dzgrizzle]

Happy Birthday to one of my literary patron saints, Oscar Wilde, born October 16, 1854.

[amanufacturedheaven]

She’s a summer girl ☀️🍒

Summer afternoon – summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.

— Henry James

[sappho-and-shakespeare]

My chaotic grad school academia

Writes only with cheap clear bic/biro or fountain pen, no inbetween (wooden pencils)

Beta reads fanfics and friends’ grad thesis

CD > Vinyl (still collects tho)

Obsessed with music

Grades papers listening to an iPod classic

Phobia of read books, still goes to the book section with wife despite running out of bookshelves a year ago

Wanders the bookstore but only ever gets books from the library (it’s that plastic wrapped cover. They make me feel safe)

Wine in mason jars

Analog watch that always an hour behind

Carries my Stanley everywhere (it’s only filled with ice; Xmas gift) and actually uses it as my only reusable cup

90s Toyota is my entire personality

Leggings and blazers

Crocs and business casual to teach class

Absolutely no impulse control

Too many trips to Target to check out the music section

Hyperfixates on new thing/fictional character/album every 2 months

Absolutely no sleep schedule (IM DOOMED)

Wishes I could be a moody chain smoking alcoholic academic but I just doomscroll and avoid my responsibilities instead (IM STILL JUST AS DOOMED) (we’re all also too lazy/busy to drink)

Drinks too much iced coffee; hates coffee (I’ll like it by the time I graduate at the rate I’m going)

Random spurts of creative inspiration; absolute manic burn out

Gets to be intellectual on main at all times it’s fun

[adventures-in-ai]

AUTUMN BEGINS!

It's the Autumnal Equinox, or Mabon if you celebrate it, so I generated a lot of autumnal hotties for my poster tonight. Not as much fall planning went into the playlist, which has only a handful of songs referencing autumn or September, scattered like fallen leaves on a very green lawn.

[uhmsid]

i need to venture back to this book this autumn :0